Secret of Secrets

you desire to know any obstacle: because God has bestowed upon you such great grace and intellect in the velocity of your genius and in the literature of science; furthermore, through my teaching that I previously handed over to you, you will be able to comprehend by yourself and figuratively understand all that you ask to be taught. For the desire of fervent pleasure will open to you the way to obtain your purpose, and will lead you to the desired end, the Lord granting it. This, indeed, is the cause why I reveal my secret to you figuratively, speaking with you in examples, and enigmas, and signs. Because I fear too much that this book might fall into the hands of infidels and into the power of the arrogant. And thus the good and divine arcanum would reach those whom the Highest God judged to be undeserving and unworthy of it. I, indeed, would be a transgressor of divine grace and a breaker of a celestial secret and of an occult revelation. Wherefore, under the attestation of divine judgment, I disclose that sacrament to you in the way in which it was revealed to me. You should know, therefore, that he who discloses occult things and reveals arcana, many misfortunes will soon follow him; whence he will not be able to be secure from contingencies and future evils. May the Lord, therefore, guard you and me from the like and from every dishonest work. After all these things, however, I bring back to your memory that life-saving document which I am always accustomed to expound to you and to inform your most noble soul, and this will be your consolation and health-giving mirror. It is necessary, therefore, for every king to have two aids supporting his kingdom: one of them is the fortitude of men, in which his rule is protected and strengthened; and he will not have this unless the ruler rules in what is right, and the master over his subjects, and the subjects themselves uniformly obey the master. Just as because of the disobedience of subjects the power of the one who dominates and rules is weakened and subjected, and the subjects dominate; and I will render to you the reason why subjects are induced to obey the one who dominates. The cause, indeed, is twofold: one extrinsic and the other intrinsic; and I recently declared the extrinsic one to you, that is, as I said...