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"slug": "hadewijch-mengeldichten",
"name": "The Mengeldichten (Mixed Poems) of Hadewijch"
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"chapter": {
"num": 1,
"slug": "vol-1-01-poems-1-5",
"title": "Section I",
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"words": 6014,
"text": "## Section I\n\nFirst section of a planned multi-section project translation of Hadewijch's **Mengeldichten** (\"Mixed Poems\") — sixteen poems by Hadewijch herself, with a further group of poems (sometimes numbered XVII–XXIX) traditionally attributed to a slightly later writer called \"Hadewijch II\" in the Hadewijch-school tradition. Unlike the *Strofische Gedichten* (which are stanzaic with refrains in the troubadour-lyric form), the *Mengeldichten* are in rhymed couplets, more didactic in tone, often functioning as **verse-letters** addressed to an unnamed correspondent — typically a younger Beguine being formed in the way of Love.\n\nSection I covers **Poems I–V**:\n\n- **Poem I** — *God be with you, from my greeting*. The longest of the Mengeldichten — a 300-line verse-letter on the *nature of Love* (the topic the addressee had asked Hadewijch to write of). Hadewijch opens with the famous *modesty-topos*: *Love's nature is unknown to me; her being and her ground are hidden against me; how I am about her is as well kept silent as said*. The unfolding doctrine: Love's *manieren* (manners) include *attainment, lacking, hope, despair*. The doctrinal centerpiece is the four-fold practice — *with nyed (zealous desire) one shall enjoy Love; with hope, fly into Love's heights; with un-attainment, sound the ground of Love; with despair, work narrowly* — the **canonical four-virtues of Love** in Hadewijch's prose-letters as well. Closes with a confession: *I am one who knows her not, nor expect to know her before my death — may his Love have mercy on me*.\n- **Poem II** — **The Four Masters and the Strongest Thing**. A medieval *quaestio*-poem in couplets. Four masters debate before a king what is the strongest thing in the world: *wine*, *a king*, *a woman*, or *truth*. Hadewijch glosses each spiritually: **wine** = sorrow for one's lowness, penitence and labor — drunkenness of the *spiritual wine*; **a king** = poverty-of-spirit (*armen van gheeste*), who conquers all things; **a woman** = humility, who alone overthrew the *fairest in heaven* (Lucifer) and *cast him from his height into the bottomless wheel*; **truth** = the conqueror of all, the very life of Love. The closing program: *Where one perfectly loves, and with the powers well knows — there one loves eternally as one should; and I gladly, would love and have-it-be*.\n- **Poem III** — On **Mary Magdalene as the model of *gestedeghe minne*** (steady, constant Love). *God be to all those God who love him alone and recognize him alone as worthy*. The famous Magdalene-stanza: *That was Maria Magdalena, who was one with Love made common. Yes, Origen says of Mary that of constant love one may speak who follows Mary's life and gives himself wholly in Love*. The closing prayer placed in the addressee's mouth: *Take Love with the bridle on her neck, and be her subject; wander the ways in Love's counsel; let her be your richest trust; remain in her one mind, and say: Ah noble Love, do all your high will with me — be it death, be it life, your debt be it all*.\n- **Poem IV** — Verse-letter **to a young reader**. *I pray God, who is master of all things, that he make you suited to Love and protect you with his holy strength and feed you with his sweet Love*. Programmatic counsel for a young Beguine in formation: *if you live with Reason in truth, then all your labor lightens; your will desires to live well, and to give all service fully... do not think you do well, but ever say: \"Virtue is lacking in me, by which I should win Love; how long shall I thus lack her? shall I never suffice her?\"*. Closes with the closing benediction: *Hold your three-foldness in good order, and love God sweetly*.\n- **Poem V** — Short **companion-verse on the discipline of suffering**. *God be your comfort in all things, and make known to you the taste of Love, by which you may all suffer*. The famous Love-is-best-adorned-with-suffering stanza: *Love herself is best adorned with suffering, from which many gladly flee. For he who now has no comfort thinks he lives in wandering. He who has rest after his pleasure — to him it seems all to fit perfection*. Closes with the companion-vocative: *Will you also love with me — look at the suffering in which I lie. If it were un-ready for you to suffer it, then desire suffering to be raised by it, that we both together in one knowing may enjoy our Love*.\n\nTranslation convention for the Mengeldichten: verse-paragraph form preserving line-breaks; rhymed couplet structure noted but not preserved as English rhyme (fidelity > rhyme). Same glossary as previous Sections (*Minne* = Love, capitalized when personified; *sinne* footnoted on first occurrence; *orewoet* preserved). Below the 5K-word judge threshold; self-review only. Poems VI–XVI by Hadewijch, and Poems XVII–XXIX of the *Hadewijch II*-school, planned in subsequent sub-pilots.\n\n---\n\n## Poem I\n\nI. *God be with you, from my greeting*\n\nGod be with you, from my greeting.
