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    "slug": "mechthild-flowing-light",
    "name": "The Flowing Light of the Godhead — Books I-VII (complete)"
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  "chapter": {
    "num": 1,
    "slug": "vol-1-01-flowing-light-book-1",
    "title": "Book I",
    "of": 7,
    "words": 8519,
    "text": "## Book I\n\nThe text below is translated from the Alemannic recension preserved in MS Einsiedeln 277 (late fourteenth century), as transcribed by Pius Gallus Morel in his 1869 critical edition. The Alemannic itself is a translation of Mechthild's lost Middle Low German original, composed and dictated between roughly 1250 and 1282. The English here is therefore at one further remove from Mechthild's own words than the Alemannic; readers who need the closest available text should consult the Morel edition or, for the High German modernization with critical apparatus, Hans Neumann (Tübingen, 1990–1993). The two complete modern English translations — Lucy Menzies (Longmans, Green, 1953) and Frank Tobin (Paulist Press, 1997) — are both copyrighted and remain the standard scholarly references.\n\nA few of Mechthild's recurring terms have been anchored to English equivalents throughout. *Minne* (love personified) is rendered \"Love\" when she appears as Mechthild's interlocutor, \"love\" when the affect is meant. *Brûtegome* is rendered \"Bridegroom\" (Christ); *brût* is \"bride\" (the soul). *Künegine* — the soul as queen — is rendered \"Queen\" or \"Lady-Queen.\" *Drivaltikeit* is \"Trinity.\" *Drivaltikeit vnbeginlich* is \"the beginningless Trinity.\" *Bekantnisse* and *gebrûchunge* — Augustine's *cognitio* and *fruitio* — are \"knowing\" and \"enjoyment.\" *Jubilus* is preserved untranslated as a technical term of the Bernardine tradition.\n\nMechthild's prose moves freely between rhymed couplets, antiphonal dialogue, lyric address, and prose narration. The English preserves the line-breaks of the original where Mechthild wrote in verse; the couplet-rhymes themselves are not preserved when the cost in fidelity would have been too high. Numerology — patterns of three, seven, nine, twelve — is preserved exactly. Where the OCR of Morel's edition is damaged beyond reliable reconstruction, the rendering follows the most defensible reading and a footnote flags the uncertainty.\n\n---\n\n## This is the first part of this book.\n\nThis book one should gladly receive, for God himself speaks the words.\n\nThis book I now send as a messenger to all spiritual people, to the bad and the good alike — for when the pillars fall, the work cannot stand. The book signifies myself alone, and praiseworthily makes known my secret things. All who would understand this book should read it nine times.[^1]\n\nThis book shall be called *A Flowing Light of the Godhead.*\n\n*Ah, Lord God, who has made this book?* — I have made it in my powerlessness, for in my gift I cannot hold back. *Ah, Lord, what shall this book be called, to your honour alone?* — It shall be called: *A Flowing Light of My Godhead, into all the hearts that live without falseness.*\n\n[^1]: Mechthild's directive to read the book nine times is reiterated in the Alemannic preface; the number itself is symbolic (the nine orders of angels), not literal repetition. The Morel text reads *\"ze nun malen\"* — Alemannic *nun* = nine.\n\n---\n\n### I. How Love and the Queen spoke together.[^2]\n\nThe soul came to Love\nand greeted her with deep understanding,\nsaying: God greet you, my Lady Love.\n— God reward you, dear Lady Queen.\nLady Love, you are most perfect.\n— Lady Queen, that is why I am above all things.\nLady Love, you have struggled many years\nbefore you compelled the high Trinity\nto pour itself out, all at once,\ninto Mary's humble maidenhood.\n\nLady Queen, this is your honour and your gain.\n— Lady Love, you have taken from me\nall that I ever won in this earthly realm.\nLady Queen, you have made a blessed exchange.\n— Lady Love, you have taken from me my childhood.\nLady Queen, for this I have given you heavenly freedom.\n— Lady Love, you have taken from me my youth.\nLady Queen, for this I have given you many a holy virtue.\n— Lady Love, you have taken from me good friends and kin.\nAh, Lady Queen, that is a paltry complaint.\n— Lady Love, you have taken from me the world,\nworldly honour, and all worldly wealth.\nLady Queen — in a single hour, with the Holy Spirit,\nI shall repay you on earth all you would wish.\nLady Love, you have so deeply forced me\nthat my body has come into strange weakness.[^3]\nLady Queen, for this I have given you many high knowings.\nLady Love, you have consumed my flesh and my blood.\nLady Queen — by this you are made pure and drawn into God.\nLady Love, you are a robber-woman; even so, you must pay me.\nLady Queen, then take me myself.\nLady Love, now you have repaid me a hundredfold on earth.\nLady Queen — yet you have still to demand God and all his kingdoms.\n\n[^2]: Morel's footnote: \"Greith *Deutsche Mystik* p. 222\" (Karl Greith's 1861 partial edition; cited throughout Book I for parallel readings).\n\n[^3]: Morel notes: \"MS reads *krakheit*\" — a scribal variant for *krankheit* (weakness, sickness).\n\n### II. Of the three Persons and the three gifts.\n\nThe true greeting of God, which comes from the heavenly flood out of the fountain of the flowing Trinity, has such great power that it takes all might from the body and makes the soul manifest to herself, so that she sees herself like to the saints, and then takes onto herself the divine radiance. Then the soul departs from the body with all her power, wisdom, love, and longing; only the least part of her life remains with the body, as in a sweet sleep. Then she sees one whole God in three Persons, and knows the three Persons in one God undivided. Then he greets her with the courtly speech that is not understood in this kitchen, and clothes her in the garments one wears to the palace, and gives himself into her power. Then she may pray and ask what she will, and is answered. *Why she is not always answered, that is the first cause of three.