De vinculis in genere

«No one particular thing can bind everything» — lo absolutamente bello y bueno ata todo sentimiento; lo particular, no.

«by its order; by its measure; and by its type. The order is the interrelation of its parts; the measure is its quantity; and its type is designated by its shapes, its outlines and its colours» — los tres factores del agente vinculante.

«Bonds are so subtle, and that which is bound is so barely sensible in its depths» — por eso solo se los examina de pasada, «like Thetis fleeing from the embraces of Peleus».

La cadena, hacia atrás: «he does not move unless he is attracted; he is not attracted until after he has been inclined towards or turned away; he is not inclined towards unless he desires or wants; he does not desire unless he knows».

«There are three gates through which the hunter of souls ventures to bind: vision, hearing, and» — mente o imaginación; quien pasa por las tres ata con más fuerza.

«But, for us, love, like all emotions, is a very practical form of knowledge» — .

La tesis operativa: «a real bond is not required, that is, a bond which is found in things. An apparent bond is enough» — porque la imaginación de lo que no es verdadero puede atar de verdad.

«According to the Pythagoreans and the Platonists, the bond of beauty is said to be a brightness, a beam of light and» — cierto movimiento.

«The senses are the entrances through which bonds are» — arrojados.

La lista de definiciones ajenas: «for Plotinus, the private law of nature; for Theophrastus, a secret deception; for Solomon, a hidden fire and furtive waters» — y sigue con Teócrito y Carnéades antes de dar la suya.

«Mercury were not wrong when they called this the great demon» — con Orfeo— porque ese vínculo es «the entire substance, constitution, and (if I may say so) the hypostasis of things».

Objeta a los peripatéticos con Aristóteles: «Aristotle said more carefully that matter is not ‘ugly’ or ‘evil’ as such».

«lished that love is everywhere a perfection, and this bond of love gives» — testimonio de ella —la frase abre «estab-», partida por el renglón—.

«Cupid’s domination is grounded in the action by which the soul of the lover, having abandoned his own body, lives and acts in the other» — .

Jerarquiza los vínculos: «bonds based on commercial transactions are ignoble and merely» utilitarios.

«Anyone who has the power to bind must to some degree have a universal theory of things in order to be able to bind humans (who are, indeed, the culmination of all things)» — condiciona el poder de atar a una teoría universal de las cosas, y funda la exigencia en que el hombre es donde se recapitulan todas: quien quiera atar hombres tiene que poder ver y jerarquizar en ellos las especies de todo lo demás.

«as was imagined by Proteus and Achelous, the same material object can be changed into different forms and figures, such that to bind them continuously one should always use differing kinds of knots» — deriva de la mudanza del objeto la regla de que no hay nudo único: si el mismo material cambia de forma, atarlo de continuo obliga a cambiar de nudo.

«it seems that nothing can fall outside of an examination of civil life when it is considered in this way (whether it be bonding, or being bonded, or the bonds themselves, or their circumstances). This is the reason why we have assembled the following considerations, which are entitled A general account of bonding» — declara el alcance del tratado y lo hace civil, no solo mágico: nada de la vida en común queda fuera del examen del atar, del ser atado, de los vínculos y de sus circunstancias.

«Taken universally, bonding agents are God, demons, souls, animals, nature, chance, luck and, finally, fate» — enumera los agentes del vínculo tomados universalmente, y pone en la misma serie a Dios, a los demonios, a las almas, a los animales, a la naturaleza y al azar.

«A body does not have any feeling on its own, but only because of a certain force which resides in it and which emanates from it» — niega que el vínculo se apoye en la sensibilidad de la materia: el cuerpo no siente por sí, sino por una fuerza que reside en él y emana de él.

«This force is called, metaphorically, the ‘hand which binds’, and it is oriented and adapted to bonding in multiple ways» — nombra esa fuerza con una metáfora y avisa que la nombra así, porque la fuerza universal de atar no se deja designar con un solo nombre.

