"Love makes a subtle man out of a crude one, it gives eloquence to the mute, it gives courage the cowardly and makes the idle quick and sharp"
About this Quote
Love, in Juan Ruiz's hands, isn't a soft-focus halo. It's an engine that refits the human animal. The line works because it treats love less like a feeling than a technology: it edits your mannerisms, rewires your tongue, reorganizes your risk tolerance, puts caffeine in your bloodstream. Ruiz stacks transformations in a quick, escalating catalogue - subtle from crude, eloquent from mute, courageous from cowardly, quick from idle - so the reader feels the momentum of conversion. It's not one miracle; it's a chain reaction.
The subtext is both flattering and suspicious. Flattering because it assumes most of us are unfinished, and love is the rare force that makes us worth our own company. Suspicious because these upgrades are social, almost performative. "Subtle", "eloquence", "courage" aren't private virtues; they're things other people notice. Love, here, is a reputational pressure cooker. You polish yourself because desire puts you under surveillance, because longing makes you audition for someone else's regard. Even silence becomes a liability you learn to overcome.
Ruiz, a medieval Spanish poet steeped in courtly love conventions and moral instruction, writes from a culture where love was both celebrated and policed: a spur to refined behavior, but also a destabilizer that could turn piety into pretext. That tension hums underneath the praise. Love can civilize, yes - but it can also make you cunning, fast, strategically "sharp". The poem admires the makeover while hinting at the cost: you become better, and less innocent, at the same time.
The subtext is both flattering and suspicious. Flattering because it assumes most of us are unfinished, and love is the rare force that makes us worth our own company. Suspicious because these upgrades are social, almost performative. "Subtle", "eloquence", "courage" aren't private virtues; they're things other people notice. Love, here, is a reputational pressure cooker. You polish yourself because desire puts you under surveillance, because longing makes you audition for someone else's regard. Even silence becomes a liability you learn to overcome.
Ruiz, a medieval Spanish poet steeped in courtly love conventions and moral instruction, writes from a culture where love was both celebrated and policed: a spur to refined behavior, but also a destabilizer that could turn piety into pretext. That tension hums underneath the praise. Love can civilize, yes - but it can also make you cunning, fast, strategically "sharp". The poem admires the makeover while hinting at the cost: you become better, and less innocent, at the same time.
Quote Details
| Topic | Love |
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