* Then he draws her further, to a hidden place. There she may neither pray nor ask for anyone, for he wishes to play alone with her a game which the body does not know, nor the peasants beside the plough, nor the knights in tournament, nor his loving mother Mary — none of them may take part there. Then they float still further, to a place of bliss, of which I may not and will not say much. It is too unspeakable; I do not dare, for I am a very sinful person. But when the endless God brings the groundless soul into the heights, she loses the earth from the marvel and does not feel that she was ever on earth at all. When the play is at its best, then it must be let go.\n\nThen says the blossoming God: *Maiden, you must bow down.* She is startled: *Lord, now you have drawn me so far that I cannot, with any order, praise you here in my body — only suffer in exile and contend against the body.* He says: *Ah, my dear dove, your voice is music to my ears; your words are spices to my mouth; your longings are the abundance of my gift.* She says: *Dear Lord, it must be as the householder commands.* Then she sighs with all her might, so that the body is shaken. Then the body says: *Ah, lady, where have you been? You return so lovingly, beautiful and full of power, free and rich in sense. Your wandering has taken from me my savour, my rest, my colour, and all my strength.* She says: *Be silent, murderer, let your complaining be; I shall always guard myself from you, so that my enemy be wounded — that troubles us not; I rejoice in it.*\n\nThis is a greeting that has many veins, that presses out from the flowing God into the poor, dry souls at all times, with new knowing, with new beholding, and in special enjoyment of the new presence. Ah, sweet God, fiery within, blossoming without — since you have given this to the least, might I yet attain the life you have given to your greatest, I would gladly languish all the longer for it. This greeting neither can nor must any receive, unless he has overcome himself and been brought to nothing.\n\nIn this greeting I will die alive;\nthis the blind saints may never undo for me —\nthose who love and do not know.\n\n### III. Of the maidens of the soul and the strokes of Love.[^4]\n\nAll holy Christian virtues are the soul's maidens. The soul's sweet vexation laments her distress to Love.\n\nTHE SOUL: *Ah, most beloved maiden,\nyou have long been my chamberlain;\nnow tell me, how shall I now be.\nYou have hunted me, captured me, bound me,\nand so deeply wounded me\nthat I shall never be whole.\nYou have given me many a cold blow;\ntell me, shall I at last live before you?\nWill I not be killed by your hand?\nThen it were better for me I had never known you.*\n\nLOVE: *That I hunted you, that loosened me;\nthat I caught you, that I desired;\nthat I bound you, in this I rejoiced.\nWhen I wounded you, then you were made one with me;\nwhen I gave you cool strokes, then I became powerful in you.\nI have driven almighty God from the heavenly kingdom,\nand have taken from him his human life,\nand have, with honour, given him back to his Father.\nHow then, poor worm, may you live before me?*\n\nTHE SOUL: *Speak, my empress; I dread some small secret medicine\nthat God has often given me,\nthat I may recover thereby.*\n\nLOVE: *When the prisoners are not to be killed,\nthen water and bread are given to them.\nThe medicine God has often given you\nis nothing else than a respite into this mortal life.\nBut when your Easter-day comes\nand your body receives the death-stroke,\nthen I shall wholly surround you\nand pass wholly through you,\nand shall steal you from your body\nand give you to your Beloved.*\n\nTHE SOUL: *Love, this letter I have written from your mouth;\nnow give me, lady, your seal.*\n\nLOVE: *Whoever has ever loved God above himself\nknows well where to take the seal: it lies between us two.*\n\nTHE SOUL: *Be silent, Love; speak no more.\nBow down to him for me, dearest of all maidens,\non behalf of all creatures, and on my own behalf.*\n\nTell my beloved that his bed is made,\nand that I am love-sick for him.\nIf this letter is too long, the fault is mine: I was in the meadow,\nwhere I was binding flowers of many kinds.\n\nThis is a sweet lament of sorrow: *Whoever dies of Love, let him be buried in gold.*\n\n[^4]: Morel's note: \"Greith p. 225.\"\n\n### IV. Of the soul's court-journey, on which God shows himself.\n\nWhen the poor soul comes to court, she is wise and well-bred; she gazes joyfully upon her God. Ah, how lovingly she is received there. Then she is silent, and longs immeasurably for his praise. Then he shows her, with great longing, his divine heart. It is like to the red gold that burns in a great coal-fire. Then he places her in his glowing heart, so that the high prince and the little servant-maid embrace and are united as water and wine. Then she becomes nothing and comes out of herself, as though she could no more; and he is love-sick for her, as he ever was, for nothing comes to him or goes from him. Then she says: *Lord, you are my consolation, my longing, my flowing fountain, my pillar — and I am your mirror.* This is a court-journey of the loving soul, who without God may not exist.\n\n### V. Of the torment and the wages of hell.\n\nMy body is in long torment, my soul is in high bliss, for she has beheld and embraced her Beloved with her arms, wholly. From him she has the torment, the very poor one. When he draws her, she is lost. She cannot contain herself until he brings her into himself. Then she would gladly speak, and cannot. Then she is utterly enclosed within the marvellous Trinity in high union. Then he releases her a little, that she may have longing. Then she desires his praise, but cannot find it as she would. Indeed, she would that he should send her to hell, in order that he might be praised beyond measure by all creatures. Then she looks upon him and speaks to him: *Lord, give me your blessing.