{ "meta": { "schema_version": "1.1", "endpoint": "/api/sources/beguine-mystics/hadewijch-mengeldichten/vol-3-01-poems-11-16.json" }, "work": { "slug": "hadewijch-mengeldichten", "name": "The Mengeldichten (Mixed Poems) of Hadewijch" }, "parents": [ { "slug": "beguine-mystics", "name": "Beguine Mystics", "url": "/sources/beguine-mystics/" } ], "chapter": { "num": 3, "slug": "vol-3-01-poems-11-16", "title": "Section III", "of": 6, "words": 5585, "text": "## Section III\n\n**The closing section of the Hadewijch-authentic *Mengeldichten*** (Poems XI–XVI). Poems XVII–XXIX, traditionally attributed to a later \"Hadewijch II\" in the school tradition, will be a separate project (and will be transparently marked as such).\n\nSix poems of unusual variety and weight close out Hadewijch's authentic *Mengeldichten* corpus:\n\n- **Poem XI** — the long doctrinal verse on the **noble-infidelity** (*edele ontrouwe*) — Hadewijch's most-cited *Mengeldichten*-doctrine. *He who stands after particular knowing lacks one point of right Love*. The soul who *falls in un-rest of noble infidelity, which is stronger and higher than troth*. *Troth that one may content with Reason and please with sense* lets herself often be satisfied with what infidelity will not — *noble infidelity may not rest before she has attained the very best*.\n- **Poem XII** — short advisory verse-letter. The famous **inverted-counsel quatrain**: *When you would gladly speak, then be silent; when you would gladly sleep, then wake; when you would gladly be silent, then speak — and let no one fail of you*. *In all your habits be in measure, in your doing and in your leaving*. The doctrinal-pause stanza on *self-will* and *being led by the Spirit*.\n- **Poem XIII** — *In God, who is our Love*. The famous **Psalm 45 echo**: *Audi, filia* — *Hear, daughter; if you are daughter, then obey the Father*; *the King desires your beauty* (*concupiscet rex decorem tuum*, Ps 45:12). Closes: *The time is short; here is much to do. Be fier toward Love and bold*.\n- **Poem XIV** — the famous **antiphonal-paradoxes Song**. Twenty-three paired antitheses about Love's contraries: *Her sweetest are her storms; her deepest abyss is her fairest form. To wander-lost in her is to come near; to be hungered toward her is feeding and tasting...* All Love's apparently-cruel modes are revealed as her gracious other-side. Closes with the autobiographical: *Her false threats, her false promises — by them I am no more deceived; I will be her being all that she is — whether good or fell, it is all one to me*.\n- **Poem XV** — the long doctrinal **Nine-Months Conception of Love** — a sustained Marian-pregnancy metaphor in which the soul becomes-Mary, conceives Love in her, and *carries Love nine months* before the Christological birth. The nine months are unfolded as nine virtues: **faithful Fear** (the first month — making profession in God, *ecce ancilla Domini*); **gladly-suffered patience** (the second month); **the third month** — exercise that increases the count; **sweet Nature** (the fourth month); **hidden practice** (the fifth month); **Trust** (the sixth month); **Righteousness** (the seventh month); **Wisdom of Love** (the eighth month); and **the ninth month, when Wisdom swallows up all that she loves**. *Then the mighty time of Love comes, and storms at every hour upon Wisdom. The child is borne forth: humility has its fitness wherewith she with herself is enough. Between the two of them the child is full-carried, that lay in great rest, in the deepest of humility in the highest of Love*. Closes with the seven-days-per-week as the seven gifts of the Spirit, and the *measure-for-measure* doctrine — *he must measure to them with the same measure with which they measure him*.\n- **Poem XVI** — the famous **closing sound-play poem**. Seven short stanzas of unusual lyrical intensity, ending with one of the most musically dense passages in all medieval Dutch literature: *Ay lief hebbic lief een lief / Sidi lief mijn lief / Die lief gavet om lief / Daer lief lief met her hief / Ay minne ware ic minne / Ende met minne minne u minne / Ay minne om minne ghevet dat minne / De minne al minne volkinne*.\n\nSame conventions as Sections I–II. Below the 5K-word judge threshold; self-review only. **With the shipping of Section III, the Hadewijch-authentic *Mengeldichten* (Poems I–XVI) are now COMPLETE at approximately 11K English words across three sections.**\n\n---\n\n## Poem XI\n\nXI. *The Noble-Infidelity Doctrine*\n\nHe who stands after particular knowing
\n— him lacks one point of right Love.
