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"endpoint": "/api/sources/beguine-mystics/hadewijch-strofische-gedichten/vol-1-01-songs-1-5.json"
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"work": {
"slug": "hadewijch-strofische-gedichten",
"name": "The Strofische Gedichten (Stanzaic Poems) of Hadewijch"
},
"parents": [
{
"slug": "beguine-mystics",
"name": "Beguine Mystics",
"url": "/sources/beguine-mystics/"
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"chapter": {
"num": 1,
"slug": "vol-1-01-songs-1-5",
"title": "Section I",
"of": 9,
"words": 3445,
"text": "## Section I\n\nFirst section of a planned multi-section project translation of Hadewijch's forty-five **Strofische Gedichten** (Stanzaic Poems, also called *Liederen* — Songs). The Stanzaic Poems are Hadewijch's lyric corpus: courtly-love poetry of the troubadour and *Minnesang* tradition, *converted to the divine* — the *Lief* (Beloved) is God / Christ, the *fiere* (noble proud) lover is the soul. Hadewijch's mastery of the form is unmatched in Middle Dutch literature; she stands beside Mechthild of Magdeburg, Marguerite Porete, and the courtly lyric poets of the *Minne*-tradition as one of the inventors of the vernacular lyric of mystical love.\n\nSection I covers **Songs I–V**, opening the corpus. The five together establish all the major themes the cycle will develop:\n\n- **Song I** — Winter and the New Year (the seasonal opening on the courtly *Natureingang* model). The New Year's hazel-blossoms presage spring; the soul of *fier moed* (proud nobility) is to *welcome whatever storms Love sends as the very gift of Love*. The famous closing stanza on *the new* — *God moete ons gheven nuwen sin*, *God must give us a new mind for the noble, free Love*. The Latin double-refrain — *Ay vale vale millies* (*Ah, farewell, farewell a thousand times*) and *Si dixero non satis est* (*if I should say it, it is not enough*) — closes every stanza of Song I.\n- **Song II** — Sap rising; **Love as Maiden and Queen**, *mother of all virtue*. The famous etymological play — *Hare name amor es van der doet* (*Her name, Amor, is from death*) — folding the *Amor / mors* Augustinian pun into the Beguine mystical register. The poet's lament that her songs have grown weary and her voice silent.\n- **Song III** — The signs of spring as omens of Love's coming-back; the bitter wounds of Love; the *Ay deus* paradox of Love-as-judge — Love accuses and absolves at once; the *jubileren* of the soul that takes pain and joy as one thing; the renewal after the storm.\n- **Song IV** — The courtly knight-ethic. *Vele essere gheroepen ende lettel vercoren* — *many are called and few chosen*, a Hadewijchian rendering of Matthew 22:14 fused with the troubadour *fin'amor* doctrine; the *verhoelne woert* (*hidden word*) granted to those who *give themselves with troth*; and the closing addressed to the *edele, wel gheboren sinne* — *noble, well-born senses* — to spend everything before the day *lief in lief sal werden verheven* (*lover in lover shall be lifted up*).\n- **Song V** — The signature **oscillations**-poem. *Bi wilen heet, bi wilen cout / Bi wilen blode, bi wilen bout* — *now hot, now cold / now timid, now bold*. Five paired-opposite stanzas: hot-cold, timid-bold, near-far, dear-grievous, lowered-heightened, hidden-shown, light-heavy, dark-clear, freely-comforted–constrainedly-feared. This is Hadewijch's most-quoted Song, the canonical compressed statement of *Minne*'s contradictory totality.\n\n**Translation conventions** for the lyric cycle: light modernization preserving stanza divisions, line breaks, and refrains. The Latin refrains in Song I are kept in Latin in the body, with translation footnoted on first appearance. *Minne* is rendered as *Love* (capitalized when personified). *Lief* (Beloved) is preserved as *Beloved* or rendered as the lover-name fits the syntax. *Fier* / *fierheit* (noble pride) and *trouwe* (troth, faith, loyalty) are kept close to source. *Jubileren* is rendered as *to rejoice* on first appearance with a translator's footnote anchoring it to the mystical *jubilus*-tradition. Below the 5K-word judge threshold; self-review only. Songs VI–XLV planned in subsequent sub-pilots.\n\n---\n\n## Song I\n\nI.\n\nAh, all that the winter is now cold,
\nshort the days and the night long,
\nyet there nakedly draws near a stout-summer
\nthat shall soon bring us out of that constraint,
\nthat shall soon make plain by this New Year:
\nthe hazel brings us its fair flowers
\n— that is an open token.
