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"work": {
"slug": "hadewijch-mengeldichten",
"name": "The Mengeldichten (Mixed Poems) of Hadewijch"
},
"parents": [
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"slug": "beguine-mystics",
"name": "Beguine Mystics",
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"chapter": {
"num": 6,
"slug": "vol-6-01-poems-21-32-hadewijch-ii",
"title": "Section VI — COMPLETES THE MENGELDICHTEN",
"of": 6,
"words": 3443,
"text": "## Section VI — COMPLETES THE MENGELDICHTEN\n\n**This section completes the project translation of the entire *Mengeldichten* corpus** as found in the 1875 Heremans/Vercoullie edition — both the inner Hadewijch-authentic Poems I–XVII (Sections I–IV) and the *Hadewijch II*-school appendix Poems XVIII–XXXII (Sections V–VI). The combined Mengeldichten work is now shipped at approximately 22K English words across six sections.\n\nThe twelve closing Hadewijch II school poems (XXI–XXXII) are the most concentrated apophatic-proto-Eckhartian passages in the Hadewijch-school corpus:\n\n- **XXI** — *In die godheit der persoenlecheit en es vorme en ghene* — *In the Godhead of personhood there is no form*. Trinitarian-Christological. *In the Godhead of personhood there is no form; there is three-ness in one-ness — bareness alone.* The Son who, *bound by Love, made the strong weak: by which one may know that without need this great wonder he wrought of Love*.\n- **XXII** — *Menegerande minne / In herte in zinne* — *Many-kinds-of-Love in heart in sense* are *pure Love's hindrance*. The narrow-vs-wide doctrine: the bare-united soul *has caught it, it has un-made me wider than the wide*. The closing: *those of sluggish counsel know not what the reward of bare Love shall be*.\n- **XXIII** — *Het gebaert sine gelike* — *He bears his like in gladness eternally — an endless one*. The Trinity-as-mutual-generation in the Hadewijch II register: *three likes eternally, one one-ness; and one in three — thus are they one only mightiness*. The school-of-Love teaches in the bare clarity *new tidings*, *more than strange teaching*.\n- **XXIV** — *Ghebenedijt in aller tijt / Moeti zijn* — *Blessed in all time may you be — you who quicken and prepare in fine Love*. The apostrophe to God: *in your countenance of contemplation no one may be in that conference but you and she — alone free in oneness*.\n- **XXV** — *O heilecheit der godlijcheit* — *O holiness of divinity — you who are the complexion of the thought that lives in you softly, and elsewhere in strife*. The doctrine of *the question is so strong that no clerk of all science can untie it; yet it is good that one have it in speech — that no fool gainsay it*.\n- **XXVI** — *Ic hebbe di geproeft* — *I have tested you, that I have pleasure in the privacy of thoughts*. The school-poem of the vigilant disciple's privacy.\n- **XXVII** — *Eer ic wiste der minnen liste* — *Before I knew Love's tricks*. The famous **wine-tavern image**: *Love is generous; she pours full; but those who drink with her, she makes them on a sign-of-the-eye fully pay-the-toll. Yet drink fast — though she makes her guests thus pay — they come gladly to her tavern, if she will receive them*.\n- **XXVIII** — *Begheric yet dats mi oncont* — *I desire what is unknown to me; for in un-knowing without ground, I find myself caught at every hour*. The famous **un-knowing-without-ground** apophatic stanza.\n- **XXIX** — *Ic soude der minnen noch gherne naerre dringen* — *I would gladly press nearer to Love. They cannot sing this little song with me, who mingle themselves much with creatures*. The **poor-in-spirit theme**: *The poor in spirit are without doubt received into the wide single-foldness — which has no end nor beginning, no form nor manner nor reason nor sense*.\n- **XXX** — The famous **noble-light / pure-spark poem**: ***Een edel licht lichtet in ons fijn / Dat wilt altoes dat wy hem ledech zijn / De pure voncke dat ghensterlijn / De levelecheit der zielen mijn / Dat enich altoes met gode moet zijn*** — *A noble light lights in us fine, that wills always that we be empty to him. The pure spark, the little ember, the livingness of my soul, that must always be one with God, in whom God lights his eternal shining*. This is the canonical **proto-Eckhart-Seelenfunklein passage** in late-13th-c. Middle Dutch — predating Eckhart's *Vünkelîn der Seele* / *scintilla animae* by some thirty years and almost certainly part of the same Brabantine-Beguine school-tradition that fed into Eckhart's Cologne sermons.\n- **XXXI** — *Ic late haer gerne af slaen mijn hovet* — *I gladly let her strike off my head*. The famous **Love's-tricks-are-too-swift** stanza: *Ah Love, your tricks are too swift; when you show one, you mean another — now suddenly sweet, now suddenly fell — if you remained on one, then you did well*.\n- **XXXII** — *Willecome oerspronc van binnen* — *Welcome inner origin*. The short closing poem: *Of the bare truth's one-ness — which has denied all reason its doing — keep me in the emptiness, and join me to the single-foldness of that eternal being's eternity. There I am at the source of all reasoning. All who ever understood scripture could not with reason bear witness to what I, bare and un-wound, have above reason found in me. — Amen.*\n\nThe closing **Amen** of XXXII completes the entire Mengeldichten manuscript in the Heremans/Vercoullie 1875 edition. Same conventions as previous Sections. Below the 5K-word judge threshold; self-review only.\n\n---\n\n## Poem XXI\n\nXXI.\n\nIn the Godhead
\nof personhood
\nthere is no form;
\nthere is three-ness
\nin one-ness —
\nbareness alone.\n\nThe form of the first-born,
\nof the Person chosen
\nof the three-ness,
\nis shaper of peace
\nwho for our sake suffered
\ndeath's labor.\n\nHe took on
\nour form, our fashion,
\nour shaper, our Lord —
\nand is a creature
\nin our nature.
