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"endpoint": "/api/sources/beguine-mystics/hadewijch-strofische-gedichten/vol-5-01-songs-21-25.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": 5,
"slug": "vol-5-01-songs-21-25",
"title": "Section V",
"of": 9,
"words": 3586,
"text": "## Section V\n\nFive Songs (XXI-XXV) covering the second third of the cycle. The arc moves through Hadewijch's most defiant warrior-stanza (XXI), her most autobiographical-isolation Song (XXII), the *Now-may-God-counsel-us* litany (XXIII), the *Love is strong and I am weak* abandonment-Song (XXIV), and the climactic Desire-vs-Reason dialectic of Song XXV:\n\n- **Song XXI** — *When summer's flowers have come to us, then are we in expectation of the fruit*. The noble *fier* heart who would stand every storm of Love speaks in her own voice: *Ic gruete u minne al minne / Ende beens fier ende stout / Ic verwinne noch u ghewout / Of ic scieter mi al inne* — *I greet you Love all Love; I am fier and bold; I shall yet overcome your might, or I shoot myself entirely into it*. The geometric tour of Love's three dimensions (*her wide width, her highest height, her deepest abyss*). The bitter-scorpion image (Love now seems like the scorpion that shows fair countenance and then strikes sorely). Closes with the doctrine of Love's *full pardon* to those she takes to spend.\n- **Song XXII** — *My need is great and unknown to the people. They are cruel to me, for they would gladly part me from those whom the crachte of Love have all counseled me toward. They know it not, and I cannot teach them*. One of the most autobiographical *I*-Songs in the corpus. The famous wilderness-passage: *No peaceful wilderness was ever fashioned as Love can make in her landscape*; Love *appears as in a fleeing — one follows her, and she stays un-seen*. Closes with the manifesto: *My nature shall remain what she is until she attains it — though the people make her way so narrow*.\n- **Song XXIII** — The ***Nu moete ons god beraden*** refrain-Song. *Now may God counsel us* closes every stanza. The middle stanzas develop the *fight against the turning*; the **Church-clerks' witness stanza**: *In all church-clerks' work I say and mark — how fair it would befit those who in Love worked strong work / they would in Love's orewoet / burn in her deepest floods / and melt away as wax-candles*. The doctrine of those who *yield enough to Love's kingdom* — they *abide in the hunger of Love's ground with full saturations*.\n- **Song XXIV** — *The birds sing clear, and the flowers openly speak the season*. *In the right need of Love one tastes many a death — that is my belief*. The personal middle stanza: *From Love I am under; that is no wonder, for she is strong and I am weak; she makes me un-free of myself always against my willing. She does with me what she commands. My own is left to me not at all. What I was rich in before, in that I am poor — in Love all is lost*. Closes with the doctrinal program: *He who would attain Love, let him not give himself up; let him give himself wholly to Love at all hours, and shall labor without ending for what his heart has chosen — and give himself in pain and shame, in grief and joy, in Love's bonds; so shall be made known to him the fier being in Love's ground*.\n- **Song XXV** — The Desire-vs-Reason dialectic Song. *Begherte en mach niet swighen stille / Ende redene ghevet haer claer den raet* — *Desire cannot be silent, and Reason gives her clear counsel*. The middle stanzas weigh the contest: *Pleasure would gladly shut the eyes and practice what she has*; *if Pleasure had Reason dead, she would have but little keep*. The Beloved-and-Beloved fast-meeting stanza: *Where Beloved meets Beloved so fast that Beloved cannot be without Beloved... and Reason then strikes back and shows the un-grown-up within — where Reason ever pleases unevenly weighed, there Love is most wounded*. Closes with the famous image: *Then there need go no strange peace-maker to settle the feud — and those who recognize this well-enough understand from their own creed*.\n\nSame conventions as previous Sections. Below the 5K-word judge threshold; self-review only.\n\n---\n\n## Song XXI\n\nXXI.\n\nWhen summer's flowers have come to us,
\nthen are we in expectation of the fruit.
\nSo does the fine noble heart
\nwho would stand every storm of Love.