* He looks upon her, draws her back, and gives her a greeting of which the body may not speak.\n\nThen the body says to the soul:\n*Where have you been? I can no more.*\nThe soul says: *Be silent, you are a fool.\nI will be with my Beloved,\neven should you never recover.\nI am his joy; he is my torment.*\n\nThis is her torment: that she may never recover.\nMay this torment befall you;\nnever may you escape it.\n\n### VI. Of the nine choirs, how they sing.\n\nNow hear, dear one, hear with spiritual ears, how the nine choirs sing:\n\nWe praise you, Lord, that you have sought us out with your humility.\nWe praise you, Lord, that you have preserved us with your mercy.\nWe praise you, Lord, that you have honoured us with your lowliness.\nWe praise you, Lord, that you have led us with your generosity.\nWe praise you, Lord, that you have ordered us with your wisdom.\nWe praise you, Lord, that you have shielded us with your power.\nWe praise you, Lord, that you have sanctified us with your nobility.\nWe praise you, Lord, that you have made us certain with your secret things.\nWe praise you, Lord, that you have raised us with your love.[^5]\n\n[^5]: Morel's note: \"*We praise you, Lord, that you have* is here repeated nine times.\" I have written the line in full, since the abbreviation Morel preserves (*W. l. d. h. d. d. u. h.*) is scribal economy, not part of the chant.\n\n### VII. Of God's curse in eight things.\n\nI curse you: your body must die,\nyour word must perish,\nyour eyes must close,\nyour heart must flow out,\nyour soul must rise,\nyour body must remain.[^26]\nYour human senses must pass away,\nyour spirit must stand before the holy Trinity.\n\n### VIII. The least praises God in ten things.\n\nO you burning mountain, O you chosen sun!\nO you full moon, O you groundless fountain!\nO you unreachable height, O you brightness beyond measure!\nO wisdom without ground!\nO mercy without hindrance!\nO strength without resistance!\nO crown of all honours!\nYou are praised by the least one you ever made!\n\n### IX. With three things you dwell on the heights.\n\nThose who burn in true love and build upon a steadfast ground of truth and bring forth fruit with full sheaves of the blessed end — these dwell on the heights. (*Gloss:* that is, above the Seraphim.)\n\n### X. He who loves God conquers three things.\n\nWhatever person overcomes the world,\nand takes from his body all useless will,\nand conquers the devil —\nthat is the soul that loves God.\nIf the world gives her a thrust,\nshe suffers from it little harm.\nIf the flesh gives her a stumble,\nthe spirit is not made sick thereby.\nIf the devil gives her a glance,\nthe soul takes no notice of it;\nshe loves and she loves\nand can do nothing else but love.\n\n### XI. Four are in the battle of God.\n\nO dove without gall! O maiden without sorrow!\nO knight without wounds! O servant undismayed!\nThese are the four who please God well in his battle.\n\n### XII. The soul praises God in five things.[^6]\n\nO Emperor of all honours! O Crown of all princes!\nO Wisdom of all masters! O Giver of all gifts!\nO Releaser of all prisoners.\n\n[^6]: Morel's note: \"Greith p. 228.\"\n\n### XIII. How God comes into the soul.\n\nI come to my Beloved\nas a dew upon the flowers.\n\n### XIV. How the soul receives and praises God.\n\nAh, joyful beholding! Ah, lovely greeting! Ah, loving embrace! Lord, your wonder has wounded me, your grace has pressed me down. O you high rock, you are so well bored through — in you none may nest but doves and nightingales.\n\n### XV. How God receives the soul.\n\nWelcome, dear dove. You have flown so hard upon the earth that your wings have grown into the kingdom of heaven.\n\n### XVI. God likens the soul to four things.\n\nYou taste like a grape-cluster, you smell like balsam, you shine like the sun, you are an increase of my highest love.\n\n### XVII. The soul praises God in five things.\n\nO you pouring God in your gift!\nO you flowing God in your love!\nO you burning God in your longing!\nO you melting God in the union with your Beloved!\nO you resting God upon my breasts, without which I cannot be!\n\n### XVIII. God likens the soul to five things.\n\nO you fair rose in the thorn!\nO you flying bee in the honey!\nO you pure dove in your being!\nO you bright sun in your shining!\nO you full moon in your standing!\nI cannot turn from you.\n\n### XIX. God caresses the soul in six things.\n\nYou are my pillow, my loving bed, my most secret rest, my deepest longing, my highest honour. You are a delight of my Godhead, a consolation of my manhood, a brook for my heat.\n\n### XX. The soul praises God in return in six things.\n\nYou are my mirror-mountain, a feast for the eye, a losing of myself, a storm in my heart, a fall and a renouncing of my power, my highest security.\n\n### XXI. Of knowing and of enjoyment.\n\nLove without knowing\nis to the wise soul a darkness.\nKnowing without enjoyment\nis to her a hell-pain.\nEnjoyment without dying she cannot complain away.\n\n### XXII. Of Saint Mary's annunciation, and how one virtue follows another, and how the soul became a *jubilus* of the Trinity, and how holy Mary suckled all the saints and suckles them still.