Selected Works of Ramon Llull, vol. 2 [2] 0691072884

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SELECTED WORKS OF

RAMONLLULL Edited and Translated by

ANTHONY BONNER Volume II PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY

Copyright © 1985 by Princeton University Press Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540 In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, Guildford, Surrey All Rights Reserved The preparation of this volume, and its publication, have been assisted by grants from the Translations Program and the Publications Program, respectively, of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Publication of this book has also been aided by a grant from the Paul Mellon fund of Princeton University Press This book has been composed in Linotron Bembo type Clothbound editions of Princeton University Press books are printed on acid-free paper, and binding materials are chosen for strength and durability. Paperbacks, although satisfactory for personal collections, are not usually suitable for library rebinding Printed in the United States of America by Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Llull, Ramon, D. 1315. Selected works of Ramon Llull (1232-1316) Bibliography: v. Includes index. Contents: v. 1. The book of the Gentile and the three wise men. Ars demonstrativa. Ars brevis- v. 2. Felix. or, The book of wonders. Principles of medicine. Flowers of love a"nd flowers of intelligence. 1. Philosophy-Addresses. essays. lectures. 2. Theology -Addresses, essays. lectures. 3. Criticism-Addresses. essays, lectures. I. Bonner, Anthony. II. Title. B765. L82E5 1984 189' .4 83-2(1907 ISBN 0-691-07288-4 (set: alk. paper)

Contents List of Illustrations and Tables v1

Felix, or the Book of Wonders

647

Introduction 649; Prologue 659; Book I 661; Book II, Which Treats of Angels 719; Book III, Which Treats of the Heavens 728; Book IV, Which Treats of the Elements 735; Book V, Which Treats of Plants 755; Book VI, Which Treats of Minerals 768; Book VII, Which Treats of Beasts 780; Book VIII, Which Treats of Man 826; Book IX, Which Treats of Paradise 1080; Book X, Which Treats of Hell 1091; The End of the Book, 1103

Principles of Medicine

1107

Introduction 1109; Prologue 1119; Distinction I, Which Treats of the Disposition_ of the Art 1120; Distinction II 1131; Distinction III 1143; Distinction IV 1157; Distinction V, In Which It Is Shown How the De­ grees Should Be Investigated 1162; Distinction VI, Which Treats of Gen­ eration and Corruption 1174; Distinction VII, Which Treats of Fevers 1184; Distinction VIII, Which Treats of Urine 1193; Distinction IX, Which Treats of Pulse 1197; Distinction X, Which Treats of Metaphor 1199

Flowers of Love and Flowers of Intelligence

1215

Introduction 1217; Part I, Flowers of Love 1223; Part II, Flowers of Intelligence 1233; Part III, Questions concerning Love 1241; Part IV, Questions concerning Intelligence 1249 A Chronological Catalogue of Ramon Llull's Works 1257 Index of Ramon Llull's Works 1305 General Index 1314

List of Illustrations and Tables PLATE XIX. The Tree of the Principles of Medicine. Adapted from Palma, Bihl. Puhl. MS 1029, fol. 2Y. PLATE XX. The Night Sphere

1120f. 1209

TABLE 7. Manuscripts and Printed Editions of Felix. 656 TABLE 8. Separate Editions of The Book of the Beasts 657 (Bk. VII of Felix). TABLE 9. Manuscripts and Printed Editions of The Principles of Medicine. 1117 TABLE 10. The Chart of Degrees for The Principles of Medicine. 1120f.

FELIX, OR THE BOOK OF WONDERS

Introduction FoR THE PAST hundred years or so Llull has been known primarily as a literary figure and a mystic. This has meant that his reputation has been based chiefly on his two novels, Blaquerna 1 and Felix, parts of which have achieved even greater independent fame: the Book ofthe Lover and the Beloved (part of Blaquerna) as Llull's greatest mystical work, and the Book of the Beasts (part of Felix) as Llull's best-known narrative work. This reputation, although presenting a limited vision of Llull's total endeavor, has had a very real jus­ tification in that these novels are among the first monuments of Catalan literature, and they may well constitute the first prose novels on contemporary themes in European literature. And since they are the only two such works Llull wrote, it is instructive to compare them. They have, to be sure, many things in common. Both are, like Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, didactic and moral in purpose; plot, character, and so on, are present, if at all, merely as an outer decoration to make the inner message more appealing and more comprehensible. Both are directed, not to the Moslems and Jews for the purpose of conversion, but rather towards the Christian world itself; they are therefore not apologetic, but reforming works. The reform propounded in both, moreover, although spir­ itually grounded, is very strongly social. They also have a curious formal resemblance, in that they both contain works, as mentioned above, that seem extraneous to the main development of the nov­ els, and which many critics believe to have been written sepa­ rately-perhaps previously-and then inserted somewhat arbi­ trarily into the larger works. 2 Moreover, they were written fairly clo-se to each other in time, both in what we have called the qua­ ternary phase of Llull's development: Blaquerna in about 1283, and Felix some five years later. 3 Lastly, there is the curious linking 1

