Greco-Christian stream·Beguine Mystics·The Strofische Gedichten (Stanzaic Poems) of Hadewijch·Section I

Section I

First 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.

Section I covers Songs I–V, opening the corpus. The five together establish all the major themes the cycle will develop:

• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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).
• 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.

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.

Song I

I.

Ah, all that the winter is now cold,
short the days and the night long,
yet there nakedly draws near a stout-summer
that shall soon bring us out of that constraint,
that shall soon make plain by this New Year:
the hazel brings us its fair flowers
— that is an open token.
Ay vale vale millies¹
all you who are awaiting the new times,
si dixero non satis est,²
be glad for Love.

And they who are of fier moed (noble proud spirit)
— what storms they encounter for Love —
receive them so finely,
as is this that I would win in everything,
and shall win, God give it me all,
that-which to Love is most becoming,
yet by her own pleasing roads misfortune
shall to me be the greatest gain.
Ay vale vale millies
all you to whom such venture comes,
si dixero non satis est,
endure for Love's own nature's sake.

Ah, what shall I do, a miserable woman?
With reason I may well hate good Fortune.
My very life grieves me sorely;
I can neither love nor leave-off-loving.
Both are turned cruel against me:
Fortune and Adventure.
I wander in self-loss, and there is no other
than what seems to me against my nature.
Ay vale vale millies
let all of you be moved to pity
si dixero non satis est,
that Love thus leaves me wailing.

Ah, I was ever bold upon Love
since first I heard her named,
and gave myself to her free might.
For this they all condemn me —
friends and strangers, young and old,
whom I in every way served and was hearty-toward
and loved all of them for Love's sake.
Ay vale vale millies
I counsel them to spare nothing,
si dixero non satis est,
when they hear how I have fared.

Ah miserable I, I can do for myself
neither live nor die.
Ah, sweet God, what has happened to me
that the people lay me low?
If they would but leave you to strike me alone,
you would best counsel me
according to right, in all that I have done amiss,
and they would be kept from harm.
Ay vale vale millies
who do not let God have his way,
si dixero non satis est,
and do not love and hate.

While they stand-over me —
who then shall love her Beloved?
Let them go their ways freely
where they would learn to know you.
They would help you against me —
who need it little —
who can rightly atone and strike,
and prove with clear truth.
Ay vale vale millies
all you who, with God, would have a part
si dixero non satis est,
in atoning, or in rights.

Ah, Solomon, you who counsel-against the work
of searching what is too strong for us,
and that we should not aspire
to higher things than we are,
that we should not try them,
but let Love, the fine one,
freely make us bound and freed:
Ay vale vale millies
who to the high Love's counsel
si dixero non satis est,
climb-up from grade to grade.

Human senses are so small;
much may God stand above them.
God alone is wise of all things —
let one then praise him for all,
and let him do his office
in avenging and in suffering.
There is no work to him so far escaped
that it comes not all before his eyes.
Ay vale vale millies
those who fully give themselves to Love
si dixero non satis est,
and live to her eyes' full satisfaction.

God must give us a new mind
for the noble Love, and free,
that we so newly live therein
that Love bless us
and make us new with the new taste
she alone can give-in-fullness
— Love is the new and mighty supplying
to those who wholly to Love newly give-themselves-up.
Ay vale vale millies,
that newness of the new Love
si dixero non satis est,
the new will newly know.

Song II

II.

This year, in a short time,
the sap from the roots shall strike upward;
thereby shall, far and wide,
field and herb take on their leaf.
Of this we have sure expectation:
the birds become glad.
He who goes in Love to strife,
he shall soon overcome,
if only he does not turn aside.

Who does not spare for high Love,
he is wise in all his works;
Love is Maiden and Queen
who makes many of high spirit,
so that he, above all her good,
puts to it his strength and senses;
where Love knows the work,
how she shall reward him at first
— he is the one Love overcomes.³

But therefore Love is Lady and Maiden:
that she is the mother of all virtue.
She is bearing, and bears alone the troth
through which all you who love may be empowered.
She alone has gladdened us,
and bettered all sorrow.
I pray that she behold us
and make the youth to grow,
that she fulfill all Love's troth to us.