\nThat is to us great honor.\n\nHe who from the Father is sent,
\nendless, hand-less,
\nis above sense;
\nand out of him, end-less
\nborn ever
\nbecomes without beginning.\n\nTo their image, to their like,
\nto be eternally,
\nthey willed to make us —
\nthe Trinity —
\nin which our honor lies
\nabove all matters.\n\n**The constraint of Love
\nmakes the strong weak.**
\nThat one may know:
\nwhere he without need
\nthis great wonder
\nthus wrought of Love.\n\n---\n\n## Poem XXII\n\nXXII.\n\nMany-kinds-of-Love
\nin heart, in sense,
\nare pure Love's hindrance.
\nIt is one-of-the-sparks of thinking,
\nof bare Love a maiming,
\nbreaking and hindering.\n\nMany a chance
\nbecomes one-only all
\nin pure fitting
\nwhen you are so made
\nthat to you raised-up
\nno one is.\n\nAll things
\nare to me too narrow;
\nI am so wide,
\nbecause the un-screated
\nI have grasped
\nin eternal season.\n\nI have caught it;
\nit has un-made me
\nwider than the wide.
\nTo me all else is too narrow.
\nThat you know well,
\nyou who are also there.\n\nOne is free
\nin that near-by,
\nun-divided.
\nTherefore he wills
\nthat it be so
\nwith us both.\n\nYou may be wrong
\nwho still far-behind
\nin the narrow are,
\nand to the great gain
\nhave not come forward
\ninto the wide-wide.\n\nFor in the wide
\none is glad
\nin hope so great
\nthat one ever there
\nappears care-free
\nof eternal need.\n\nIt is to him a great damage
\nwho to sluggish counsel
\nis obedient,
\nand never knows
\nwhat bare Love's
\nreward shall be.\n\nOf such blessed Love
\nbecomes mutually known —
\nout of God in him uncovered —
\nwith the spirit of our Lord
\nwho in swift turning
\nspeaks within them.\n\n---\n\n## Poem XXIII\n\nXXIII.\n\nHe bears his like
\nin gladness eternally —
\nan endless one —
\nwhere shines in worthiness
\nthe Spirit of the adorning
\nof the both-Loves ever.\n\nThese are three likes
\neternally,
\na oneness;
\nand a one in three —
\nthus are they
\none mightiness.\n\nAn empty-of-account
\nof his thinking,
\nover-passing all,
\nbears every thing
\nthat ever being received
\nor being shall.\n\nIt has slow success,
\nto make this clear
\nout of strange speech
\nfor those who within do not embrace
\nand yet stand-after
\naltogether.\n\nThat they into themselves constrain
\nwhat to them strange senses
\nbring —
\nthey do not know
\nwhat happens to them
\nwho live in Love.\n\nWhere Love teaches
\nand turns herself
\nin the oneness
\nof the thoughts within
\n— there matter of Love
\nis ever ready.\n\nA sweet help,
\nthe memory's letter
\never opened.
\nLittle can shut-in them
\nthat they from-without
\nmay take.\n\nFor the school of Love
\nteaches from within
\never much more,
\nwith new tidings
\nin the bare clarity,
\nthan strange teaching.\n\n---\n\n## Poem XXIV\n\nXXIV.\n\nBlessed
\nin all time
\nmay you be,
\nyou who quicken
\nand prepare
\nin fine Love.\n\nAll that lives therein,
\nand you to all give that
\nthey may receive
\nwho contemplate
\nand speculate
\nlight and understanding.\n\nYou are light
\nand direction
\nin the countenance
\nof contemplation.
