Jeremy Pierce at Parableman offers (I think for the Christian Carnival tomorrow) an interesting short essay on the establishment clause regarding education, creationism, and the Establishment Clause and the associated Free Exercise Clause, err, Phrase. I think his argument makes sense, but likely ignores much of the the larger part of Constitutional lore that lawyers depend on, which is the larger body of prior rulings, i.e., stare decisis. Specifically two cases are mentioned, Lemon and Lynch … but I’m willing to bet the cases cited in precedent number in hundreds or perhaps thousands.

However, us lay members (see Pelikan: Interpreting the Bible and the Constitution) of the US with respect to the body of law have little but (note Mr Pierce does refer to several SCOTUS cases) the text of the Constitution from which to judge whether a ruling or act is Constitutional. In some sense that might actually be a good thing.

Creationism is one of the “standard” issues regarding church/state separation that comes up in conversation and in blog essays. However a decidedly more radical one is one I’d offer. I think it can be argued, along similar lines as the argument presented in the linked essay noted above that the following is in fact Constitutional. Would it be Constitutional for a State to establish the death penalty and restrict its application to those who profess faith and believe in an effective soteriology. Or in plainer English, only those who believe in the afterlife might be put to death by the state.

I think the fundamental problem with Supreme Court doctrine on this sort of issue is that none of this has much to do with what the Constitution actually says. The First Amendment’s Establishment Clause reads, “”Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion”. Together with the misnamed Free-Exercise Clause (which is a phrase, not a clause, which adds “or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” we have the entirety of the Constitution’s pronouncements on religion. The founders were preventing the establishment of a church state, such as Great Britain’s Church of England. Congress is prevented from making a law respecting the establishment of religion.

So. Examine for a moment Mr Pierces discussion about what “respect to” or “giving respect to” might mean.

The term ‘respecting’ could mean either “with respect to” or “giving respect to”. I tend to think it means the former, which is a broader prohibition. Congress can’t make any laws about the setting up of religions. Religions are free to do as they choose in setting themselves up, without laws prohibiting their free expression. But even in the more restricted second reading, Congress is only preventing from making laws that show respect for a religion. In that case, it still doesn’t mean that government employees can’t show respect for a religion (never mind show disrespect). This is about laws prohibiting certain religious conduct or establishing a state religion.

The question that I find no ready answer for, is how is that sense of “respecting” religion betrayed by failing to execute men (and women) who don’t believe they are assured of an afterlife. If you take a persons deeply seated beliefs seriously, a Christian for example, should not fear death, for it has no sting. An atheist on the other hand has plenty of reason to fear the ending of his days, for that is the end of him … there is more there. Basically the statement is saying, the state will only execute people who are in an essential way, OK with being killed. That seems to me ultimately respectful of religions and in a real sense cognizent of the role of religion regarding soteriology.

1. Geek chic? (Just say no?)
2. Not what the typical separation of church/state has in mind.
3. Experience and dogma.
4. Moooo(re) fun.
5. A clarification on the one state solution.
6. Progress or not.
7. Running away, not to say that’s a bad thing.
8. Rome and Kirill.
9. Wisdom from Aleksandr on violence.
10. Some words from St. Cyril.
11. Heh.
12. For my gymnastically inclined daughter … and lover of pizza.
13. At least there was no mention of John Galt.
14. Wrightspeak.
15. Bells.
16. Contra High Noon.
17. A Plantinga paper noted.
18. Biking in circles in Estonia.
19. Apparently the liberal orthodoxy doesn’t cotton to Mr Souter in retrospect either.
20. The Gospel and property rights.

Commenter Boonton accuses my position on torture as “not clear.” Five or six years ago, if asked impulse would be along the lines of the film Taken, or other revenge oriented narratives if harm had come to my family or more specifically my daughters … torture and taking law into my own hands included with that package. But then again, my ethical framework has been turned about since I became Christian and my political thinking as well has, well, sharpened as a result of this exercise known as blogging came into my life. Since that time my notions of political ethics vs personal ethics have diverged … but not in the strictly simplistic fashion that one might imagine. Politically speaking I am influence by a number of sources, Bertrand de Jouvenel and Aleskandr Solzhenitsyn influence (in contrast to the more traditional influences along the lines of Hobbes, Locke, and the founders). For what follows I am going to try to establish what I see as the political ethical situation vis a vis torture.

