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

Section II

Five Songs continuing the project translation of the Strofische Gedichten. The five together cover three liturgical-seasonal openings (Songs VI on early spring, VII on the New Year, X on the New Year again with sharper lament) plus two "any season" songs (VIII opening one may sing of Love in any season, IX the birds-have-long-been-silent lament that abandons the bird-trope altogether):

• Song VI — Sap rising: as the sap rises in spring, so desire rises in the soul. Love wills the soul to give all in Love. The young soul who begins with jonghe ioecht (young youth) and gives up all sense to Love shall receive the unheard might and bring Love herself. Closes with the famous lament for Love's friends now bound in strange lands: Nu syn si in swaren banden / Ende vremde in haers selfs lande — now they are in heavy bonds, and strangers in their own land, wandering in the hand of strange adventures. The line is one of the canonical Beguine self-recognitions, and may glance at the political situation of the Beguine community in Hadewijch's lifetime.
• Song VII — The Nuwe Song, the most insistent of Hadewijch's lyric anaphora. Nuwe (new) drives the song, with 39 instances in its eight stanzas — every phrase of Love is rephrased as new: the new Year, new troth, new might, Love is new at every hour and renews herself every day; the afgront (abyss) of Love is deeper than the sea; the warning at the close — those who shun the new shall by the new be mistrusted. Theologically: Love as continuous self-renewal of the divine essence, the deus semper novus of Augustine carried into Hadewijch's lyric register.
• Song VIII — The All-Seasons Song. Altoes machmen van minnen singhen — one may sing of Love at all seasons — be it autumn, winter, spring, or summer. The opening rejects the courtly-Natureingang convention and declares Love's independence of season. Three structural figures: the cowardly nedere metten armen sinnen (the low-of-poor-senses) who shun Love's cost; the clothing-of-works metaphor (Fair countenance and fair clothing... — works are the clothes, with new desire and not too usual, and toward strangers more ready in all need than to one's own); and the trade-of-Love metaphor (those who buy Love cheap with the lichten sinne — light senses — have a worse purchase). Closes by acknowledging that those who received their clarity early may yet have a better purchase of Love than the speaker now knows.
• Song IX — The Birds-Have-Long-Been-Silent Song. The opening abandons the bird-trope: De voghelen hebben lange geswegen — the birds have long been silent. The speaker turns to the deeper lament — Love's withdrawal. The middle stanzas unfold the doctrine that only those who fear neither pain nor wound nor turning may travel through all that Love with Love in Love ever found. Closes with the speaker's helpless cry: Lief, wanneer ghi comen selt — Beloved, when will you come?
• Song X — The Sharper New-Year Lament. A New-Year song with nuwen rouwe (new sorrow) instead of joy. Wat wonder eest dat ic douwe / Ende rouwe om mine bouwe / Die minne es alles vrouwe / Ende wi dolen bi hare side — what wonder that I lament my own coming-undone? Love is Lady of all, and we wander at her side. The mountain-becomes-valley imagery: thus the mountain becomes well a valley. The diagnosis: we take strange things to taste them near; we carry borrowed plumes for stones. The closing self-rebuke: I think I would scarcely will that Love touch us again — for our old habits show us so cold toward Love.

Same translation conventions as Section I. Nuwe (new) is rendered as new, preserving the heavy anaphora; fier (noble proud) stays fier on first occurrence with a footnote; sinnen in Hadewijch is the integrated faculty of understanding-and-feeling-and-willing-together — rendered as senses on first occurrence with a translator's footnote (it is not the modern senses-of-perception). Below the 5K-word judge threshold; self-review only.

Song VI

VI.

As March kindles in us,
all things are quickened,
and all herbs spring up
and quickly grow green —
so does desire,
and Love above all;
for she wills to set all at stake
and grow so bold in Love
that she give herself wholly into Love,
and Love with Love live.
That anything of hers be lacking —
of that she has great smart.

He who begins to go upward,
let him see that he lose not
the earnest of good works,
and let him serve them for Love's honor,
and live in high expectation
of what his heart chooses.
Love shall well strengthen him;
he shall win his Beloved —
for Love cannot
deny herself to any,
without giving them what she grants,
and more than what she draws them to.