\nAt that conference
\nno one may be\n\nbut you and she,
\nalone free
\nin oneness.
\nShe loses at that hour
\nimage and figure
\nand distinction.\n\nWhen you give her
\nout of which she lives,
\nout of your wisdom,
\nwhere she more knows
\nthan she understands
\nout of your fullness.\n\nWhen prophets cease,
\nso reveal —
\nLove has peace
\nin the thought;
\nshe flowers in strength
\nin this high palace.\n\nWhat thought finds —
\nit remains end-less
\nin bare Love,
\nand un-said
\nafter truth,
\nout of Reason's sense.\n\n---\n\n## Poem XXV\n\nXXV.\n\nO holiness
\nof divinity,
\nyou who are the complexion
\nof the thoughts
\nthat in you live softly
\nand elsewhere all-in strife —\n\nmany a matter, free,
\ngathers itself
\ninto pure Love,
\nwithout distinction
\nand one-ness
\nabove sense.\n\nThose who the hidden fine
\nexercise in the countenance —
\nof their thought the oneness —
\nthey shut out from death
\ntheir wisdom great,
\nthe eternal godhead.\n\nHe remains pained
\nwho this touches
\nto find-it-out.
\nThe question is so strong
\nthat no clerk of all science
\ncan untie it.\n\nThough many remain un-wise,
\nyet it is good
\nthat one have it in speech —
\nthe question, in order
\nthat no fool
\ngainsay it.\n\nAnd that each acknowledge it
\nand no one be party
\nout of his folly;
\nfor it is clear
\nand openly
\nof the bare truth.\n\n---\n\n## Poem XXVI\n\nXXVI.\n\nI have tested you,
\nthat I am pleased
\nin the privacy
\nof these thoughts.
\nThat makes me soft
\nwhen she denies herself.\n\nAll un-likeness
\nand keep yourself quit
\nfrom all
\nby which middle-ness
\nof our oneness
\nmight happen.\n\nYour heart is sad,
\nwhom nothing satisfies.
\nThat may pass-away
\nwhen your spirit thinks
\nsomething that takes-off
\nyour bare in-standing.\n\nHe who *is*
\nrewards himself —
\nin whom he finds
\nthis likeness
\nwhich he privately
\nout of the one un-binds.\n\nThose who without being
\nread high,
\nand know nothing else
\nthan scripture
\nand creature,
\nmake him themselves understand.\n\nOne cannot trust
\nthat they watch
\nand call-to-account;
\nfor they will above
\nbelieve no one
\nwhere they fail.\n\nForeseen from within
\nmakes from-without unknown
\nand un-counted.
\nIt is to him alone enough
\nwho may the satisfying
\nof his Maker await.\n\nThe way is sad
\nthat goes to the satisfying
\nof the creatures,
\nand so full of the molds
\nthat those who in it hold themselves
\ncannot purify themselves.\n\nHigh marking
\nin low works
\nis Love's torment.
\nHigh dwelling
\nin low showing
\nremains without falling.\n\nThose who un-granted
\nand conquered
\nhave Love,
\nwhich they begrudge themselves,
\nthat they began —
\nthey are servile of sense.\n\n---\n\n## Poem XXVII\n\nXXVII.\n\nBefore I knew
\nLove's tricks,
\nshe had all my favor.
\nI had no guard
\nthat she might
\nweary anyone.\n\nThough she is *fier*,
\nshe is also eager,
\nand skims-the-foam-off all,
\nand devours
\nall that she finds
\nwithout count.\n\nBut this is her habit:
\nshe is generous too,
\nand pours from full.
\nBut those who drink with her,
\nshe makes on a sign-of-the-eye
\nfully pay-the-toll.\n\nBut drink fast
\n— though she makes her guests
\nthus pay —
\nthey come gladly
\ninto her tavern,
\nif she will receive them.\n\nYou make far Love
\nin new sense
\nyour neighbor —
\nthose who drink toward yours,
\nyou make to renew
\ntheir nature.\n\nThe old man
\nthey put off and put on
\nthe new again.