Regarding torture. I find childish and simplistic the ordinary narrative we find so often arising from the left. That torture is well defined and clear cut. That it the consequential argument is all that is required to oppose it. That numbers do not matter, i.e., that the torture of 10 or 100 men (illegal combatants at that) is the same thing for a regime, for a people and ethically speaking as the torture of millions of innocents. That a good man cannot find himself driven to choose it as the lesser of evils (see again the movie noted above). All of these points are repeatedly made by the left and the critics of recent activities of the past (and it seems likely the current) Administration(s). Unfortunately, that these things are all wrong and in error is not the same as taking a position that torture should not be the policy taken by and on behalf of our country.

And it should be repeated that these combatants which are in custody, almost certainly to a man, are guilty of heinous war crimes. They themselves torture, drug, and abuse their enemy. They fight without regard to civilian or military personel as target, in fact more often than not they specifically target civilians. In prior ages, and rightfully so, their combat would be regarded as unspeakable and they would be summarily executed when apprehended. The only argument against doing just that as far as I have understood or heard is that is tactically unwise, i.e., a foe who knows he faces death on capture will fight to the last.

Torture is not well defined. There are large and relevant cultural and personal elements which need to be taken into account when considering what constitutes torture. This cannot be waved away as irrelevant. Seemingly this should be clearer to the “side” of the debate that scoffs at the failure to define pornography but that “one knows it when one sees it.” This is not in and of itself problematic. Torture has been used for two distinct purposes by regimes in the past (and likely in the present). One is to inculcate fear and terror in a populus. Consider again the (excellent) fim Das Leben der Anderen, it is true that the regime was venal and corrupt. It is also true that torture, fear, and terror “worked” in the purely consequential sense. Intimidation with the force of the state … is highly intimidating, especially if you have friends or family. It takes a heroic stance to be able to withstand such force and heroes are rare. Torture to obtain information also can be effective. It also can be not be effective if used poorly. For that matter, modern guns and weaponry and trained soldiers can be not be used effectively. Pointing that in a specific instance that torture was ineffectively used is not proof that it cannot be used effectively. Information gathering and analysis is a difficult task. Heisenberg and the quantum theorists of the early 20th century identified the notion that the observer and the observed are not two independent entities. An analogous thing operates in the gathering of information. One has to be careful that prejudices of the observer do not influence the data being sought, always a problem in high noise to signal environments. But I digress. The point is that any sort of interrogation is a flawed source of information. If a intelligence agency or community finds itself with a extreme dearth of information and feels that information is crucial at a juncture in a conflict … the desire and need to turn to alternate means, knowing that there is a price, i.e., that this is the least worst alternative, makes the turn to methods to extract information that are considered in the drawing room as torture is understandable.

However, torture is not consistent with the American way. We do not systematically speaking condone torture. This authority, to borrow from Jouvenel, has not been granted by the people. Furthermore, this conflict in which we find ourselves is highly asymmetric. We can and should claim that we will in fact not avail ourselves of these methods not because they are not useful, because if used intelligently they can be, but because we don’t need them to beat our enemies. We should make a stern point to highlight the difference between legal and illegal combatants and our treatment of the same. Sticking to our principles may have material and tangible costs. We should acknowledge that up front and accept. Or if we are unwilling to do so, we should be honest about our failing to do so and strive to come to a place were we do not have to sacrifice our principles to acheive those necessary ends.

1. Mr Adler with some advice for the GOP.
2. On IQ.
3. The Church is not full of good people … it is full of people like me.
4. Locating the not-so-good arguments on one side of the Catholic-Protestant debate, of which I’ll admit to being on the sidelines (HT: Michele McGinty)
5. City tracker.
6. From St. Gregory, some imaginative (daring?) words.
7. A game of pigs and men.
8. Not having recursion doesn’t make programming easier, why is it assumed that language is different?
9. Mr Spector it seems, has a race problem.
10. Doing the deed.
11. A question posed.
12. The Samaritan impulse.
13. Spring and the hearts of men (and women).
14. From the Ms Palin expensive clothing file.
15. “Take that cup from me”  … said a Washington lawyer.
16. Hmmm.
17. An interpretation of declining Christian demographics.

