The Testament of Love Translated by R. Allen Shoaf—University of Florida

May be read or copied for any non-commercial purpose with attribution, and acknowledgement to me using this email: [email protected]

Please see version from 1998, hosted by the University of Rochester: https://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/publication/shoaf-usk-the-testament-of-love

1 Contents Introduction to Translation ...... 4 Prologue ...... 7 Book 1: Chapter 1 ...... 10 Book 1: Chapter 2 ...... 13 Book 1: Chapter 3 ...... 18 Book 1: Chapter 4 ...... 22 Book 1: Chapter 5 ...... 24 Book 1: Chapter 6 ...... 27 Book 1: Chapter 7 ...... 32 Book 1: Chapter 8 ...... 35 Book 1: Chapter 9 ...... 38 Book 1: Chapter 10 ...... 41 Book 2: Chapter 1 ...... 44 Book 2: Chapter 2 ...... 47 Book 2: Chapter 3 ...... 51 Book 2: Chapter 4 ...... 54 Book 2: Chapter 5 ...... 58 Book 2: Chapter 6 ...... 61 Book 2: Chapter 7 ...... 65 Book 2: Chapter 8 ...... 69 Book 2: Chapter 9 ...... 72 Book 2: Chapter 10 ...... 77 Book 2: Chapter 11 ...... 81 Book 2: Chapter 12 ...... 84 Book 2: Chapter 13 ...... 87 Book 2: Chapter 14 ...... 90 Book III: Chapter 1 ...... 93 Book III: Chapter 2 ...... 97 Book III: Chapter 3 ...... 101 Book III: Chapter 4 ...... 107 Book III: Chapter 5 ...... 115 Book III: Chapter 6 ...... 119

2 Book III: Chapter 7 ...... 123 Book III: Chapter 8 ...... 127 Book III: Chapter 9 ...... 131

3 Introduction to Translation

(Written 1998) Following are the prologue and 33 chapters of The Testament of Love in a modern English version. I would like to tell you about this version of The Testament so that you can make optimum use of it. At the same time, I would like to share with you some thoughts on the larger implications of what I am doing here. This introduction, then, will fall naturally into two parts. Strictly speaking, you need to read only part one to start using the translation. But I hope you will also read the second part because the larger implications that concern me have ramifications, I think, that should concern all scholars on the eve of the millennium. Part One  This translation is not final or definitive. Nor, in my judgment, in the current state of scholarship on The Testament of Love, can it be. I refer you to the Introduction to my edition of the work (which you can find at the METS site at the University of Rochester). But the basic datum you need to know is that the text of the work is so far corrupt in so many ways that a definitive rendering is probably out of our reach at this time.

 All readers of this translation, then, it follows, can and should feel free to improve upon it wherever they see the need. I ask as a courtesy that any improvements or corrections or suggestions of any sort be emailed to me. I will acknowledge all such contributions.

 At the head of each chapter I include the line numbers of that chapter in the METS edition. I also include the page numbers of the METS edition in brackets in bold-face in the text of the translation. Readers can thus find their place in either the WWW or the print version of the edition.

 I do not in this translation offer any commentary on the numerous cruces in The Testament: I simply offer my effort at construal in an otherwise unmarked text; the cruces and other issues may be consulted at the METS site.

 As a general rule in this version of his work, I have not tried to make Usk sound “contemporary”—to the contrary, I have tried to leave him sounding medieval; what’s more, not just medieval but medieval in the way that is peculiar to him: overlong sentences, unexpected leaps among vocabularies, occasional petulance in tone, frequently vexed metaphoricity, and unpredictable bursts of lyricism. In addition, I do my best to preserve his syntax (his fondness for the ablative absolute, e. g.), and I frequently leave his technical vocabulary untranslated—arbitrement in Book 3 is a good example. Also, every change of

4 speaker, or new start by the same speaker, is marked by a paragraph and a new set of quotation marks in order to enhance readability.

It is possible, I know, to sanitize Usk’s English or to “poeticize” it (he is a far more vigorous writer than he has heretofore been credited with being). But I have serious doubts about the advisability of such moves in our current state of knowledge. Given these doubts, I have tried to be as literal as possible—my translation, then, in some sense, is a “trot” (and I have no problem with that)— in the hope that I might thus help others find their way, initially, in the work of a writer who merits our attention.

Part Two Because The Testament of Love exists in such a corrupt state, it is an important test case for the use of the WWW in scholarship. In other words, just because a definitive edition or translation of the Testament is very unlikely, the work is an ideal test case for scholarly cooperation on the WWW: is scholarship claustral or rhizomic, coterie or collegial—fiefdom or community? By making available a translation of the complete Testament on the WWW, where scholars can access it, test it, and use it in their own research and/or teaching, I hope to contribute to the ongoing conversation about the uses of computers in literary studies. I recognize numerous problems in this decision. I welcome commentary on them from the scholarly community. Obviously, there’s a problem with copyright. The Rochester site as well as this PDF text includes copyright release that grants permission to use the translation for any non-commercial purpose. I hope users of the work will alert me about their experiences and findings. There’s also a problem of cynicism: it might run, “Well, he’s just trying to get others to do the work for him and take the credit”; as petty as this may seem, it is by no means far-fetched to expect to hear it. (I have also heard derision that I waste my time on typing—as if a professional typist could do the work of decision-making and micro-formatting I have done.) Academics suffers corrosive cynicism at the best of times (which, certainly, these current are not), and so I think it prudent to go ahead to acknowledge that I am exposing myself to such corrosion—at some point, we all have to take responsibility for it and try to do something about it. To those who are disillusioned, embittered, or worse, I can only offer my good will as a colleague interested in change: I hope that they and all others will accept this trial effort as an earnest of scholarly hope and aspiration. Then, too, there’s the problem of, so to call it, indolence: readers may use the text without paying much attention to upgrading and updating it. This, of course, is always a problem, but the WWW casts it in a different light: contrary to the constraints of

5 print, on the WWW any reader can intervene at any time if s/he chooses. And so in this matter my best hope is that those with enough interest in the work will also care enough to intervene in it to improve it. Finally, I would like to comment on possibly the most fraught element in what I’m doing. This will again cause me to approach the issue of cynicism. The easiest way to formulate the matter is to ask the question, what is the value of what I’m doing? At a simple level (though not, for that, a trivial one), the value of it is not measurable in dollars, at least not immediately—there are no royalties accruing to publication on the WWW. This observation leads to an even less trivial point: my work will not be “preserved” and “privileged” in a bound volume. [It will exist in the digital repository of the University of Florida where I undertook and completed the work—August 2019]. For some—perhaps for many—this will mean that it really isn’t important. “Importance” goes by what administrators are wont to call “separate pagination”! And since my work will be digital only, if Professor Y publishes a translation in print, that one will clearly be more important (of course, it may also, in fact, be better, but the prejudice, for many, will engage before the judgment of value is made). This, in turn, leads to the crux of the matter: what is the value of the WWW for humanistic scholarship? For the cynic, I imagine, “not a helluva lot”! (But see the remarkable essay “We would know how we know what we know: Responding to the computational transformation of the humanities” by Willard McCarty.) After all, the quantity most prevalent on the WWW right now is advertising—who can possibly take this seriously? In the end, I have to resist this kind of thinking if I want to press forward (see, further, my essay “World Wide Humanities?”). I understand perfectly well that advertising (and pornography) will always be more prevalent on the WWW than the kind of scholarship I am undertaking. But if I simply resign myself to this fact, I’m a defeatist. As those who know me will attest, I am no defeatist. I refuse, then, to capitulate to cynicism. But I suspect such risks as these inevitably attend a new technology as pre-emptive and as pervasive as the digital. I have elected to run the risks, all the same, because I think the rewards are correspondingly great, at least potentially—but the risks are nonetheless very real.