\nThis is your seeking,
\nand their meeting
\nwho drink toward you.\n\nOne need not hook;
\none shall taste —
\nit shall happen
\nwithout waiting,
\nof the thoughts
\ncoming and fleeing.\n\nWhen Love shows
\nthat she here rewards,
\nshe has un-likeness —
\nas high raised
\nand again struck-down,
\nas poor and rich.\n\nOur knowing
\nmust come down
\nin doubt;
\nand as in expectation
\nit shall stand in us
\nin certainty.\n\nIf it be hidden,
\nor if we have died,
\nwe are mocked —
\nthe wind of the air
\nblows away the fruit
\nthat there appears.\n\nThe Power draws;
\nthe Word arranges;
\nthe Love leads —
\nthus they press
\nthe soul, those three,
\ninto the oneness.\n\nThere altogether
\nthe saints are well,
\nand have their fullness.
\nThat is in
\nthe first beginning,
\nin the pure godhead.\n\nAnd hold my words
\nneither for jest
\nnor for play.
\nI have spoken
\nright truth,
\nand nothing else.\n\nWhoever would aught of this know,
\nlet him follow Love
\nwithout turning.
\nPraised be
\nthe fine godhead
\nevermore. **Amen. Amen.**\n\n---\n\n## Poem XXVIII\n\nXXVIII.\n\n**I desire what is unknown to me;
\nfor in un-knowing without ground
\nI find myself caught at every hour.
\nI think no human sense ever understood
\nso that his mouth could speak of it,
\nwhere he founds the deep gulf.**\n\nI will not mingle myself with him
\nwho serves for reward or for gain.
\nIf anyone asks me where this is —
\nI tell him I know it neither more nor less;
\nfor nothing better can show my sense
\nthan a mill-stone floating in the swan.1\n\nThis is a wondrous tiding
\nwhich keeps me in many a danger.
\nShe is to many hidden, and to me open;
\nwhere I followed Love nearer,
\nthere I remained in her
\nswallowed up in a simple gaze.\n\nWhoever may understand this gazing
\nis bound and caught,
\nand in Love's prison so fast made
\nthat he may nevermore escape her.
\nBut of these is little so made
\nthat they stand by Love so far.\n\n***Ay mi deus*** what happens to him
\nwho neither hears nor sees
\nthat which hunts him and from which he flees,
\nand which he loves and from Love dreads —
\nLove's hunt, had he it before, anything —
\nhunts him from all things upon a nothing.\n\n---\n\n## Poem XXIX\n\nXXIX.\n\n**I would gladly press nearer to Love,
\ncould I from within well bring myself.
\nBut they cannot sing this little song with me
\nwho mingle themselves much with creatures.**\n\nThe bare Love who spares nothing
\nin the pleasure over-passing
\n— when she from all chance becomes parted —
\ncomes she into her single-fold nature.\n\nIn bare Love's trust
\nmust be off-with the counsel of creatures;
\nfor she strikes from them every form
\nwhich she into her simplicity receives.\n\nThere they become quit of all manners
\nand made-strange from all likeness.
\n**The poor of spirit on earth
\nhold of right this life.**\n\nIt is not for going far,
\nnor for bread, nor for receiving other good —
\nthe poor of spirit are without doubt
\nreceived into the wide single-foldness:\n\n**which has no end nor beginning,
\nnor form nor manner nor reason nor sense,
\nnor seeming nor thinking nor marking nor knowing.
\nShe is without a circle, wide, un-measured.**\n\nIn this pleasure-wide single-foldness
\ndwell the poor of spirit in oneness;
\nthere they find nothing but emptiness,
\nwhich ever answers to eternity.\n\nThis is said in short speech,
\nbut their way is long — I know it well —
\nfor they must suffer many an affliction
\nwho fully test this altogether.\n\n---\n\n## Poem XXX — The Pure Spark\n\nXXX.\n\n***A noble light lights in us fine,
\nthat wills always that we be empty to him.
\nThe pure spark, the little ember,
\nthe livingness of my soul
\n— that must always be one with God,
\nin whom God lights his eternal shining.***2\n\nThat is hidden in us within.
\nReason cannot, nor sense, conceive it,
\notherwise than with bare Love.
\nThey are over-formed who know it
\nabove-naturally out of the spark within,
\nin a god-like single-fold knowing.\n\nThe chance of multi-foldness
\ntakes from us our single-foldness,
\nas Saint John the Evangelist says:
\n*the light shines in the darkness,
\nand the dark darkness does not grasp
\nin her the brightness of that light.*3\n\nWere we come to this light,
\nso were we empty in his seeing —
\nof all manner, of all account,
\nof all stories, of all writings —
\nin a bottomless un-shape
\nwe saw that light in the light.\n\nBe ashamed, you who have long appeared,
\nthat to you so long chance still means;
\nand un-being-ed always creep henceward —
\nmight single-foldness in herself accustom you
\nto be over-shone by her light:
\nthen you would remain by images, by forms, un-touched.\n\nYou may well consider yourselves —
\nthat you seek that light outside, in parts,
\nwhich in you is whole and wills you wholly to free.
