The lover’s willingness to sacrifice everything, including the hope of enjoying an actual relationship with the princess, in order to be faithful to the memory of his beloved serves as an analogy to the religious person who is willing to renounce all earthly goods for the sake of God. Augustine would have understood and appreciated this image, including its foregrounding of love for God, as well as the contrast of the ephemeral nature of earthly loves and the eternal nature of love for God.