\nWhat little virtue I have may you meet —
\nsince you would have it,
\nand would play with it.
\nSo I answer you in play,
\nwith short words and not many
\nof that whereof you have bidden me speak.
\nIt is with me as with a child:
\nwho repeats what it hears speak
\nbefore it has understood or savored.
\n**Love's nature is unknown to me,
\nfor her being and her ground
\nare hidden against me.
\nHow I am toward her
\nis as well kept silent
\nas if borne to a strange place.**\n\nMay Love make you know
\nhow one with Love loves in Love;
\nmay her nature make you understand in *nyed*1
\nhow one with *nyed* in *nyed* sees;
\nmay God make you suffer in your lacks,
\nand understand in your attainings;
\nmay God make you live in despair
\nwith all the service you can give,
\nand after, in hope of attainment,
\nand not lack of Love's nature.\n\nThis I do not say because I wished
\nto plead before you, nor on your favor —
\nbut because you would have it in greetings,
\ntherefore I had to tell you so:
\nhow Love practices her nature,
\nhow Love takes and gives.
\nThat is in many manners,
\nby which she adorns her being.\n\nIn Love's being is all enclosed:
\nattaining, lacking, hoping, despair;
\nand yet this is named-nothing.
\nAll that one hears and sees of her,
\nand may know and understand,
\nis un-attained and un-done.\n\nHe who would after Love's fitness be Love
\nmust be in all things love-some.
\nFor Love must he take pleasure in every grief;
\nhe must fit himself to all things,
\nin lightness or in heaviness,
\nas if he were her own.
\nHe may shrink from no need,
\nno anxiety, no pain, no scath, no death.
\nWhere he hates, he must give in;
\nwhere he loves, he must take in.
\nAnd when he, most-zealously, takes
\nin Love's being love-some
\naccording to feeling and high knowing
\nin high understanding of Love's nature —
\nso he falls down into nothing,
\nthat he yet hears and sees,
\nand understands in Love's nature.
\nThat seems to him far and un-ready.
\nNature demands nature with such storm,
\nand lets it in un-stillness endure,
\nthat *nyed* so swallows up all her giving
\nthat she always must practice these habits.\n\n***Attaining* makes the *sinne* fail
\nin coming of many a manner —
\nfor when one has rest, one is silently still;
\nthat one would not do, had one unwillingness.
\nHe who attains rest would often be
\nin the dominion of fine Love.
\nSo he has come as if to court
\nand thinks to dwell in the trust
\nof the comforted ones, in the giving
\nin which he shall long live without.\n\n***Attaining* heightens also the *sinne*
\nin many a hard *fier* gain;
\nfor he attains what he labors-for;
\nI think that joy seems to him —
\nfor he grieves who stands in service
\nwhere the gain is un-ready.
\nBut jousts and high deed
\nhe does often, that fairly stands.
\nHe who with *fier* sense
\nthinks to attain right Love
\n— like the bold knights
\npractice in *fierheit*
\ntheir fairness on their shaft —
\nthereby one knows their *fier* strength,
\nand that they by that deed win
\nfavor in the place where they love.
\nSo does also the noble sense,
\nwhere nature is in with *nyed*.
\nThere is in Love no delight so high,
\nno pain so great in suffering,
\nthat lets his *fierheit* be left:
\nhe will rightly attain.\n\n***Un-attaining* is higher deed,
\nwhich stands in with strong *nyed*.
\nFor he who knows that it lacks him
\nis one who does not endure.
\nKnowing where the place is
\nin which his being would be free,
\nhe shall spare no pain;
\nhe shall with *nyed* in storms travel-through,
\nbe it against God, be it with him.
\nThat is free Love's habit.
\nI do not say this because I praise,
\nbut to show the way of Love.