[^7]\n\nThe sweet dew of the beginningless Trinity has sprung from the fountain of the eternal Godhead into the flower of the chosen Maiden; and the fruit of this flower is an undying God and a dying man and a living consolation of eternal love. And our redemption has become Bridegroom. The bride is made drunk by the gazing of the noble face. In the greatest strength she comes out of herself; in the greatest blindness she sees most clearly. In the greatest clarity she is both dead and alive. The longer she is dead, the more joyfully she lives. The more joyfully she lives, the more she experiences. The less she becomes, the more flows into her. The more she fears,[^8] the richer she becomes; the poorer she is, the deeper she dwells; the broader she is, the more she rules. The more wounded, the deeper her wounds; the more she storms, the more lovingly God turns toward her; the higher she floats, the more beautifully she shines from the answering-glance of the Godhead, the nearer she comes to him. The more she works, the more softly she rests; the more she grasps, the more silently she is still. The more openly she calls, the greater are the wonders she works with his strength according to her power. The more his delight increases, the greater her wedding-feast becomes; the narrower the loving union becomes, the closer the embrace; the sweeter tastes the mouth-kiss; the more lovingly they look upon each other, the harder it is for them to part. The more he gives her, the more she consumes, the more she has. The more humbly she takes her leave, the sooner she returns. The hotter she remains, the sooner she is kindled. The more she burns, the more beautifully she shines. The more God's praise is spread abroad, the greater her desire remains.\n\nAh, how far our redeeming Bridegroom journeys in the *jubilus* of the holy Trinity! When God could no more contain himself within himself, then he made the soul and gave himself to her as her own, out of great love. — *Of what are you made, soul, that you climb so high above all creatures and mingle yourself in the holy Trinity, and yet remain wholly in yourself?*[^9] *You have spoken of my beginning; now I tell you truly: I am made in that very place out of Love, and therefore no creature may comfort me or answer me according to my noble nature, save only Love. — Lady Saint Mary, of this wonder you are the mother. How did this happen to you? — When our Father's *jubilus* was troubled by Adam's fall, so that he had to be angry, then the eternal Wisdom of the almighty Godhead received the anger together with me. Then the Father chose me as a bride, that he might have something to love, for his dear bride was dead — the noble soul. And the Son chose me as a mother, and the Holy Spirit received me as a dearling. Thus I was sole bride of the holy Trinity and mother of the orphans, and I bore them before God's eyes, so that they did not entirely sink, as some however did. When I was thus mother of the gentle, noble child, my breasts became so full of the pure, undefiled milk of the true, mild mercy that I suckled the prophets and the seers before God was born. Then in my childhood I suckled Jesus; later, in my youth, I suckled God's bride, holy Christendom, beside the cross — so that I became dry and pitiful, and the sword of Jesus' fleshly pain cut spiritually into my soul. Then both stood open: his wounds, and her breasts. The wounds poured, the breasts flowed, so that the soul lived and became wholly whole. When he poured the white-red wine into her red mouth — when she was thus born from the open wounds and made alive — she was childlike and very young. Were she now, after her death and her birth, to recover fully, then God's mother had to be her mother and her nurse. — God, it was and is fitting. God is her rightful Father and she his rightful bride; and she is like him in all her sufferings. Lady, in your old age you suckled the holy apostles with your motherly teaching and with your mighty prayer, so that God did his honour and his will in them. Lady, thus you suckled then, and you still suckle the martyrs in their hearts with strong faith; the confessors with holy protection in their ears; the maidens with your chastity; the widows with steadfastness; the consecrated with mildness; the sinners with petition.\n\nLady, you must still suckle us, for your breasts are yet so full that with might you must press them out. Would you suckle no more, the milk would pain you sorely. For truly, I have seen your breasts so full that seven streams poured all at once from a single breast over my body and over my soul. In that hour you take from me a labour that no friend of God may bear without heart-sorrow. Thus shall you suckle until the last day; then shall you grow dry, when God's children and yours are weaned and grown to the full into the eternal life. Ah, after that we shall know and behold in unspeakable delight the milk and the very breast that Jesus so often kissed.*\n\n[^7]: Morel's note: \"Greith p. 230.\"\n\n[^8]: Morel's note: \"Here something seems to be missing.\" The Alemannic *vörhtet* (fears) interrupts the parallel \"the more — the more\" series; a clause has dropped out of the MS.\n\n[^9]: The speaker changes here. Morel marks: \"Mary or the soul speaks.\" I render the change as a colon-flag; Mechthild's text moves freely between the soul's voice and Mary's voice in this chapter, since both are the bride of the Trinity in different keys.\n\n### XXIII. You shall pray that God love you sore, often, and long — so will you become pure, fair, and lasting.[^10]\n\nAh Lord, love me sore and love me often and long, for the more often you love me, the purer I become; the sorer you love me, the fairer I become; the longer you love me, the holier I become here on earth.\n\n[^10]: Morel's note: \"Greith p. 33.\" The Alemannic *got mine* in the chapter-title is a subjunctive: *that God may love (you).* I follow the body of the chapter, which addresses God in the imperative (\"love me sore!\"), and render the title accordingly. The closing *lange* (\"long\") I render \"lasting\" to preserve the wordplay with *long-love*.\n\n### XXIV. How God answers the soul.\n\nThat I love you often, I have from nature, for I myself am Love. That I love you sore, I have from my longing,[^11] for I desire that I should be sorely loved. That I love you long, that is from my eternity, for I am without end.\n\n[^11]: Morel's note in the margin reads: \"*Deus Caritas est*\" — God is Love (1 John 4:8, 4:16).\n\n### XXV. Of the way of suffering pain gladly for God.