The Strofische Gedichten (Stanzaic Poems) of Hadewijch

Author:

Hadewijch of Antwerp/Brabant

Form:

mystical lyric poetry (vernacular songs in courtly Minne-lyric tradition)

Approx. date:

c. 1240 CE

Hadewijch's forty-five Stanzaic Poems (Strofische Gedichten, also called Liederen — Songs) are the lyric peak of Middle Dutch courtly-Minne poetry: the troubadour and Minnesang forms turned to the divine, the Beloved being God / Christ, the fier (proud, noble) lover the soul. Hadewijch's lyric mastery is unmatched in the vernacular literature of her time; she stands beside Mechthild of Magdeburg and the courtly poets of the Minne-tradition as one of the inventors of the European vernacular lyric of mystical love. COMPLETE in nine sections — all forty-five Songs (I-XLV) are now shipped at approximately 32K English words. Section I covers Songs I-V: the winter-and-New-Year opening with the famous Latin double-refrain (Ay vale vale millies / Si dixero non satis est); the Maiden-Queen Song with Hadewijch's signature etymological play Hare name amor es van der doet (Her name, Amor, is from death); Song III on Love's wounds and the jubileren of pain-and-joy; Song IV's many-called-few-chosen (Matt 22:14) fused with troubadour fin'amor; Song V the canonical oscillations-poem (bi wilen heet bi wilen cout / bi wilen blode bi wilen bout). Section II adds Songs VI-X: the sap-rising spring opening with the famous Love's friends in heavy bonds, strangers in their own land lament; the Nuwe Song's 39-fold anaphora on new; the All-Seasons Song with its rejection of the courtly Natureingang convention; the Birds-Have-Long-Been-Silent lament with its closing cry Beloved, when will you come?; and the sharper New-Year Lament with the famous Love is Lady of all, and we wander at her side and the closing self-rebuke. Source: Heremans/Vercoullie diplomatic edition (1875, Maatschappij der Vlaamsche Bibliophielen, Gent; DBNL hade002werk01 Vol 1: Gedichten, PD by US 95-year rule). Modern translations (Mother Columba Hart 1980, Marieke van Baest 1998) remain in copyright. Section III adds Songs XI-XV: the My yoke is sweet, my burden is light Song XI with its closing cosmic image (the sun, the moon, the stars stand at her mercy); Song XII with the We dare well boast: you my Beloved and I yours passage and Love's mighty rod; Song XIII the nightingale-and-wound Song with its school-of-Love masters who give wounds without healing; Song XIV the orewoet-Song with the Latin macaronic Ay amabar / Ay utinam tags; and the autobiographical Song XV with the Now my misfortune has mustered its war-march against me opening and the closing I have given over to high Love all that I am — I am not my own. Section IV (Songs XVI-XX): hazel-blossoms-in-the-dark; the Love has the days and I the nights and orewoet epigram of XVIII; Love's vocative I am that I was before; now fall into my arms at the close of XIX. Section V (Songs XXI-XXV): the warrior-Song XXI; no peaceful wilderness was ever shaped as Love can make (XXII); Now-may-God-counsel-us refrain (XXIII); Love is strong and I am weak (XXIV); the Desire-vs-Reason dialectic (XXV). Section VI (Songs XXVI-XXX) is the doctrinal heart: Queen-of-Sheba (XXVI); deeper wounded, more softly healed (XXVII); orewoet is a rich fief (XXVIII); the long Marian Song XXIX with Then the mountain flowed to the deep dale; then was the castle conquered; the Whether I lose or win refrain (XXX). Section VII (Songs XXXI-XXXV): Song XXXIII's hunger-and-saturation doctrine; Song XXXIV's None was ever lost in Love of what one ever did for Love's sake — Love is always Love's reward; the climactic Song XXXV's Love, you were there at counsel where God commanded me to be human. Section VIII (Songs XXXVI-XL): the In de minne refrain-Song (XXXVI); swan sings at dying (XXXVIII) with To become nothing all in Love — that is the best of all the works I know; the great astronomical metaphor of XL: the course of the heavens and the planets one may measure, but no master can presume that he with sinne may make Love understood. Section IX (Songs XLI-XLV): All Saints' Day Song XLIII (Love shall grow to them more than lack); the Closing Macaronic Hymn XLV, whose ten Latin tags — verus amor / cordis clamor / laus et honor / traxit odor / medicina / vrouwe et regina / condimentum / sacramentum / redemptori / bene mori — form a liturgical-hymnic envoi placing the eschatological bene mori (to die well) as the last word of the entire cycle.

