{"id": "card_n_4ec2f3ff4911", "kind": "note", "title": "Augustine, Confessions §aug_conf_01_021: For what more miserable than a miserable being who commiserates not himself; ...", "body": "For what more miserable than a miserable being who commiserates not himself; weeping the death of Dido for love to Aeneas, but weeping not his own death for want of love to Thee, O God. Thou light of my heart, Thou bread of my inmost soul, Thou Power who givest vigour to my mind, who quickenest my thoughts, I loved Thee not. I committed fornication against Thee, and all around me thus fornicating there echoed \"Well done! well done!\" for the friendship of this world is fornication against Thee; and \"Well done! well done!\" echoes on till one is ashamed not to be thus a man. And for all this I wept not, I who wept for Dido slain, and \"seeking by the sword a stroke and wound extreme,\" myself seeking the while a worse extreme, the extremest and lowest of Thy creatures, having forsaken Thee, earth passing into the earth. And if forbid to read all this, I was grieved that I might not read what grieved me. Madness like this is thought a higher and a richer learning, than that by which I learned to read and write.", "source": {"label": "Augustine, Confessions (c. AD 400)", "url": "/canon.html?ref=augustine_aug_conf_01_021", "ref": "aug_conf_01_021", "authority_tier": "father"}, "shelf": "classics", "box": "augustine_confessions", "bands": ["augustine", "confessions", "father"], "connections": [{"to_card_id": "card_n_4f123729c557", "relationship": "same_section", "origin": "nesting_2026_06_12"}, {"to_card_id": "card_n_4e743297cf2f", "relationship": "same_section", "origin": "nesting_2026_06_12"}], "author": "engine", "created_at": "2026-05-19T13:20:57.634288+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-05-19T19:57:54.994747+00:00", "visibility": "public", "lifecycle_stage": "public", "volatility": "permanent", "metrics": {"paperclips_count": 0, "helpful_count": 0, "not_helpful_count": 0, "cite_count": 4, "walks_through_count": 0, "flagged_count": 0}, "source_hash": "e2a0ce78fb8d95d410dc250e996a941d3d151299569e9e66df3536b0954d7f3e", "witnesses": [{"class": "manuscript_tradition", "label": "Patrologia Latina (Migne) vol. 32 — Confessions Latin text", "url": "https://patristica.net/latina/", "ref": "PL-32"}, {"class": "critical_edition", "label": "Corpus Christianorum Series Latina (CCSL) 27 — Verheijen", "url": "https://www.corpuschristianorum.org/", "ref": "CCSL-27"}, {"class": "translation", "label": "Pusey translation (1838) — Library of Fathers", "url": "https://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf101.html", "ref": "Pusey-1838"}, {"class": "translation", "label": "Pine-Coffin translation (Penguin Classics, 1961)", "ref": "Pine-Coffin-1961"}, {"class": "republication", "label": "Internet Archive — Confessions (multiple editions)", "url": "https://archive.org/search?query=augustine+confessions", "ref": "IA-Confessions"}, {"class": "republication", "label": "Project Gutenberg — Confessions", "url": "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3296", "ref": "PG-3296"}, {"class": "citation_tradition", "label": "Aquinas, Summa Theologica — cites Confessions extensively", "ref": "Aquinas-ST"}], "witness_status": "passed", "witness_status_reason": "7 witnesses across 5 independence classes: ['citation_tradition', 'critical_edition', 'manuscript_tradition', 'republication', 'translation']", "surface": "witness"}