\nSuch knowing one asks often too early,
\nand that is not enough;
\nfor it seems self-will,
\nand not from the Spirit a leading.
\nFor were it a leading-from-the-Spirit,
\nGod would very quickly bring it to pass.
\nAnd that is too childishly loved,
\nthat one wills many singularities
\nand chooses to be in delight.
\nThat is failing-of high living.\n\n**One shall, neither for feeling nor for knowing,
\nserve any thing but to love
\nwith Love in Love.
\nThat one not shrink from hell,
\nnor of heaven's hope make any deed.
\nThat one for hell and for heaven
\nwere evenly glad and evenly serious.
\nAnd that one love without satiety
\nand desire above measure
\nand above Reason and above sense
\n— that were great gain in Love.**\n\nWhen one takes, one should give;
\nand what Love demands, one should live.
\nWhen the judgment is given to the soul,
\nthen she knows that she lives in Love;
\nand when she feels miserableness,
\nthen she may know Love's manners.
\nAll that she may then attain
\nshall Love command of her and demand.
\nIf she lives so enough toward Love
\n— that is well Love's fitting.\n\nOne must practice her with heart and *sinne*7
\nand follow with troth and with Love.
\nYet — though one knows nothing of Love —
\none loses, as one may know,
\nheart and powers and all the *sinne*,
\nand Love has bound the will.
\nAnd to the person one must give so much
\nthat one is plagued in this life.
\nWith the miserable one suffers need;
\nwith the slain, death;
\nwith the bound, painfulness;
\nand with the lovers, heartiness.\n\nHe who would in Love's service stand for Love's sake
\nmust receive many an unrest.
\nThe nearness of Love's nature
\ntakes from the soul her enduring.
\nThe more she comes, the more she steals;
\nthe more she shows, the more she hides.
\nHe who shall with Love by Love stand-fast
\n— let him, while living, undergo death,
\nthat in Love nothing might be kept from him
\nwhich he with labor might attain.
\nThe nature that conquers all powers
\n— death gives and takes life;
\nshe is so strong in her work,
\nshe fears nothing — she is so bold.
\nIn her is all the power of God;
\nLove's being is at her command.
\n**Where Love with Love in Love is
\n— that is a bottomless abyss
\nwherein they all must drown
\nwho let themselves sink into her.
\nAnd those who follow her in her nature
\n— to them she gives an un-stilled-enduring.**\n\nLove springs out of her own nature
\nand makes the hearts in Love stir.
\nThose who follow the power of drawing Love
\nshall know the nobility she has within;
\nthat no one may to another tell,
\nnor write, nor spell —
\nhe who Love with Love has loved,
\nwhat wonders he finds in the height.
\nYet may Love's desires
\nwith all of this not be stilled.
\nShe rights herself in all above her having;
\nLove lets herself have no rest.
\nWere all the suffering together —
\nthat ever was, and is, and shall be —
\nthey could not so much win
\nas the desire of right Love.
\nShe grips at suffering above measure
\nand at working what Love wills to leave her.
\nShe receives in unrest and in restlessness
\n— Love lets her not endure —
\nshe falls in un-rest of ***edele ontrouwe* — noble infidelity** —1
\nwhich is stronger and higher than from troth.
\n**Troth** which one may content with Reason
\nand please with sense
\nlets herself often be satisfied
\nwith what infidelity will not.
\nTroth must often miss what infidelity may attain.
\n*Noble infidelity may not rest
\nbefore she has attained the very best.
\nAll that Love is, she wills to attain
\n— and it may not fail her.
\nOf this she feels many a sour-thing
\nthat Love might better in a short hour.
\nShe bears it as it came from infidelity,
\nthough she well knows it comes from troth.*
\nFrom desire of impatient Love
\nshe may win no rest;
\nand from desire of the strong Love
\nshe loses rest and enduring within.
