And I say that, if the defect is in my rhymes, that is, in my words, which are appointed to discourse of her, for this are to be blamed the weakness of the intellect and the abruptness of our speech: "blame wit and words," which are overpowered by the thought, so that they cannot follow it entirely, especially there where the thought is born of love, because there the Soul searches more deeply than elsewhere.

It would be quite possible for any one to say: Thou dost excuse and accuse thyself all in one breath, which is a reason for blame, not for escape from blame, inasmuch as the blame, which is mine, is cast on the intellect and on the speech; for, if it be good, I ought to be praised for it in so much as it is so; and if it be defective, I ought to be blamed.

To this it is possible to reply, briefly, that I do not accuse myself, but that I excuse myself in truth.

And therefore it is to be known, according to the opinion of the Philosopher in the third book of the Ethics, that man is worthy of praise or of blame only in those things which it is in his power to do or not to do; but in those things over which he has no power he deserves neither blame nor praise, since either the praise or blame is to be attributed to some other, although the things may be parts of the man himself.

Therefore, we ought not to blame the man because his body, from his birth, may be ugly, since it was not in his power to make it beautiful; but our blame should fall on the evil disposition of the matter whereof he is made, whose source was a defect of Nature.