Last week an interesting conversational point arose in our discussions after liturgy. An initial Chinese translation of the Bible translated “sin” in a legalistic way. That is a transgression, breaking laws for which penal or other atonement is required. A newer translation which connects with Chinese culture much stronger and likely hits the real meaning of the word. That word translated back into English would be that sin is best translated in Chinese as disharmony. I think the notion that sin=disharmony is natural. My “working definition” of the word has been sin is “that which separates us from God” … which in my view links far better to disharmony that to a “breaking the rules” definition.

Ann, blogging as Weekend Fisher at the eponymous blog, writes about the perception of Puritans for being joyless and very deontological in their habits. If the Puritans were actually joyless and as serious as many of their chroniclers and history seems to paint them, then the root of that problem was that their notion of sin was flawed in the same was as the above translation. However, from the exterior that may be hard to judge. Very often “rules” seems to dominate a culture and time or religion when from the interior that isn’t really the case. As an extreme case, monastic rules of order can seem very deontological and rules based, but that isn’t necessarily the case in practice.

Ann asks:

If we start with a set of laws like the Ten Commandments, then the Puritans make sense. But what if the true foundation is much more basic than that? What if the foundation of morality is when God looked at creation and declared that it was good? What if a love of the good is the foundation of morality? What if the two greatest commandments — love of God and love of neighbor — are meant to remind us of that?

The Pslamist writes and the Fathers seem to repeatedly concur that the “Fear of God is the beginning of Wisdom.” That is, that “love of the good” (a very Greek concept) is not the starting point, but that the Fathers travel very quickly from a starting point of the Fear of God which leads them to God’s love and from thence to personal humility which forms a grounding plane for their normative ethical behavior. My question for Ann would be how ‘love of the good’ which is precisely aligned with Platonic notions of a foundation for ethics if not a basis for almost all the philosophical content derived from Platonic ideas, e.g., virtue ethics … how does that separate from Greek ethics? Where does it ultimately differ? Is it merely a different idea of what constitutes the good? Is that enough? I suggested some time ago, that Christian ethics are pneumatoligical, based on our being inspired by the Spirit. Is that wrong? Is it connected or not?

Mystery. Religion uses the term mystery a lot. Trinity is a mystery. Sometimes it is said that Jesus dual nature as God and man kept distinct and separate is a mystery. Eucharist and God’s participation is a mystery. I offer that in this modern world this term is misunderstood today, one might blame Edgar Allen Poe, whom if my schoolday memory is correct founded the literary genre of the “mystery” novel. Mystery in that sense is something not understood. A popular modern notion of “mystery” is something which cannot be understood rationally. And in part this is right. But in a better sense, the related word “mystical” should be examined. A mystical cult or religion is one in which the divine is experienced personally. Mystics of any cult, be it Sufi, Christian, Hindu, or Bhuddist seek personal contact and experience of the divine. Mysticism means personal experience. The Trinity in the Christian religion is a mystery. That doesn’t mean that it is meant to be “taken on faith” where faith itself means the simple notion of believing in that which is not seen or known. The Trinity is something which we are meant to personally connect with on a personal level.

Ultimately however these two meanings, the classical mystery story or mystery in science and the mystic/mystery of religion do connect. The mystery story is solved when the characters experience and come to fuller understanding of the crime in question. The scientific mystery is resolved when the scientist (personally) experiences and understands the resolution of the paradox or that which was in question. Religious mystery is a thing which cannot be transmitted by word and reason. It can only be hinted at with word and reason. We like to think that science too is like that … but most of it is not. Science, or most of it, too is a field which needs to be experienced to be transmitted. Michael Polanyi in Personal Knowledge writes of the unexplainable skill or riding a bike. I found it amusing that his description of how we turn a bike was incorrect. Mr Polanyi offers that to turn a bike while riding, we turn the handlebars in the direction we which to turn in a fashion which is hard to describe.  Yet unless you are going very slowly countersteering is how a bike is turned. The point is that much more than is normally admitted of science and scientific advancement is an art. Becoming a scientist is an apprenticeship, filled with the passing on of personal knoweldge and experience, transmission of the mysteries of the field, that is required.

