OF PHILOTHEUS JORDANUS

BRUNO THE NOLAN’S Preliminary

Apologetic Dialogue for the

Shadows of Ideas concerning his

invention of memory.

Hermes represents the messenger of the gods and wisdom; Philothimus translates to "Lover of Honor" or "Lover of Value"; Logifer means "Word-bearer" or "Logic-bringer." These three represent different aspects of the soul's engagement with knowledge.

HERMES. — Go forth, my book. For you are not unaware that it is the same sun, and the same art. The same sun makes known the deeds of one person to their honor, yet brings forth the actions of another to their reproach. At the sun's presence, the screech-owls of the night, the toad, the basilisk, and the horned owl are saddened—creatures that are solitary, nocturnal, and sacred to Pluto. Pluto is the Roman god of the underworld; here he represents the realm of darkness and ignorance. But the Rooster, the Phoenix, the Swan, the Cygnet, the Eagle, the Lynx, the Ram, and the Lion rejoice. As the sun rises, the workers of darkness huddle together in their dens, but man and the animals of light go forth to their work. The sun invites the latter to labor; it pushes the former into idleness. The lupine and the Heliotrope Heliotrope: "Elitropia." A plant famous in ancient and Renaissance lore for turning its face to follow the sun; a symbol of the soul following the light of Truth. turn toward it, but the herbs and flowers of the night turn away from it. It lifts up thin vapors into the appearance of a cloud, yet casts down to the earth those condensed into water. To some it grants perennial and continuous light; to others, light that comes only in turns. The unerring intellect teaches that this sun stands still; while Sense original: "Hunc intellectus non errans stare docet; Sensus..." Bruno is making an early, coded reference to the Copernican theory that the sun is stationary at the center of the system, contrary to what our physical senses tell us.