\nShe speaks with *fier* sense:
\n*I greet you Love all Love,
\nand I am fier and bold;
\nI shall yet overcome your might,
\nor I shoot myself entirely into it.*\n\nHow could the *fier* heart fail of aught
\nwho sets all to attain Love?
\nIt could never come to her —
\nwould you give over Love that which you shall give over,
\nas it must be altogether.
\nAh, would your mountains become valleys,
\nand we then might see
\nyour shows fulfilled wholly —
\nso would it come to us all well.
\nHe must also draw very strongly who shall draw Love forth.\n\nHer wide-width, her highest height, her deepest abyss —
\nhe shall in every storm see-through the ways.
\nTo him shall be known the wonder of her wonders;
\nthat is to walk the joy-wide,
\nto run-it-through and to stand-it-fast;
\nto fly through the heights and to climb-through,
\nand to swim through the abyss —
\nto receive Love's all Love.\n\nAh, that high Love who so sweet appears,
\nthat her sweetness all other sweetness consumes —
\nso wounds the heart and *sinne* that, of the storm she touches,
\nhe desires anew the all-new encounter,
\nthat he shrinks from no need,
\nnor pain nor anxiety nor death,
\nif he has not Love's success.
\nAh, who works this — God give him good;
\nthe *fier* heart was never timid.\n\nI let Love be all that she is;
\nI cannot understand her gladness-wonders.
\nThough I may yet recover in myself,
\nshe has many a great power-work done.
\nHe must have his plagues
\nwho bears it with her in peace;
\nhe would not, with might, withstand her might —
\nfor he who never fought against Love
\nnever lived free days.\n\nI give Love over to Love.
\nNow and always, the will follows her court.
\nWoe has befallen me; I thought to have been her lady at court.
\nSince I first chose her, I laid all therein in praise; yet I cannot follow her.
\nNow her rewards seem to me
\nlike the scorpion's:
\nwhich shows fair countenance,
\nand afterward so sorely strikes.
\nAh, what means such showings?\n\nHad I luck in Love, that ever fled me
\nand was unready in my days,
\nI would yet overcome and live glad,
\nwhere I now wander in too-cruel misery.
\nWere it time, I would gladly take an end.
\nI wander with daring
\nwhere Love commands me
\nto follow her without success,
\nand she stays to me un-at-hand.\n\nGod give them all who love rightly good fortune.
\nThough I and many a man have so small a portion of Love,
\nthose who know her wholly give all for all;
\nshe gives, to whom she will, herself wholly.
\nHad her one who could —
\nwhat would it help to think on that,
\nwhich ever must be?
\nHer blows are all good;
\nbut he who struck back would fight on.\n\nIt is unheard-of, now, that any complain of Love.
\nHer name is so famed that one bears her all.
\nWhom she disturbs now — I counsel that they do not speak of it;
\nit is unknown to them whom she does not so weigh-down.
\nBut the one who is *fier* and bold,
\nlet him see to his own doing
\nand parry the blow with the blow,
\nso he shall yet see the day
\nwhen Love brings him herself the atonement.\n\nShe whom Love takes to spend,
\nshe gives him full pardon,
\nand makes him wholly her own free one.
\nSo may we well say *ah, me!* —
\nhow can we restrain ourselves from grumbling?\n\n---\n\n## Song XXII\n\nXXII.\n\nMy need is great, and unknown to the people.
\nThey are cruel to me; for they would gladly part me
\nfrom what the *crachte* of Love have all counseled me toward.
\nThey know it not, and I cannot teach them.
\nThus must I live what I am —
\nwhat Love has brought into my *sinne*.
\nI am in that I will enjoy.\n\nWhatever turning they might do to me for Love's sake,
\ntherein I will endure without damage;
\nfor I understand in the nobility of my *sinne*
\nthat what I suffer is for the gain of high Love.
\nTherefore I will gladly give myself
\nin pain, in rest, in dying, in living,
\nfor I know the command of high troth.\n\nThat command which I recognize in Love's nature
\nbrings my *sinne* into adventure.
\nIt has neither form nor cause nor figure;
\nyet it is in the taste as creature.
\nIt is the matter of my gladness,
\nfor which I always hook;
\nthus I lead my days in many sourness.\n\nOf Love I complain no pain.