\nThe higher she sinks in Love,
\nthe more un-ready she finds her desire.\n\nFor one in miseries cannot find enough,
\nnor can desire be filled.
\nFor she comes from so high a nature,
\nshe cannot endure in any small thing.
\nLove flees and desire follows after,
\nand ever finds un-ready standing there.
\nThe height cannot attain
\nthat Love herself is; that must escape her.
\nCould the soul know the nature
\nin which she is loved by God with Love,
\nthen she would faint in great longing
\nand altogether in pleasures flow.
\nThat were too great rest in troth.
\nHe who loves must suffer much sorrow.\n\nHe who would stand in troth's service
\nand would receive troth-of-troth
\nand would live in high troth,
\nand in her service take and give
\naccording to her right — be he free and strong and bold —
\nalways to do her dearest will:
\nif he spares honor or ease for it,
\nhe is the friend who failed in need.\n\n---\n\n## Poem XII\n\nXII. *When You Would Gladly Speak, Then Be Silent*\n\nGod be with you, and give you all
\nto love what one shall love,
\nand to hate what is to be hated,
\nand to be fitting to all truth.
\nServe the truth where you may,
\nand spare yourself for no virtue
\n— not for comfort nor for honor —
\nfor that gladly suffer many a turning.\n\nTruth has nothing to do with honor;
\nshe is always in herself bold.
\nHold yourself one-only to your nobility,
\nand spare no labor.
\nBe merciful to those who scorn you;
\ncomfort those who grieve themselves.
\nServe Love at every season,
\nand set in her all your diligence.
\nAll storms shall you, for her, bow under;
\nfor her honor shall you be silent.\n\n**When you would gladly speak, then be silent;
\nwhen you would gladly sleep, then wake;
\nwhen you would gladly be silent, then speak —
\nand let no one fail of you.**
\nIn all your habits be in measure,
\nin your doing and your leaving.
\nThe debt that you owe to God
\n— pay gladly at every season,
\nboth in hate and in Love.
\nThis labor yourself to learn to know.\n\nWhat meets you in your sense,
\ntherein mark your scath and your gain.
\nWhether self-will is also Spirit?
\nTherein lies subtlety of all the most.
\nFolk think it to be of the Spirit;
\nled, it is self-will of all the most.
\nThey think also that what condemns them
\nis comfort and comes from God.
\nThese are three subtle things
\nthat fulfill humans most.
\nOf all the points that one practices,
\nthe wisdom that lies in this
\nis unknown and un-understood,
\nfor humans do not receive
\nand will labor for Love's honor.
\nThey make now so many turnings.
\nAnd do not be angry that I speak thus.
\nIt does troth no lack to you.
\nYou know in part how you should live,
\neven though your recklessness leaves you.
\nGod be with you at all seasons,
\nand make in him all your delight.\n\n---\n\n## Poem XIII\n\nXIII. *The King Desires Your Beauty*\n\nIn God who is our Love
\n— as far as I know Love —
\nI would be grieved were he not alone
\nhe whom we love and intend
\nwith such Love as he is.
\nDear heart, so I greet you,
\nand with what I am, without forgetting —
\nyou know it well, all that I let you know —
\nthat Love wills to be practiced where one is to her,
\nand to know what one is to her, then to live free.
\nEver wills she to hear and to test,
\nto gladden and to sadden.
\nThere may Love not be without;
\nshe is ever tempering in wonder.
\nSo sorely disturbed is Love's nature
\nthat she cannot rest one hour
\nunless she practice with her Beloved in sweet Love,
\nor in storm of *sinne*.\n\nGod has done us wonder
\nthat he has undertaken us with Love.
\nAfter that we are made for this
\n— to know how Love with Love tastes —
\nso turn yourself with right virtue
\nto the sweet Love, all that you may,
\nto practice with all good habits,
\nwith sweet *sinne*, with full peace.
\nWake in the bond of right Love,
\nand labor to understand the voice
\nwith which Love herself speaks.
\nSee that you do not fail her.
\nIs Love to you sweet, is she to you cruel —
\nbe at her will at all seasons ready.