6 Prologue lines 1-90 [47] There are many people, ears wide open, who indulge themselves in the taste for rhetoric. They gulp down jokes and rhymes and find them delicious because of the curious, intricate and colorful knots of rhetoric that compose them. Such is their appetite that they pay little or no attention to the moral value of the sentence, whether it promotes good or bad. Truly, though, none of this indulgence in rhetoric will be found in this work of mine, so deeply have anxiety and distraction undermined my spirits. Moreover, since plain and unadorned words pierce the heart of the one who hears them, even to the innermost point, and thus, in just that way, plant there the true meaning, so that almost effortlessly that true meaning emerges, like a blossom almost, this book of mine is turned, cultivated actually, with plain and unadorned words, no flood of wit or taint of rhetoric anywhere, and so constructed, as a result, the better to make those who read prepared to grasp its meaning. There are some people who decorate their work with rich colors and some theirs with very ornate forms; for example, they rubricate [48] their work to make it fancy. There are others, though, who work in charcoal and chalk; still, even so, compositions in chalk are of value to ordinary folk, at least for a time and at first. Afterwards, the sight of the more attractive designs actually provides greater satisfaction just because of the contrast with the less polished compositions. So, truthfully, yes, this less ornate, perhaps even undistinguished composition finds approval only among ordinary folk, for it’s not uncommon to see such audiences approve this kind of composition. And yet, such contrasts are useful for the way in which they highlight other, more distinguished, perhaps even unique, compositions, which are then held in higher esteem. Many creative minds have taken great delight in composing in Latin and French and they have accomplished many noble works. But all the same, there have been some who compose poetry in French which the French have as much trouble understanding as we English have when we hear a Frenchman’s English. Moreover, English contains many terms which even we Englishmen can scarcely explain. How, then, should the French make sense of such terms except as the jay, chattering, mimics English? Just so, truthfully, the understanding of English people will not extend to the [49]peculiar or specialized terms of French, despite our boasts and posturing about proficiency in foreign tongues. Therefore, let clerks compose in Latin, for they have the specialized knowledge and the expertise; and let the French compose their idiom in their French tongue, for it is natural to them; and let us, finally, express our creativity in such words as we learned from our mothers—in our mother tongue, in short. And though this book of mine should merit little praise on account of the plainness and simplicity of the work, still, such compositions can and do inspire men to contemplate essentials in their lives. For in such books, every man, as though in a constantly accessible mirror, can see the vices and virtues of others. Thus, also, he is

7 able to imagine how to avoid perils or pursue essentials by modelling his actions on the adventures that have befallen others about whom he is reading. Certainly, every reasonable creature has clearly before him, or at least he should have, the most essential goal of his desire, or his perfection, for which his appetite should never cease; of unreasonable beasts this may not be said, we know, since they lack precisely the capacity to think. Hence we can see that a creature endowed with reason who does not strive for his perfection is obviously to be likened to an irrational beast. Now, truly, the sovereign, [50] final perfection toward which man strives is, on the one hand, the firm knowledge of truth, without any admixture of deceit, and, on the other, the love of one, true God, unchanging and unchangeable—but this is as much as to say: his end is to know and love his Creator. Now the principal means by which man comes to know and love his Creator is consideration of the things made by the Creator: by this means, as we come to understand the things made, we also begin to contemplate and understand the invisible mysteries of God, which are made comprehensible to us in the visible creation. The creation in this way serves to bring us to the over-arching truth and the perfect love of the Maker of heavenly things. Lo, David, the psalmist, says: “Thou hast delighted me in making” (Quia delectasti me, Domine, in factura—Psalm 91.4), as if one were to say, “I take delight in the harmonious totality of the composition of the creation— seeing how God has loaned me the capacity to wonder at the creation.” Concerning this, Aristotle, in the De Animalibus, says to philosophers, students of nature: “such study is a great pleasure in the love of the knowledge of the Creator as well as in the knowledge of natural causes.” Indeed, given the forms of nature and their shape, a great love should naturally move me for the Workman that made them. The craft of a workman is evident in his work. Hence, truly, the philosophers, with animated and committed scholarship, [51] have reported on many valuable phenomena, very precious to us, and worthy of preservation in the written record; moreover, through great, even exhausting labor, they have bequeathed to us the knowledge of the properties of things in their natures. And to these philosophers, therefore, it was more joy and more pleasure, more heartfelt satisfaction, to know, through intensive study, the perfection in natural virtues and matters of reason, than to have had all the treasure, all the riches, all the vainglory possessed by past emperors, princes, or kings. Thus their names are entered into the book of perpetual remembrance, in virtue and in peace. But, into the contrary, on the other hand—that is, into Stix, the foul pit of Hell—are those who hated such goodness thrust and pressed. And because this book of mine shall treat of Love and the prime causes of guidance in Love, I want, suffering as I do passions and afflictions for lack of obtaining the object of my desire, to call it The Testament of Love. But now, you reader, who is he, I ask you, who will not laugh in scorn to hear a dwarf, or else half a man, say that he will rend the sword out of Hercules’ hands and that he will push the Pillars of Hercules at Cadiz a mile farther on; and, on top of that,

8 that he has the power to pull up the spear that Alexander the Great could never wield? [52] And, even more, that, surpassing everything, he will be the master of France, by virtue of his might, when the noble and gracious King Edward III, for all the great prowess he displayed in victories, could not conquer all of that land? Certainly, I know very well that I shall be, even more than such a one as that, the object of scorn and jests, in that, altogether unmeritoriously arrayed in obscurity and ignorance, I strive to speak of love, or else, of the causes relevant to Love, when all the greatest, most learned clerks have had their hands full with that, and, as one might say, have gathered up everything before them, in the process, and with their sharp scythes of erudition mowed everything to the ground, making then huge rakes, most impressive heaps of learning, full of all bounties, to feed me and many others. Envy will not approve the plans of anyone he scorns, even if they are good. And though these noble reapers, like good workers worthy their hire, have drawn up and bound everything into sheaves and have made many stacks, yet I have precedent and example for collecting the crumbs, to fill my sack, from those that fall off the table to lie among the small dogs—and this notwithstanding the pains [53] of the almsman, who has collected in the cloth all the leftovers, such as slices of brown-bread and the rest, to carry away to those deserving of alms. And further I have permission of the noble husbandman and cultivator Boethius, even though I am a stranger in the land of learning, to follow after his doctrine, and after these other profoundly learned workers, to glean my handfuls of their leavings; and what’s more, if I should fail to get my fill, I have permission also to increase my portion with what I shall draw on my own from the stacked sheaves of grain. A servant expedient in helping himself is frequently much commended. Knowing the truth of natural causes was more arduous exertion in those who first sought it, and this Aristotle confirms, and it is easier for us who succeed them, following their example. For their learning has refreshed and invigorated our minds, exciting our understanding in consideration of the truth by the acuity of their arguments. Certainly these matters are no dreams or idle fancies such as you might discard like scraps to hogs. To the contrary, this is vital meat, living food, for the children of truth. And I will relate them as they befell me when I pilgrimaged from my home and native country, in [54] winter, when the weather was unusually severe, and the wild north wind Boreas, as is his nature, with desiccating cold, made the waves of the ocean to rise unnaturally and flood all the banks so that it was on the point of destroying the whole earth.

Thus ends the Prologue, and hereafter follows the first book of The Testament of Love.

