“And as of old by night a fury and rout along Ismenus and Asopus hied, if but the Thebans aid from Bacchus sought”
. . . . .
Dante asks Virgil to explain love further. Virgil explains that the human mind tends toward things that give it delight. The mind internalizes an image of such things, and the mind’s “bending” toward these images is called love. When a mind is captured by what it loves, that’s called desire, and desire pursues what’s loved until it attains it, which then yields joy. Dante essentially asks why, if an object of love attracts a person from outside of themselves, a person can be held responsible for following that desire. Virgil admits that this is a tricky philosophical problem that’s beyond him. However, in essence, each person possesses free will, which gives them the power to follow or resist the urgings of love. This is Virgil’s second discourse on love. Whereas the first focused on how love works, this discourse focuses on love’s origin. The basic point Virgil is making is that the object of love must be something external to the self—something outside of a person which draws them towards it by desire.