\n\nGod leads his children, whom he has chosen, by marvellous ways. It is a marvellous way and a noble way and a holy way, which God himself went: that a person should suffer pain without sin and without guilt. On this way the soul who is hungry for God rejoices, for she rejoices by nature in her bridegroom, who through his benevolence has suffered much pain. And her dear Lord, the heavenly Father, gave his dearest Son that he should be tormented by the heathen and martyred by the Jews without his own guilt. And the time has come when certain people who appear spiritual torment God's children in body and martyr them in spirit, for he wishes to make them like his dear Son, who was tormented in body and in soul.\n\n### XXVI. On this way the soul draws in her senses and is free of heart-sorrow.\n\nIt is a rare and lofty way, on which the faithful soul wanders and leads her senses after her, as the seeing-one leads the blind. On this way the soul lives without heart-sorrow, for she wills nothing other than what her Lord wills, who does all things best.\n\n### XXVII. How you may be worthy of this way, and keep to it, and become perfect.\n\nThree things make one worthy of this way, so that he knows it and comes onto it. The first, that the person force himself in God without any mastery, and keep God's grace silently, and bear it willingly, in renouncing all things contrary to the human will. The second keeps the person on the way: that all things, save sin alone, be matter of thanks to him. The third makes the person perfect on the way: that all things alike be done to God's honour — for my poorest necessity I will reckon to God as highly as if I were in the highest contemplation a person may enter; the reason being that when I do it out of love for God's honour, then it is all one. But when I sin, I am not on this way.\n\n### XXVIII. Love must be mortal, without measure, without ceasing — this is the folly of fools.[^12]\n\nI rejoice that I must love him who loves me,\nand I desire mortally to love him without measure and without ceasing:\n*Rejoice, my soul, for your life has died of love[^28]\nfor him, and love him so sorely that you may die for him —\nthen will you burn ever after, unextinguished,\nas a living spark in the great fire of the living Majesty.*\n\nSo shall you become full of love-fire,\nthat here you may be so well.\nYou need not teach me further;\nI cannot turn from love;\nI must be its prisoner;\nI cannot otherwise live.\nWhere it dwells, there I may abide,\nboth in death and in life.\nThis is the folly of fools,\nwho live without heart-sorrow.\n\n[^12]: Morel's note: \"Greith p. 233.\"\n\n### XXIX. Of the beauty of the Bridegroom, and how the little bride must follow him.\n\n*Vide, mea sponsa:*[^13] See how beautiful my eyes are, how just my mouth, how fiery my heart, how nimble my hands, how swift my feet — and follow me. You shall be martyred with me, betrayed in envy, sought in danger, captured in hatred, bound in slander, your eyes blindfolded so that none will know the truth from you, slapped with the wrath of the world, brought before the court at confession, struck on the ear with penance, sent to Herod in mockery, stripped in exile, scourged with poverty, crowned with temptation, spat upon with disgrace, bearing your cross in the hatred of sins, crucified in renunciation of all things according to your will, nailed to the cross with the holy virtues, wounded with Love, dying on the cross in holy constancy, stabbed in the heart with steadfast union, taken down from the cross in true victory over all your foes, buried in holy humility, brought through purgatory in heart-fervour going up to heaven.[^14]\n\n[Morning hours:] Praise God in love.\n[Prime:] Let us love.\n[Terce:] Let us love.\n[Sext:] Let us love.\n[None:] Let us love.\n[Vespers:] Let us love.\n[Compline:] Let us love.\n\n[^13]: \"See, my bride\" — the opening, in Latin, of an erotic-bridal address rooted in the Song of Songs (cf. Song 2:13 *surge, propera, amica mea*; 4:8 *veni de Libano, sponsa*).\n\n[^14]: The Alemannic from this point through Chapter XXX is heavily damaged in Morel's OCR (lines ~2685–2710 in the printed edition). The reconstruction follows what is legibly preserved of the canonical hours-prayer; Morel himself notes ambiguities. The \"Let us love\" sequence renders the surviving fragmentary \"lieben\" or \"mineen\" verbs at each hour.\n\n### XXX. Of the seven hours.[^15]\n\n[The text here is fragmentary in Morel; the chapter appears to set the canonical hours — prime, terce, sext, none, vespers, compline — and an eighth concluding hour, each gathered under the antiphon *love, and love, and love*.]\n\n[^15]: Morel's edition prints this chapter in a damaged state; the OCR shows only a corrupt fragment. The chapter-title is preserved (*Von den siben ziten* — \"Of the seven hours\") and the body appears to be a short hours-cycle parallel to the close of Chapter XXIX. I render the chapter as a flagged lacuna rather than guess.\n\n### XXXI. You shall not heed disgrace.\n\nI was once despised, and our Lord said: *Do not wonder at it overmuch. When the rose-tree[^16] was so harshly cast away and trodden under, what then must happen to the vinegar-tree, of which nothing good ever comes by itself?*\n\n[^16]: Morel's OCR is corrupt at this line; the legible word is *here* (Alemannic for \"rose\" or \"rose-tree\"). The \"vinegar\" / *essig* contrast is preserved.\n\n### XXXII. You shall not heed honours, pains, distresses — only sin.\n\nWhen honour is offered you, you should be ashamed; when you are tormented, you should rejoice; when good is done to you, you should fear; when you act against me, you should be saddened from the heart. If you cannot grieve, see how sorely and how long I grieved for you.\n\n### XXXIII. Of the prebend of consolation and love.\n\nThe soul spoke thus to her Beloved: *Lord, your generosity does wonders to the senses of my body; your mercy does so to the suffering of my soul. Love is rest.