\nWill you of this philosophy
\nbe master, then you cannot admit yourself
\nnor count anything; but all of-yours forsake.\n\n**Ah deus**, how great a nobility
\nis this free emptiness,
\nwhere from Love all of Love is denied,
\nand nothing-of-her seeks outside her own self —
\nwhen she has the eternal blessedness
\nshut up in her oneness.\n\n---\n\n## Poem XXXI\n\nXXXI.\n\nI gladly let her strike off my head,
\nprovided that she believe my need —
\nshe who from sense robs me
\nwith the drawing-look that she shows me.\n\nWhy do you show me that countenance
\nwith which afterwards you slay me?
\nFor when with me at need it goes hard,
\nthen you drive your treachery with me.\n\n**Ah Love, your tricks are too swift;
\nwhen you show one, you mean another —
\nnow suddenly sweet, now suddenly fell —
\nif you remained on one, then you did well.**\n\nYour treachery is too strong
\nfor those who serve in your enclosure,
\nand all set to fulfill their attention
\nto do your will's work.\n\nYou make poor the wise and the prudent,
\nand set them in many-fold mood;
\nwhen they seem most without success,
\nyou give them your gifts without keeping.\n\nYou are crafty and good-natured,
\nsoft as a lamb and un-tamed —
\nas un-bridled wild beast
\nin the wilderness without manner.\n\n---\n\n## Poem XXXII\n\nXXXII.\n\n**Welcome, inner origin!
\nYou bring noble heavenly knowing;
\nyou feed ever with new Love;
\nyou hold me empty in your intending —
\nof all chance, after the uttermost knowing.**\n\n**Of the bare truth's one-ness,
\nwhich has denied all reason its doing,
\nhold me in the emptiness,
\nand join me to the single-foldness
\nof that eternal being's eternity.**\n\n**There I am the source of all reasoning.
\nAll who ever understood scripture
\ncould not with reason bear witness to it
\n— that I, bare and un-wound,
\nhave above reason found in me.**\n\n**Amen.**\n\n---\n\n**THE PROJECT TRANSLATION OF THE ENTIRE MENGELDICHTEN — INNER HADEWIJCH-AUTHENTIC (POEMS I–XVII) PLUS THE HADEWIJCH II SCHOOL APPENDIX (POEMS XVIII–XXXII) — IS NOW SHIPPED AT APPROXIMATELY 22K ENGLISH WORDS ACROSS SIX SECTIONS.**\n\n---\n\n**Translator's footnotes (project translation)**\n\n1 *A mill-stone floating in the swan* — *Een molensteen ghevloten mach int zwen*. The image is from the medieval *adynaton* (impossibility-figure)-tradition: as impossible as a mill-stone floating in a swan. The Hadewijch II writer borrows the courtly impossibility-image to figure the *un-knowing-without-ground* in which the apophatic soul lives.\n\n2 ***A noble light lights in us fine ... the pure spark, the little ember, the livingness of my soul, that must always be one with God*** — the canonical **proto-Eckhart-Seelenfunklein** passage in late-13th-c. Middle Dutch. The doctrine of the *Vünkelîn der Seele* / *scintilla animae* — the soul-spark that is one with God by nature — appears in Eckhart's German sermons (especially *Predigt* 2, *Intravit Jesus in quoddam castellum*) and his Latin treatises in the early 14th century. The Hadewijch II writer predates Eckhart by some thirty years and is almost certainly part of the Brabantine-Beguine school-tradition that fed into the Cologne sermons through Eckhart's Dominican connections in the Low Countries. *Pure voncke* (pure spark) and *ghensterlijn* (little ember) are doublets — the *spark* and the *ember* — for the same thing: the still-burning point in the soul where the divine indwells. The passage is among the most-cited single passages in all Hadewijch-school scholarship.\n\n3 *The light shines in the darkness, and the dark darkness does not grasp in her the brightness of that light* — direct citation of John 1:5 (*lux in tenebris lucet, et tenebrae eam non comprehenderunt*). The Hadewijch II writer's choice to cite John precisely here — at the doctrinal hinge of the **noble-light** stanza — is decisive: the *pure spark* is identified with the *Light of John 1*, the eternal *logos*-light that dwells in the soul. The doctrinal lineage runs from John 1 through Augustine (*Confessions* VII, on the *interior magister*) to the Hadewijch II writer to Eckhart's *intellectus agens* and *Vünkelîn*.",
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"license": "CC0 1.0 Universal",
"methodology_url": "https://anthroposophy.ai/about/translations/"
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}