He who bears Love in expectation,
him has hoar-frost yet constrained,
so that he cannot bud-and-grow.
When it pleases Love, so he feels
the noble Love's weighing.
There no leaf may spring;
nor can he well blossom,
unless the Sun be by.
This is true Love
that makes the sinne¹ to flower:
whether he lose or whether he win,
that is always his pleasure.

He who with young youth
makes a beginning at Love,
and is wholly subject to her,
and gives all his strength
— and bears witness to it in virtue,
and to it sets all his mind —
he shall freely receive
the unheard-of might.
He shall well bring this to completion,
and shall not fail-of-his-aim.
He shall yet constrain Love,
and be wholly her advocate.

Where shall I find aught of Love
who from myself makes me wander
after my heart's pleasing,
that any sweet thing my pain?
Though I follow her, she flies;
though I wander in her schools,
she will not in any join with me.
It is soon shown to me:
Ah, I speak of heart's need —
my withstanding is too great,
and to me, want of Love is one death,
for I cannot enjoy her.

Since I would love wholly,
why does she not give me Love at all?
Yet according to my small desire,
that were too little for me.
Yet have I, for Love's honor,
consumed all my sinne.
I do not know whence to provide myself.
She knows well what I mean,
for I have so used up what was mine —
I have nothing else than what she gives —
and even if she gives, hunger remains,
for I would have it whole and all.

Ah, how can I then endure,
when she — who is more this life —
goes before us in Love
and yet thus withholds herself?
Ah, sweetest of all creatures,
that you will not give yourself to me
in as much as your due to me requires —
that does not make me so bold.
But I complain of your friends
who ever served you in troth
and ever gladly shrank from their own being
for the sake of your nature's sweetness.

Now they are in heavy bonds
and strangers in their own land,
there they wander in the hand
of strange adventures.

Song VII

VII.

By the New Year
one hopes for the new season
that shall bring new flowers
and new gladness manifold.
He who suffers for Love's sake,
he may well live glad;
she shall not fail him,
for Love's rich might
is new and well-measured
and sweet in countenance,
and sweetens by overflow
all new heaviness.

Ah, how new would now be the one
who served new Love
with new right troth —
as newly should be done,
the first that Love appeared to him.
So would he have few friends —
that should grieve him little,
had he Love's favor.
For she gives the new good
that makes the new spirit
that in all newness dies
where Love newly touches.

Ah, Love is new every hour,
and she renews every day.
She makes the new newly-born,
ever in new good.
O woe — how can the old endure,
who shrinks for fear before Love?
He lives well old in torments,
ever to small purpose;
for he is from the new mis-pathed,
and from him the new is denied
that lies in the new Love,
in new Love's nature.

Ah, where is now new Love
with her new goods?
For my misery makes me
too many a new woe.
My sinne melts in me
in Love's orewoet.²
The abyss into which she sends me
is deeper than the sea —
for her new deep abysses
renew the wound in me;
I seek no more healing
till I now wholly know her.

But the new old-wise,
who newly give themselves to Love
and newly then spare not —
those I call new and old.
They live in high spirit,
for they cleave to Love,
and with desire ever stare-toward her —
thereby grows in Love their might;
for they must all newly weep themselves,
and live as old upon Love,
where Beloved would lead them away
with new desire into new desire.

The new Love's school —
those who follow with new Love
after new Love's counsel,
in new troth's honor —
they seem often to wander,
yet are they most-deeply swallowed
in Love's ungrace,
where they nearly suffocate sorely.
And so comes the new clarity
with all new wares,
and brings out openly the new
that had been to me stilly given.

Ah, how sweet is new tender feeling,
though new turning give it,
and many a new pain.
It is new trust,
for Love shall well requite us
with great new honor.
Love shall make us thereby high
in Love's highest counsel,
where the new shall be whole
in new fruition fine,
when new Love is all mine.
Ah, this new befalls too seldom.

All who shun this new,
and renew themselves with strange-newness,
shall by the new be mistrusted
and with all new things upbraided.

Song VIII

VIII.

One may at all seasons sing of Love
— be it autumn, be it winter, be it spring, be it summer —
and against her might do battle;
for no one inflames himself toward her more bravely
than we slow ones who often, in dejection, say:
Should she constrain me so near?
I may mingle with those
who have taken their rest
and stay at home; whither could I go
to spend myself away?