\nSo I have ever been wont, and so I understand —
\nit stands also in ***Audi, filia***.2
\nAre you daughter? then obey the Father;
\nbe ready to his service altogether.
\nHenceforth shall you behold God's work
\nand work all that is needful to all those
\nwho have need of you, as he wrought
\nin will, in work, in thought.
\nThereafter he bids one *bow the ears*,
\nwhere one shall hear Love's voice
\n— obedient from without and from within,
\nand to know nothing but the will of Love.
\nWhen one is thus obedient to Love,
\nso one shall forget by this
\nthe folk of strangers and of friends,
\nof those whom we hold-in-mind and of those whom we love;
\nand forget all creatures,
\nto think on the sweetness of Love's nature.\n\nHe bids forget the house of one's father
\n— for here would all altogether be lacking
\nthat all those should be forgotten
\nwho have possessed heaven —
\nangels, saints, here the human.
\nMight one then have the wish
\nthat one by these all forget,
\nand know only of the oneness of Love?
\nWhen you for him will so heed,
\n**the King shall your beauty desire** —
\nfor no beauty in his nature
\nsatisfies him but his pure nature.
\nWhen one cannot think anything else
\nthan him to through-kiss and therein to sink
\n— that is God-like living after God's enough.
\nThose who thus one-only to all of Love give-themselves-up,
\nwhose beauty he desires, and adorns him with it
\nafter his enough, after Love's habit
\n— *those* are God-like, the people say.
\nBut there is some God-likeness that never came-to-be:
\nhis beauty the King does not desire.
\nHave mercy on yourself, that it so seldom happens,
\nand see that the King desire yours.\n\nI think I rage at this:
\nthat he is un-craved and unknown
\nby his own, and unloved;
\nso that he cannot with his nature
\ndo what he in Love foresaw.
\nAh, give over all of yourselves, and demand all,
\nand see what wonder it then shall all work:
\nthe most-fearful wonder that ever was,
\nthe very-first beauty that the King desires,
\nof which he with his whole nature
\nwould enjoy in one enduring,
\nand to encounter the beauty with one beauty,
\nand greet with one only greeting,
\nand to kiss with one only mouth,
\nand to fathom the only grounds,
\nand with one only seeing to see-through all
\nthat is and was and shall be,
\nand that all with one only wisdom understood,
\nand with one only will of one only spirit,
\nand with one only kingdom equally rich,
\nin one form, in one likeness,
\nand in one feeling, in one might with all
\n— that fulfills as he shall yet know.\n\nAh, to me is unknown how that is.
\nTo God and to his beloved-ones may have mercy.
\nOf the service of Love I know counsel;
\nbut when it comes to the dear practice,
\nhow one with Love practices the Beloved
\n— so my knowing is soon told.
\nSo I fare as the blind one is wont to fare,
\nand make from the beginning my ending.
\nWhen Beloved with Beloved goes-into Love's life,
\nthere one should give-back a fair beginning;
\nthere must he end who knows it not
\nand to whom the feeling of Love is un-ready.\n\nNow though the King desires us not,
\nthat to us be woe and sorrow,
\nwe shall gladly *bow the ears*
\nand as one of his children obey,
\nand see and mark and understand
\nwhat he wills and has through-us done.
\nAnd shall forget strange things,
\nand all joys in particular —
\nof friends, of below, of above —
\nand of all the sufferings, praise Love;
\nand shall hope, for the sake of good befalling,
\nthat Love shall yet give-her-full to us.\n\nCould we but for Love's sake leave
\nstrange comforts and substitutes,
\nand we adorn ourselves in fair countenance,
\nin high will, in high deed.
\nIf we loved with Love all that she loves,
\nand her glory were to us known,
\nso she would do herself within
\ninto one fruition, into one knowing.
\nJesus Christ help us with this,
\nwho himself, of Love, all delight
\nand all virtue has revealed,
\nand with his clarity has clarified.\n\nLet him to us make Love known,
\nand clarify all our matters,
\nand our heart and our sense,
\nand do his one-only Love therein,
\nthat shall make us know how one shall
\nin perfections live in him wholly.
\n**The time is short; here is much to do.