1. Heh.
2. Brandon answers yesterday’s question.
3. Art that will move you.
4. A review.
5. Travel?
6. From a Vespers hymn.
7. Continuing the art/beauty theme for today, ring tones.
8. From the “not making any sense” side of the left. All the soldiers did in fact get good treatment and attacks by terrorists and non-uniformed personnel is not likely at all connected with our treatment of terrorists in Iraq. There are good arguments against using torture … this just isn’t one of them.
9. So … Mr Obama’s policies have already (?!) created 150k jobs. I think a stronger and stronger case can be made for the Innumeracy of our President.
10. Riding Gila.
11. Dude, just say “Yo!”.
12. Retaining our humanity.
13. Microcosm, macrocosm and man.
14. A decision.
15. The first part problem with a Churchillian quote by Obama … it’s a fabrication. The second part of the problem is that some SS officers were in fact tortured.
16. “I think we are losing ground” … thanks Mr Obama.

Mr Sandefur poses an interesting question, well actually the question that it prompted for me was not at all the point of his post but be that as it may, he writes:

My favorite living writer, John Varley, is a candid man. He’s also a proud hippie. So when he says something about politics, it’s candid hippiness, and thus a good opportunity to see how weird that sort of thinking (obviously in the ascendant now) really is.

I haven’t read John Varley since the mid 80s, but that prompted a question for me, namely was who is my favorite living (fiction) writer. To which I have no ready answer, but I have a few suggestions for my favorite (living) writer spread across a few different categories

1. Fiction in General: Dan Simmons. If you like the Homer epics read his Ilium and Olympos books. This is his latest (Drood: A Novel), which I have not read yet.
2. Classical fantasy: Steven Erickson. He’s coming to the end of an intensely complicated series of 10 books, intricately imagined. Start with Gardens of the Moon and be warned there’s a deluge of characters and names. Many if not most return in later books. But if you like your fantasy with to be epic in breadth, realistic character motivations and a gritty combination of the fantasy equivalent of nuclear war as seen from the trenches … stick with it. The ride is worth it.
3. Historical Fiction: Sharon Kay Penman. Her writing gripping and interestingly enough on of the most difficult parts of her writing is how the narrative seems to jump randomly forward in her characters life … but the reason for that is fascinating. It’s because she only writes and imagines in narrative scenes of a her protagonists lives which are supported by the historical record (with the addition of one or two fictional characters to help her fill out the narrative). I’d highly recommend The Sunne In Splendour: A Novel of Richard III and Here Be Dragons to start.
4. Honorable Mention: Matt Ruff.With Ayn Rand getting back in the news, every libertarian with any sense of humor should have Sewer, Gas and Electric: The Public Works Trilogy on their list as required reading to be a card carrying libertarian or … if you just like to laugh out loud while reading a book. And Set This House in Order: A Romance of Souls was a fascinating psychological thriller

How about you?

1. Torture and the choice put plainly.
2. Puritanism examined.
3. A new Christian blog aggregator … and hobbity news.
4. More on why consequentialist arguments about torture don’t work (or are dishonest).
5. Plugging a magazine.
6. I liked the book a lot too.
7. Fact checking Mr Obama.
8. Two race reports … by the racers from Gila. Women’s and men’s plus some pro-racer pre-race hijinks from Garmin at the Tour of California.
9. Two men, Locke and Berkeley and a crucial question.
10. A message in a bottle from a hell on earth.
11. But … will it work better.
12. Mr Obama’s budget innumeracy in perspective.
13. The Democrats expressed faux outrage at the price of Ms Pelosi’s clothes in the campaign. We await a repeat of that outrage at this price tag.

In the nineteenth century in California a housing bubble popped. Californians promised themselves that never again would they come to believe that could depend on housing prices would rise indefinitely.

In the nineteenth century scientists consistently and continued to deny the possibility that rocks (so-called meteorites) could fall from the sky (via Personal Knowledge), evidence be damned.

Today we too believe ourselves immune to this failing. We insist that our epistemic armor has no chinks. We think that our understanding of man, society, and our surroundings is improving and in the main correct.

Epistemic humility, to know that we do not know, is as was noted just a few (countable number of) weeks back by that Socrates fellow that knowing the actual extent of our expertise and knowledge is the first step to wisdom.

One of the consistent features of the political left and specifically our Administration today is a distinct lack of epistemic humility. They are the “smart” ones who have the answers. They will avoid the sins and faults of other side committed because they are far more clever, because their epistemic skin has been dipped in the Styx and is invulnerable to the slings and arrows and mortal failings unlike the clueless other guys. How long will it take then for Paris, aka reality, to slide the poisoned arrow into their ankle?