*\n\n### XXXIV. In suffering you must be a lamb, a turtledove, a bride.[^17]\n\nYou shall be like a turtledove in this exile,\n[the rest of the chapter is corrupt in Morel].\n\n[^17]: Morel's text breaks off in the OCR after the chapter title and the first line. The chapter is brief in the surviving Alemannic; what is recoverable is rendered, with the lacuna flagged.\n\n### XXXV. The wilderness has twelve things.[^18]\n\nYou shall love nothing,\nyou shall flee nothingness,\nyou shall stand alone\nand go to no one.\nYou shall be very busy\nand free from all things.\nYou shall unbind the prisoners\nand constrain the free.\nYou shall comfort the sick\nand yet have nothing yourself.\nYou shall drink the water of pain\nand kindle the fire of love with the wood of the virtues.\nThus you dwell in the true wilderness.\n\n[^18]: Morel's note: \"Greith p. 235.\" This is one of Mechthild's most-quoted lyrics; its paradoxical structure (love nothing / flee nothing) is part of the apophatic Rhineland register.\n\n### XXXVI. Of the goodness of evil and of marvels.\n\nWith the evil of your enemies you shall be adorned.\nWith the virtues of your heart you shall be honoured.\nWith your good works you shall be crowned.\nWith the love between us two you shall be raised.\nWith my joyful wonders you shall be sanctified.\n\n### XXXVII. The soul answers God, that she is worthy of grace.\n\nO dearest one! Innocent disgrace delights me.\nHeart-felt virtues I desire.\nGood works, alas, I have not.\nThe love between us two — that I spoil.\nOf your fair wonder I am wholly unworthy.\n\n### XXXVIII. God boasts that the soul has overcome four sins.\n\nOur Lord boasts in the heavenly kingdom\nof his loving soul whom he has on earth,\nand says: See how she has come, mounting up,\nwho has wounded me.\nShe has cast from her the ape of the world.\nShe has overcome the bear of unchastity.\nShe has trodden under her feet the lion of pride.\nShe has torn open the wolf of greed and split its belly.\nAnd she comes running like a hunted stag\nafter the fountain that I am.\nShe comes swinging up like an eagle\nout of the deep into the heights.\n\n### XXXIX. God asks the soul what she brings.[^19]\n\nYou hunt hard in love.\nTell me, what do you bring me, my Queen?\n\n[^19]: Morel's note: \"Greith p. 236.\"\n\n### XL. She answers him that it is better than four things.[^27]\n\nLord, I bring you my jewels:\nthey are greater than the mountains, broader than the world,\ndeeper than the sea, higher than the clouds, fairer than the sun,\nmore manifold than the stars; they weigh more than the whole earth.\n\n### XLI. God asks, with praise, what the jewel is called.\n\nYou[^20] image of my Godhead, honoured with my manhood,\nadorned with my Holy Spirit — what are your jewels called?\n\n[^20]: Morel's note: \"MS reads *ein*\" (a/one) — i.e., \"the image\" rather than \"you image.\" I follow the addressed-form, which matches the antiphonal structure of the chapter-pair.\n\n### XLII. The jewel is called the heart's delight.\n\nLord, it is called my heart's delight; I have withdrawn it from the world, kept it for myself, and refused it to all creatures. Now I can carry it no further. Lord, where shall I lay it down?\n\n### XLIII. Lay your delight in the Trinity.\n\nYour heart's delight you must lay nowhere but in my divine heart, and upon my human breasts. There alone are you comforted and kissed by my Spirit.\n\n### XLIV. Of Love's way in seven things, of the bride's three garments, and of the dance.\n\nGod speaks: Ah, loving soul, would you know what your way is?\n\nTHE SOUL: Yes, dear Holy Spirit, teach me. — When you come past the distress of contrition, and past the pain of confession, and past the labour of penance, and past the love of the world, and past the temptation of the devil, and past the excesses of the flesh, and past the cursed self-will that draws so many a soul backward, so that she never comes to true love — and when you have struck down all your greatest foes — then you are so weary that you say: *Beautiful Youth, I long for you. Where shall I find you?* And the Youth says:\n\nI hear a voice\nwhich sounds a little of love.\nI have wooed her many a day,\nyet the voice never came to me.\nNow I am moved;\nI must go to her.\n\nShe is the one who bears together longing and love.\nIn the morning, in the dew, that is the enclosed inwardness,\nwhich first goes into the soul.\n\nThen say her chamberlains, who are the five senses:\n\nTHE SENSES: Lady, you should clothe yourself.\nTHE SOUL: Dear ones, where shall I go?\nTHE SENSES: We have well overheard the whispering.\nThe Prince will come to meet you\nin the dew and in the fair birdsong.\nAh lady, then do not delay.\n\nSo she puts on a shift of gentle humility, and so humble that under it she cannot bear anything. Above it a white robe of pure chastity, and so pure that in thought, in word, or in touch she can no longer bear anything that might stain her. Then she takes round her a mantle of holy reputation, which she has gilded with all the virtues.\n\nSo she goes into the wood of the fellowship of holy people. There the sweetest nightingales of well-tempered union with God sing day and night, and many a sweet voice she hears there from the birds of holy knowing. Still the Youth has not come.[^21] Now she sends out messengers, for she will dance, and she sends for Abraham's faith, and for the longing of the prophets, and for the chaste humility of our Lady Saint Mary, and for all the holy virtues of Jesus Christ, and for all the merits of his chosen ones. So there is a fair praise-dance. Then the Youth comes and speaks to her: *Maiden, you should now dance after as my chosen ones have danced before you.* She says:\n\nI cannot dance, Lord, unless you lead me.\nIf you would have me leap high,\nthen must you yourself sing first.\nThen I leap into love,\nfrom love into knowing,\nfrom knowing into enjoyment,\nfrom enjoyment beyond all human senses.\nThere I will remain, and yet circle higher still.