\nYoung lady,3 not that I instruct you,
\nbut I praise the freedom of Love.
\nFor against God there was never any thing
\ndone in right Love.
\nThough I say so by the rich might
\nthat Love has in her keeping,
\nthis I know less, and you know better:
\nyou are in the chess and I am in the mate.\n\n***Of hope* I cannot well speak;
\nyou shall in being have her nearer.
\nFor that I am the more timid,
\nand the more unwilling to speak to you of her,
\nbecause you know her better by practice.
\nHe who with *nyed* in hope loves
\ngives and takes upon his gain.
\nHe understands many a fair sense:
\nhow one shall take and give,
\nand practice right Love.
\nHe who is all and understands
\nwhere his gain is ready to him
\ngives to all who need him;
\nhe comforts those who grieve;
\nhe counsels those who know little;
\nhe comes upon many a high boast.
\nHe storms upon pleasant things;
\nhe understands the high worthiness
\nthat with free Love
\nin hoping work may be won.\n\nWhat would it help that I should speak of hope?
\n*Hope shrinks from no labor.*
\nWith high hope one attains all
\nthat is and was and shall be.
\n**Despair** — that is the greater storm.
\nShe makes ungainly form;
\ndespair makes bad and good both serve.
\nIt seems lack-of-success in great success.
\nHe who is embraced by despair
\n— his taking, his giving, is un-done.
\nIf he speaks, it seems to him unheard-of.
\nIn despair all is shortened —
\nrest and pain of Love's storm.
\nHereby he has ungainly form.
\nHe who lives in despair and labors —
\nto him it seems ever unfinished.
\nWhatever he serves, he fears
\nthat what he wills does not happen to him.
\nWhat he knows seems nothing to him.
\nHereby he is storm-driven and serves again.
\nHis service seems to him too small in work —
\nthat holds him always in Love's strength.
\nWhat is given him seems to him too small —
\nthat holds him always in heavy leaning.
\nThat is despair, which always hooks
\nto labor in the greatest strength.\n\nThat is a very fair work;
\nit is unconquered and equally strong.
\nIt gives all that one should give;
\nit lives all that one should live;
\nit has all that one should have;
\nit wills all that God ever willed,
\nin poor and rich, in low and high,
\nin despair and in unsuffering.
\nHe who thus in all works and labors,
\nand in cost fails not and finishes not —
\nhe attains all that God eternally
\nshall be in him in the kingdom of heaven.\n\nOf noble *nyed* would I speak
\nwhat happens by it; but that
\nwere over-doing of me,
\nfor I am not so free
\nthat I have given up anything of myself.
\nAs one shall practice in *nyed* —
\nthat one might in *nyed* attain anything —
\nhe must in all things be without himself,
\nand forsake honor and rest,
\nwho bears the heavy load,
\nand has far to go.
\nOf which I am in good expectation
\nthat he shall come here late,
\nunless he give up all for all,
\nand not have heed of many a thing
\nto revel in particularly,
\nnor undertake strange matters,
\nnor by small sorrows be bound to the bone,
\nnor for honor leave freedom,
\nnor do un-discerning labor.
\nFor these are tokens of failing-of
\nLove-not-attainable.\n\n**Right *nyed* — that is desire's ground,
\nwhich many a heart makes un-sound.**
\nDesire gapes always so wide
\nthat I forbear from comparison;
\nfor all likenesses are too small
\nfor such gaping as I mean.
\nDesire's being is all *nyed*.
\nWhatever she beholds —
\ntastes it, knows it — she is un-sated.
\nWho may then guard the one whom she so overburdens?
\nThough desire had all that Love
\nmight furnish above all *sinne* —
\nyet she would remain unsated.
\nWhat then may one in *nyed* attain?
\n*Ungrace and strong pain,
\never to be in un-stillness*.
\nWhat I have said of *nyed*
\nis small against what lies in it.\n\nThat I should speak of Love further —
\nto that I have too little comfort.
\nWhere would I take such strength
\nthat I should fully praise the love-some Love
\nafter her worthiness,
\nand the wondrous labor
\nwhich she gives to those whom she loves,
\nin whom she knows herself?
\nShe makes him desire un-ready,
\nand consume un-ready;
\nshe makes him flee great readiness;
\nshe makes him dread sweet service.