«As the Platonists say, it is this bonding agency which adorns the mind with orderly ideas; which fills the soul with sequential arguments and harmonious discourse; which makes nature fertile for various seeds; which structures matter in innumerable ways; which vivifies, soothes, caresses and activates all things; which orders, generates, rules, attracts and inflames all things; and which moves, reveals, illuminates, purifies, pleases and completes all things» — adjudica a los platónicos el catálogo de efectos del agente vinculante, repartido en los cuatro planos: adorna la mente, colma el alma, fecunda la naturaleza y estructura la materia.

«Even someone who is stupid and dull witted will see the beauty of natural and artificial things, even though he cannot at the same time grasp and admire the talent which has generated all things» — distingue entre ver la belleza de las cosas y advertir el ingenio que las generó, que es lo que el torpe no alcanza.

«For him, ‘the stars do not speak of the glory of God’» — y cita para él el primer versículo del Salmo con una negación añadida; el editor del volumen declara en nota que la negación la puso Bruno.

«Rather, like a brute animal, he will shower his affections not on God but on His effects» — de ahí que ese hombre vuelque su afecto sobre los efectos y no sobre quien los hizo.

«Of all the things which bind, certainly more of them bind humans than brute animals, and more of them bind those who have an active character than those who are dull witted; those who are well endowed in their faculties and powers are aware of more details, circumstances and purposes, and thus, they are moved by more desires» — hace de la capacidad de ser atado una función de la riqueza de facultades: quien percibe más detalles, circunstancias y fines es movido por más deseos.

«Dull witted people are bound by lusts, which are aroused infrequently and by natural impulses, and which are few in number and limited to base nourishments. Such people are not soothed by eloquent speech, nor are they won over by beauty, music, painting or by any of the other attractions of nature» — y sostiene el reverso: al de facultades pobres no lo ablanda la elocuencia ni lo gana la belleza, la música o la pintura, solo lo mueve el apetito.

«As I am bound by more things, I become aware of the many things which bind me, for there are many different kinds of beauty» — funda la pluralidad de vínculos en que hay muchas clases de belleza, y la conciencia de estar atado en el número de ataduras.

«But it does sometimes happen that a person is so tied to one object that his awareness of other things is weakened, overwhelmed and suppressed, either because of the dullness of the senses which are blind to and neglectful of all other things, or because one bond is so strong that it weakens and distorts him» — admite el caso límite del vínculo único, que suprime la conciencia de todo lo demás, y le da dos causas alternativas: la torpeza de los sentidos o la fuerza desmedida de una sola atadura.

«there are some whose souls seem to be so carried away by the hope of eternal life and by a vivid faith and credulousness, and seem to be so separated from the body in some way, and so strongly bound and controlled by some object in their fantasies and in their opinions, that they do not seem to be aware of the most horrible torments» — explica la insensibilidad al tormento por un vínculo de fantasía y opinión bastante fuerte para separar el alma del cuerpo; lo enuncia con reserva, como algo que así parece.

«This clearly happened to the philosopher Anaxarchus, to Andrew2 the Galilean, to the priest Lawrence,3 and to others up to our own day, who were murdered by rulers and kings for the sake of their religion» — y pone en una misma serie a un filósofo y a dos mártires cristianos como casos del mismo mecanismo; los dígitos pegados a los nombres son las llamadas de nota del volumen.

«Hence, a bonding power is not simple or reducible to only one thing, but is composite, variable in nature and composed of contraries» — concluye contra quienes miden el vínculo comparando potencias: la potencia de atar cambia con la edad y las circunstancias, así que no es simple sino compuesta y hecha de contrarios.

«A person who is more truly human is bound most strongly by the most worthy things, and he prefers much more to seek out more worthy things than to possess base things, for certainly, we are easily irritated by base things and more ardently seek for things which we do not easily attain» — jerarquiza a los atables: cuanto más humano es el atado, más lo atan las cosas dignas y más busca lo que no alcanza con facilidad.

«Consider, for example, the bonds of physical love, which seem to be both a fire and snare at the same time, which drive one to shout and to be silent, to joy and to sorrow, to hope and to desperation, to fear and to boldness, to anger and to gentleness, to weeping and to laughter» — describe el vínculo del amor físico como fuego y trampa a la vez, y de ahí que empuje a efectos contrarios sin dejar de ser el mismo vínculo.