For this spelling, see Bk. I ch. 7, n. 34 below. For a good recent refutation of these arguments where Felix and the Book of the Beasts are concerned, see nn. 9, and Bk. VII, n. 1 below. 3 Cf. the "Life," nn. 104 and 110, as well as "Llull's Thought," text at nn. 15-16. 2

650

FELIX

detail of a hermit named Blaquerna, who plays an important role in Felix. 4 The differences between the two works, however, are notable. Blaquerna is a utopian novel, in which the main characters lead exemplary lives, create ideal institutions, or run them in ideal fash­ ion. Felix is a novel of social criticism aimed at existing institu­ tions, people in positions of responsibility, and contemporary at­ titudes. As a result, Blaquerna breathes an air of sweetness and light, while Felix breathes a somewhat harsher, countercultural air. There is also a structural difference: Blaquerna is a real pro­ tagonist, acting and being acted upon; Felix, going about "won­ dering at the wonders of the world" and seeking instruction, merely provides the thread on which a series of exemplary tales are strung. Although both are works of instruction, the things taught in each are very different. The instruction of Blaquerna is institutional in the religious and ecclesiastical sense of the word, as one can see from the· titles of its main sections: Matrimony, Monastic Life, Prelacy, Papacy and the Hermit's Life. The instruction of Felix is encyclopedic and includes the entire medieval universe, as is also clear from the titles of its inner divisions: God, Angels, the Heav­ ens, the Elements, Plants, Minerals, Animals, Man, Paradise, and Hell. 5 To concentrate now on Felix, one is immediately struck how the aforementioned succession of topics does not constitute a straightforward journey up or down the ladder of being, as we find for instance in the Nine Subjects of the Ars brevis. It is rather the order of creation: God, after creating the angels, created the elemental principles from which all the rest is derived, up to the end of the chain, which is man. 6 And since man is at the apex of 4 He is Felix's teacher in the second half of Bk. I (chs. 7-12). Blaquerna plays a similar role in another work written at about the same time, the Book of the Tartar and the Christian (see my "Notes," Part III). 5 Another curious comparison: Blaquerna was more popular in the Middle Ages in north­ ern France (four medieval French MSS of Blaquerna vs. one of Felix), whereas Felix was more popular in the Mediterranean area (six medieval Catalan MSS, one in a Catalanized Proven�al, six in Italian, and one in Spanish of Felix vs. one medieval Catalan MS of Blaquerna and one in Proven�al). 6 Cf. J. Gaya, "Sobre algunes estructures literaries del 'Libre de Meravelles,'" Randa 10 (Barcelona, 1980), 66, and "Algunos temas lulianos en los escritos de Charles de Bovelles," EL 24 (1980), 57-8.