9 Book 1: Chapter 1 lines 1-100 [55] Alas, Fortune, alas! I who once enjoyed happy times, for hour after delightful hour, am now driven by heavy depression to bewail in sorrow the numerous evils that have befallen me. Truly, I believe that all the types of lamentation that are now known are written with indelible letters in my heart, for outward sobbing means inward sorrow and sobbing, too. And so I’m beginning to decline, to lose all my comfort since she who should be my solace is far from me. Certainly her absence is a kind of hell for me. A slow, languishing death full of woe is what it means for me, so that endless anxiety is clinched in my heart. The bliss of my joy that often lightened my spirits has turned into gall when I think about the one who may not take me in her arms when I need her. Mirth degenerates into sorrow when labor continually preoccupies me where once it was possible to rest and contentment dwelled with me. Thus [56] out of my wits, so anxious, groping about blindly, I endure my penance in this dark prison, locked away from friendship and company and forsaken by all that would dare speak a word in my behalf. A weirdness, almost like a kind of alienation, has intruded itself and made its home there where I should dwell if reason were being heeded as it ought to be. Nevertheless, with a good heart, precious Lady Margaret, be mindful of your servant and give some thought to his anxiety, how lightless he is living, since the beams of your eyes that radiate love are so far away that worlds of clouds are between us and will not let my thoughts be illuminated by them. Consider that one virtue of a precious pearl such as you, Margaret, is to comfort those who are sorrowful, and if you will of that, to comfort me so sorrowful, then my desire is to have nothing else at this time; neither dying nor death, indeed no manner of travail, can have power to cause my heart to fade as much as to hear of even a trifle that might be causing you discomfort. Ah, God forbid that that should be. But let me die instead, let me perish without any measure whatsoever of forgiveness from penance, rather than that she, my inward comfort in anxiety, should be in anything distressed. What good is my service if she who should accept it is absent? Isn’t this an endless sorrow even to consider? Yes, it is, yes, God knows [57]—my heart nearly breaks asunder. How should the ground without nutrients bring forth any fruit? How should a ship without a rudder in the vast ocean be steered? How should I, without my bliss, my heart, my desire, my joy, my goodness, endure in this prison of contrariety and frustration, for whom every hour in the day seems as long as a hundred winters? Well may Eve the first woman say to me now, “Adam, fallen from bliss into sorrow, you are driven out of Paradise, to earn your bread by the sweat of your brow.” Deep in this pit, source of such suffering, I lie, fastened in stocks with woe, in chains with links forged of care and sorrow. It is so high from where I lie to the earth above that there is no cable made anywhere in the world that might reach down to me to draw me up into bliss; nor are there stairs to climb on for my escape, so that I know

10 perfectly well that I am destined to endure here without hope of rescue. O where are you now, Friendship, that used on occasion to look upon me with a cheerful countenance? Truly, you are now fled out of town. It seems to me you’ve reverted to your old ways and that among your vital spirits, the one in which the life of friendship was found has disappeared, drawn away by I don’t know what. Now, then, farewell Friendship, and farewell my fellows! [58] It seems to me that you have all taken your leave—but no matter, I don’t care, where any of you is concerned. But, Lady of Love, you know what I mean: think on your servant still, who is dying for your love; I have forsaken everything to follow your commands. Reward me with a thought, some consideration, though you should do nothing else. The memory of love pulses so achingly within my breast that other thoughts do not come to mind except for gladness in contemplating your goodness and your pleasant countenance, or fear and sorrow to consider your disdain and hauteur—from which Christ save me! My great joy is to meditate on your bounties, virtues, and other signs of nobility printed in you; but sorrow and hell descend on me immediately to even suppose that I may be turned away from you. Thus, with care, sorrow, and grief am I destined to meet my end in death. Now, o good Lady, think about this. O wretched fool that I am! Fallen so low! The heat of the sorrow in which I burn has completely defaced me. How could you, Lady, set any store on such foul filth? My understanding is thin, my wits are in exile. Like little more than a natural fool am I. Truly, Lady, were it not for the magnitude of your mercy, I know very well that all my efforts would be in vain—your mercy, then, surpasses right, the strict account of justice. God grant that this proposition, of mercy’s surpassing justice, find verification in my case, so that, by [59] trusting in good hope, I may come to safe haven and some ease. And since it is impossible that the colors of your special qualities might change, and, since, moreover, truly, I know well that neither macula nor blemish may insinuate itself there where such noble virtue abounds, as in you, so that any defacement of you is simply unimaginable, especially since the countenance of goodness, with virtue increasing, is in you so knit as to abide by necessity; yet, even if the opposite were to fall out (which, of course, won’t happen, since it’s against nature, we know), I am confident that my heart should not, therefore, budge by the least point that could be measured, so firmly and deeply is it fixed and ordained—away from service of you in love it may not depart, never separate. O Love, when shall I be pleased? O Charity, when shall I be eased? O good Lady, when will the dice turn? O Lady, full of virtue, please cause the roll to come up comfort and relief. O Love, when will you take some thought for your servant? I can do nothing else here, cast out from all welfare as I am, but await the day of my death—or else, see the vision that might eliminate all my welling sorrows and cause the flood to ebb at last. These distresses may well make my life unbody itself, because of the duress of such sorrow, and cause it thus to die; but certainly, Lady, you are so knit within my soul, in

11 a very perfection of love, that death may not unbind or separate that knot, [60] so that you and my soul should dwell together in endless bliss, and there shall my soul be completely eased since it may then have you present to show the intent of its desires. Ah, dear God, that shall be a great joy! Now, earthly goddess, take heed of your servant, although I am feeble, for you are accustomed to praise them better that would like to be able to serve in love, even though they might be less exalted in status than kings or princes who will not have that virtue in mind, to concentrate on it. Now, precious Margaret, who with your noble virtue drew me into the service of Love first, with me assuming that I would have bliss in such service, since now gall and bitter aloes are sprung up so much around me, I may not taste that savor and that sweetness. Alas, that your eyes, so benign, in which mercy seems to have all his nourishment, will not, by any means, turn the clarity of mercy toward me. Alas, that your virtues, like a burning beacon shining among all peoples and illuminating them by the abundance of their increase, show to me only smoke with no light. To contemplate these things in my heart causes tears to flow every day in my eyes. These anxieties press down on my back so heavily that they seem to charge me with an insupportable burden; so heavy, that it causes me to stumble backwards even when my steps [61] would naturally stretch forward as in the common course. Also, they have so wrapped me up in care, both on the right and the left of me, that despair of ever getting any help has overtaken me completely. I truly believe that my fortune is without hope of grace—fortune that constantly glowers on me with ominous clouds, ever ready to start storms of sorrow, as it holds bliss off away from me, refusing to let it turn in my direction. No matter. Even so, I will not be conquered. O, alas! that your noble qualities—by continuing stream, by all manner of powers— so much commended among all other creatures, unless there is something wonderful there, I don’t know which of them let the flood pour into my soul. Hence, mated to sorrow completely, I cry upon your goodness to have pity of this captive, myself, that in the inwardmost degree of sorrow and distress is left abandoned, and, without your good will, far away from any help and recovery. I may not sustain such sorrow unless I speak out, express myself, and show you how it stands with me; although great space lies between the two of us, yet it seems to me that by means of such encouraging words, my distress begins to ease somewhat. Indeed, it seems to me that right now the sound of my lamentation [62] is flowing into your presence, there to cry after mercy and grace, and yet it seems it pleases you to give no answer, rather with a haughty demeanor, you command it to disappear into the void. But God forbid that any rumor should spring up about you that you have so little pity! Indeed, pity and mercy in every pearl-like Margaret is enclosed, naturally, along with numerous other virtues distinguished by the qualities of the comfort they bring. But comfort itself alone is not worth much to me without also receiving mercy and pity from you— which things I pray God hastily grant me out of His mercy.