1. Jet lag, and rat research.
2. Marxist paranoia … begging the question if the flue requires close contact of human, avian, and porcine populations … where are the birds and people in that particular scenario?
3. If your choices however historically have proven good … why does it matter that your explanation is not necessarily right.
4. Ancient gadgetry.
5. Yes, I think it shows the artist is “an idiot” too … although idiot might not be my first choice of terminology. How about blinkered fool or should the term “pander” get in their somewhere.
6. Peace?
7. Macrina suggests her next close reading project.
8. Will retractions and corrections fly in a flurry … or not? And if not why not?
9. On the obscenity in broadcasting judgement. I think in discussions what is being missed is that the SCOTUS doesn’t (rightly) adjudicate on what is ethical or moral but if the law penned by Congress and the action in question are Constitutional.
10. Eudaimonia read wrongly or at least a very non-Aristotelian take on pursuit of happiness.
11. Mr Bush and Mr Obama, two (Jacobin) birds of a feather?
12. Manliness matters.
13. Torture and pacifism conjoined.
14. History repeats.
15. A possible shift, explanations requested.
16. A conversation which should embarrass liberals.
17. What separates the casual user from the addict on the bike, I don’t think I ever get on a bike without checking tire pressure first.
18. A “profuse” apology? or defining apology down.
19. Please. If “everyone” makes new music … then that new music will suck. A great percentage of new music by people with training and talent sucks … just think if people without training or talent start making music. Oh, joy.
20. Asceticism and American piety.

One thing that comes to mind when issues regarding increased influence by the government in healthcare. Today there are no public hayrides. Why? Because somewhere someone decided they could sue if some rambunctious teenage got hurt during the ride … which mean insurance was required … which meant no more hayrides. How much public interest in health care of this sort not give increased impetus to control risk or other behavior deemed not necessary if that activity has but the smallest negative impact on public health and subsequently public insurance rates. Hayrides are harmless romantic fun that were once common in the New England autumn. Now they are only a private affair hidden from any organized groups that might be subject to suit.

There is a notion among so many today, and my impression is that this idea is found more on the left than the right, that if someone is injured especially badly then there is necessarily another at fault. Actual accidents do not exist in their world. And that it is right to use legal proceedings after any substantial injury to redress the wrong and to locate (or invent) a guilty party and get them to pay. This is, I think, quite a childish impulse. I don’t understand how an adult can act on such an idea in the absence of evidence or any suggestion of malfeasance or malice.

Negligence is often cited as a cause for accidents and used as a proxy for fault. Tiger Woods occasionally misses a nominally routine putt. Jose Calderon has an 2008/9 NBA free shooting percentage of 98.052%. Why not 100%? After all free throws are routine. The point is that humans performing any routine activities will occasionally fail or introduce a mistake. Accidents can occur which are not intentional and are not actionable. All too often an error is cause for suit even when it is an “honest” mistake. An obvious rejoinder is that this is what courts are for, to distinguish between honest mistakes and ones which arise from malice, greed, or other intentional errors. And yes, that is the case. But the courts should not be the place where this issue is explored, but the place where evidence of error is tried.

1. I think Origen noted that feature in Scripture just a few years earlier (that is the idea that there are “blue parakeet verses”, which cause you to stumble so that you might pay closer attention).
2. Faith and unbelief … from a modern Saint.
3. A new novel and the battle between liberal and conservative Catholics.
4. Plans of mice, men, and God.
5. A sticking point in the torture debate.
6. Considering autism … more here. All of this skirts the important question of how to love your neighbor especially when your neighbor is disordered.
7. Those touting the marginal benefits of universal health insurance … are innumerate? (one might also recall that there are 15,000 late term abortions per year of which over half are not for reasons of health of mother or child).
8. Egypt and Darfur.
9. Roman catacombs in Bethlehem.
10. Timing issues at the Globe.
11. Praising that cup of joe.
12. What passes for logic on the left … remains however “high test hokum.”
13. Churches talk on high level backchannels.
14. Two books recommended.
15. Odd phrasing in the context of the flu.
16. Turkey is touted as the prime example of a secular Muslim state … but is there a better example?
17. A beautiful bride … and the meaning of marriage and mortality.