\n*Ay vale vale millies*1
\nall you who are awaiting the new times,
\n*si dixero non satis est*,2
\nbe glad for Love.\n\nAnd they who are of *fier moed* (noble proud spirit)
\n— what storms they encounter for Love —
\nreceive them so finely,
\nas is this that I would win in everything,
\nand shall win, God give it me all,
\nthat-which to Love is most becoming,
\nyet by her own pleasing roads misfortune
\nshall to me be the greatest gain.
\n*Ay vale vale millies*
\nall you to whom such venture comes,
\n*si dixero non satis est*,
\nendure for Love's own nature's sake.\n\nAh, what shall I do, a miserable woman?
\nWith reason I may well hate good Fortune.
\nMy very life grieves me sorely;
\nI can neither love nor leave-off-loving.
\nBoth are turned cruel against me:
\nFortune *and* Adventure.
\nI wander in self-loss, and there is no other
\nthan what seems to me against my nature.
\n*Ay vale vale millies*
\nlet all of you be moved to pity
\n*si dixero non satis est*,
\nthat Love thus leaves me wailing.\n\nAh, I was ever bold upon Love
\nsince first I heard her named,
\nand gave myself to her free might.
\nFor this they all condemn me —
\nfriends and strangers, young and old,
\nwhom I in every way served and was hearty-toward
\nand loved all of them for Love's sake.
\n*Ay vale vale millies*
\nI counsel them to spare nothing,
\n*si dixero non satis est*,
\nwhen they hear how I have fared.\n\nAh miserable I, I can do for myself
\nneither live nor die.
\nAh, sweet God, what has happened to me
\nthat the people lay me low?
\nIf they would but leave you to strike me alone,
\nyou would best counsel me
\naccording to right, in all that I have done amiss,
\nand they would be kept from harm.
\n*Ay vale vale millies*
\nwho do not let God have his way,
\n*si dixero non satis est*,
\nand do not love and hate.\n\nWhile they stand-over me —
\nwho then shall love her Beloved?
\nLet them go their ways freely
\nwhere they would learn to know you.
\nThey would help you against me —
\nwho need it little —
\nwho can rightly atone and strike,
\nand prove with clear truth.
\n*Ay vale vale millies*
\nall you who, with God, would have a part
\n*si dixero non satis est*,
\nin atoning, or in rights.\n\nAh, Solomon, you who counsel-against the work
\nof searching what is too strong for us,
\nand that we should not aspire
\nto higher things than we are,
\nthat we should not try them,
\nbut let Love, the fine one,
\nfreely make us bound and freed:
\n*Ay vale vale millies*
\nwho to the high Love's counsel
\n*si dixero non satis est*,
\nclimb-up from grade to grade.\n\nHuman senses are so small;
\nmuch may God stand above them.
\nGod alone is wise of all things —
\nlet one then praise him for all,
\nand let him do his office
\nin avenging and in suffering.
\nThere is no work to him so far escaped
\nthat it comes not all before his eyes.
\n*Ay vale vale millies*
\nthose who fully give themselves to Love
\n*si dixero non satis est*,
\nand live to her eyes' full satisfaction.\n\nGod must give us a new mind
\nfor the noble Love, and free,
\nthat we so newly live therein
\nthat Love bless us
\nand make us new with the new taste
\nshe alone can give-in-fullness
\n— Love is the new and mighty supplying
\nto those who wholly to Love newly give-themselves-up.
\n*Ay vale vale millies*,
\nthat newness of the new Love
\n*si dixero non satis est*,
\nthe new will newly know.\n\n---\n\n## Song II\n\nII.\n\nThis year, in a short time,
\nthe sap from the roots shall strike upward;
\nthereby shall, far and wide,
\nfield and herb take on their leaf.
\nOf this we have sure expectation:
\nthe birds become glad.