12 Book 1: Chapter 2 lines 101-241 [62] As I was going over these things, along with many others, without a moment’s rest, it seemed to me that, in the very anguish of my distress, I was—I can’t say how—completely ravished; but it seemed that, for the moment at least, all my passions and feelings were lost, and suddenly a kind of dread lit in me all at once. It was not such fear as people have confronting an enemy who is mighty and threatens to do them harm. For I believe that many understand [63] how sometimes a man may be in the presence of his king and a sort of fear creeps into his heart, not on account of any expectation of harm but out of proper subjection to his sovereignty—just as, in fact, we read that angels are afraid of our Savior in Heaven. And, of course, there, in Heaven, there neither is nor may be any passion of distress: rather the meaning is that angels are full of dread as an affection of wonderfulness and through the service of their obedience and not because of fear, since they are perfectly blessed. Such fear lovers have, too, in the presence of their beloved, like subjects before their king. With just such fear was my heart caught. And, to my instant astonishment, there suddenly appeared in the place where I was lodged, a lady, the most comely and the goodliest, to my eyes, that ever hitherto appeared to any creature; and truly, in the blazon of her demeanor, she immediately offered gladness and comfort to all my senses—and just so does she to everyone who comes into her presence. And because she exuded such goodness (so it seemed to me), my heart began to be emboldened somewhat and grew a little courageous, ready to speak; but still with a quaking voice, as far as I dared, I greeted her and asked who she was, and why someone so worthy in appearance as she would deign to enter into so foul a dungeon—[64] in fact, a prison—without permission of my keepers. For certainly, even though the virtue of the deeds of mercy does include visiting wretched prisoners, to comfort them as far as is possible under the circumstances, it seemed to me that I was so far fallen into misery and wretched captivity (all but anonymous in my darkness) that no precious thing should come anywhere near me; and also it seemed to me that, because of my sorrow and pitiful condition, everyone would be depressed just to think about it, let alone see it, and would wish for my recovery, yes, but hardly visit me. But when this lady had perceived, both by my words and my demeanor, what anxiety preoccupied me, with a noble womanly countenance, she addressed these words to me: “O, my disciple, do you imagine it is my way to forget my friends or my servants? “No,” she said, “it is ever my intent to visit and comfort all of my friends and allies, both in their times of tribulation and in their seasons most endowed with bliss. In me shall never be found indifference. And also, since I have so few especially true friends these days, I can the more easily, at my leisure, visit them who are deserving. And if my visiting will be of any help, you should know that I will come often.”

13 “Now, my good Lady,” I said, “you who are so fair to look on, pouring out honey with your [65] words, your countenance seems to me the bliss of Paradise, and your comportment, joy and comfort. What is your name? How comes it that so many effective virtues are established in you, so it seems to me, and in no other creature I ever saw?” “My disciple,” she said, “I am surprised at your words and at you who, on account of a little distress, have forgotten my name. Do you not truly know that I am Love, who first brought you to service?” “O, good Lady,” I said, “is coming into so foul a place as this honorable for you, considering your excellence? Indeed, there was a time when I was prosperous and meddling with all sorts of goods not particularly natural or necessary, and then I had quite a time trying to invite you to my dwelling; in fact, many were the admonitions you declared before you would fully agree to make your home there; and now you graciously appear, by your own counsel, to comfort me with your words, and thus I thereby remember passed gladness. Truly, Lady, I do not know whether I shall say you welcome or not since your appearance here will cause me as much distress and sorrow as it will gladness and mirth. Here, see why. Because it comforts me to think on passed gladness, it annoys me to be doing it again—experiencing gladness, that is—because I can assume it will become passed again. Thus, your appearance here both gladdens and sorrows me, and that is a source of much distress. Lo, Lady, how then am I comforted by your [66] appearance here?” And with that word, I melted into tears and wept softly. “Now, certainly,” Love said, “I see very well, and I regret it, that wit in you is failing and that you are about to lose your mind.” “Truly,” I said, “that is your fault and I will always rue the fact that it is.” “Do you not know, indeed,” she said, “that every shepherd should, if he is reasonable, seek his lost sheep, scattered in the wilderness among bushes and perils, so as to bring them to their home pasture again and there pay particular attention and care to keeping them safe and sound? And although the silly sheep scattered abroad would be lost, running into the wilderness and being drawn into the desert, or even exposing themselves to the ravenous wolf, still, the shepherd by industry and hard work will exert himself so that he shall not by any means let them become lost. A good shepherd, rather, will lay down his life for his sheep. But, so that you will not deem me to be any worse than such a shepherd, truly, I would prefer to die than suffer any of my followers, knit to me by whatever means, to be lost through error and going astray. For it pleases me to be known as, and called, a shepherdess of all those who follow me. [67] Do you not know that I never failed anyone unless he deliberately refused me and negligently chose an unnatural parting from me? And yet, indeed, I have helped many such and relieved them, too, and even so they have often beguiled me; still, in the end, it lands on their own necks. Have you not read how I favored Paris, the son of Priam of Troy? How also Jason betrayed me, for all his promises?

14 How Caesar’s mission I abandoned for no tribulation until he was throned in my bliss as a reward for his service? I say, did I not, most important of all, establish a day of accord between God and humankind, when I chose a maid as umpire to put an end to the quarrel? Lo, look at how I have labored to have gratitude on all sides, and, even so, I have no desire to rest if I might find someone for whom I should strive. But, truly, my very own disciple, because I have always found you in every test to be prepared in your will to follow my commands and because you have been loyal to that precious pearl, Margaret, whom I once introduced to you—whereas she, in return, has always shown you only a disdainful demeanor—I have come here in my own person to deliver you from your errors and to make you glad by persuasions of reason, so that neither sorrow nor distress [68] shall master you any longer. As a consequence, I hope that you shall easily enter into the grace that you have desired of that jewel for so long. Have you not heard many examples of how I have solaced and comforted the scholars who follow my teaching? Who has brought honor to kings in the battlefield? Who has brought honor to ladies in their bowers by means of a perpetual mirror reflecting their truth in my service? Who has caused worthy individuals to flee vice and shame? Who has sustained cities and kingdoms in prosperity? If it pleased you to recall your remembrances of old, you could declare every point of this in special detail and affirm that I, your mistress, have been the cause causing these and many other things.” “Now, indeed, madam,” I said, “all these things I know well myself. I also know that your excellence surpasses the understanding of mere beasts such as we and that no one’s earth-bound intelligence may comprehend your virtues.” “Well, then,” she said, “since I see that you are in distress and sorrow, I know perfectly well that you are one of my disciples. I may not allow you to sorrow so that you destroy yourself; rather, I have come myself to be your companion, to make your heavy burden seem less. For woe is he that is alone. And [69] to the sorrowful it is a great solace for another sorrowful person to commiserate with him. Just so, with my friends who are ill, I too am ill, and with the sorrowful, I can do nothing else but sorrow myself until I have alleviated their distress in such a way that gladness shall restore, in a kind of counterbalance, just as much of joy as the former depression had built up in grief. “And also,” she said, “when any of my servants are alone in a solitary place, I have always been solicitous to be with them for comfort of their hearts, and I have taught them to compose songs of complaint and songs of bliss, and to compose, as well, letters of rhetoric involved in intricate comprehension, and to occupy themselves with thinking about the ways they might best their ladies please with good service; also, I have taught them to learn comportment in their countenance both in the words they speak and in the way they bear their persons; and, as well, to be meek and humble to everyone, so as to augment his reputation, and to give large, important gifts, again that his reputation might spread abroad. But I have excused you from this latter obligation,

