Baruch Spinoza
Baruch Spinoza - meaning Summary
Human Labor, Divine Construction
Borges presents a contemplative portrait of Baruch Spinoza as a solitary, patient thinker who "constructs for the sake of God." The speaker admires Spinoza’s steady, geometric labor: from weakness and silence he builds a rational, devotional vision. The poem treats philosophy as a form of humble worship, emphasizing endurance, systematic thought, and an unrequited love for truth or the divine that seeks no return.
Read Complete AnalysesA topaz fog, western light at the window. The careful manuscript waits, already weighted by the infinite. Someone in shadow constructs for the sake of God. A man engenders God. He is a Jew with sad eyes and olive-pallid skin; time bears him as the river carries a leaf in the waters that recede. It doesn’t matter. The magical one endures and works towards God with delicate geometry; from his infirmity, out of nothing, he keeps on building towards God with the word. For him the most prodigious love, authorized— the love that does not expect to be loved.
Translated from the Spanish by Evelyn Hooven
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