\nHe who goes in Love to strife,
\nhe shall soon overcome,
\nif only he does not turn aside.\n\nWho does not spare for high Love,
\nhe is wise in all his works;
\nLove is *Maiden and Queen*
\nwho makes many of high spirit,
\nso that he, above all her good,
\nputs to it his strength and senses;
\nwhere Love knows the work,
\nhow she shall reward him at first
\n— he is the one Love overcomes.3\n\nBut therefore Love is Lady and Maiden:
\nthat she is the mother of all virtue.
\nShe is bearing, and bears alone the troth
\nthrough which all you who love may be empowered.
\nShe alone has gladdened us,
\nand bettered all sorrow.
\nI pray that she behold us
\nand make the youth to grow,
\nthat she fulfill all Love's troth to us.\n\nHow sweet is Love in her nature,
\nthat she overcomes every other power.
\nHe who loves suffers heavy hazard
\nbefore he knows in Love's manners
\nthat he is by her fully loved;
\nso he tastes more bitter and sour;
\nhe may not endure an hour
\nbefore Love binds him wholly into Love
\nand into the fire of fruition.\n\nWhoever yearns for the *un-fruition* in Love,
\nhe shall overcome all his trouble.
\nHe cannot die whom Love has reached
\n— her name, *Amor*, is from death;
\nhe who did what Love bade
\nand failed not therein,
\nshe is the bliss of every matter:
\n**Love is the living bread,
\nand above all pleasures in tasting.**\n\nMy new songs
\nare altogether brought to great lamenting
\n— I who have sung long
\nand of Love's beautiful heart-might.
\nThough I have wrought too little,
\nit does me sore woe and anguish
\nthat I do not encompass
\nthe unconquered might
\nin the fruition of Love's constraint.\n\nI may well of the fine Love
\nhenceforth be silent my days more.
\nWhere I was wont to be glad,
\nin singing and in springing in the time before,
\nwhen her rich teaching
\nmade joy appear to me,
\nthere I now endure pain
\nand from-the-heart suffer,
\nof which I age and waste.\n\nThus has Love's pain wasted me,
\nthat I am for nothing more good —
\nshe who first led me to her school,
\nwhere I suckled her wise wonders,
\nand she since drew that away
\nand from me much has hidden.
\nYet would I gladly wander still,
\nfor Love did not lie
\nin what she commanded me.\n\nWould Love give me new days
\nwho am to her become so old —
\nthen would I be silent of my lament
\nthat now is so manifold;
\nand let her stout-free life
\nhave-her-way at what is now to me a waging.
\nHow gladly would I see
\nthat Love work her free might
\nupon me as it pleased her.\n\nThough it grieves me so very much
\nthat I know myself a Love-miserable woman,
\nLove does all her friends honor
\nwho with troth are ready to her,
\nso that they in joy and grief
\nunderstand her rich teaching;
\nthose who do this work without turning,
\nand Love wholly into Love embrace —
\nthey remain in her rich domain.\n\nAs the fair rose to us
\ncomes out of the thorn with the dew,
\nso shall he who loves, through every evil,
\nwith trust withstand her storms.
\nHe shall, freely, without a doubt,
\ngrow through all damage.
\nThe faint-of-heart
\nhas done his part too soon,
\nwhere the *amorose* are free.\n\nWho would embrace Love
\nmust shun all the loose-of-tongue,
\nthough now her speech be sweet
\n— one shall soon know
\nthat false is her show.\n\n---\n\n## Song III\n\nIII.\n\nThe signs show us well in appearance —
\nbirds, flowers, land, the day —
\nthat they shall overcome the trouble
\nthat the winter heavily bore.
\nNow that Summer can comfort them,
\nthey stand glad-ready to be.
\nWhere I must endure heavy blow,
\nI would also be glad — if Love would give me
\nfortune, which she never has.\n\nAh, what did I do to Fortune,
\nthat it was ever to me so unkind,
\nthat it pressed my nature so sore
\nabove all men manifoldly,
\nthat it did not repay me Love's troth
\nexcept sometimes by a tug?
\nNow perhaps it was my own fault —
\nso let me err out of my own piece,
\nthat Love may work her free might upon me.\n\nCould I but trust myself upon Love,
\nit might yet stand me in stead,
\nsince she would let me endure in troth
\nin good expectation
\nthat Love in troth had so done,
\nand would behold my need.