\n\n(How the bride sings) And the Youth must sing thus: *Through me into you, and through you out of me, gladly with you, from you in distress.* — Then the Youth says: *Maiden, this praise-dance has gone well for you. You shall have your will with the Maiden's Son, for you are now lovingly weary. Come at midday to the brown shade, into the bed of love; there shall you cool yourself with him.* The Maiden says:\n\nLord, it is too great\nthat you are the companion of your love,\nthat you have no love in yourself\nunless first you are moved by her.[^29]\n\nThen the soul says to her senses, who are her chamberlains: Now I am for a while weary of dancing. Make way for me; I must go where I may be cooled. Then the senses say to the soul: Lady, will you cool yourself in the love-tears of Saint Mary Magdalene; there you may indeed be content. THE SOUL:\n\nBe silent, sirs; you know not all I mean.\nLeave me alone;\nI would drink a little unmixed wine.\n\nSENSES: Lady, in the chastity of the maidens\nthe great love is prepared.\nSOUL: That may well be; that is not the highest in me.\n\nSENSES: In the blood of the martyrs you may sorely cool yourself.\nSOUL: I have been martyred so many a day\nthat I may not now go there.\n\nSENSES: In the counsel of the confessors pure people gladly dwell.\nSOUL: With counsel I will ever stand,\nboth in doing and in leaving;\nyet I may not now go there.\n\nSENSES: In the wisdom of the apostles\nyou find great security.\nSOUL: I have the wisdom here with me;\nwith that I will ever choose the best.\n\nSENSES: Lady, the angels are bright\nand fair, love-coloured;\nif you will cool yourself, lift yourself up to them.\nSOUL: The bliss of the angels gives me ache\nwhen I do not look upon their Lord and my Bridegroom.\n\nSENSES: Then cool yourself in the holy, hard life\nthat God gave to John the Baptist.\nSOUL: To suffering I am ready.\nYet the power of love goes beyond all labour.\n\nSENSES: Lady, would you kneel lovingly,\nthen bend down in the Maiden's lap\nto the little Child, and see and taste\nhow the angels' joy\nsucks from the eternal Virgin the supernatural milk.\nSOUL: That is a childlike love,\nthat one should suckle children and rock them;\nI am a full-grown bride;\nI would go after my Beloved.\n\nSENSES: Lady, if you go there\nwe must be wholly blinded,\nfor the Godhead is so fiery hot,\nas you yourself well know.\nAll the fire and all the glow\nthat lights heaven and all the saints\nand burns — all that has flowed\nout of his divine breath\nand from his human mouth,\nby the counsel of the Holy Spirit;\nhow could you abide there for even one hour?\n\nSOUL:\nThe fish in the water does not drown.\nThe bird in the air does not sink.\nThe gold in the fire does not perish,\nfor there it receives its brightness and its shining colour.\nGod has given to all creatures\nthat they should keep their nature;\nhow then should I withstand my own nature?\nI must go from all things into God,\nwho is my Father by nature,\nmy Brother by his manhood,\nmy Bridegroom by love,\nand I his without beginning.\nDo you not think that I feel his weal?\nHe can both: powerfully burn and consolingly cool.\nNow do not be too distressed.\nYou shall yet teach me.\nWhen I return,\nI shall need your teaching well,\nfor the earth is full of many a snare.\n\nSo the dearest goes to the most fair\ninto the hidden chamber of the innocent Godhead.\nThere she finds the bed and the dwelling of love,\nprepared for God and humanity.\nThen our Lord says: Stand still, Lady Soul. —\nWhat do you command, Lord? —\nYou shall be naked. —\nLord, how then shall it be with me?\n— Lady Soul, you are so deeply naturalized into me\nthat between you and me nothing can be.\nNever was an angel so high\nas to be granted for one hour\nwhat is given you eternally.\nTherefore you shall lay aside both fear and shame\nand all outward virtue.\nOnly what is yours by nature\nshall you wish to feel eternally.\nThat is your noble desire and your groundless greed,\nwhich I shall eternally fulfil with my endless generosity.\n\nLord, now I am a naked soul,\nand you in yourself are a well-adorned God.\nThe fellowship of us two\nis the eternal love without death.\nThen there comes a blessed stillness\naccording to the will of both.\nHe gives himself to her, and she gives herself to him.\nWhat now happens to her, she knows —\nand in this I take my comfort.\nNow this cannot last long.\nWhen two lovers come secretly together,\nthey must often part undivided.\n\nDear friend of God, this way of love I have written for you;\nmay God breathe it into your heart. Amen.\n\n[^21]: Morel's note: \"MS reads *kan*\" — scribal variant; the sense is *kam* (came), as I have rendered it.\n\n### XLV. Of eight days in which the prophets' longing was fulfilled.\n\nThis is a day of longing and of blessed joy in the announcing of Christ.\n\nThis is a day of rest and of bodily tenderness in the bearing of Christ.\n\nThis is a day of fidelity and of blessed union — the high Thursday.\n\nThis is a day of mildness and of heartfelt love — the still Friday.\n\nThis is a day of power and of joyful gladness — the resurrection.\n\nThis is a day of belief and of pitiful lament — the ascension day.\n\nThis is a day of truth and of burning consolation — Pentecost.\n\nThis is a day of justice and of the true hour — the last judgment.\n\nThis is a week, of which we should keep seven days in constancy. One our Lord will keep with us all on the last day.\n\n### XLVI. Of the manifold adornment of the bride, and how she comes to the Bridegroom, and what her retinue is — which is ninefold.\n\nThe bride is clothed with the sun and has the moon trodden under her feet, and she is crowned with union.\n\nShe has a chaplain, that is fear: he carries a golden rod in his hand, that is wisdom. The chaplain is clothed with the lamb's blood, and is crowned with honour. And wisdom is clothed with well-pleasingness, and is crowned with eternity.\n\nThe bride has four maidens.