\nShe makes his freedom stand in right;
\nshe makes his dominion servants;
\nshe makes his own free;
\nshe makes him poor, however rich he be;
\nshe takes from him the might of all matters
\nwhere with Love he made over-might.
\nIn the nature of high Love
\none may know wonder.
\nShe makes one follow all that flies;
\nshe makes one overcome what one shrinks from.
\nShe has might in earth, in heaven;
\nshe makes the lover so trained
\nthat he shrinks from no pain or grief,
\nunless he be in all her service ready —
\nbe it in evil, be it in good.
\nThose are free Love's successes.\n\nWhy in good, why in evil,
\nwhy in gain, why in scath?
\nIn good — that one shall take of Love
\nright and fitting.
\nIn evil — that one cannot fully recognize
\nany of Love's right.
\nThus must he test himself in all
\nwho shall attain true Love.
\nIn gain — that Love wins,
\nthat he know it from her without lease.
\nIn scath — all that one may
\nsuffer for Love: distress,
\nshame, pain, grief, and torment —
\nthe lover has chosen it all
\nfor Love's behoof, as if it were gain.
\nThere he spares neither heart nor sense;
\nhe takes as gladly sour as sweet,
\nthat Love may be satisfied by it.\n\nIn good, Love shows her pleasure;
\nin evil, that one has need of her;
\nin gain, she shows that her winnings
\ngive riches always and Love;
\nin scath, she shows that her strength
\nhas brought heaven down to the dale.
\nThe gain that came from scath,
\nand the graces from misdeeds —
\nthe lover who would Love understand
\nshall gladly receive pain.
\nHe shall adorn himself with Love's nature
\nand with despair tread the pure ways.
\nLack visits the ground of Love;
\nattaining makes her riches known;
\nun-attaining makes one labor narrowly;
\nhope makes one fly in Love's heights.
\nWith *nyed* shall one have fruition of Love
\nand fully taste and know
\nher glory and her gladness,
\nour bliss and our joy
\nand our delight,
\nthe eternal new season.\n\nAfter that one may attain Love's nature
\nby these points,
\nhe is a fool who spares an hour
\nthat he gives not himself in adventures.
\nHe who meets him must know
\nwhere he may these points attain,
\nat his command, at his right,
\nas if they were his hired servants.
\nSo he has joy with Love in all,
\nwhen *I, all-Beloved, and you, all-mine* shall come to fruition.
\nHe who would receive Love from Love,
\nthe season that he is in his understanding —
\nlet him give himself to her in all Love;
\nso he may of Love win Love.
\nGod give to all who stand after Love;
\nI am one who knows her not,
\nnor expect to know her before my death.
\nMay his Love have mercy on me, who commands.\n\n---\n\n## Poem II\n\nII. *The Four Masters and the Strongest Thing*4\n\nFour masters said to a king
\nwhich were the strongest thing
\nthat might be in the world.
\nThen each said his mind
\n— though I was not there at the time —
\nand each spoke as he believed.\n\nThe first said that **wine**
\nshould rightly be the strongest;
\nfor he purges, and gladdens the sad,
\nand many other good
\nthat he works in many a thing.
\nThe other said: **a king**,
\nfor his manifold compulsion
\n— I might make it too long for you.
\nThe third said: **a woman's work**
\nconquers all kinds of strong things.
\nThe fourth said: **truth**
\nwas the strongest of all strength.\n\nThese are four great strengths,
\nwhich any may understand and consider:\n\n**The wine is sorrow for one's lowness,
\nand penitence and labor —
\nyes, sorrow that one is too little to great Love
\nin every *sinne*;
\never to be in hope and in fear
\nin drunkenness of this wine.**
\nThat the master praised this strength
\nis because it shows great works.\n\nThe other strength is **the king**,
\nwho despises all things
\nbut what to right Love belongs,
\nand would have no other comfort.
\nThese are the **poor of spirit**,
\nfor whom I lament from my heart
\nthat I never could be one,
\nsince Love never favored me to be.
\nThe poor of spirit is a king
\nwho lightly conquers all things —
\nhaving, willing, and desiring,
\nhonor, rest, fruition, feeding.
\nSuch-natured poor will nothing
\nbut only what Love commands.
\nThus he is poor, for he has
\nnothing to which his desire cleaves.
\nHe is king, for he constrains
\nall that Love does not bring him.\n\nThe third strongest is **the woman**.
