{
"meta": {
"schema_version": "1.1",
"endpoint": "/api/sources/beguine-mystics/hadewijch-strofische-gedichten/vol-1-02-ii.json"
},
"work": {
"slug": "hadewijch-strofische-gedichten",
"name": "The Strofische Gedichten (Stanzaic Poems) of Hadewijch"
},
"parents": [
{
"slug": "beguine-mystics",
"name": "Beguine Mystics",
"url": "/sources/beguine-mystics/"
}
],
"chapter": {
"num": 3,
"slug": "vol-1-02-ii",
"title": "II",
"of": 14,
"words": 638,
"text": "## II\n\nThis year, in a short time,
\nthe sap from the roots shall strike upward;
\nthereby shall, far and wide,
\nfield and herb take on their leaf.
\nOf this we have sure expectation:
\nthe birds become glad.
\nHe who goes in Love to strife,
\nhe shall soon overcome,
\nif only he does not turn aside.\n\nWho does not spare for high Love,
\nhe is wise in all his works;
\nLove is *Maiden and Queen*
\nwho makes many of high spirit,
\nso that he, above all her good,
\nputs to it his strength and senses;
\nwhere Love knows the work,
\nhow she shall reward him at first
\n— he is the one Love overcomes.3\n\nBut therefore Love is Lady and Maiden:
\nthat she is the mother of all virtue.
\nShe is bearing, and bears alone the troth
\nthrough which all you who love may be empowered.
\nShe alone has gladdened us,
\nand bettered all sorrow.
\nI pray that she behold us
\nand make the youth to grow,
\nthat she fulfill all Love's troth to us.\n\nHow sweet is Love in her nature,
\nthat she overcomes every other power.
\nHe who loves suffers heavy hazard
\nbefore he knows in Love's manners
\nthat he is by her fully loved;
\nso he tastes more bitter and sour;
\nhe may not endure an hour
\nbefore Love binds him wholly into Love
\nand into the fire of fruition.\n\nWhoever yearns for the *un-fruition* in Love,
\nhe shall overcome all his trouble.
\nHe cannot die whom Love has reached
\n— her name, *Amor*, is from death;
\nhe who did what Love bade
\nand failed not therein,
\nshe is the bliss of every matter:
\n**Love is the living bread,
\nand above all pleasures in tasting.**\n\nMy new songs
\nare altogether brought to great lamenting
\n— I who have sung long
\nand of Love's beautiful heart-might.
\nThough I have wrought too little,
\nit does me sore woe and anguish
\nthat I do not encompass
\nthe unconquered might
\nin the fruition of Love's constraint.\n\nI may well of the fine Love
\nhenceforth be silent my days more.
\nWhere I was wont to be glad,
\nin singing and in springing in the time before,
\nwhen her rich teaching
\nmade joy appear to me,
\nthere I now endure pain
\nand from-the-heart suffer,
\nof which I age and waste.\n\nThus has Love's pain wasted me,
\nthat I am for nothing more good —
\nshe who first led me to her school,
\nwhere I suckled her wise wonders,
\nand she since drew that away
\nand from me much has hidden.
\nYet would I gladly wander still,
\nfor Love did not lie
\nin what she commanded me.\n\nWould Love give me new days
\nwho am to her become so old —
\nthen would I be silent of my lament
\nthat now is so manifold;
\nand let her stout-free life
\nhave-her-way at what is now to me a waging.
\nHow gladly would I see
\nthat Love work her free might
\nupon me as it pleased her.\n\nThough it grieves me so very much
\nthat I know myself a Love-miserable woman,
\nLove does all her friends honor
\nwho with troth are ready to her,
\nso that they in joy and grief
\nunderstand her rich teaching;
\nthose who do this work without turning,
\nand Love wholly into Love embrace —
\nthey remain in her rich domain.\n\nAs the fair rose to us
\ncomes out of the thorn with the dew,
\nso shall he who loves, through every evil,
\nwith trust withstand her storms.
\nHe shall, freely, without a doubt,
\ngrow through all damage.
\nThe faint-of-heart
\nhas done his part too soon,
\nwhere the *amorose* are free.\n\nWho would embrace Love
\nmust shun all the loose-of-tongue,
\nthough now her speech be sweet
\n— one shall soon know
\nthat false is her show.\n\n---\n\n## Song III",
"project_translation": false,
"text_trust": "verbatim",
"quote_safe": true,
"license": null,
"methodology_url": null
}
}