The low-of-poor-senses³
are they who shrink from the cost
— who shun Love
where all good would come to them —
or who from service untie themselves,
take what they may win from her;
Troth shall show them, and make them know themselves poor
before the kingdom of Love, naked.
These are they who spend themselves
without Love's need.

He who would gladly suffer the sweet misery
on the road to the high Land of Love,
he should find his Beloved his kingdom at the end.
Of this, troth gives the seal and pledge.
Now is many a yokel⁴ so much a truant —
he takes what is to him nearest at hand,
and remains before the unknowing Love
with the truant's garment.
So has he neither form nor honor
by which Love understands her own.

Fair countenance and fair clothing
and fair speech adorn the man.
Bearing all for Love and never the more bitter —
that is the fair countenance, of one who can.
The works are the clothes —
with new desire and not too usual,
and toward strangers, in all need, more ready
than to one's own self-recognition.
That is the color that adorns the signs —
most of all before the high Love.

Forwording words and great gifts,
fair retinue outside the house and fair cost inside,
honor the man most, and adorn him.
By this one may best know him.
So is it also with those who love:
if they in the truth take their stand
and with fair cost adorn it within,
as best becomes Love,
and give all Love for Love —
the gift to Love best fitting.

I speak of Love and counsel
fair-decked cost and lordly deed,
that troth should repay what Love spent away.
This is to many a small comfort —
who stand in Love's bond,
in un-fruition and in ungrace.
Love rewards always, even though she come late.
Of this, hereto, is my saying:
they who follow her suffer
many a night by day.

Who should ever praise Love
who gives, by day, so many a night
to those whom she should clothe and honor and feed?
Such she does altogether out of her might.
He who would gladly pay Love's lease,
she should rightly inform them in all things,
and with troth's seal so high cause them to rise
that Beloved might handle Beloved,
and in all fruition of Love
honor and adorn.

The fairest handling that to Love-practice might happen
would be Beloved with Beloved so through-loved,
that Beloved with Love so deep through-sought,
that nothing else were known to him
than: I am the one Love overcomes by Love.
But more conquered would he be who fought Love,
and could then in Love become as nothing,
should the might go forward to where
the high matter, whence
Love at first is born.

But we light-purchasers with light senses —
Love's hazard seems to us heavy;
we are nimble-running with small winnings.
Thereby we lack Love's clear ware.
I know — though I do not know it all there
where Love is enjoyed in the joy of Love —
but enlightened Reason makes one wholly know
how one suffices Love's full standing:
there is no Reason too true,
no work too heavy, and all is new-ready.

Those who early have their clarity openly,
and at once know their joy
and rejoice therein,
if it goes well with them —
they have, God knows,
a much better purchase of Love
than I yet know.

Song IX

IX.

The birds have long been silent,
those that here before were glad.
Their joy is laid low,
because they have lost the summer.
They would very quickly say so,
had they regained it,
for they have chosen it above all
and were born to it.

I am silent of the birds' lament;
their joy and their pain soon pass.
And I complain of what grieves me more:
Love, toward whom we should be standing —
that her noble weighing wages us away,
and we take strange things by makeshift.
So Love cannot embrace us.
Ah, what has our lowness done to us?
Who shall, for us, this infidelity slay?

The mighty ones with strong hand —
upon them I still trust greatly,
who at all times work in Love's bond
and shrink not from pain, from grief, from turning.
They would travel through all the land
that Love with Love in Love ever found.
Their fine heart is so well-disposed:
they know what Love with Love teaches,
and how Love Love with Love works.

Wherefore should anyone spare himself —
if Love may be conquered by Love —
when he would not with eagerness travel through the storms
on trust of Love's seeing,
and wait upon Love's office?
Then would the nobility reveal itself to him.
Ah, there clears the day of Love,
where one for Love never shrank from pain,
nor of Love's pain ever spoke.

Often I cry for help, as one un-loosed:
Beloved, when will you come?
So you nudge me with new comfort,
so I ride my high pace
and practice my Beloved's love as the wisest of all.
But if those from the north, from the south, from the east,
from the west were all in my power —
I would soon be felled to my feet.
Ah, what would my misery told help?

Song X

X.