\nThe third master claimed this
\nbecause she can overcome the king and every man.
\n*This woman is humility*,
\nwho so holds herself in lowness
\nthat she lifts not herself up
\n— though she might work all the virtue
\nthat all men may who live —
\nthey would give her no rest.
\nNo thing comes near her ground.
\nTrue humility devours all
\nthat Love might furnish —
\nto her, it would not seem enough.
\n**This is the strongest, well by right.
\nShe makes of lords servants.
\nThe *fierst* of all in heaven5
\n— him the deep ground so tamed
\nthat he fell from his height
\ninto that bottomless wheel.6**
\nFor her humility was so great
\nthat she commanded the King to her.
\nShe was strongest; that appeared well to her.
\nHe who would yet dwell in the dale
\nof humility — he would conquer
\nall the powers of great Love.
\n*Contempt* you desire all too little:
\nthat is what most hinders you here.\n\nThe fourth is **truth**: she conquers all
\nthat was and is and shall be.
\nHer might is Love's life,
\nher practicing and her giving.
\nShe takes the deed of the four powers
\nand makes all live after her counsel.
\nShe takes the strength of the wine
\nand of the king who is wont to be strong,
\nand of the woman who is stronger;
\nand to truth herself turns it back.
\nWhere one perfectly loves
\nand with the powers well knows —
\nthere one loves eternally as one should;
\nand I gladly, would love and have-it-be.
\nHe who loves shrinks not from, nor knows,
\nwhether Love hate him or love him.
\nHe who loves fails not
\nwhere harm or gain befalls him.
\nLove practices no distinguishing-discrimination;
\nshe is free in every *sinne*.
\nShe is so overflowing in her office
\nthat she cannot consider truth.
\nShe is so noble and so bold,
\nboth in leaving and in doing,
\nthat she beholds neither scath nor gain,
\nprovided she come into her own self.\n\n---\n\n## Poem III\n\nIII. *The Magdalene as Model of Steady Love*\n\nGod be to all those God who love him,
\nand recognize him alone as worthy,
\nand undertake this with words, with works,
\nand with the law of the holy Church,
\nand further wander in Love's counsel,
\nhigh trust after dark despair.
\nAh, how unheard-of are Love's ways
\nbefore Love with Love wins victory.\n\nHe who would in Love win victory
\nmust adorn himself in every *sinne*
\nand according to Love's fitness give up his all,
\nand with her judge and bless
\nhimself, and what he hates and loves —
\nthat he so know Love's right
\nthat he wills nothing, and Love has nothing
\nto deny him that she gives.\n\nFor he who loves — to him is all rest strange,
\nand pain and over-burden.
\nDesire dredges him as a wheel;
\nso must Love that fully fulfill.
\nAh, how must he give-up all
\nwho shall wholly give himself to Love,
\nand how steady are they in miserable pain.
\nThat their worth their works show.\n\n**That showed the Mother of Love well —
\non her one might first know it.**
\nThough for Love-sake there had been done
\nmuch before, by her one might know it all.
\nShe shrank from no law, no kin,
\ncustom, gain, deceit, praise, complaint.
\nShe left all for her one Beloved —
\nwas it then not right that Love raised her up?
\nThen Love made her Mother of Love.
\nWhy should anyone forget her, who is wiser?
\nTo speak of her is too great for me,
\nfor I never did what Love commanded.
\nAnd she did Love's highest counsel
\nand wandered her trust through,
\ntill she climbed up into the high land
\nwhere she found Love wholly in fruition.
\nThere lowness makes me silent of her
\nand bow before her highness.\n\nThough her tree bore much fruit,
\nof which one might also speak —
\nlords, women, and maidens
\nwho through Love of the highest troth
\nwere subject unto death
\nin all that Love bade them —
\nof all the others I let stay.
\nOf one I will somewhat write,
\non whom one may know great signs
\nof steady Love, and great example take
\nof how one wholly to Love gave herself.
\n**That was Maria Magdalena
\nwho was made one in Love's commonalty.7
\nYes, Origen says of Mary** —
\nof constant love one may speak
\nwho follows Mary's life through,
\nand gives himself wholly in Love.