15 since your losses and great expenses on account of which you are needy are by no means unknown to me; I hope to God that it shall someday be amended. As I have said, I have taught all those who follow me in nurture, and in courtesy, [70] I have made them expert so as to win their ladies’ hearts, and if anyone would be disdainful or proud, or be envious or associate with wretches, I have immediately expelled such as he from my school. For truly I hate all vices. I do everything in my power, however, to further virtues and worthiness.” “Ah, worthy creature,” I said, “with just cause may you bear the name of ‘Goddess’. In you lies the grace on account of which any creature in this world has any goodness. Truly, from you springs and wells up all manner of bliss and preciousness, even as brooks and rivers proceed from their springs; and just as all waters naturally flow toward the sea, so all created things press, by the insatiable appetite of their desire, to follow closely after your steps and to approach into your presence as to their innate perfection. How dare then beasts of this world transgress in any way against your divine providence? Also, Lady, you know all private thoughts. No counsel may be hidden in hearts from your awareness. Thus, I know well, Lady, that you are yourself aware that I am and have been in my conscience committed to your service by my will, even though I could never do as I should—still, truthfully, I never pretended to love otherwise than was in my [71] heart; and if I could have played the sycophant to one (but thought all differently to myself about him), as many do continually in front of my very eyes, I believe it would not have done me any good.” “Certainly,” she said, “had you done so, I would not now be visiting you here.” “You know well, Lady, also,” I replied, “that I have not played a game of racquets about it—batting back and forth, inconstant, like the weathervane in the wind, and truly, there where you had established me by agreement of my conscience, I would not fly until you and reason alike, by open strength of persuasion, had made my heart to turn.” “In good faith,” she said, “I have always known you to be like that, and since you would have, inasmuch as it lay in your power, made me privy to your counsel as well as judge of your conscience, God forbid that I should now fail—although I did eschew the matter earlier until I saw a more opportune moment—rather, I shall always be a prompt witness to your fidelity, wherever I may be, against all who will maintain the contrary about you. And inasmuch as your inmost heart is open to me, since you have revealed these things to me fully, that very openness has prompted my visit to this prison to rid your eyes of their film so that you may clearly see the errors in which you have become entangled. And because men are of such various conditions, [72] some dreading to tell the truth, some ready to fight for it, and since, as well, I may not be everywhere myself to oppose such men as speak other than the truth about you, I want you—and I charge you to do this by virtue of the obedience you owe me—to write down my words and publish them, so that they may be

16 circulated among the people as my witness. For books once published neither dread nor suffer shame nor are themselves contenders but rather they only manifest the intent of the writer and convey remembrance to the hearer; and if anyone will in your presence say anything regarding the writers of books, look boldly to it: trust on Mars, god of war, to answer them fully. For certainly, I shall inform them of all of the fidelity in your love, within your conscience, so that you will never lack for help from your conscience in your need. I believe that the strongest and the best ever will not contradict you—what then should you dread?”

17 Book 1: Chapter 3 lines 242-356 [72] I was greatly encouraged by these words, and, as one might say, felt a bit lighter in my spirits, both for the authority of her witness, and for the security of the help she had [73] promised. And I said: “Truly, Lady, now am I much encouraged by the comfort your words give me. May it be now acceptable to your nobleness to demonstrate who the people are that slander and defame your servants since your service should, above all other things, be commended.” “I see,” she said, “that your soul is still not out of the cloudy confusion that has surrounded it. It would be better for you to hear discourse that might alleviate your heavy burden and aid you in understanding how to help yourself than to stir up sweet words and meddle with listening to such reasons. For in an anxious soul—one such as you, namely—such discourse will not really take hold. Come, therefore, and let me see your burden so that I may the more readily provide for your comfort.” “Now, certainly, Lady,” I said, “the greatest comfort I might have would be to know myself completely secure in my heart of that Margaret whom I serve—and to this I intend to aspire with all my might as long as my life endures.” “Then,” she said, “may you aspire to this end in any way without some grievance entering?” “In good faith,” I replied, “there shall be no grievance through any trespass on my part.” “And I would have you know,” she said, “I have never yet ordained [74] a person to serve anywhere in any capacity that he did not prosper in his service—unless he caused the contrary to happen through his own default and trespass.” “My own Lady, dwelling now here on this earth,” I began then, “do recall, as tribute to your own worthiness, how long since now, many years passed, when October began to fade and November to appear (when the barns are full of provisions, like the nut in its shell) and faithful farmers prepare the earth with great labor to bring forth food for mankind’s sustenance against the coming year—in such time of plenty, he who has a home and is prudent does not want to wander to seek out marvels unless he is constrained to do so or excited to it by some stimulus. But often the repugnant action is taken through the goading of other men’s opinions, and I, who would have preferred to stay put, affected now with a longing to wander and see the pathways of the earth in that time of winter—along woods with extensive thoroughfares and along narrow paths rooted up by swine for lanes where they can seek out acorns for food— walked, thinking to myself for a long while, and all around me were the huge beasts that haunt the wood or adorn the many different forests and, as well, the domestic herds that had gone wild again. Then, unawares, I drew near a [75] bank of the sea, and, afraid of the beasts, ‘To sea!,’ I cried. For, Lady, I believe you know yourself

18 quite well that nothing is worse than beasts that are supposed to be tame suddenly turning wild again. Thus, indeed, I was afraid and hastened onboard ship. Then there were enough travelers onboard to seize my hands and pull me into the ship, and I was very familiar with their names. Sight was the first. Lust was another. Thought was the third. And Will was there a master. These travelers brought me onboard the ship of travail. So, when the sail was spread and this ship began to move, the wind and the water rose and turned the heavens upside-down; the waves seemed to kiss one another—but often under the appearance of a kiss much hatred, old and festering, is secretly lurking. The storm, a devouring alien monster, assailed us so swiftly that I supposed that my date with death should then have been set. Now up, now down, now under the waves, and now above them, the ship foundered a long time. And so, by great duress of weather and storms, and with assiduous promises [76] of pilgrimages should I survive, I was driven to an island where I fully expected to be rescued but, truly, at first, it seemed so perilous to land there that, were it not for the comfort of grace, I would have despaired of my life completely. “Truly, Lady, if you recall, of all manner creatures, you yourself came hastily to see us driven in from the sea and to learn who we were. But at first you were disdainful in your demeanor; afterwards, you softened your countenance a good deal, and, so it seemed to me, you dwelt continually in great dread of discomfiting—so it seemed by your comportment. And when I was certain of your name, the longer I gazed on you the more I stood in awe of you, and my heart became more and more receptive to you, and so, in a short while, my ship was out of mind. But, Lady, as you led me on, I was aware of beasts and fish in huge numbers thronging together. Among them, a mussel in a blue shell had enclosed a pearl, a Margaret, the most precious and the best that I had ever seen, and you told me yourself that this same jewel, in its nature, was so good and so full of virtue that a better I should never find, even though I sought for it to the ends of the earth. And with that I held my peace for a long time. And ever since then I have meditated [77] on the man who sought the precious pearl, the Margaret, who, when he had found one to his liking, sold all of his goods to buy that jewel. Certainly, I thought, and I still think, now I have found the jewel that my heart longs for—why should I seek any further? Now, for sure, I will cease, and I will commit myself to this Margaret forever. “Now then, too, since I know very well that it was your intention that I should dedicate myself to such service and thus to desire that thing which would never bring me bliss, but always leave me frustrated, there lives no one who does not suffer distress. Considering then your might, which brought me to such service that is a source to me of both sorrow and joy at once, I wonder at your claim to bring me to joy, and, indeed, you know very well that neither fault nor trespass may reasonably be assigned to me, as far as my conscience is aware. But of my distress I want now to speak a while, so as to inform you into what manner bliss you have thrust me. For, truly, I assume that all gladness, joy and mirth are shut up under lock with the key