Equality. Liberty. Virtue. These are all features which all citizens of almost every state will agree are good and required for a civil and stable union in some measure. I’ve claimed before that today’s progressive/liberals, libertarians and conservatives differ largely in that the different groups differ in the relative importance they place on these values. That is liberal/progressives value equality the most, libertarians liberty, and conservatives virtue. And it’s not that progressive/liberals find virtue or liberty bad, just that these things are less important than equality and so forth.

What does it mean that one values virtue in a civic sense? There are certainly things it should not mean but often does, that is often this is confused with the idea that particular virtues are required and preeminent. The Greek political thinkers thought that the primary purpose of the state was to create an environment in which the virtues of its citizens would and could be cultivated. Virtue for them was the road to happiness. In our day and age, so many confuse happiness with pleasure and therefore forget the importance of virtue. Now, the Greek city states were small enough that a much more pronounced uniformity of opinion about what constitutes virtue could be established in one community. This helped of course but is not essential.

C.S. Lewis in the The Abolition of Man suggests the notion of a universal sense of right and wrong within all people. Put in the context of virtue, there is a common core notion of what virtues are which all societies and people hold common. Different societies value different virtues with varying gradings and, again at the periphery, some virtues are thought vices and vice-versa, for example modern educators think self-esteem is a virtue and many Christian fathers taught self-esteem a vice. The existence of these differences is however often used mistakenly to suggest that the common notions of virtues in the main are held all cultures and societies.

From the standpoint of political thought and theory however the matter is that a multicultural society, of which most of us belong, can and should foster the development of virtues in its citizens and that this can be done without prejudicing which virtues its citizens value and are being in effect fostered and developed by the state. The primary purpose then of a state is to create an environment in which its citizens can cultivate virtue. So that we can be come better, happier as individuals. As a consequence this requires freedoms (liberty) and equality. But the goal of that liberty (and therefore also where it may and might be restricted) is to foster virtue. Again, where the purpose of equality between citizens is to allow each to cultivate his or her own virtues. Enforcement and encouragement of that equality is not for the purpose of granting equality qua equality to each but to allow each full opportunities to cultivate individual virtue.

1. Well, if you think the US press is wildly inaccurate, we’re not alone.
2. That seems impractical.
3. On health care.
4. On Mr Brown’s book.
5. The fate of an ordinary Obama supporter.
6. Will the Obama administration, the Press, and Congress manage to push the fiction that the “torture” imbroglio was not bi-partisan?
7. Another day, another broken campaign promise … a pattern emerges?
8. Politics, faith and wandering.
9. Ghandi’s gun, heh.
10. Of knowledge and myth.
11. Vermin or ermin?
12. Doubt and Christ.
13. Stop chasing happiness? Only a problem, I think, if you have a modern shallow understanding of the word happiness.
14. Of horological artisans and their work.
15. Piracy as political AIDS.
16. Fascism today.
17. Men and the wind.
18. Why no news stories?
19. Tales from a tea party.

Well, in the light of the fact that it’s been touted that “conservatives” have abandoned their defense of high culture. I’ll freely admit that I have not. Friday night my beloved, who coincidentally is also my wife 😉 , and I attended the CSO for a concert conducted by Bernard Haitink. I was surprised this year, for I don’t recall Mr Haitink having such trouble getting around. He used a cane to assist his walking and stood/sat/leaned on a edge of an elevated chair while conducting. I have to admit his mastery of the orchestra and his use of subtle controlled gesture to get his meaning across was a wonder to behold.

Three peices were performed, none of which I’d ever heard earlier. They were Max Webern’s Im Sommerwind (In the Summer Wind), Gustov Mahler’s Ruckert Lieder, and Franz Schuberts 9th Symphony (the Great). I’d like to offer a few remarks on the short Mahler songs. They were five Ruckert poems set to music sung by Mezzo Soprano Christianne Stotijn. Ms Stotijn sang beautifully, and my only critique might be that I thought she needed sing a little more strongly to counterbalance the orchestra better. Of these poems, the fourth was a simple love poem which Mahler dedicated to his new bride. It is simple but poignant.

Liebst du um Schonheit (If you love for beauty)
(translation from program notes)

If you love for beauty,
then do not love me!
Love the sun,
for he has golden hair.

If you love for youth,
then do not love me!
Love the spring,
which is young every year.

If you love for money,
then do not love me!
Love a mermaid,
for she has many find pearls.

If you love for love,
then yes, do love me!
Love me forever,
I’ll love you evermore.