This supreme reverence for love soon became an
accepted doctrine. We constantly meet the thought that chaste love alone
can make a man noble, good and wise. I will select a few illustrations
from a wealth of instances:
Miraval:
Noble is every deed whose root is love.
Peire Rogier:
Full well I know that right and good
Is all I do for love of her.
Guirot Riquier:
The man who loves not is not noble-minded,
For love is fruit and blossom of the highest.
And:
Thus love transfigures ev'ry deed we do,
And love gives everything a deeper sense.
Love is the teaching of all genuine worth.
So base is no man's heart on this wide earth,
Love could not guide it to great excellence.
Giraut of Calenso said of the City of Love that no base or ignorant man
could enter it, and the Italian Lapo Gianni sang:
The youthful maiden who appeared to me
So filled my soul with pure and lofty thoughts,
That henceforth all ignoble things I scorn.
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