19 thrown away and in such a place that it may not be found. My searing woe has completely altered my complexion. When I should sleep, I toss and turn and worry and fret. It seems to me that, so encumbered , everyone confused me and I them. [78] Also, Lady, for a long time my desire has endured without a voice to utter its longing, or else, at least, to have been comforted with some sight of its object, and because I lack these things, my mouth, if I dared, would complain bitterly since in exchange for my goodness evils manifold are given to me. I wonder, Lady, truly, saving always your reverence, how you may, for shame, suffer such ills to be multiplied upon the head of your servant. Therefore, kneeling before you with a humble heart, I pray you to have pity on this wretched captive who is now of no use. Good Lady, so may it please you, show me now your succor, I who am at this time one of your most intimate servants in every test and who place myself under your wings of protection. No help for me is destined. How, then, shall strangers in any way look for succor when I, who am so close to you, still fail of receiving help? I may not go anywhere, I must remain in this prison. What bonds and chains hold me, Lady, you see yourself clearly. A condemned heretic does not have half the care I do. But thus sighing and sobbing, I bewail my lot here alone, and were it not for the comfort of your presence, I would die right here, right now. “And yet I do take a little comfort that I am subject to [79] such grace, no mere fortune, that I have found the precious pearl, Margaret, that, everything else excepted, men should buy even if they therefore had to sell all their belongings. Woe is me that so many hinderers and liars are made watchmen to spy on and frustrate prisoners like me all the time, and on account of such interfering persons it is difficult to attain any such jewel. Is this, Lady, any honor to your deity? It seems to me that such persons, if we consider it lawfully, should have no power over your servants nor be their jailers. Truly, if it were lawful unto you, I would complain to all the gods that you do not govern your divine providence among your servants as you should. Also, Lady, my wealth is inadequate to match the price of this jewel or to make the exchange for it. Furthermore, no one is worthy to wear such pearls except kings or princes or else their peers. This jewel, on account of its virtue, would adorn an entire kingdom and make it fair: the nobility of its virtue is so great that her goodness is commended in every respect. Who is he who would not cry out unless he could have such richness at his will? The virtue of this jewel and nothing else may deliver me from this prison. And if I am not helped by it, I can see no recovery for myself. Although [80] I might find some way out of here, yet I would not take it—I would abide the date that destiny has ordained for me, which I assume is without amendment. So severely is my heart bound that I may consider nothing else. So tightly, Lady, has Sir Haughtiness laced me into the stocks, I cannot believe it is your will; and since I see you pay so little attention, or so it seems to me, and you will not through your power extend to me the virtue in mercy of the Margaret-pearl—as you certainly could if it pleased you—my bliss and my mirth are brought down. Sickness and sorrow are always ready to hand.

20 The coat of sorrow is wound tight about my whole body so that standing upright is all I can do; I can hardly lie down on account of pure sorrow so uncomfortable; and yet all of this is paltry enough as the pledge-money toward sealing this contract, for I know I must suffer treblefold as much before the hour of my relief arrives. For he is worthy of no wealth who may endure no woe. And certainly I am depressed when I consider these things. But who will give me water enough to drink lest my eyes dry up for the running streams of my tears? Who will bewail with me my own happy heaviness? Who will counsel me now in my pleasant sorrow and in my [81] welcome distress? I do not know. For the more I burn the more I desire. The more that I sorrow the more I thirst in gladness. Who then will give me an antidote to drink to staunch the thirst of my blissful bitterness? Lo, so do I burn and drown. I shiver and I sweat. To this paradoxical evil a salve was never yet prescribed: indeed, all physicians, except the Margaret-pearl alone, are ignorant how to provide any such remedy.”

21 Book 1: Chapter 4 lines 357-413 [81] And with these words I burst into weeping, so that every tear seemed, so large was it, to bore through my eyeball so that all the water in me would have flowed out. Then it seemed to me that Love became somewhat despondent on account of my distress, and she began to speak to me in a sober but calming manner, considering carefully what she said. Commonly, the wise speak calmly and softly for many reasons. One, their words are the more credible. Also, in calm speech, men may apprehend what needs expressing and what they should be reticent about. Also, the authority of calm speech is greater; and it makes possible greater understanding [82] of other points related to the matter. Just so, this lady calmly and quietly said the following words: “It’s a marvel,” she said, “that, in no way I can discern, do you care to have any succor; instead you continually complain and sorrow, and out of foolish willfulness, you just don’t care to seek any paths toward a remedy. But consult with your close friends, your conscience and me, who have been your mistress and succor and terminator of your distress: for out of such disease come gladness and joy, so poured out from a full vessel that such gladness quenches the feeling of former sorrows. But you, who were accustomed not only to remember such things in your heart, but also to inform fools about them to annul their errors and get rid of their obscure opinions and to comfort them in their depressing thoughts, now you cannot even serve as comfort for your own soul in worrying over these things. O, where have you now been so long companion of the dining table that you have eaten so much of the stews of oblivion and drunk so deeply of ignorance that the old nursing which [83] you sucked from me is now overcome and lost from all awareness? O, this is a worthy person to help others who cannot counsel himself.” And with these words I turned bright red for pure, overpowering shame. And she then seeing me so astonished by turns suddenly (though nature abhors suddenness) began to comfort me with delicious, sugared words, putting me in complete hope that I should attain the Margaret-pearl if I obeyed her commands; and she began also to wipe the tears that hung on my cheeks with a handkerchief. And then I spoke in this manner: “Now, well of wisdom and all wealth, without you nothing may be learned. You bear the keys to all secret lore. Men strive in vain to attain any stability unless you, Lady, first open the lock. You, Lady, teach us the ways and the by-paths to Heaven. You, Lady, cause all the heavenly bodies that govern us beasts here below on earth to follow their courses in an orderly fashion. You arm your servants against all debates with impenetrable armor. You arm their hearts with insuperable blood of courage. You lead them to the perfect good. You all things desire. You refuse help to no one

22 who is willing to do as you direct him. [84] Grant me now a little of your grace that all my sorrows may cease.” “My own servant,” she said, “truly, you are close to my heart, and your depressed demeanor did sorely grieve me. But among your complaints, it seemed to me that you alleged things to frustrate your aid and interfere with your grace, such that it seems to me despair has crept into your heart. God forbid that that foolish, improvident and unprofitable thought should come into your mind to trouble your wits since every future is contingent and open. Therefore, do not any more propose your propositions by impossibilities. But now, I pray you, rehearse for me again those things that prompt your mistrust, and I expect to rebut them by reason and restore full hope to your heart. What do you comprehend,” she said, “by what you spoke, ‘many hinderers are your jailers’? And also, I am not sure what you mean by your statement that your wealth is insufficient.” “Truly,” I replied, “by that first statement, I mean that tattle-tales are talking more of evil than of good, for everyman, no matter his age, inclines more to advance wickedness than goodness. Also, false words spread so far and wide by the steering of false, [85] lying tongues that fame flies instantly to their ears and tells many wicked tales, and the false will be credited as soon as the true, no matter how weighty the truth may be. Now, by the other statement,” I continued, “it seems to me that that jewel is so precious that its virtue could not possibly extend to such a wretch as I am; and, as well, I am too lacking in worldly delights to be any match for such a jewel. For folk who possess worldly delights as they will are positioned in the highest degree and are held in most reverence. For mistaken assumption poses that felicity consists in these, whereas such captive wretches as I are evermore frustrated.” “Certainly,” she said, “take good heed: I shall by rational arguments demonstrate to you that all of these things may not frustrate your purpose by the least point that any person could isolate to emphasize in a counter-argument.”