How sweet is Love in her nature,
that she overcomes every other power.
He who loves suffers heavy hazard
before he knows in Love's manners
that he is by her fully loved;
so he tastes more bitter and sour;
he may not endure an hour
before Love binds him wholly into Love
and into the fire of fruition.

Whoever yearns for the un-fruition in Love,
he shall overcome all his trouble.
He cannot die whom Love has reached
— her name, Amor, is from death;
he who did what Love bade
and failed not therein,
she is the bliss of every matter:
Love is the living bread,
and above all pleasures in tasting.

My new songs
are altogether brought to great lamenting
— I who have sung long
and of Love's beautiful heart-might.
Though I have wrought too little,
it does me sore woe and anguish
that I do not encompass
the unconquered might
in the fruition of Love's constraint.

I may well of the fine Love
henceforth be silent my days more.
Where I was wont to be glad,
in singing and in springing in the time before,
when her rich teaching
made joy appear to me,
there I now endure pain
and from-the-heart suffer,
of which I age and waste.

Thus has Love's pain wasted me,
that I am for nothing more good —
she who first led me to her school,
where I suckled her wise wonders,
and she since drew that away
and from me much has hidden.
Yet would I gladly wander still,
for Love did not lie
in what she commanded me.

Would Love give me new days
who am to her become so old —
then would I be silent of my lament
that now is so manifold;
and let her stout-free life
have-her-way at what is now to me a waging.
How gladly would I see
that Love work her free might
upon me as it pleased her.

Though it grieves me so very much
that I know myself a Love-miserable woman,
Love does all her friends honor
who with troth are ready to her,
so that they in joy and grief
understand her rich teaching;
those who do this work without turning,
and Love wholly into Love embrace —
they remain in her rich domain.

As the fair rose to us
comes out of the thorn with the dew,
so shall he who loves, through every evil,
with trust withstand her storms.
He shall, freely, without a doubt,
grow through all damage.
The faint-of-heart
has done his part too soon,
where the amorose are free.

Who would embrace Love
must shun all the loose-of-tongue,
though now her speech be sweet
— one shall soon know
that false is her show.

Song III

III.

The signs show us well in appearance —
birds, flowers, land, the day —
that they shall overcome the trouble
that the winter heavily bore.
Now that Summer can comfort them,
they stand glad-ready to be.
Where I must endure heavy blow,
I would also be glad — if Love would give me
fortune, which she never has.

Ah, what did I do to Fortune,
that it was ever to me so unkind,
that it pressed my nature so sore
above all men manifoldly,
that it did not repay me Love's troth
except sometimes by a tug?
Now perhaps it was my own fault —
so let me err out of my own piece,
that Love may work her free might upon me.

Could I but trust myself upon Love,
it might yet stand me in stead,
since she would let me endure in troth
in good expectation
that Love in troth had so done,
and would behold my need.
Could it be — and not too soon —
for the shield is so hewn-through to me,
it can take no more blows.

Whoever could understand this in goodness,
he had what to me is un-ready:
in scathing, in shame, in sufferings —
all for Love's sake without bitterness —
and for all cost so even-measured
as if this were my best haste:
as one who can do no better.
He who could do this would be called the wise.
I am not; that grieves me.

Now the comfort, now the wound,
Love gives, who is much-skilled in both.
After great blows she gives healing;
how shall any guard himself from her?
He who sets-down all he ever won —
yet she hides from him her own;
to the one she gives, whom she favors,
the sweet kissings of her mouth;
the other she strikes into the ban.

Ay deus,⁴ who shall absolve him
whom Love has placed under the ban?
She, who herself wills that he plead against her —
that he face her so stoutly,
that he hold it all for great gain —
pain and joy in one handling,
and take it all even-handedly for good:
so does Love teach him to jubilate⁵
and make him knowing of all her wonders.