\nCould it be — and not too soon —
\nfor the shield is so hewn-through to me,
\nit can take no more blows.\n\nWhoever could understand this in goodness,
\nhe had what to me is un-ready:
\nin scathing, in shame, in sufferings —
\nall for Love's sake without bitterness —
\nand for all cost so even-measured
\nas if this were my best haste:
\nas one who can do no better.
\nHe who could do this would be called the wise.
\nI am not; that grieves me.\n\nNow the comfort, now the wound,
\nLove gives, who is much-skilled in both.
\nAfter great blows she gives healing;
\nhow shall any guard himself from her?
\nHe who sets-down all he ever won —
\nyet she hides from him her own;
\nto the one she gives, whom she favors,
\nthe sweet kissings of her mouth;
\nthe other she strikes into the ban.\n\n*Ay deus*,4 who shall *absolve* him
\nwhom Love has placed under the ban?
\nShe, who herself wills that he plead against her —
\nthat he face her so stoutly,
\nthat he hold it all for great gain —
\npain and joy in one handling,
\nand take it all even-handedly for good:
\nso does Love teach him to *jubilate*5
\nand make him knowing of all her wonders.\n\nAfter a great storm the weather grows fair —
\nthis is shown to us often plain.
\nBy turns angry and after pacified,
\nLove makes-steady to be:
\nLove proves all to be so fine,
\nhe becomes by Love's pain so bold
\nthat he swears, *Love, I am wholly yours;
\nI have nothing else to spend than you*.
\nAh noble Love, are you all mine?\n\nWould Fortune let me heal in Love —
\nFortune, who ever has so hated me —
\nI would yet be wholly Love to Love,
\nif my woe had any better.
\nSo would I, in her deep ford,
\nlose all my judgments,
\nand to Love give in Love my treasure;
\nwere my nature so highly risen,
\nmy hunger would be satisfied.\n\nWe are too late at Love's expense;
\ntherefore are we to her too strange in this,
\nthus we remain poor — know it all;
\nhe who at Love's cost set himself near her,
\nshe would give him her kingdom and her treasure.\n\n---\n\n## Song IV\n\nIV.\n\nNow the time and the birds shall grow sad —
\nyet he shall not need it,
\nhe who would set himself in truth
\nto work in high troth's counsel.
\nHe shall please his Beloved with troth —
\nthat is the all-richest trust.\n\nHowever it goes with the season,
\nhe who walks with works in truth
\n— for him are at all hours ready
\nblossom, joy, summer, and day.
\nHe is at all times new, and from desire hot;
\nno more does winter strike him.\n\nHe who in truth gives himself with troth,
\nand then with truth lives troth,
\n*the hidden word*6 is spoken to him
\nthat no one stranger may understand,
\nbut one who has felt it of taste
\nand in high rumor has received silence.\n\nAfter lowly stillness, high rumor,
\nperfect comfort and an anxious sweetness —
\nlet no thanks meet those who fear against this,
\nsince it has so great a gain:
\nthe noble flower with the fruit —
\nunderstand and mark, free noble sense.\n\nAh, noble senses, where have you gone?
\nHow can you so lower yourselves —
\nyou who have long shown and shone
\nas if you ever must live upon troth,
\nas if of troth you were ever moved?
\nHow can you nourish yourselves on Love?\n\n**Many are called and fairly shown,
\nand few chosen** — what help is the fairness?
\nThe loose-of-tongue are most of all themselves mocked,
\nwhen troth shall pay-all after works,
\nand she shall crown all her friends
\nwith what she is and shall be.\n\nBut free, noble senses, and well-born,
\nboth called and chosen —
\nspare neither cost nor pain therein,
\nto live in the diligence of high troth.
\nYour life let be all holy travail
\nuntil you possess your Beloved.\n\nAh hearts, let it not weary you;
\nyour many smartings shall soon flower for you.
\nYou shall row through every storm
\nuntil you come into that splendid land
\nwhere Beloved into Beloved shall flow-through-all;
\nof which let here noble troth be your pledge.\n\nGod must give the noble Reason
\nthat lights up the miserable lives
\nthat now are wounded and sorely driven
\nunder cruel and strange blows,
\nwhen Beloved into Beloved shall be raised up
\n— how well, then, it shall please him.\n\n---\n\n## Song V\n\nV.\n\nThough the time and the little-birds grow sad,
\nthe fine heart need not so do,
\nthat for Love would suffer pain.
