{
  "meta": {
    "schema_version": "1.1",
    "endpoint": "/api/sources/beguine-mystics/hadewijch-strofische-gedichten/vol-1-05-v.json"
  },
  "work": {
    "slug": "hadewijch-strofische-gedichten",
    "name": "The Strofische Gedichten (Stanzaic Poems) of Hadewijch"
  },
  "parents": [
    {
      "slug": "beguine-mystics",
      "name": "Beguine Mystics",
      "url": "/sources/beguine-mystics/"
    }
  ],
  "chapter": {
    "num": 6,
    "slug": "vol-1-05-v",
    "title": "V",
    "of": 14,
    "words": 642,
    "text": "## V\n\nThough the time and the little-birds grow sad,<br>\nthe fine heart need not so do,<br>\nthat for Love would suffer pain.<br>\nHe shall know and recognize all<br>\n— sweet and cruel,<br>\nloved and grievous —<br>\nwhat one shall undergo for Love.\n\nThe proud, who have come to this,<br>\nthat they practice un-kissed Love,<br>\nthey shall in all their ways therein<br>\nbe stout and bold,<br>\nand all-ready to receive<br>\nwhether she comforts or whether she strikes<br>\nof Love's doing.\n\nLove's practice is unheard-of,<br>\nas he knows well who has tasted it —<br>\nfor she, in the midst of comfort, troubles.<br>\nHe cannot endure<br>\nwhom Love has touched —<br>\nhe tastes<br>\nmany an unsettled hour.\n\nBy turns hot, by turns cold;<br>\nby turns timid, by turns bold —<br>\nher unsettlings are manifold.<br>\nLove, all-summoning,<br>\nthe great debt<br>\nof her rich might,<br>\nto which she draws us.\n\nBy turns loved, by turns grievous;<br>\nby turns far, by turns ready —<br>\nhe who with troth understands this of Love,<br>\nthat is *jubilation*:<br>\nhow Love wears-down<br>\nand embraces<br>\nin one handling.\n\nBy turns brought-low, by turns heightened;<br>\nby turns hidden, by turns shown —<br>\nbefore such an one is suckled by Love,<br>\nhe suffers great hazard<br>\nbefore he reaches<br>\nwhere he tastes<br>\nLove's nature.\n\nBy turns light, by turns heavy;<br>\nby turns dark, by turns clear —<br>\nin free comfort, in constrained fear,<br>\nin taking and in giving,<br>\nmust the senses<br>\nthat wander in Love<br>\never here live.\n\n---\n\n**Translator's footnotes (project translation)**\n\n<sup>1</sup> ***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\n<sup>2</sup> ***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\n<sup>3</sup> ***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\n<sup>4</sup> ***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\n<sup>5</sup> ***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\n<sup>6</sup> ***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*.",
    "project_translation": false,
    "text_trust": "verbatim",
    "quote_safe": true,
    "license": null,
    "methodology_url": null
  }
}