\nBe fier toward Love and bold.**\n\n---\n\n## Poem XIV\n\nXIV. *The Antiphonal-Paradoxes Song*\n\n**The sweetest of Love are her storms;
\nher deepest abyss is her fairest form.**
\nTo wander-lost in her is to come near;
\nto be hungered toward her is feeding and tasting.
\nHer despair is sure being;
\nher sorest wound is all healing.
\nTo faint-toward her is enduring;
\nher hiding makes her find at all hours.
\nHer *ill* is health;
\nher secrecy opens her knownness;
\nher withholdings are her gifts;
\nwithout Reason is her fairest composing.
\nHer captivity is all delivered;
\nher sorest stroke is her sweetest comfort.
\nHer all-bereaving is great gain;
\nher going-away is coming-nearer;
\nher lowliest stillness is her highest song;
\nher greatest anger is her dearest thanks;
\nher greatest threat is all troth;
\nher sadness is the balm of all sorrow.
\nHer riches are all her lackings.\n\nStill may one more of Love speak:
\nher highest troth makes one sink down low;
\nher highest being makes one deeply drown.
\nHer great riches make poverty;
\nmuch-attaining of her shows un-success.
\nHer comforts make the wounds great;
\nher handling brings many a death.
\nHer feeling is hunger; her knowing is wandering;
\nmis-leading is the manner of her school.
\nHer handlings are cruel storms;
\nher enduring is in un-readiness.
\nHer showing is hiding herself wholly;
\nher gifts are more taking-back-again;
\nher promises are all *mis*-leadings;
\nher adornings are all un-clothing;
\nher truth is all deceiving;
\nher certainty seems to many a lying.\n\nOf this I, and many another, bear the witness
\n— may well at all hours bear it —
\nto whom Love has often shown
\nmatters by which we were mocked,
\nand we thought we had what was hers.
\nSince she first drove me to those tricks,
\nand I noticed all her habits,
\nso I have held myself with her all otherwise.
\nHer false threats, her false promises
\n— by them I am no more deceived.
\nI will be her being all that she is;
\n**whether good, whether fell — it is all one to me.**\n\n---\n\n## Poem XV\n\nXV. *The Nine-Months Conception of Love*\n\nIn the high name of Love,
\nwho may make you know her being,
\nI send you hearty greeting,
\nand pray her that she may to you
\nshow her being to the ground
\nthat no one could ever fathom.\n\nAh, how deep is the abyss of Love
\nthat no man ever could recognize.
\nAll that one knows of it is little good,
\nsince it must yet be wanting.
\nThat we lack — that comes by *liden*
\n(suffering): that we so slackly go forward
\nand live on poor comforts,
\nand give so little in storm of Love
\nour *sinne* and our powers,
\nwhich should run, and stand in care.\n\nThe ways to the high grades of Love,
\nwithout peace and without grace —
\nthe ways one runs toward Love
\nthey cannot recognize, those
\nwho are measured in their works
\nand strengthen themselves with pleasure,
\nand live in torment about scath, in gladness about success,
\nby strange being in proud spirit.\n\nBut he who would perfectly know
\nthe mighty being of Love
\nshall, with humble heart,
\nmake sweetness and smart alike,
\nand receive in one glory,
\nin one will, in one memory,
\nsweet and sour in one satisfaction,
\nand all pain without saddening.
\nFor Love may very well make-good
\nthe heavy wandering of her roads.
\n**So low shall one in humility sink
\n— yes, above all human thinking —
\nof all who are born to the world,
\nshall the greatness of Love come therein.**\n\nWill you thus fall and in all bow-down —
\nso shall you obtain perfect Love.
\nFor that drew God down into Mary,
\nand with that same he yet would yield
\nwho himself so low for Love could keep —
\nhe could not from him his highness withhold;
\nhe should receive him and bear *the count*,
\nas a child shall grow up in its mother.\n\n**Faithful Fear is the first month,
\nwhich preserves all the works and draws-along
\nto the holy law and to truth's command.