23 Book 1: Chapter 5 lines 414-508 [85] “Do you not recall,” she said, “that examples constitute one of the strongest methods for proving a man’s argument? Then if I now, by means of examples, persuade you to assent to any proposition, is it not proved by the strength of the method?” “Yes, indeed,” I said. “Well,” she replied, “did you never read [86] about how Paris of Troy and Helen loved each other, and yet they had never communicated together? Also, Acrisius shut Danaë in a tower to ensure that no one should have mastery over her in my, Love’s, service; and yet Jupiter, by signs, without any speech, fulfilled all his intent with her despite her father’s will. And many others have been knit in truth to each other, and yet they never spoke together, for it is something hidden in inwardness why two people intermix their hearts with one another after only one look. The capacity to know such mysteries of experience shall not be given completely to you, mere beasts, since many secrets in such precious affairs are reserved to the judgment of divine providence. For among mortals, by mortal consideration, they may not be determined or comprehended. Wherefore, I claim that all the envy, all the rumor-mongering, that villainous people often unleash upon my servants is more a cause for advantage and success than a cause of any hindrance or frustration.” “Why, then,” I replied, “do you allow such wrong when you may, if you please, easily abate all such evils? It seems to me that it is a great dishonor to you.” “O,” she said, “hold your peace. I have found too many that have been unkind to me, so that, truly, I will allow every person in that manner to have distress; [87] and who continues and endures to the end, well and faithfully, him will I help, and I will assist him to enter into bliss as one of my own. Just as happened in martial exchanges in ancient Greece. Who was crowned by God? Not the strongest, but he who came first and stayed longest and continued in the journey and spared not to travail as long as the play lasted. But imagine that person that proffers himself to my service now— therein he remains a while and then he quits and is ready to serve another, and so now he thinks one thing, now another (and into the water he enters and then immediately he withdraws)—such a one it does not please me to introduce into the perfect bliss of my service. A tree often uprooted and planted again in various places will not endure to bring forth fruits. Look now, I pray you, how my servants of yore endured in their service, and follow after their steps, and then you might not fail, if you work in this manner.” “Certainly,” I replied, “this world is nothing like to what it was then; also this country has one custom, and another country, a different one. And so a man may not apply to his eye the medicine that he would heal his foot with. For this is true: between two similar things, distinction is often required.”

24 “Now,” she said, “that is true: diversity of nation, diversity of law—this [88] has resulted from many reasons, for that diversity arises from the contentious malice of wicked people who have envious hearts against each other. But, truly, my law has always applied to my servants universally, and that may not fail. For, just as man’s law that is ordained by numerous determinations may not be assessed as good or bad law until people’s experience has tested it and shown to what results it tends—and then its necessity is clear, or else its impossibility is revealed—just so, the law of my servants has passed its tests for everyone so well that it has not hitherto failed. “Did you not know that all the law of nature is my law ordained by God and established to endure by natural reason, as a result of which all law provided by man’s wit ought to be subject to the law of nature, which has always been common to every natural creature such that my statutes and my law, which are from nature, are universal to all peoples? Old procedures employed over many generations, and validated by the people’s custom, may not so lightly be defaced, but new procedures, contradicting such old, often result in stress and disrupt many commitments. But I am not claiming, therefore, that men should not seek and ordain new remedies at law against new crimes—but they should always see to it that such remedies do not contradict [89] the old any further than the malice extends. Then the law follows (the old customs in Love have been universal) as customary for most cases. And for this reason, I do not want any part of my laws annulled. “But now to your purpose: such tattle-tales and overseers and hinderers, if it seems to you that they may harm you in any way, yet do you love as usual and pay them no mind, and comport yourself humbly in everyone’s presence, and be prepared in your heart to maintain what you have begun, and even pretend a bit with meekness in your speech; and thus with diplomacy shall you surmount and quash the evil in their hearts. And it is wisdom still to appear to flee at times in cases where a man intends to fight. In this way shall the tongues of the evil be stilled, or else they will concede your meaning and position completely, for indeed, it ever was and ever shall be that my enemies are afraid to entrust themselves to any combat. And, therefore, have you no coward’s heart in my service, any more than you had at other times when you were sundered from my service, for if you dread to go your way because of such tattle- tales, understand well the consequences: he that dreads to sow his grains of corn on account of the rain shall have thin, empty barns; also, he who is fearful for his clothing, let him dance naked! Who [90] attempts nothing (and especially in my service) gains nothing. After terrible storms, the weather is often bright and clear. After much loud talk, there is much whispering: thus, too, after tattling words come ‘hush,’ ‘peace,’ and ‘be still’.” “O good Lady,” I then said, “consider how for more than seven years now I have dug and rooted for a vine, and in every way I could I sought to have fed myself with the grape. But no fruit have I found. Also, I have for these seven years served Laban, so as to have wedded Rachel, his daughter, but bleary-eyed Leah has been brought to

25 my bed, she who always engenders my sorrow, ever with child in tribulation and anxiety. And although the hugs and kisses of Rachel should seem sweet to me, she is, nonetheless, so barren that neither gladness nor joy will spring forth by any means, with the result that I may weep with Rachel. No counsel may solace me since issue of my heartfelt desire fails. Now, then, I pray that soon freedom and grace will come in this eighth year: this eighth season may be to me both kingdom and feast-day, after the seven work-days of travail following the Christian law; and, whatever else you do, I pray that this same Margaret-pearl may be preserved, Lady, in your inmost chamber, from being committed [91] to any other person, given this case.” “Look, then,” she replied, “that you persevere in my service, in which I have established you, so that such scorn from your enemies may in this way not be proven on your person: ‘lo, this man started to erect a building, but, because his foundation is bad, he may not bring the edifice to conclusion.’ For meekness in countenance, along with a manly heart in deeds and long-suffering perseverance, is the badge of my uniform, assigned to all members of my retinue. What! Do you think that it pleases me to advance such persons as those who covet the first serving at feasts, the highest seats in churches and in halls, genuflections of folk in the markets and fairs, but are too restless to stay in one place any length of time, assuming their own wit more excellent than another’s, scorning all manner of invention but their own. No, no, God knows that such as these shall not share in my bliss. Truly, my manner heretofore has been to honor with my bliss those who are lions in the battlefield and lambs in the bedchamber, eagles during the assault and meek as maidens in the hall, foxes when it comes to policy politic in their deeds; and, when needed, their protection, ready to serve as a bridge, is granted, and their banner is raised like courageous wolves in the field. Thus, in such ways shall men be advanced. As an example, take David, who, from being a shepherd, was [92] raised up into the order of regal governance; and also Jupiter, from being a bull, to being Europa’s lover; and Julius Caesar, from the lowest degree in Rome to being a master of all earthly princes; and Aeneas, from Hell, to being the king of the nation that now is Rome. And so, I say to you, the grace you receive, by comporting yourself like these, may place you in such a position that no tattle-telling may grieve you even so much as the least tuck of your hems, and I say that their tales are hardly worth a blade of cress toward your disadvantage or discomfiture.”

