On Beauty
XXXII. On Beauty
1. O God, Who possesses power by virtue
of the producer, producing and the produced!
You are the beauty of our salvation.
2. The greatest beauty that eternity can enjoy
consists in <that> of the eternaliser, eternalising and the eternalised,
and the fact that it possesses a single being by means of all three.
3. Were beauty not to consist in infinite activity,
it would consist in finite such,
<and> in privation, wickedness and imperfection.
4. Were bonifying to be ugly in terms of its goodness,
loving would lack the beauty of the lover and the beloved,
and a beetle in a goblet could be beautiful.
5. Love is beautiful when it bonifies,
and goodness is beautiful when love acts well,
yet love is ugly when it commits misdeeds.
6. Love is beautiful when faithful
and ugly when false,
and it is beautiful when chaste.
7. Beauty is not as beautiful in the colours <applied to a face>
as it is in the will of a worthy lord
and in the memory of a worthy servant.
8. Much more beautiful in a man are worthy thoughts
than is the wearing of beauteous garments upon his back
or having a gold or silver goblet upon his table.
9. Whoever enjoys great beauty
should be pleasant, courteous and polite
for <thus> shall he be beautiful in being loved.
10. Beauty is of greater worth when it acts well,
understands and remembers,
than it is when it succumbs to the senses or embellishes itself.