\nHe shall know and recognize all
\n— sweet and cruel,
\nloved and grievous —
\nwhat one shall undergo for Love.\n\nThe proud, who have come to this,
\nthat they practice un-kissed Love,
\nthey shall in all their ways therein
\nbe stout and bold,
\nand all-ready to receive
\nwhether she comforts or whether she strikes
\nof Love's doing.\n\nLove's practice is unheard-of,
\nas he knows well who has tasted it —
\nfor she, in the midst of comfort, troubles.
\nHe cannot endure
\nwhom Love has touched —
\nhe tastes
\nmany an unsettled hour.\n\nBy turns hot, by turns cold;
\nby turns timid, by turns bold —
\nher unsettlings are manifold.
\nLove, all-summoning,
\nthe great debt
\nof her rich might,
\nto which she draws us.\n\nBy turns loved, by turns grievous;
\nby turns far, by turns ready —
\nhe who with troth understands this of Love,
\nthat is *jubilation*:
\nhow Love wears-down
\nand embraces
\nin one handling.\n\nBy turns brought-low, by turns heightened;
\nby turns hidden, by turns shown —
\nbefore such an one is suckled by Love,
\nhe suffers great hazard
\nbefore he reaches
\nwhere he tastes
\nLove's nature.\n\nBy turns light, by turns heavy;
\nby turns dark, by turns clear —
\nin free comfort, in constrained fear,
\nin taking and in giving,
\nmust the senses
\nthat wander in Love
\never here live.\n\n---\n\n**Translator's footnotes (project translation)**\n\n1 ***Ay vale vale millies*** — Latin, *\"Ah, farewell, farewell a thousand times.\"* The phrase echoes Catullus 5 (*da mi basia mille...*) and the medieval *vale vale* — the conventional Latin closing-form. Hadewijch uses the Latin tag as the closing-refrain of every stanza in Song I, in the troubadour tradition of bilingual Latin-vernacular interpolation (cf. the Provençal *envois*). The thousandfold *farewell* is also the farewell-to-Love that is itself a renewal of love-longing.\n\n2 ***Si dixero non satis est*** — Latin, *\"If I should say it, it is not enough.\"* The second refrain in Song I — the apophatic-saying-too-little tag, the corresponding move to Marguerite Porete's later *gabbings vs true sayings* (cf. *Mirror* Section XV in the project translation). Hadewijch is making explicit in 13th-c. Middle Dutch what would become the central apophatic-language doctrine of the entire Beguine mystical tradition. The phrase is not from Scripture; Van Mierlo identifies it as Hadewijch's own coinage, in the register of the medieval Latin-vernacular *contrafactum*.\n\n3 ***Love overcomes him*** — the courtly-love trope *Minne verwint*, *Love conquers*. Hadewijch fuses this with Romans 8:35–37 (*who shall separate us from the love of Christ?* / *we are more than conquerors through him that loved us*): the soul who lets Love conquer him is the only conqueror.\n\n4 ***Ay deus*** — Middle Dutch interjection (literally *Ah God*), kept here in the original. Hadewijch's lyric uses this Latin-grade interjection at moments of theological pivot, the way the troubadours used *Ai dieus*. It is not blasphemy; it is the proper vocative-form.\n\n5 ***Jubileren*** — Middle Dutch *to jubilate*, anchoring the Augustinian *jubilus* tradition. The *jubilus* in Augustine (*Enarrationes in Psalmos* 32.1.8) is the mystical wordless cry of joy too great for speech: *cum gaudens homo... profert sonum non ipso sermone explicabilem*. Hadewijch's *jubileren* is the soul's mystical-rejoicing in the contradictory simultaneity of pain and joy — the contemplative response to Love's *bi wilen suete bi wilen suere* (now sweet, now sour).\n\n6 ***The hidden word*** — *dat verhoelne woert*. Job 4:12 in the Vulgate (*porro ad me dictum est verbum absconditum*) — the same hidden word that closes Hadewijch's Vision 12 in the project translation. The lyric Song IV here echoes the visionary corpus: the soul who *gives troth in truth* receives the *verhoelne woert*. The doctrinal centerpiece of the entire Hadewijch corpus carries from prose-Visioenen into the lyric *Strofische Gedichten*.",
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"license": "CC0 1.0 Universal",
"methodology_url": "https://anthroposophy.ai/about/translations/"
}
}