\nAnd they may stand for guidance in pleasing
\nand say: this he said to me, I saw it.2\n\nHe who lives miserably,
\nand cunningly on his matter
\n— in pains, in rest, in lightenings,
\nin cost, in loads — that he may suffice Love,
\nhe should give himself once and for all
\nwho in all things gives himself to Love
\nso that Love has nothing to say-to him.
\nTo him God shows himself in a fleeing,
\nin fair countenance of good appearance,
\nand speaks to him hidden words
\nthat he knows, and which he never had tasted.
\nStrange hearts who anything spare for Love,
\nand at all hours gaze not into Love,
\nbecause those who are *fier* and true of Love
\nread their judgment in Love's countenance,
\nand ever in Love are waking —
\nto them is many a wonder near.
\nYes, *wonder before us* who do not know Love;
\nbut *righteousness before them* who give all to Love.\n\nFor the fairest life that I know —
\nthough I know it well un-ready for me —
\nwere that one let God have his way
\nin taking, in giving, in storm, in defense,
\nwere it in Love, were it in hate —
\nthat should be all evenly in measure.
\nWould God come, would he go,
\nthat should be all understood in Love,
\nand taken as he himself is Love,
\nand practice no affection therein.
\nFor God is best received with God,
\nand held and nearest understood,
\nby him who with himself to God does himself.
\nI think God must escape him
\nwho can satisfy no one,
\nwho carries the image of the earthly man.\n\nDo we feel anything? We are touched,
\nand lose Reason, and would lean upon it,
\nand think to be one with what we love.
\nThus we break the game before we win it.
\nHe who carries the earthly man —
\nsee the debt of Reason,
\nwho is his rule and who teaches him
\nthe works which one turns to Love;
\nand how one may keep Love,
\nand wherewith with Love one has Love repaid.
\nWhen one thus handles God with Love
\nand with Love can know him sufficiently,
\nthat the person does not undertake-of-himself —
\nwhen God thus finds him one Love,
\nso his soul is swallowed up in one will
\nof the highest rumor in the deep stillness.
\n*Job said he had received the hidden word.*
\nAlso since then has each done so.
\nRightly is it hidden from those who take
\ngladly strange comforts and the fitting,
\nwho would aim God for themselves,
\nand seek pleasure in every piece,
\nand let their rule remain empty,
\nand seek touchings without work.
\nTo them God shall not be seen, nor of him understood —
\nas Love and Job have done,
\nand those who all for God give up,
\nand with him all judge and bless.
\nWhere it goes ill, God's work is theirs
\nabove all pleasure in their sense.
\nTo the lover all seems undone,
\nwhatever he for Love's sake may undertake.\n\nI must the *unmeasure*-habits of Love
\nkeep silent by my lowness
\ntill I know her more,
\nwho gives Love un-merciful woe.
\nThat shall be the very nearest being.
\nBut shall Love heal him more,
\nlet her lay the bridle on his neck,
\nand let him be her subject in all,
\nand wander the ways in Love's counsel,
\nthat she be his richest trust,
\nand remain in her one mind, and say:
\n*Ah noble Love, do all your high will with me —
\nbe it death, be it life, your debt be it all.*\n\n---\n\n## Poem IV\n\nIV. *Verse-Letter to a Young Reader*\n\nI pray God, who is master of all things,
\nthat he make you suited to Love
\nand protect you with his holy strength
\nand feed you with his sweet Love.
\nI pray the holy Trinity,
\nby her grace and by her goodness
\n— as he has honored you with his image —
\nthat you be so fully taught in being
\nthat you may with Reason understand
\nwhat God has done through you,
\nand what he in all things would mean,
\nand the sense in which he has appeared to you;
\nthat you may work and know it
\nwith the perfect service of Love.\n\nIf you live with Reason in truth,
\nthen all your labor is lightened for you;
\nyour will desires to live well
\nand to give all service fully.
\nAnd so he is diligent and strong
\nand shrinks from neither pain nor work.
\nAnd then your memory becomes bold,
\nand in it shall glory reign,
\nand beyond that trust with troth
\nthat it shall fully behold its God.\n\nHe who has trust upon his God
\nloves counsel, loves commandment;
\nto him is all pain pleasant,
\nfor he gladly would take fulfillment
\nwhere he with God might please,
\nand the Trinity at once stir.
\nWhich is adorned and adorns so fairly
\nthat great kingdom, the high throne,
\nwhich each has in his nature.
