46 GIORDANO BRUNO PART 



contemptuous, therefore more galling and more difficult 

 to overcome. He might repeat as he did, the bold 

 saying that " to the true philosopher every country is 

 fatherland, " or call himself with Socrates a citizen of 

 the world ; but a touch of despair sounds through the 

 words : " a citizen and servant of the world, son of 

 Father Sol and Mother Earth ; because he loves the 

 world too much, he must be hated, cursed, persecuted, 

 and rejected by it. Meanwhile let him not be idle, 

 nor ill -occupied while awaiting death, transmigration, 

 change." 1 Elsewhere there is almost a savage stoicism ; 

 he cries that he is attacked not by one but by many, 

 almost by all, and the reason is that he hates the 

 people, cares not for the multitude, adores one thing 

 only : " That through which he in subjection is free, 

 in pain content, in necessity rich, in death living, and 

 through which he envies not those who in freedom 

 are slaves, in pleasure pained, in riches poor, in life 

 dead, because in the body they have a chain that 

 binds them, in the spirit an inferno that depresses them, 

 in the soul error that weakens them, and in the mind 

 lethargy that slays, etc." 2 Yet the climate of England 

 seems to have pleased Bruno : " there more than in 

 any other region the climate is temperate ; for the 

 excessive rigour of the snows is driven out by the 

 earth beneath, and the superfluous fervour of the sun 

 blesses it with a continuous, a perpetual spring, as is 

 testified by the ever green and flowery land." 3 From 

 the Spaccio, it appears that he was struck in England, 

 inter alia, with the multitude of crows, the richness of 

 the sheep and the sleekness of the cattle, the stern 

 game-laws, and the land-hunger of the people. 4 



1 Lag. 406. 17 (Spaccio). 2 Lag. 292. 3 521. 27 ff. 



4 55 1 - 38, 5"- 23> 550. 2, 49- 3- 