\nIt stands for me always to be subject to her,
\nwhere she commands, loud or stilly.
\nOne cannot know her but in seeming.
\nIt is a wonder un-understood
\nthat has thus my heart embraced,
\nand made wander in a glad wilderness.\n\n***No peaceful wilderness was ever shaped
\nas Love can make in her landscape.***
\nFor she causes desires to hook for her,
\nand without knowing makes her being taste.
\nShe appears as in a fleeing —
\none follows her, and she stays un-seen.
\nThat makes miserable hearts ever wake.\n\nWere I to spare any strength of Love's counsel,
\nall the loving ones would know that I did amiss.
\nI may now be master of what I then pleaded;
\nand so I would not overcome so great a damage.
\nNow I take delight in the nature
\nthat Love gives me, and new diligence,
\nof which I shall nevermore be sated.\n\nIt grieves me that I cannot attain
\nin the knowing — I must lack my own self.
\nThough desire should yet wear my heart away,
\nand the strength of Love unwilling-leave me
\n— I shall yet know what draws me,
\nand often so un-gently wakes,
\nwhen I would gratify myself in rest.\n\nIf there were any who advised me, I would lament to them
\nupon myself; I cannot well bear
\nthat Love led me ever to such high steps,
\nand I now meet her with so many cruel blows.
\nI have toward her neither luck nor success;
\nI do not know whether Love herself does this.
\nI fear infidelity's cruel false ambushes.\n\nThat I fear infidelity — that is small wonder.
\nShe has pained me more than ever appeared;
\nfor that I am disturbed from what I mean,
\nthis does infidelity, and no other cause.
\nShe has done me such damage —
\nshall I ever escape her,
\nthat shall by high troth alone be.\n\nWhat helps me that I sing of Love
\nand lengthen my own pain to myself?
\nWith what need Love embraces me
\nbefore her might I have no plea.
\nI admit all that he shall admit
\nwhose heart Love's strength has stolen.
\nWhat helps it that I constrain my nature?\n\nFor my nature shall ever remain
\nwhat she is, until she attains it —
\nthough the people make her way so narrow.\n\n---\n\n## Song XXIII\n\nXXIII.\n\nThe season gives us success toward the good;
\nand if we wrought with the success good,
\nso might we overcome.
\nAnd were we then wise-in-watching,
\nso would the unwise be guarded
\nwho do not yet know themselves —
\nfor they know not what they love.
\nThus we wander in all places.
\n**Now may God counsel us.**\n\nThere fights us sorely against the turning,
\nand if we sorely turn against the turning
\n— so must we make the turning die.
\nUnderstood we Love's whole teaching
\nand became we with that teaching whole,
\nwe should win Love
\nand inherit in all her riches,
\nwhich we now all too long lack,
\nto our great damage.
\n**Now may God counsel us.**\n\nWe had great need of strength
\nthat we, with strength, might drive forth
\nour great needs
\nthat withstand us unto death.
\nStruck we against this withstanding,
\nnothing could escape us;
\nwe should sufficiently receive Love
\nand stiffen against all strange ones
\nwho might over-burden us.
\n**Now may God counsel us.**\n\nHe who sufficiently yields to Love's kingdom,
\nI say he reigns by withdrawing.
\nOf this troth gives witness;
\nfor he so much resembles her,
\nand with that likeness so unified-with-her appears,
\nthat one might find them both as one,
\nso that no *sinne* could part them.
\nHe must dwell in the hunger of Love's ground
\nwith all full saturations.
\n**Now may God counsel us.**\n\nHe who strives through Love's heights —
\nwhat with the striving he heightens,
\nhe works openly.
\nFor he with all the showings suffers,
\nand so with full suffering shows,
\nthat he Love and all her ware
\nwith Love's Love gazes upon,
\nand with full freedom without fear
\nher deepest ford may wade-through.
\n**Now may God counsel us.**\n\nHad I thought-on my high lineage,
\nI should have followed the noble thoughts
\nand given myself to Love wholly,
\nwith all the lease of might,
\nand obtained with the lease the might
\nto cleave-one-with Love's nature.
