For
this cause my soul was sickly and full of sores, it miserably cast
itself forth, desiring to be scraped by the touch of objects of sense.
Yet if these had not a soul, they would not be objects of love. To
love then, and to be beloved, was sweet to me; but more, when I
obtained to enjoy the person I loved, I defiled, therefore, the spring
of friendship with the filth of concupiscence, and I beclouded its
brightness with the hell of lustfulness; and thus foul and unseemly, I
would fain, through exceeding vanity, be fine and courtly. I fell
headlong then into the love wherein I longed to be ensnared. My God,
my Mercy, with how much gall didst Thou out of Thy great goodness
besprinkle for me that sweetness? For I was both beloved, and secretly
arrived at the bond of enjoying; and was with joy fettered with
sorrow-bringing bonds, that I might be scourged with the iron
burning rods of jealousy, and suspicions, and fears, and angers, and
quarrels.
Stage-plays also carried me away, full of images of my miseries, and
of fuel to my fire.
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