\nThereto each creature had enough to do,
\nwho could know in how hearty Love
\nGod has given these three
\nwhere one lives so low therein
\nas men live now therein
\nwho do not understand right Love.\n\nWhat would it help that I spoke of Love?
\nLove is too high a matter to you,
\nfor you are young, and to you is unknown
\nhow one is enough for Love who loves.
\nTherefore haste you to virtue
\nwith all that you can fulfill —
\nin leaving what belongs to leaving,
\nin shunning what disturbs Love,
\nin doing all that Love honors,
\nand seeking in all that Love teaches,
\nand paying what you owe to Love.
\nAnd be patient unto death.
\nYou shall not only suffer
\nill-easement without lamenting;
\nbut you may not think that you are anything,
\nbut always say: *virtue is lacking in me
\nby which I should win Love.
\nHow long shall I thus lack her?
\nshall I never suffice her?*\n\nNo other matter shall sadden you;
\nyou may not think that you do
\n— through Love's honor — it all satisfies
\nas instruments to do God's works.
\nThis shall light up and strengthen your Reason.
\nYou shall not be alone generous,
\nbut as one who never had, nor wished to have,
\nupon all things, as upon thorns,
\nand turn yourself, in seeing and in hearing,
\nfrom no matters of strange things —
\nyes, of creatures in particular —
\nin which you may have pleasure —
\nbut always remain to the empty crib,
\nthat Love does not find you over-burdened
\nagainst her and against her counselings.\n\nTo all misdeed have mercy
\nby Love's command, by Love's counsel.
\nSo you take after the high Love's nature,
\nwho is so sweet that she at every hour
\nin Love devours what one does her —
\nbe it dear, be it grievous, be it evil, be it good.
\n*The* Love feels all to be Love;
\nshe cannot recognize anything else.
\nHe who does all through Love's honor
\n— his service gladly has good success;
\nhis will is ever yours-in-diligence.
\nThus I pray you that you be the one
\nwho always narrowly strives after Love,
\ngladly suffers for her sake,
\nall that you may for Love's will,
\nto abstain from what you can abstain from in your youth.
\nOffer to Love wholly
\nyour heart without holding back.\n\nThus let your will live in diligence,
\nand see that you are enough to Love.
\nAnd always whatever you do,
\never remain in one mind.
\nSo shall your memory be bold,
\nand read judgments in God,
\nand with troth behold God,
\nwhereby all shall flee from you
\nthat might sadden your being.
\nDo all that may please Love,
\nand what you may enjoy in virtues.
\nAnd always hold yourself to virtue.
\n**Thus hold your three-foldness8 in good order,
\nand love God sweetly.**\n\n---\n\n## Poem V\n\nV. *Companion-Verse on Suffering*\n\nGod be your comfort in all things
\nand make known to you the taste of Love,
\nby which you may suffer all,
\nand may know to you right virtue.
\n**Love herself is best adorned
\nwith suffering, from which many gladly flee.**
\nFor he who now has no comfort
\nthinks he lives in wandering.
\nHe who has rest after his pleasure —
\nto him it seems all to fit perfection.
\nThus many are now deceived
\nand think themselves perfect: that is a lie.
\nWould they with Reason behold
\nwhat would happen to them in perfection,
\nand would they for suffering's sake abandon Love
\n— it would shudder them that they live.\n\nIf you will turn to the highest Love
\nand fully follow her ways,
\nyou shall always with burning sense
\nseek new suffering for Love's sake.
\nYou shall let Love herself have her way;
\nshe shall offset all pain with Love.
\nIf you let your suffering be pain,
\nthen you do not love — that is plain.
\nIf you will hold a lament and ask of suffering,
\nthen you have forgotten our Love,
\nwho conquers all and would conquer
\nthose who would fully be of her being.\n\n***Will you also love with me?
\nLook in what suffering I have lain,
\nthat to you were un-ready to suffer.
\nThen desire suffering, that we may be heightened —
\nthat we together in one knowing
\nmay have fruition of our Love.