INTRODUCTION

651

creation, it is only right that Book VIII, on Man, should occupy almost three-fifths of the entire novel. As opposed to Llull's other encyclopedic works, and as one would expect in a work of fiction, the treatment is not expository or demonstrative. Instead it is almost purely exemplarist. Indeed, the exempla, or exemplis as Llull calls them in Catalan, the little allegorical tales or explanations, are the very stuff out of which Felix is woven and by which the ladder of being is made intelli­ gible. 7 They are the narrative equivalents of the metaphors of the artistic and scientific works. 8 It is not only through them that the instruction of Felix is imparted, and that Felix resolves his own inner struggle with doubt and achieves spiritual understanding, 9 but they themselves constitute part of the double message of the novel. For they are held up as models for instruction. In the Epi­ logue, these very exempla are treated as an open-ended body of lore that Felix can then use to go forth into the world to teach others what he has learned. If this part of the message is methodological, or concerned with second intentions as Llull would have put it, the goal of that method, or the first intention of the book, is stated clearly in the opening paragraph of the Prologue: that God may "be known, loved, and served. " 10 This is consistent with the creationist struc­ ture of the work, in that this theme, which runs like a litany throughout the novel, is given by Llull as the ultimate purpose of the Creation-that God in fact created man that He might be known and loved. 11 Since the basic purpose of Felix is the salvation of souls, it seeks to teach the reader to know and love God either directly (hence Book I) or through His works (hence the ency­ clopedic nature of the rest of the novel). This is, of course, Llull's analogical reasoning (see "Llull's Thought," n. 63 and the text there) operating in a literary framework. In addition to the references to Rubio in that same n. 63, see also M. Arbona Piza, "Los 'exemplis' en el Llibre de Evast e Blanquerna," EL 20 (1976) 53-70, and J. Gaya in EL 23 (1979), 206-11. 8 See the introduction to the Ars demonstrativa (text at nn. 6 and 7), and to the Principles of Medicine (text at nn. 15-22), as well as the references in "Llull's Thought," n. 63, men­ tioned above. 9 Cf. J. Dagenais, "New Considerations on the Date and Composition of Llull's Libre de besties," Actes def Segot1 Col·loqui d'Estudis Catalans a •Nord-America, Yale, 1979, (Mont­ serrat, 1982), p. 139. 10 Cf. "Llull's Thought," text at nn. 72-74. 11 See the text at Bk. I, n. 30, Bk. V, n. 1, and Bk. VIII, nn. 26, 79, and 262. 7

652

FELIX

The reverse of the coin, man's failure to love and know God, is given as the cause of the world's being in the pitiable condition it is. This theme, which also runs through the entire novel, is the doorway through which Llull can introduce his social criticism. And this social criticism has two aspects worth observing: who is doing it and to whom it is directed. To take the latter aspect first, it is soon evident that Llull re­ peatedly singles out those in power-princes, prelates, and wealthy burghers-�s the ones who, by their example and position of leadership, bear the greatest weight of responsibility for the sorry state of the world, and who should most try to set it right. So in a sense one could call Felix a moral and spiritual manual for leaders. 12 As to who is doing this teaching, one begins to notice after a while that it is hardly ever a member of the ecclesiastical, feudal, or mercantile establishment, but rather a succession of holy men or philosophers who mostly live apart from society as hermits or shepherds. 13 These teachers are consistently critical of the society they have left, of its misuse of power, of its opulence and wealth, of its self-indulgence, of its subversion of proper Christian values and spirituality. 14 Felix represents a very Franciscan form of con­ temptus mundi, mixed with a typically medieval admiration for sol­ itary meditation. The novel is also a plea for a return to the purity of the pre-establishment Church, with the Apostles and Martyrs as models. The Prologue also stresses this theme of the work: "One no longer finds the fervor and devotion there was in the time of the Apostles and Martyrs, who were willing to languish and die for the sake of knowing and loving God. " 15 Another model, one not unconnected with that of the Apostles, is that of the joculator Dei or minstrel of God, a kind of pilgrim that Llull would have going from court to court entertaining his 12

The Book of the Beasts is more specifically a manual for a king; see p. 654 below. Book IV on the Elements is an exception, in that it takes place in a court as a dialogue between a philosopher and the prince who is his pupil. Book VII-the Book of the Beasts, for which see below-is of course an exception in almost all ways. 14 Book IV is again an exception. Criticisms of those in power sometimes seem to have required no little courage; see for instance the extraordinary story in Bk. VIII, at the end of ch. 91. One also finds considerable compassion for the poor in Felix, as well as severe condemnations of idle wealth and lack of charity. 15 This explains Llull's interest and mention of the contemporary sect of the Apostolici, for which see Bk. VII, Prologue, nn. 1, 3, and Bk. VIII, ch. 56, n. 60. 13