\nShe makes profession in God.**
\nYou know well: profession makes him
\nwho must believe one being
\nwith the company in which he is,
\nto be fitting to all obedience.\n\nWhen Fear, the first month,
\nhas thus admonished the soul
\nto all obedience of Love,
\nto perfect service in which she knows it,
\nin death, in life, in all thing —
\nthus one receives as Mary received,
\nand in all so deep humility thereby:
\nthat is *ecce ancilla Domini*.3
\nThus the first month is undertaken;
\nwith faithful Fear one has received.\n\n**The second month is gladly-suffering
\nfor perfection, and narrow striving
\nto learn it there where one may.
\nSpare no blow against this.
\nWhere you may suffer in *beilagen* (besieging),
\nthere bend the eyes of truth and of knowing.**
\nReceive it without your transgression;
\nso you bear Love in the highest grade.
\nFor in patience one learns to know
\nhow one may practice greater Love,
\nfor she causes the vessel
\nto grow most and to rise up,
\nin which Love has been received.\n\n**The third month heightens the count
\nwhen one can thus endure all,
\nand one knows that one is bearing Love.**
\nThat is the exercise that one has toward it
\n— ever zealous and unconquered,
\nand so to have in there
\naccording to the Scripture which teaches us:
\n***sobrie, pie, juste vivamus in hoc seculo***4.\n\n**The fourth month is sweet Nature**,
\nin which so worthy a creature
\nas the human is shall grow up
\nand her manifold limbs all-over,
\nin the place where one bears her in,
\nand over-all where she has limbs.
\nOne shall with sweet nature guard her,
\nand feed with kindled works.\n\n**The fifth month is hidden practice
\n— the sweet bearing one has received,
\nto practice the sweet Love hiddenly,
\nand the heavy pain that Love brings in,
\nwhich he feels who thus bears Love
\nand with humility has received.**\n\n**The sixth month is trust,
\nfrom which one receives all riches,
\nand comfort that the child with the fruit shall come
\n— full-grown, rich, and giving all good.**
\nThus to let oneself on Love's seeing,
\nand to hook for the high day
\nthat the noble child be born,
\nand fully in full, by full, beloved.\n\n**The seventh month is Righteousness,
\nwho makes to nothing all labor.**
\nRighteousness condemns and blesses
\neach being according to its season,
\nand takes and gives according to Love's fitness
\nand beyond all understanding of all *sinne*.
\nRighteousness' virtues are above nature,
\nand make sure the souls and purify them.
\nAnd by no virtue may one better know
\nthat one is in truth of Love
\nthan by that one in virtues against nature
\nhas sweet taste without sour.
\nThat is to be glad in trouble,
\nto have joy in contempts,
\nand to love those who do you ill.
\nThat is, sure of Love, the highest deed,
\nfriend with friend, with the glad ones glad —
\nthat is to practice Love at every season.
\nBut this is against nature, against might,
\nand Righteousness' highest lease.
\nTherewith one most-properly bears God
\nand has the perfectly growing within.\n\n**The eighth month is Wisdom of Love
\nand to know her being on every road —
\nas much as Love can love,
\nWisdom swallows up all within.**\n\n**The ninth — when Wisdom swallows-up
\nall that she in Love loves —
\nthen comes Love's mighty time
\nand storms at all hours upon Wisdom.**
\nWhen with all that one is,
\none is enough for Love and fitting,
\nso is born in the ninth month
\nthe child that humility had chosen.
\nThen has humility its fitness,
\nwherewith she with herself is enough.
\n**Between the two of them the child is full-carried,
\nthat has lain in a great place —
\nin the deepest of humility, in the highest of Love.**
\nThere one with all in every *sinne*
\nlives God thus with all might
\nin new Love day and night.
\nSo becomes God all that one lives —
\nfor he has in scripture spoken
\nso that he cannot let it be
\nthat he shall measure to us with the same measure
\nwith which we measure him.6\n\nHe who then thus by Love
\nis possessed in will, in works, above the *sinne*,
\nto all their will enough to Love —
\nshall he then also measure back?
\nThen he must give them that high low —
\nto their will as they themselves give —
\nhe shall live with them altogether one;
\notherwise the recompense would be a lie.