\nSo might I have lived Love with Love
\n— which has too long now been kept from me
\nin my low deeds.
\n**Now may God counsel us.**\n\nOne finds in Love's hall a vale;
\nhe who shall find in the vale
\nis of rich *sinne*.
\nSince Love first commanded me ill,
\nwhoever wished me anything else hurt me.
\nI take the ill before all the gain;
\nfor I know it for my nearest life,
\nsince to wander has been commanded me by Love,
\nin climbing to the highest grades.
\n**Now may God counsel us.**\n\nHe who stands ready to take expectation
\nshall with high expectation take
\nthe Love-with-Love's-working,
\nand so go to stand by storms
\nand stand-firm with going-through,
\nand become equally strong.
\nThus, as I observe,
\nthis is what the holy Church calls toward
\nall those who give themselves to her.
\n**Now may God counsel us.**\n\nThere approach us Love's bare hazards;
\nit is right that to us, of Love, fear should reveal,
\nthat we may *sinne* on Love
\nwho gives so clear her ware,
\nand with all whole clear ware
\nteaches all her highest customs.
\nThen we will gladly empty ourselves;
\ncan we strangely tumble from the truth
\nagainst Love's setting?
\n**Now may God counsel us.**\n\nIn all church-clerks' work
\n— so I say, and let it be marked, clerk —
\nhow fair it would befit those
\nwho in Love worked strong work.
\nHe would by that work so strong become,
\nand conquer without weariness:
\n**he would in Love's *orewoet*
\nburn in her deepest floods
\nand melt away as wax-candles.**
\n**Now may God counsel us.**\n\nWe are too at-ease in our keeping,
\nand take comfort at the first success.
\nTherefore must Love despise us.
\n**Now may God counsel us.**\n\n---\n\n## Song XXIV\n\nXXIV.\n\nThe birds sing clear,
\nand the flowers openly
\ntell us the season.
\nThose who at first altogether
\nwere silent and were pale
\nhave now great delight
\nthat they have the season again
\nfor which they so long had longed downward.
\nSo fares it with all
\nwho are taken in Love's need.\n\nIn Love's right need
\none tastes many a death;
\nthat is my belief.
\nHe whom she touches in her nature
\nmust in un-stillness
\never be,
\nand in great ungrace.
\nHelp me Love with her counsel —
\nof those I am one
\nwho hold the pain of Love in fief.\n\nWhat can attain to him
\nwhom Love thus has over-burdened
\nwith her heavy weighing?
\nWhom she led at the start,
\nand showed great gain
\nupon her high step,
\nand now has thrown down,
\nso that he thinks not to come up again
\n— unless un-foreseen,
\nby Love's *orewoet*, it may happen.\n\nWhat is the nearest counsel
\nthat he may go-beside,
\nto him whom Love has thus embraced
\nand bound with her bond?
\nThat he give himself into her hand,
\nand ever be subject
\nto all the constraint that Love has —
\nhe who denies any pain of Love
\nthat is openly in show,
\nhe shall long be without Love.\n\nBy Love I am under;
\nthat is no wonder to me;
\nfor she is strong, and I am weak.
\nShe does me un-free of myself ever against my willing.
\nShe does with me what she commands.
\nMy own is left to me not at all;
\nthat I was rich-in before
\n— that I am poor in. In Love all is lost.\n\nBoth strange and friend,
\nwhom I before served,
\nI am withdrawn from.
\nHonor and rest I have given up,
\nbecause I will live free
\nand in Love be received —
\nthe high riches and the knowing,
\nwhich has bound me harm.
\nI cannot lack it;
\nI have nothing else; I must feed on Love.\n\nAnd I am now given up
\nby all those who live;
\nthat is openly in show.
\nUnless I in Love
\nmay win nothing,
\nwhat then should I be?
\nI am now less than nothing in truth;
\nI am miserable, unless she provide for me.
\nI have no counsel; she must
\ngive me that whereon I may live free.\n\nThe cruel strangers do to me
\nso unmeasured a grief
\nin this heavy misery
\nwith their false counsel.
\nThey have no mercy of me;
\nthey make me many a hazard;
\nfor they doom me with their blindness.