«I, who carry high the standard of love, have frozen hopes and burning desires: at the same time I tremble and freeze, burn and spark, I am mute and fill heaven with ardent cries. From the heart I sparkle and from my eyes I shed water; I live and I die, laugh and lament. The waters live and the fire does not die, for in my eyes I have Thetis and in my heart, Vulcan» — y cita sus propios versos para mostrarlo; la nota del volumen los remite a los *Eroici furori* y da la versión inglesa como traducción ajena.

«Therefore, he who knows how to bind needs to have an understanding of all things, or at least of the nature, inclination, habits, uses and purposes of the particular things that he is to bind» — rebaja la exigencia con que abrió: al que ata le basta, en su defecto, conocer la naturaleza, la inclinación, los hábitos, los usos y los fines de aquello que va a atar.

«What is absolutely beautiful and good and large and true binds every feeling and every mind absolutely. It destroys nothing; it contains and seeks out all things; it is desired and pursued by many because it invigorates with different types of bonds» — reserva el atar absoluto a lo absolutamente bello, bueno, grande y verdadero, que no destruye nada y contiene todas las cosas.

«The total beauty and goodness of one species cannot be attained except through the whole species for all eternity and in each of its individual members taken separately» — sostiene que la belleza total de una especie no cabe en ningún individuo, sino solo en la especie entera a lo largo del tiempo y en cada uno de sus miembros por separado.

«And even though the same object bonds both Socrates and Plato, it binds each of them in a different way» — y que un mismo objeto ata de manera distinta a cada quien.

«Likewise, there is no one and simple factor which can please everyone or satisfy all things, much less does any one thing satisfy different persons or one person at different times» — niega que haya medida común: ni una sola cosa contenta a todos, ni la misma contenta a uno en momentos distintos.

«With De vinculis in genere (A General Account of Bonding), however, we seem to encounter a different picture of the fundamental problems discussed so far» — Alfonso Ingegno lee el tratado como un cuadro distinto del que dejaban las obras anteriores.

«The magus is acquainted with the dynamics not only of magic but also of demonic action, and knows how demons can take possession of us through unguarded avenues, and this opens up to him a new field of action, permitting him to link other men to himself and, in fact, to establish a whole series of magical bonds between himself and others» — y explica en qué consiste ese cambio: conocer la mecánica demoníaca le abre al mago un campo nuevo, el de ligarse a otros hombres.

«All this could be equally applied to Bonding; however, there seems to be a new element here which may raise a question, if not about the nature of Bruno’s philosophy, then certainly about several of its characteristic features» — Ingegno deja planteado como pregunta abierta ese elemento nuevo, sin resolverla: podría afectar no a la naturaleza de la filosofía de Bruno pero sí a varios de sus rasgos.

«far from limiting itself to mere rhetoric, is meant to infiltrate every sphere of civil life» — y sitúa el alcance que le atribuye: no retórica, sino algo destinado a infiltrarse en toda esfera de la vida civil.

«All the bonds, he tells us, can be reduced to the bond of love, and this gives rise to a series of extremely acute observations which primarily affect the idea of beauty as conceived by the Platonists» — Ingegno señala que la reducción de todo vínculo al del amor es lo que produce las observaciones de Bruno sobre la belleza platónica.

«The vinculum, he says, is not found in the visible species, but what renders it active and often detrimental to us is something of which we are not aware, although it is sentient and active within us» — y resume dónde no está el vínculo según Bruno: no en la especie visible, sino en algo de lo que no somos conscientes y que sin embargo siente y obra dentro de nosotros.

«It is precisely the difficulty of defining a single essence of love, of beauty and of pleasure which indicates to us that there are many different ways in which we can link with (vincere) the soul of the other» — y hace de la dificultad de definir una esencia única del amor el indicio de que hay muchas vías para ligar el alma ajena.

«In order to put this binding process into action, we require a knowledge of the infinite variety of subjective and objective factors (beginning with the diversity of physical constitutions) in relation to which the vinculum must be prepared in advance in order to be effective» — Ingegno consigna lo que la operación exige: conocer la variedad infinita de factores subjetivos y objetivos con los que el vínculo debe prepararse de antemano.

«These elements, however, given that they exist in infinitely varied individual configurations, cannot be reliably specified in any given case» — y el límite que eso le pone: como esos factores existen en configuraciones infinitamente variadas, no se dejan especificar con fiabilidad en ningún caso dado.