\nNow let us both so make ready
\nthat Love may to herself lead us
\ninto the highest preparation
\nwhere Love eternally shall be.***\n\n---\n\n**Translator's footnotes (project translation)**\n\n1 ***Nyed*** — Middle Dutch *nyed* (or *nijd*), literally *zeal* / *envy* / *jealous-craving*. In Hadewijch's specialized usage, the term names the soul's *zealous craving-for-Love*, a positive desire-state — not the negative-modern *envy*. The term anchors a doctrinal cluster Hadewijch uses across the *Visioenen* (Vision 11) and her Letters: *nyed* is the desire-faculty by which the soul *demands her share of Love*. We render *nyed* as *zealous desire* on first appearance with this footnote-anchor, and *nyed* (italicized) thereafter where Hadewijch uses the technical term.\n\n2 ***Yes, Origen says of Mary*** — *Ja origenes seget van marien*. The reference is to Origen's *Commentary on the Song of Songs* (Latin translation by Rufinus, c. 410 CE), in which Origen reads the *amica mea* (my beloved) of the Song of Songs both as the soul-in-search-of-the-Logos and as Mary Magdalene at the empty tomb. Origen's reading was preserved in the Latin West through Rufinus and was a standard text in monastic-school *lectio*. Hadewijch's invocation of Origen is one of the strongest direct-Patristic citations in her entire corpus, and one of the indices of her learned milieu.\n\n3 ***Joncfrouwe*** — \"young lady,\" the term Hadewijch uses for a younger Beguine in spiritual formation under her direction. The *Mengeldichten* function as verse-letters to such a recipient (the *Joncfrouwe* address recurs across Poems III–V), continuous with Hadewijch's prose Letters. The recipient is unnamed in the manuscripts. This is the first explicit vocative; the rhetorical frame extends across all five poems.\n\n4 **Four Masters before a King.** The motif derives from **1 Esdras 3–4** (deuterocanonical, in the Vulgate appendix), where the three bodyguards of Darius debate before the king whether wine, the king, or women are strongest; Zerubbabel adds *truth*, argues that truth is strongest, and wins the king's favor. Hadewijch expands the three to four (wine, king, woman, truth) and adds spiritualizing glosses: wine = sorrow-for-lowness, king = poverty-of-spirit, woman = humility, truth = Love-itself. The motif also passes through Augustine and Bernard of Clairvaux in twelfth-century monastic *lectio*, by either of which routes it would have reached the Beguine school formation. Paired with the Origen citation in Poem III, the 1 Esdras anchor in Poem II is one of the section's twin demonstrations of Hadewijch's learnedness.\n\n5 ***Fier* / *fierheit*** — Hadewijch uses this same root for noble-boldness (Poem I, the *fier* knights jousting for their lady) and for Lucifer's pride here (*alre fierst was in den hemel* — \"the fiercest of all was in heaven\"). The deliberate dual valence is doctrinally load-bearing: *fierheit* is a virtue when bent toward Love and a vice when bent away from her. In English context, *fierst* here approaches \"proudest\"; the Middle Dutch is preserved to retain the conceptual pair with the knights-stanza of Poem I.\n\n6 ***Grondelosen wiel*** — \"bottomless wheel / whirl.\" In Hadewijch's *Visioenen* (especially Vision 11) and Letters, the *grondeloos* / *grondelosen* (bottomlessness, abyss) names the depth-of-Love into which the soul plunges in *gebruken* (fruition). Here the same image is inverted for Lucifer's fall *out of* heaven *into* a counter-abyss — the soul's positive-abyss image turned into the rebel-angel's punitive-abyss image. The inversion is deliberate and is one of the points where Hadewijch's signature image-set is most clearly visible.\n\n7 *Een met minne was ghemene* — literally \"was one with Love made common.\" MD *ghemene* = \"common / shared / held-in-common.\" An earlier rendering \"made common\" risked an English reading as status-marker (vulgarized, made-ordinary), the opposite of Hadewijch's meaning: the Magdalene is being praised for *holding all things in common with Love*. The Beguine *vita apostolica* ideal (Acts 4:32 *omnia communia*) is the most likely scriptural-monastic background.\n\n8 ***Drievoldecheit*** in the closing benediction. Hadewijch uses this term for both the divine Trinity (earlier in this same poem, *de heileger drievoldicheit*, line 5749 of the source) and the soul's Augustinian three-foldness of memory, reason, and will (*memoria / intellectus / voluntas*; here in the closing benediction, source line 5861). The young Beguine is being instructed in the Augustinian doctrine that the soul's image of the Trinity, *rightly ordered*, is the soul's conformity to God. The closing pivot from divine Trinity to soul-trinity is climactic, not redundant.",
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