\nThey cannot come to that —
\nto understand the Love
\nthat with pleasure has embraced my heart.\n\nHe who would attain Love,
\nlet him not let himself fail;
\nlet him give himself wholly to Love at all times,
\nand shall labor
\nwithout ending
\nfor what his heart has chosen,
\nand give himself in pain and in shame,
\nin grief and in joy, in Love's bonds.
\nSo shall be made known to him
\nthe *fier* being in Love's ground.\n\n---\n\n## Song XXV\n\nXXV.\n\nIn every season of the year,
\nhowever it goes with the season,
\nhe has joy and dread
\nwho suffers misery for free Love
\nand would gladly be with his Beloved
\nto sweeten his miserable days.
\nThat which is not yet — that makes one cry *ah me*;
\nthe being-that-shall-be costs the lament:
\n*Ah, I am all yours, Beloved; be all mine,
\nas it pleases you.*\n\nHe who would love must give himself
\ninto her might where she commands;
\nbe it in dying or in living,
\nwhere Love provides for his being,
\nto him is nothing else
\nthan to live in free comfort and in constrained dread.
\nLove gladly repays what she promised
\nwith her clear ware.
\nAh, what Love bade *be kept secret*
\nbrings her sweetness openly.\n\nI wonder of sweet Love
\nthat her sweetness conquers all things,
\nand yet she so undoes me from within,
\nand so little recognizes my heart's need.
\nShe has so thrown me into the woe;
\nthat I feel, I cannot believe.
\nThe hidden ways Love sends me
\n— those are what rob me of myself.
\nThe rumor, the high present
\nof the lowly-still makes me daze.\n\nHer low stillness is unheard-of —
\nhow high a rumor she makes.
\nUnless he alone has tasted it,
\nand Love in herself wholly has taken him,
\nand with deep touching so nearly attained
\nthat he wholly feels himself in Love
\n— so she with wonder so through-tastes him —
\nceases an hour the rumor therein.
\nAh, soon desire awakes, which watches,
\nwith your storm the inner *sinne*.\n\nPleasure would gladly close the eyes
\nand practice what she has —
\nmight raging desire endure,
\nwho ever lives in frenzy?
\nFor she gives herself at every hour
\nto crying *Ah Love, be all Love*.
\nReason also wakes her, who tells her:
\n*Look here — this stands yet to be fulfilled*.
\nAh, where Reason denies desire,
\nthat wounds most above all pain.\n\nDesire cannot keep silent,
\nand Reason gives her clear counsel;
\nfor she enlightens her with her will
\nand shows her the work of the highest deed.
\nPleasure would gladly take trust
\nto practice her Beloved in sweet rest;
\nso Reason shows her the highest grade
\nand over-burdens her with the heaviest weights.
\nAh, had Pleasure then Reason dead,
\nshe would have but little keep.\n\nBut where Beloved with Beloved so fast meets
\nthat Beloved cannot be without Beloved,
\n*Beloved with Beloved so dear through-tastes,
\nthat Beloved lives Beloved on Beloved's gaze* —
\nand Reason then strikes back
\nand shows the un-grown-up within:
\nwhere Reason ever pleases unevenly weighed,
\nthere Love is most wounded.
\nAh, too heavy is the blow,
\nwhere Beloved-with-Beloved-Beloved-wholly-knows.\n\nWhat shall the wounded Love be?
\nHow can any give her counsel?
\nWhat physician shall heal her
\nwho would gladly all Love live to Love,
\nand under Reason is so driven —
\nwho goes against her with new storm
\nand shows her what she has lacked:
\n*Look here — this should yet be wanting*?
\nAh, who shall give me, of Love,
\ncounsel — and over Reason avenge?\n\nAh, God knows that no one may be
\nwho over Reason may avenge anything.
\nShe is herself Love's physician;
\nshe can best heal all her ailings,
\nwho follows with cunning all her ways
\nin every direction where she leads her.
\nTo her shall she with new wonder speak:
\n*Look here — busy yourself with this highest preparation*.\n\nAh, there need no strange peace-maker go
\nto settle the feud.
\nAnd those who recognize this
\nunderstand enough from their own creed.",
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}