\n*Love* leads the bride; Love is clothed with chastity and crowned with dignity.\nThe second is *humility*: she holds the bride; she is clothed with disregard and crowned with the heights.\nThe third maiden is *contrition*: she is clothed with the grape-clusters and crowned with joy.\nThe fourth maiden is *mercy*: she is clothed with the salve and crowned with bliss.\nThe two of them[^22] bear up the bride's mantle, which is the holy reputation.\n\nShe has a bishop, that is *faith*: he leads the bride before the Bridegroom. The bishop is clothed with precious gems and crowned with the Holy Spirit. The bishop has two knights: the one is *strength*, who is clothed with battle and crowned with victory; the other is *boldness*, who is clothed with graciousness and crowned with all bliss.\n\nShe has a chamberlain, that is *guardianship*, who is clothed with steadfastness and crowned with constancy: he bears the light before the bride and bears her train behind. The light is *understanding*, which is clothed with discretion and crowned with mildness. The train is the holy *conscience*,[^23] which is clothed with good will and crowned with God's pleasure.\n\nShe has a cupbearer, that is *desire*, which is clothed with eagerness and crowned with peace. She has a minstrel, that is *love-fellowship*; his harp is *inwardness*; he is clothed with favour and crowned with help.\n\nThe bride has five kingdoms.\nThe first are the eyes, which are built with tears and adorned with restraint.\nThe second are the thoughts, which are built with strife and adorned with counsel.\nThe third is speech, which is built with necessity and adorned with fidelity.\nThe fourth is hearing, which is built with God's word and adorned with consolation.\nThe fifth is touch, which is built with power and adorned with pure custom.\n\nThese five kingdoms have a steward, who is *guilt*, who is clothed with confession and crowned with penance. He has a judge, who is clothed with discipline and crowned with patience.\n\nThe bride has a pack-horse, which is the body: it is bridled with unworthiness, and disgrace is its fodder, and its stable is confession. The saddle-chest it carries is innocence.\n\nThe bride has a *pellelbovivir*,[^24] which is hope, who is clothed in truth and crowned with song.\n\nShe has a palm in her hand, which is the victory over sin, and a flask in her other hand, which is full of longing and love, which she will bring to her Beloved. She has a peacock-hat, which is the good reputation on earth and high honour in the heavenly kingdom. So she goes a way, which is gentleness, which is clothed with flowing honey and crowned with security.\n\nSo she sings then: *Chosen beloved, I yearn for you. You take and give me many a heart's pain. Yet I have from you unspeakable suffering. When you, Lord, command, then am I released from myself.* And he says:\n\n*Loving beloved, think of the hour\nwhen you took hold of the full discovery.\nDo not let the time grow long for you,\nfor at every hour\nI have embraced you with my arms.*\n\nThen our Lord says to his chosen bride: *Veni, dilecta mea, veni coronaberis.*[^25] Then he gives her a crown of truth, which none may wear save spiritual people. In this crown one sees four virtues: wisdom and care, longing and keeping. God grant us all the crown! Amen.\n\n[^22]: Morel: *du zwei* — \"the two.\" The text does not specify which two of the four maidens carry the mantle; later editors (Neumann) read this as referring to the last two listed (contrition and mercy).\n\n[^23]: Morel prints the phrase *sain wiszikeit* without gloss; the rendering above (\"*sin*-wisdom, knowledge of sin, the older sense of *conscientia*\") follows the most likely scribal etymology (`sain` ≈ *sünden*) but is the translator's conjecture, not Morel's claim.\n\n[^24]: The Alemannic *pellelbovivir* (Morel's text) is obscure. Morel does not gloss it. It is plausibly a corrupted reading of a Latin or Romance loan-word for a heraldic figure — possibly a *palfrenier* (palfrey-keeper, groom) or a *pellier* (fur-cloak-bearer) — but the surface form does not yield a clean etymology. I leave it untranslated, in italics, rather than guess; readers wanting an established rendering should consult Menzies 1953 or Tobin 1997.\n\n[^25]: \"Come, my beloved, come and you shall be crowned\" — a liturgical address from the Song of Songs tradition (cf. Song 4:8 *veni, sponsa mea, de Libano*), used in monastic profession-rites and in the consecration of virgins.\n[^26]: Mechthild's deliberate paradox: \"your body must die\" (line above) coupled with \"your body must remain\" (this line). The doubling is not OCR damage; it foreshadows the resurrection-body theology that recurs across the *Flowing Light* — the body is at once mortal and an enduring vessel for the soul's reunion with God at the last judgment.\n[^27]: Chapter title says \"four things\" but the body lists seven comparatives (mountains, world, sea, clouds, sun, stars, earth). The numerical inconsistency is in Morel's source MS itself, not an OCR slip; preserved here without emendation.\n[^28]: Source (lines 2633–2639) does not mark a clear speaker-shift at this point. The italicization above interprets the lines as a direct utterance (most naturally Love's voice addressing the soul); they could also be read as the soul's interior self-address. The choice is the translator's, not Morel's.\n[^29]: OCR-suspect pronoun *Du* in source line 2965. Given the following line *Si werde e von dir beweget* (\"she would first be moved by you\"), an alternative reading takes Love (*sü*, she) as the grammatical subject of this clause: \"*that Love has no love in herself, unless she is first moved by you*\" — restoring the more usual Beguine bridal grammar in which Love acts upon the Lord rather than vice versa. Either reading is defensible; the rendering above follows the surface OCR.\n\n---\n\n*Here ends the first part of this book.*",
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