INTRODUCTION

653

hosts with morally and spiritually instructive stories, rather than with the wordly vanities propagated by the troubadours. 16 In fact, one could say that the work consists of Felix's preparation for the task entrusted first to him and then to his successor of becoming a joculator Dei, a kind of latter-day Apostle going through the world recounting the exempla that constitute the wonders of the Book of Wonders. 1 7 To these general considerations, I must add a word about Book VII, the Book of the Beasts, which, in modern times at least, has become better known than the rest of Felix. First of all, its place within the general structure of Felix could hardly be more anom­ alous. Instead of the treatise on animals we might have expected after those on Elements, Plants, and Minerals, the Book ofthe Beasts consists of a series of animal fables, with no narrator or teacher as in the other books, and in which Felix himself disappears from view. 18 Moreover, it is the only work in which Llull used iden­ tifiable preexisting material to any notable degree. And the nature of this material is interesting: with the exception of the name and character of the main protagonist, taken from the French Roman de Renart, 19 it is all of oriental origin. There is one story from the Seven Wise Masters (also called the Book of Sindbad or Sendebar), 20 one from the Thousand and One Nights, 2 1 and no fewer than ten from the Arabic Kalila and Dimna which stems ultimately from the Indian Panchatantra. 22 Even the one autobiographical bit seems 16

See Bk. VIII, text at nn. 86 and 153. Cf. Epilogue, n. 3 below. See n. 4 there for the extraordinary structural open-endedness of the novel as a collection of exempla. 18 J. Dagenais (n. 9 above), pp. 131-9, has offered a very interesting explanation of this anomaly, in a possible relation of Felix with the Rasa'il (Epistles) of the Moslem Brethren of Purity. This was an encyclopedic work that included an appendix on the Dispute between Man and the Animals-curiously enough adapted into Catalan by the fourteenth-century Majorcan apostate Fra Anselm Turmeda as the Disputa de l'ase. According to Dagenais, the similarity is one of overall structure, not of content. The Rasa'il was apparently well known in Spain, and the Brethren of Purity held many ideas with which �lull would have s�m­ pathized, in addition to their having strongly influenced al-Ghazzah. For another possible reference to this sect, see Gentile, Bk. IV, n. 27. 19 Cf. Bk. VII, n. 6. 20 Ibid., n. 16. 21 Ibid., n. 44. 22 Ibid, nn. 15, 17, 20-3, 25, 28, 40, 45. See also nn. "18, 50 for other stories possibly stemming from this source. See the first of these notes (i.e., Bk. VII, n. 15) for more references. 17

654

FELIX

to refer to Llull's unfortunate relations with the Moslem slave who taught him Arabic. 23 Most extraordinary, perhaps, is the psychological and narrative unity Llull imposes on this material. The reader, accustomed to the loosely connected string of exempla of the first six books of Felix, begins the chain of animal fables of the Book of the Beasts in the same frame of mind. His surprise comes when he begins to see more and more pieces of the narrative fitting into place and realizes that he is experiencing a different literary world, one with a plot that builds and sweeps the reader along to a truly dramatic ending. The modern reader's tendency to think of animal fables as a branch of children's literature or as elegant court amusettes leads to another surprise. As Dame Reynard's machinations become more and more appalling and her power greater and greater, the r�ader sees how penetrating and realistic are Llull's observations of the nastier side of palace politics; the surprise comes from con­ fronting a kind of medieval predecessor to George Orwell's Animal Farm. The realization that this is indeed a political tract is con­ firmed by the Epilogue: "Here ends the Book of the Beasts, which Felix brought to a king so that he might learn, from the things done by the beasts, how a king should reign, and how to keep himself from evil counsel and from treacherous men. " All scholars have agreed, chiefly because of the place and date of composition of Felix, that the king in question must be Philip IV the Fair of France, who at that time was young (around twenty) , still inexperienced (some three years of reign) , and whom Llull perhaps felt he had a certain freedom to advise (since Philip was the nephew of Llull's patron, James II of Majorca). But no adequate historical counterpart to Dame Reynard has been sug­ gested. All the more notorious "evil councilors" of Philip's reign, such as Pierre Flote, Guillaume de Nogaret, and Enguerran de Marigni, came into prominence some ten years later. 24 23

Ibid . , n. 1 3. For Llull's relations with Philip the Fair, see the "Life," nn. 110, 140 above. For similar contemporary criticism of Philip's being led around by evil counselors, see Ch. -V. Langlois in Histoire de France depuis les originesjusqu'a la Revolution, ed. E. Lavisse, III, 2 (Paris, 1911), 121-2. For other possible targets of Llull's criticism, see Llinares, Livre des betes pp. 32-3. 24