• 1Section I — Songs I-V — courtly-Minne converted to the divine

  The opening five Songs. Hadewijch inherits the troubadour and Minnesang lyric and converts it to the divine: Lief (Beloved) is God / Christ; the fiere (noble proud) lover is the soul. The seasonal openings, the figure of Minne as sovereign and beloved, the autobiographical voice are all established here.

  3,445 words
• 2Section II — Songs VI-X — liturgical seasons and the song-in-any-season

  Three liturgical-seasonal openings (VI on early spring; VII and X on the New Year, X with sharper lament) and two any season Songs: VIII opens 'one may sing of Love in any season'; IX is the birds-have-long-been-silent lament that abandons the bird-trope altogether for direct address to Minne.

  3,509 words
• 3Section III — Songs XI-XV — spring of the noble; autobiographical adversity

  The confident spring-of-the-noble opening (XI), a sharp warning to false converts (XII), the nightingale-wound Song (XIII), and two of Hadewijch's most autobiographical adversity-Songs (XIV-XV) — Songs in which exile, isolation, and abandonment by the jongen (the young / immature) are voiced most directly.

  3,515 words
• 4Section IV — Songs XVI-XX — darkness-and-blossom; fall into my arms

  Songs turning on the darkness-and-blossom paradox and the days-and-nights division. Culminates in the climactic Love-speaks-to-the-soul vocative — 'I am that I was before — fall into my arms' — one of Hadewijch's signature direct-address moments.

  3,119 words
• 5Section V — Songs XXI-XXV — warrior, isolation, desire-vs-reason

  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.

  3,586 words
• 6Section VI — Songs XXVI-XXX — Queen of Sheba; the great Marian Song XXIX

  The central doctrinal heart of the cycle. The Queen of Sheba Song (XXVI); the **orewoet-is-a-rich-fief Song (XXVIII); the long Marian Song XXIX*, in which the entire history of salvation is read through the figure of Mary as the gate by which Love-hidden-in-the-Father's-bosom flowed down* to humanity.

  3,379 words
• 7Section VII — Songs XXXI-XXXV — hunger-and-saturation; Love is always Love's reward

  The cycle's later, more theologically darkening register. Song XXXIII's hunger-and-saturation doctrine in compact quatrains; Song XXXIV's famous None ever in Love was lost — Love rewards either before or after; Love is always Love's reward; and Song XXXV addressing Love directly as the One at counsel where God commanded me to be human.

  3,074 words
• 8Section VIII — Songs XXXVI-XL — the In de minne refrain; astronomical Love

  The last full quintet before the closing coda. The long In de minne refrain-Song (XXXVI); the swan sings at dying Song (XXXVIII); Song XXXIX's compact catalogue of Love's contraries (Love makes the unlearned wise and dis-instructs the wise; makes the low rise); and Song XL's closing astronomical metaphor — Love's course faster than the heavens, no master can make Love understood by sinne.

  3,332 words
• 9Section IX — Songs XLI-XLV — the closing coda

  The closing five Songs of the cycle. The translation of the entire 45-Song Strofische Gedichten concludes here. Songs XLI-XLV form a tightly woven coda — the autobiographical voice returns, the orewoet (mystical ardour) is named with calm, the doctrine of Love rewards before or after is restated with finality.

  3,190 words

JSON: /api/sources/beguine-mystics/hadewijch-strofische-gedichten/index.json · Back to Sources.