Now this New Year is come
— that is openly plain —
with fair new season.
Openly to us draws great hazard,
to us bare-the-tooth so heavy a fear,
far and wide.
And I sing with new sorrow,
where once was wrought noble troth,
that I now see falseness there.
Of this my heart is un-glad.
What wonder is it that I lament
and sorrow for my own coming-undone?
Love is Lady of all,
and we wander at her side.

Here and everywhere
I see misfortune
toward the highest Love.
As I shall now lament,
so the mountain becomes well a valley
after my understanding.
For all has hurt driven me out,
and I am she who lightly complains
— and lightly alone bears it.
That belongs to me, within.
But whoever shrinks back
and finds Love's pain grievous,
and asks for strange comforts,
shall slowly overcome.

Though I lament in the new season
that I am un-glad —
it has been long approaching:
one sees on every side
the sheep run wide.
But that is permitted.
And the sinne to whom Love appeared,
with their will-to-be-common,
and to carry stones for plumes —
that makes them sorely go-down.
Held they themselves alone,
and free to Love's leaning,
and to other comforts none,
Love would well bring them Love.

It is not I alone,
nor the common people,
who thus sorely wander.
But those of the rich fief —
they are those I mean,
whom Love has many a day
led to her school,
and taught the wise blow,
and to wander after Love's seeing,
and the pain she has commanded them
— and they seek their own pleasure,
and take strange hunt,
and that which may scathe them
hidden from the sweet Love.

Thus we take strange matters
to taste them near.
That is to us great damage.
We weary of the hooking,
and the long miserable waking
for Love's seed.
But could we the highest steps
climb on the first day,
and see what we love —
then were we soon at counsel.
But because, for Love's pleasure,
we tire of the burden's bearing,
we take the nearest pleasures
and shun Love's deed.

That were an all-too-low sense
which for petty pursuit-of-gain
so divided itself
that it knew neither more nor less
what high Love has within.
But one who therein sailed —
he would dwell on her deepest ground,
and she would show him all her store,
so that, in a short hour,
she would wholly heal his desire's wound,
and in Love's right hour
bind Love with Love.
I say to him that he would find there
right Love who fitted him.

If we let Love withdraw from us,
and so hate ourselves,
and Love seem pain to us,
Love shall well repay us,
and make us wander in strange streets,
that it may be plainly shown
that we by our own fault
lose the noble favor
that Love would give us,
where she sates her own fine self;
and we seek the rest of the present moment.
Now I am bold to scold:
I think I would scarcely will
that Love touch us more.

For our old habits
show us so cold before Love
— what would help that I willed it,
since to be poor is our state?

Translator's footnotes (project translation)

¹ Sinne — the Middle Dutch sinne (plural; sometimes singular sin) is one of the most-cited Hadewijch glossary problems. It does not mean senses in the modern English meaning of the perceptual organs; it is the integrated faculty of understanding-and-feeling-and-willing-together in the medieval Latin sense of sensus / mens (cf. Augustine, De Trinitate XIV.4: sensus interior). Hadewijch's sinne is closest to the modern English integrated mind. We render it here uniformly as senses on first occurrence with this footnote anchor, and sinne thereafter for the integrated-faculty meaning; where the modern senses (the perceptual five) is meant, we will gloss as bodily senses or context will make it clear.

² Orewoet — Hadewijch's signature term, preserved on first appearance italicized as in the project translation's Section I of the Visioenen. The divine love-frenzy that overcomes the body and the senses; the canonical source-passage is Vision 7. Here in Song VII the orewoet is named in the abyss-of-Love passage as the soul's interior dissolution into the divine abyss-of-Love.

³ The low-of-poor-senses — Die nedere metten armen sinnen. Hadewijch's social-spiritual term for those who, having the Beguine vocation in spirit, shrink from its cost. Nedere (low) and arm (poor) are paired with sinne (integrated faculty). They are the spiritual equivalent of the courtly vilain — those whose interior nobility cannot rise to the cost of the lover's quest.

⁴ Yokel — Middle Dutch dorpre, a peasant or rustic, the social opposite of the courtly edele (noble). Hadewijch uses the term in its courtly-mystical register: the dorpre truwant (peasant-truant) is the spiritual equivalent of the courtly vilain who, lacking nobility, settles for the truancie (truancy, deserting-of-Love's-service). The English yokel preserves the slightly contemptuous register; Hadewijch is not afraid to use the chivalric class-vocabulary against spiritual sloth.

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