INTRODUCTION

655

There is surprising agreement among scholars as to the place and date of composition of Felix. 25 The opening sentence of the Prologue, "In a foreign land there was once a man who was sad and melancholy, " coupled with the account in Book VI I I , Chapter 89, of a man coming to Paris to ask King and University to support his missionary work based on the Ars demonstrativa, 26 has led most scholars to agree that the work was written in Paris during Llull's first stay there in 1288-9. 27

Translations, Manuscripts, and Editions As WITH THE Gentile, the popularity of Felix is attested to by the number of manuscripts in which it is preserved, and by the fact that we possess medieval translations of it into French, Spanish, and Italian. The medieval French translation, although not exceptionally good, is nonetheless of a far higher quality than that of the Gentile. It has been studied and partly edited by Gret Schib. 28 The medieval Spanish translation is preserved in a single man­ uscript in the Escorial, which I have not been able to consult. I have, however, assumed, as have other scholars, that the eight­ eenth-century Spanish printed text does not derive from this source, but is rather a new translation from the two early Catalan manuscripts still in Palma. It was this latter text that was copied in Sapiencia 140- 1 and reprinted in the OL edition of 1948. I have also not been able to consult the medieval Italian trans­ lation preserved in six manuscripts. They, along with the Spanish 25

The only subject of discussion-a possible earlier date for the Book of the Beasts-has beep cleverly laid to rest by J. Dagenais in the article cited above (n. 9). See Bk. VII, n. 1 for details. 26 See Bk. VIII, n. 168, where this passage is amply discussed. 27 See the "Life," § 19 above, as well as my "Notes, " Part III, for this Paris sojourn. 28 In La traduction .franfaise du "Libre de meravelles " de Ramon Llull (Schaffhausen, Switzerland, 1969). This MS, which belonged to a counselor of the dukes of Burgundy, Louis de Bruges, Lord of Gruthuyse (1422-92), opens with a beautiful miniature reproduced in OE I , facing p. 320. (The other work contained in this M.s is, curiously enough, the Roman de sept sages, on which Llull drew for the Book of the Beasts; see Bk. VII, n. 16 below.) For editions of the Book of the Beasts from this MS, see text at n. 32 below.

Ed. Rossell6 & Aguil6 in Biblioteca Catalana, Barcelona, 1 872- 1 904

Obras III, 1 903 (Rossell6) ENC, 4 vols . , 1 93 1 -4 (Galmes) OE I, 1 957 Ed. M . Gusta & J. Malas, Barcelona, 1 980

20th

Santander, Bihl. Men. Pelayo M 283

1 9th20th

1 8th

Munich, Staatsbibl. 6 1 2 hisp 69

Palma, S. Fran. 1 2 Montserrat 1 84 Palma, Sapiencia, F 70 Modena, Est. it. 396

Venice, Marciana II 1 09 Oxford, Bodl. , Can. it. 26 Modena, Est. it. 455

1 7th

= Munich, Staatsbibl. 595 hisp . 51 Milan, Ambros . I 34 inf.

S

Italian

Munich, CLM 1 0601

B

= Palma, Soc. Arq. Lul, 7 Rome, Corsiniana 1 362

V = Vatican lat. 9443 L = London, B. M. add. 1 6428 A = Palma, Soc. Arq. Lul. 6

Catalan

1 6th

1 5th

1 4th

Century

TABLE 7. MANUSCRIPTS AND PRINTED EDITIONS OF FELIX

Paris, B . N . fr. 1 89

French

III.

3

OL, 1 948

Palma, Sapiencia 1 40- 1 Ed. in 2 vols, Palma, 1 750 (RD 348)

Escorial, X.

Spanish

Antologia I, 1 961

Llibre de Les besties, ed. P. Bohigas, Barcelona, 1 965

Llibre de les besties, ed. J. Mas, Barcelona, 1 980

El lean y SU co rte' adapted by M. Manent, Barcelona , 1 944

Obras filos6.ficas, Madrid, 1 933 Libro de las bestias, tr. F. Sureda Blanes, Barcelona, 1 936

Spanish

Llibre de les besties, Barcelona, 1 947

Llibre de les besties, ed. M . Obrador, Barcelona, 1 905

Ein katalanisches Thierepos, ed. K . Hofmann, Munich, 1 872

Catalan

Le livre des betes, ed. A. Llinares, Paris, 1 964 Li vre des best es, ed. G. Sansone, Rome, 1 964

French

The Book of the Beasts, tr. Allison Peers, London, 1 927

English

TABLE 8 . SEPARATE EDITIONS OF THE BOOK OF THE BEA S TS (BK . VII OF FELIX)

