'But we lack a philosophic exploration, a phenomenology in depth of envy. It is the painters of emblems and allegories who have com nearest. The subject is close to being taboo, to bordering on the excremental, as Swift intuited.The honesty, the probing within the open wound of the self, hurt too much. The savour which surfaces from the recesses of the ego is too fetid to breathe. Perhaps, although we cannot really imagine this, the torture of the fire which Cecco d'Ascoli experienced was not the worst he had endured.'

Translation from English Hein Groen and Gijs Went