\nIf he measure not with the same measure
\n— now the child full-grown is born
\nthat by humility was chosen
\nand is full-grown by high Love,
\nnine months full-carried within,
\nand each month has weeks four,
\nand each says preparation and adornment
\ntoward the great high day,
\nthat Love may be fully born.
\n**The first week is might; the second knowing.
\nThe third will, and constant favor —
\nthat completes the four weeks
\nand fills the month without lack.
\nEach week is of seven days;
\nthe days are the seven gifts
\nwhich one must have if one shall pass through
\nthe nine months in their seasons.**\n\nWisdom teaches what one does.
\nUnderstanding bears witness to the work, done.
\nWith Counsel one understands Love's fitness.
\nWith Strength one works her satisfaction.
\nWith Knowledge one shall practice the Beloved.
\nWith Mercy give great gifts.
\nWith holy Fear one shall guard
\nall the works, and with troth feed.\n\n---\n\n## Poem XVI\n\nXVI. *The Sound-Play Closing Poem*\n\nI greet what I love
\nwith my heart, bare.
\nMy *sinne* dry up
\nin Love's *orewoet*.\n\nAh, hearty Love,
\ngrow-up after your being;
\nso may my *sinne*
\nbe healed of death.\n\nAh, heart, over-care —
\nwere you what you are
\nin your nature, so it would be
\nsomething of my enduring's season.\n\nAh, over-sweet rest,
\nhad you all that is yours attained —
\nso would my burdens
\nbe lightened, that now so weigh.\n\nAh, over-sweet nature,
\nhow does your heart do?
\nI cannot endure one hour —
\nI must all of Love be.\n\nAh, hearty maiden,
\nthat I so much to you speak
\n— that does to me new troth
\nfrom deep Love's trick.\n\nAh, had we what we have,
\nso were we both so rich —
\nso would one find
\nnowhere our like.\n\nAh, I rage in mood with success
\n— yes, the good, that I to Love fully be.
\nAh, in rage be wise — that is success.
\nYes, in rage of Love, free.\n\nI hook, I reach, I taste
\nthe matter that seems sweet to me.
\nI know with sense what is therein:
\nLove, the medicine of my ill.\n\nI suffer, I labor for sight;
\nI suckle with my blood.
\nI greet the sweet, the would-be
\nsoothing of my *orewoet*.\n\nI tremble, I cleave, I give;
\nI live on high expectation —
\nthat my pain, the fine,
\ninto his shall be wholly received.\n\n***Ay lief hebbic lief een lief —
\nSidi lief mijn lief,
\nDie lief gavet om lief,
\nDaer lief lief met her hief.***5\n\n***Ay minne, ware ic minne,
\nEnde met minne minne u minne;
\nAy minne, om minne, ghevet dat minne
\nDe minne al minne volkinne.***\n\n---\n\n**Translator's footnotes (project translation)**\n\n1 ***Edele ontrouwe* — noble infidelity** — Hadewijch's signature doctrinal term. *Ontrouwe* (infidelity, faithlessness) is here used positively for the soul's *holy dissatisfaction* with anything less than the whole of Love. It is *stronger and higher* than *trouwe* (troth) precisely because Troth lets herself be satisfied with right Reason's account, where noble Infidelity refuses to rest until *the very best* has been attained. The doctrine appears also in Vision 13 (in the project translation of the *Visioenen*, the *three voices of Love* — *rumor of the highest infidelity is the sweetest voice of Love*), and is the direct doctrinal ancestor of Marguerite Porete's *annihilated Soul* and Eckhart's *abegescheidenheit*. The locus *Mengeldicht* XI is one of the two canonical sources for the *edele-ontrouwe* doctrine (the other is Vision 13).\n\n2 ***Audi, filia*** — Latin (*Hear, daughter*), the opening of Psalm 44:11 (Vulgate) / 45:10 (Hebrew): *Audi, filia, et vide, et inclina aurem tuam: et obliviscere populum tuum, et domum patris tui*. Hadewijch (writing c. 1230–1250) was reading the Vulgate; modern English Bibles use the Hebrew numbering. Hadewijch in Poem XIII anchors her whole verse-letter on this Psalm: *bow the ear* (*inclina aurem*), *forget the house of your father* (*obliviscere domum patris tui*), and the closing climax — *the King desires your beauty* — directly translates Ps 44:12 (Vulg.) / 45:11 (Heb.) *et concupiscet rex decorem tuum*.