Die treulose Fuchsin, tr. J. Solzbacher, Frei burg i. Br. , 1 953

Catalan ed. (across) contains German tr. by Hofmann

German

"·,

658

FELIX

manuscript, probably represent interesting textual traditions that would well repay investigation and perhaps publication. 29 The original Catalan manuscripts fall quite neatly into two fam­ 0 ilies ' as shown in the two columns of Table 7 . 3 I have consulted the five manuscripts represented by letter symbols on this table. Rossell6's original text was based on A and B, which �ot only belong to the same family, but are even more closely related by the fact that many of the corrections in the first are undoubtedly based on the second. To this he added occasional touches from the two seventeenth-century manuscripts also in Palma as well as from his own imagination. Rossell6's text was reproduced in the Obras edition of 1903, and also, for some inexplicable reason, in the OE edition of 1957. Galmes's text in Els Nostres Classics had by then been out for almost a quarter of a century and is far su­ perior. Its only drawback, in fact, was to be based on the same two manuscripts, A and B, a:vailable in Palma. I have therefore compared Galmes's with L and S of the second family, and also with V as a further control on the first family. 31 I have given in the notes whatever variants I felt the reader or scholar should have at his disposal. Although there are no separate manuscripts of the Book of the Beasts, it has in the last hundred years been edited separately thir­ teen times in five different languages, all of which is shown in Table 8. The Hofmann Catalan text of 1872 is based on S with variants from the seventeenth-century manuscript also in Munich, and is followed by a German translation. The two French versions of 1964 are editions of the medieval French text, their simultaneous publication constituting one of those unfortunate reduplications of effort that occur from time to time in the scholarly world. 32 For these Italian MSS, see M. Batllori, "El lulismo en Italia (Ensayo de sfntesis)," Revista de Filosofia 2 (Madrid, 1943), 300-3, as well as his, "Records de Llull i Vilanova a Italia," AS T 10 (1934), 13-17; also R. Brummer, "Sohre una versi6 italiana del Felix de Ramon Llull. MSS de Venecia i de Munic," Miscel•lania Aramon i Serra. Estudis de 1/engua i literatura catalanes oferts a R. Aramon i Serra en el seu setante aniversari, T. I (Barcelona, 1979), 12733. 30 See G. Schib (n. 28 above), pp. 103-39, for a comparison of all the Catalan MSS. 31 V is an interesting MS, possibly the oldest extant text of Felix, and full of Proven�alisms. Cf. J. Tam\ "Los codices lulianos de la Biblioteca Nacional de Paris," AS T 14 (1941), 181, and above all the study by P. H. Coronedi, "II Manoscritto Vatic. Lat. 9443 del 'Felix' di Raimondo Lullo," Archivum Romanicum 16 (1933), 411-32. 32 I have found Llinares's Livre des betes useful for its introduction, notes, and appendixes on the sources of the work. 29

G o o B Y V I RTUE of your goodness, greatness, eternity, power, wisdom and will, here begins this Book of Wonders, 1

PROLOGUE IN A FOREIGN LAN D2 there was once a man who was sad and mel­ ancholy. He wondered greatly at how little the people of this world knew and loved God, who created this world and with great nobility and goodness gave it to men so that He would be much loved and known by them. 3 This man wept and lamented that in this world God had so few lovers, servants, and worshipers. And in order that He be known, loved, and served, he wrote this Book of Wonders, which is divided into ten parts, namely: God, Angels, Heaven, Elements, Plants, Metals, Beasts, Man, Paradise, Hell. This man had a son whom he loved very much and who was called Felix. He said to him: "Dear son, wisdom, charity and devotion are almost dead, and few are the men who live according to the purpose for which our Lord God created them. One no longer finds the fervor and devotion there was in the time of the Apostles and Martyrs, who were willing to languish and die for the sake of knowing and loving God. Where charity and devotion have gone is something you should wonder at. So travel through the world and wonder why men no longer love and know God. Let your whole life be one ofloving and knowing God, and weep for the failings of those who are ignorant of, or do not love, God. " Felix obeyed his father, and took leave of him with God's grace and blessing. And with the teachings his father had given him, he went 1

This is the title corresponding to Llull's original Libre de meravelles, but since from an early date it began, like Blaquema, to be known also by the name of its protagonist, and since this is th