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