\n\n3 ***Ecce ancilla Domini*** — Latin (*Behold, the handmaid of the Lord*), Luke 1:38 — Mary's *fiat* at the Annunciation. The Nine-Months Conception of Love metaphor (Poem XV) is unfolded entirely through this Marian fiat-conception structure: as Mary conceives the Word in her womb at her *fiat*, so the soul conceives Love in her at the moment of her own *fiat* — *faithful Fear* — and carries Love for nine months until birth.\n\n4 ***Sobrie, pie, juste vivamus in hoc seculo*** — Latin (*Soberly, justly, and godly may we live in this world*), Titus 2:12 (Vulgate: *sobrie et juste et pie vivamus in hoc saeculo*). Hadewijch slightly inverts the Vulgate order (*sobrie, pie, juste*) — likely from memory or a different recension. The verse is the standard scriptural locus for the patristic-and-medieval *vita activa*-triad.\n\n5 The closing **sound-play couplet** is preserved untranslated in the Middle Dutch on first occurrence. The play turns on the dual sense of *lief* (Beloved, dear-one) and *lief* (gladly, willingly) — and on the absolute repetition of *minne* (Love) eight times in four lines. A rough English-without-the-musicality might read:
\n*Ah, dear, I have a dear, a dear; / Be you dear, my dear, / Who dear gave for dear / Where dear with dear made dear arise* /
\n*Ah Love, were I Love / And with Love loving your Love; / Ah Love, for Love grant that Love / Love wholly Love full-know*.
\nBut the sound is the meaning: the absolute reduction of all language to the single repeated word *lief/minne* enacts the soul's collapse into the One. This closing-of-the-corpus passage is among the most musically dense in all medieval Dutch literature and is the canonical Hadewijch lyric-coda. **The dense internal-rhyme form is not confined to these final two stanzas: it begins at \"I hook, I reach, I taste\" and runs through the whole second half of Poem XVI** — source lines 6956–6974 carry sequences such as *woede / moede / spoede / goede*; *woet / vroet / spoet*; *hake / rake / smake / sake*; *kinne / sinne / inne / minne*; *doege / poege / toege / soege*; *soete / moete*; *beve / cleve / gheve / leve*; *pine / fine / sine*. The English reproduces the sense and the lyric vocative-cadence but loses most of this rhyming-music — the *Ay lief / Ay minne* coda is only the final and densest moment of a form that the whole second half maintains.\n\n6 ***With what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again*** — Matthew 7:2 / Mark 4:24 / Luke 6:38 (Vulgate, Matt 7:2: *in qua mensura mensi fueritis remetietur vobis*). Hadewijch explicitly says *hi in de screfture gesproken hevet* — \"he has spoken in Scripture\" — flagging this as a direct dominical saying, not a doctrinal aphorism of her own. The whole Nine-Months Conception of Love (Poem XV) turns on this measure-for-measure structure: as the soul measures to God in nine months of carrying Love, God measures back to the soul.\n\n7 ***Sinne*** — Middle Dutch *sinne* names the **integrated faculty** of inner perception / intellect / mind / mode-of-feeling, never the modern English \"senses\" (which are the five outer organs of sense-perception). The faculty is roughly equivalent to scholastic-Latin *mens* or *intellectus*, but with a stronger affective shading — *sinne* is *how one inwardly perceives, feels, and considers*, a single integrated faculty rather than a set of modal inputs. Convention in this section: *sinne* is preserved-italicized where it appears in isolation, and rendered \"sense\" (singular) where it appears paired with *Reason* (*sinne ende redene*) — Hadewijch's Augustinian distinction between the perceiving-faculty and the discursive-faculty. The reader can take \"sense\" in such pairings as the inward-perceiving faculty, never the bodily five-senses. (Cf. the audit recommendation that the rule be openly stated rather than implicit.)", "project_translation": true, "license": "CC0 1.0 Universal", "methodology_url": "https://anthroposophy.ai/about/translations/" } }