«It is therefore significant that, in Bonding, the metaphysical conclusions of Cause are taken up – the identity of facere and fieri, of the potency of creating and being created» — Ingegno enlaza el tratado con el diálogo *De la causa*: aquí se retoman sus conclusiones metafísicas, la identidad de hacer y ser hecho.

«The original unity of the All, therefore, establishes the conditions for the success of magical action, because it allows us to understand how a magus can restore an existing apparent multiplicity to its underlying unity» — y funda en la unidad original del Todo la posibilidad del éxito mágico: por ella se entiende cómo el mago devuelve a su unidad una multiplicidad solo aparente.

«Human beings, too, are presented as matter over whose surface pass infinite forms, and clearly each one of them is a vinculum, one of the many which we all, in fact, encounter» — y lee al hombre mismo como materia recorrida por formas infinitas, cada una de ellas un vínculo.

«Finally, at the highest level, the vinculum reveals its deepest nature, transforming potency into act, act into potency, whence it follows that the operator is transformed in his turn into an object, and the vinciendum into vinciens» — Ingegno describe la inversión última que le atribuye al vínculo: el operador queda convertido en objeto y lo que había de ser atado, en agente.

«This is the first line of Psalm , to which Bruno has added the negative» — Richard J. Blackwell declara en nota que la cita escritural de la plana 182 lleva una negación puesta por Bruno; la cifra del salmo vive en el plano de uso privado del troceo y no sale en la capa de texto.

«The translation of these two quatrains is taken from John Charles Nelson, Renaissance Theory of Love» — y declara ajena la versión inglesa de las dos cuartetas de la plana 184, tomada de John Charles Nelson.

«Bruno quotes these verses, with slight variations, from his Eroici furori» — y adjudica los versos al propio Bruno, que se cita a sí mismo con ligeras variantes.

«For Bruno’s use of this term, see Part Three, ‘On Cupid’s Bond and on Bonds in General» — Blackwell remite el término resplandor de la plana 193 a la definición del vínculo en la tercera parte, y con ello ata las dos partes del tratado.

«Bruno quotes these three lines, with minor variations, from the ‘Priapea’, a set of approximately eighty short Latin poems, mostly from the Roman era, which were collected by an unknown editor» — y adjudica a la *Priapea*, colección anónima de poemas latinos, los tres versos que Bruno da como conjuro.

«In other writings, Bruno uses this phrase to refer to himself» — y consigna que la definición propia del vínculo con que Bruno cierra la lista es la fórmula con que se designa a sí mismo en otros escritos.

«Bruno’s text ends abruptly here in mid-sentence» — Blackwell advierte que el tratado se corta a mitad de una frase: la obra que la base ficha está inconclusa.

«The translations of the De magia and of the De vinculis in genere are based on the texts published in Jordani Bruni Nolani opera latine conscripta publicis sumptibus edita, edited by F. Tocco and E. Vitelli» — la nota sobre los textos declara el texto base de esta traducción: la *Opera latine conscripta* de Tocco y Vitelli.

«a shorter, earlier version of the De vinculis is found» — y consigna que en esa misma edición hay una versión anterior y más breve del *De vinculis*, dato de primer orden porque el tratado no es de redacción única.

«The Tocco-Vitelli edition was based on the text of the Noroffcodex in Moscow, which was transcribed by Bruno’s disciple Girolamo Besler, or Bisler, of Nuremberg between» — y da la cadena de transmisión hasta el manuscrito: el códice Noroff de Moscú, transcrito por Girolamo Besler, cuyo apellido la propia nota da con variante; el nombre del códice sale pegado a la palabra siguiente en la capa de texto.

«edition, De magia, De vinculis in genere (Pordenone: Edizioni Biblioteca dell’Immagine» — y declara consultada la edición latino-italiana de Albano Biondi durante toda la preparación de estas traducciones.

El aparato de Ingegno: «Bruno claims that the vinculum in itself is neither good nor evil» — la moralidad depende de la voluntad y la predisposición del agente.

Ingegno registra la continuidad: «even Campanella was later to write a Bonding of his own in De sensu rerum (On Sensation in Things».