...but nature scants that lights in all it makes, working in much the manner of a painter who knows the true art, but those whose brush hand shakes. - Dante Alighieri

He tells his reader that writings should be expounded in four senses. The first

He has time for gossip, for prophecies, for marvelous dramatic interplays, for treatises on history, for analyzing the French monarchy, the corruption of the Church, the decay of Italian politics. He has time for all sorts of metaphysical treatises on such matters as the nature of the generative principle, literary criticism, meteorology — in short, for his whole unfinished encyclopedia. And he still has time to invent a death for Ulysses, to engage in a metamorphic contest with Ovid, to make side remarks to his friends.

[Sonetto X]
Amore e ’l cor gentil sono una cosa,
sì come il saggio in suo dittare pone,
e così esser l’un sanza l’altro osa
com’alma razional sanza ragione.

Falli natura quand’è amorosa,
Amor per sire e ’l cor per sua magione,
dentro la qual dormendo si riposa
tal volta poca e tal lunga stagione.

Bieltate appare in saggia donna poi,
che piace a li occhi sì, che dentro al core
nasce un disio de la cosa piacente;

e tanto dura talora in costui,
che fa svegliar lo spirito d’Amore.
E simil face in donna omo valente.