After a great storm the weather grows fair —
this is shown to us often plain.
By turns angry and after pacified,
Love makes-steady to be:
Love proves all to be so fine,
he becomes by Love's pain so bold
that he swears, Love, I am wholly yours;
I have nothing else to spend than you.
Ah noble Love, are you all mine?

Would Fortune let me heal in Love —
Fortune, who ever has so hated me —
I would yet be wholly Love to Love,
if my woe had any better.
So would I, in her deep ford,
lose all my judgments,
and to Love give in Love my treasure;
were my nature so highly risen,
my hunger would be satisfied.

We are too late at Love's expense;
therefore are we to her too strange in this,
thus we remain poor — know it all;
he who at Love's cost set himself near her,
she would give him her kingdom and her treasure.

Song IV

IV.

Now the time and the birds shall grow sad —
yet he shall not need it,
he who would set himself in truth
to work in high troth's counsel.
He shall please his Beloved with troth —
that is the all-richest trust.

However it goes with the season,
he who walks with works in truth
— for him are at all hours ready
blossom, joy, summer, and day.
He is at all times new, and from desire hot;
no more does winter strike him.

He who in truth gives himself with troth,
and then with truth lives troth,
the hidden word⁶ is spoken to him
that no one stranger may understand,
but one who has felt it of taste
and in high rumor has received silence.

After lowly stillness, high rumor,
perfect comfort and an anxious sweetness —
let no thanks meet those who fear against this,
since it has so great a gain:
the noble flower with the fruit —
understand and mark, free noble sense.

Ah, noble senses, where have you gone?
How can you so lower yourselves —
you who have long shown and shone
as if you ever must live upon troth,
as if of troth you were ever moved?
How can you nourish yourselves on Love?

Many are called and fairly shown,
and few chosen — what help is the fairness?
The loose-of-tongue are most of all themselves mocked,
when troth shall pay-all after works,
and she shall crown all her friends
with what she is and shall be.

But free, noble senses, and well-born,
both called and chosen —
spare neither cost nor pain therein,
to live in the diligence of high troth.
Your life let be all holy travail
until you possess your Beloved.

Ah hearts, let it not weary you;
your many smartings shall soon flower for you.
You shall row through every storm
until you come into that splendid land
where Beloved into Beloved shall flow-through-all;
of which let here noble troth be your pledge.

God must give the noble Reason
that lights up the miserable lives
that now are wounded and sorely driven
under cruel and strange blows,
when Beloved into Beloved shall be raised up
— how well, then, it shall please him.

Song V

V.

Though the time and the little-birds grow sad,
the fine heart need not so do,
that for Love would suffer pain.
He shall know and recognize all
— sweet and cruel,
loved and grievous —
what one shall undergo for Love.

The proud, who have come to this,
that they practice un-kissed Love,
they shall in all their ways therein
be stout and bold,
and all-ready to receive
whether she comforts or whether she strikes
of Love's doing.

Love's practice is unheard-of,
as he knows well who has tasted it —
for she, in the midst of comfort, troubles.
He cannot endure
whom Love has touched —
he tastes
many an unsettled hour.

By turns hot, by turns cold;
by turns timid, by turns bold —
her unsettlings are manifold.
Love, all-summoning,
the great debt
of her rich might,
to which she draws us.

By turns loved, by turns grievous;
by turns far, by turns ready —
he who with troth understands this of Love,
that is jubilation:
how Love wears-down
and embraces
in one handling.

By turns brought-low, by turns heightened;
by turns hidden, by turns shown —
before such an one is suckled by Love,
he suffers great hazard
before he reaches
where he tastes
Love's nature.

By turns light, by turns heavy;
by turns dark, by turns clear —
in free comfort, in constrained fear,
in taking and in giving,
must the senses
that wander in Love
ever here live.

Translator's footnotes (project translation)

¹ 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.

² 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.

³ 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.

⁴ 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.

⁵ 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).

⁶ 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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