26 Book 1: Chapter 6 lines 509-654 [92] “People everywhere in this world have always,” she continued, “desired to have a sterling reputation for worthiness, and they have hated to bear any ill repute, and that is one of the objections that you allege as opposing your inmost, heartfelt desire.” “Yes, indeed,” I replied, “that and the fact that people will so regularly lie and promote such infamy.” “Now,” she said, “if men burden you with infamy and ill repute with their lies, do you suppose that you are thereby damaged? If so, you are wrong, and here’s why: for to the degree that they lie, to the same extent your merit increases and makes you even more worthy in the eyes of them who know the truth about you; by that very thing that has damaged you, to [93] just the degree that it has damaged you, you are augmented in the eyes of your beloved friends. And, truthfully, a wound from your friend harms you less, indeed, sir, and is better, than a false kiss in hypocritical flattery from your enemy; beyond that, then, to be on good terms with your friend renders void such ill repute. Thus, you are augmented and not damaged or lessened.” “Lady,” I replied, “it happens sometimes still, if a man should be in any distress, that the opinion of envious people pays no attention to his deserts nor to the merits of his actions, but only to the chance of fortune, and by that do they pass their sentence on him. And some consider the subjective will in their own heart and according to it pass their sentence, taking no heed of reason nor paying any attention to the quality of the actions—as thus: if a man is rich and fulfilled in worldly prosperity, some commend it and say it is lent so through just cause. And he who is suffering adversity, of him they say he is wicked and has deserved that misfortune. Then, too, some men hold the contrary opinion and say that prosperity is given to the wealthy for his confusion, and they allege many authorities regarding this matter, from many extremely bright clerks and scholars. And some men say that, even though all good opinion has forsaken people in adversity, still, that is merit and even increase of their 94] bliss, with the result that these purposes are so strange and resistant to comprehension that, truly, as regards my current adversity, I do not know how the careless public will pass sentence on my fame and reputation.” “Therefore,” she said, “if anyone were to pass a true sentence on such matters, you would see quite well the cause of the distress. Pay attention to and understand to what end it conduces—that is to say, either good or bad—and thus it ought to have its fame, on account of goodness, or its infamy, on account of badness. For every reasonable person, and especially a wise man, ought not judge hastily in a matter without having first listened to reason. According to the lore of the wise, you shall not judge nor pass sentence before you know what the matter is.” “Lady,” I replied, “you well remember that the greatest praise of certain saints in holy Church is rehearsal of their conversion from bad to good, and it is rehearsed so to

27 serve as a perpetual mirror of remembrance for the worship of those saints and as a good example for amendment to other sinners. Consider how, for example, Antiochus the Great turned away from the Romans to side with Hannibal against his native country only afterwards, it appearing to him that the Romans were at the ultimate degree of confusion, to return again to his old allies, and by his stratagem Hannibal was later frustrated of his purpose. And therefore, Lady, to inform you what I mean, consider the following now. “In [95] my youth, I was induced to assent to and, insofar as I might, to help certain parties and to involve myself in other weighty matters of governing citizens, and these things were what drew me in, and the agitations to involve myself in these things were so decked out and got up that, on the face of it, it seemed to me that they seemed noble and glorious to all the people. I then, thinking I would deserve much merit by furthering and maintaining those things, busied myself and labored with all my diligence in pursuing them to their conclusion. And indeed, Lady, to tell you truth, I cared little for any hatred the mighty senators in that city might bear me, nor for the malice of the commons, for two reasons: one was that I was comfortable in the situation such that to me and my friends it was profitable; another was because common profit in the community does not obtain unless peace and tranquility through just governance proceed from that profit. Afterwards, by counsel of my own conscience, it seemed to me that the original illusions meant only malice and evil, without any good avail to anyone, and were intended to promote tyranny. And so on account of undiluted sorrow over my meddling in these affairs and on account of the ill repute that I had incurred, [96] those tears lashed out of my eyes were thus washed away by the very force of my sorrow; then the covert malice and the rancor of intentional envy, forecast and plotted for destruction by many people, appeared so plainly that, had I been a blind man, I might well have with my hands felt the entire circumstance. “Now, then, those persons who, out of wrath at my original interference, have planned various things as redress, have designed for me to dwell in this grievous prison until Lachesis no longer wishes to weave my thread of life. And ever I was pursued that, if I wanted to have grace of my life and liberation from that prison, I should openly confess how peace might be brought about in ending all the original rancor. It was absolutely assumed that my knowledge of those matters was complete. Then, Lady, I thought that every man who can legitimately help the commonalty to be saved ought to do so—the commonalty being above all things else what I am bound to maintain and defend; and namely in destroying wrong, although I should in that way impeach my own friend if he were guilty and complicit in wrongdoing. And neither master nor friend may avail the soul of one that dies in falseness—and also I reasoned that I [97] never desired the anger of the people nor the indignation of the nobility on account of anything I wrought or did in any action originating with me, except in maintaining these aforementioned errors and in concealing the secret machinations

28 that attended them. And all the people’s hearts who sided with the errors were blind and so far beguiled in their dotage that they maintained debate and strife and, on the other side, they were involved in destruction, because of which the peace, that above all else in a commonalty should be desired, was on the verge of being broken and nullified. Also, in the city of London the peace was about to be nullified, London, that is so dear and sweet to me, where I was born and grew up; and a greater natural love have I to that place than to any other on earth, just as every creature feels a keen desire for the place of his birth and an equally keen desire that peace and quiet should abide in that place: the peace there, too, would have been broken—when by all wise people peace is commended and desired. For it is a known fact that all men who desire to come to the perfect peace everlasting must both maintain and keep the peace commended by God. This peace was confirmed by the voice of angels, when our God entered into this world. This for His Testament He left to all His friends when he returned to [98] the place from whence He came: this His Apostle admonishes us to hold and keep, without the which man may have no insight consummately. Also this God by His coming made peace not only between heavenly and earthy bodies, but also among us on earth He so confirmed His peace that in one head of love we should act as one body. Also, I remember how the city of Athens was named rather for the god of peace than the god of battle, signifying that peace is most necessary to commonalties and cities. ‘ “Then, governed by all these ways mentioned above, I declared certain points in the following manner. First, those persons who had induced me to serve their purposes, I not knowing the secret intent of their meaning, drew also the feeble-witted people, who have no insight of governmental prudence, to clamor and cry out on matters that they themselves directed; and under the pretence of the common advantage, they emboldened the ruled to take on the actions of the rulers, and they also directed people innocent of political cunning to cry after things which ‘may not,’ they said, ‘stand unless we serve as the executors of those matters, and unless authority of execution is handed over to us by common election. And that must come by strength of your maintenance, for we, expelled from such degree of power, the oppressiveness of these old hinderers shall again rise up[99] and put you in subjection such that you will complain in endless woe. The government,’ they said, ‘of your city, left in the hands of extortionate citizens, shall bring in pestilence and destruction to you, good men; and therefore, let us have the common administration of government to lessen such evils. Also,’ they said, ‘it is proper to commend the good and to punish the guilty as they deserve. There are many citizens, who are afraid of actions that will be taken, because the extortions they have committed are continually against these purposes and all other good intentions.’ “Nevertheless, Lady, truly, the meaning concealed under these words was to have impeached successfully the mighty senators who had hearts heavy at the misgovernance they saw. And so, Lady, when the free election took place, by clamor

29 of many people because of great injury from misgovernance, they, Northampton and his followers, remained so steadfast in their choice that they underwent every kind of fickleness rather than allow the hated regimen to rule. Nevertheless, many of the common mass, who have consideration only to their wilful desires, without reason held to the contrary, and Northampton lost. But then that same governor so forsaken, pretending, before his undoing, on account of misrule in his time—inventing misrule as an excuse—arranged to have that election hindered and [100] to have himself elected anew, and with that to raise great uproar. When these things, Lady, were made known among the princes and opened to the people, an improvement came about that every member of any rank should be ordained to hold his proper place in the social order, with the result that for errors to come in the future, men might easily provide remedy beforehand, so as in this way to promote and maintain peace and rest. Concerning which things, Lady, these persons, brought to answer before their most sovereign judge, the king, not coerced by any painful duress, openly made confession and asked for grace, so that openly this action proves my words are true without forgery of any lies. “But now it grieves me to remember these various declarations of drivel from these herd-following people. Certainly, it seems to me that they ought to rejoice in the fact that truth may be discovered and known. For my truth and my conscience are witnesses both for me that, knowing what I do, I have spoken the truth, not out of any intent to harm those persons or any malice toward them, but only in honor of the truth of my oath in my allegiance, by which I was charged in behalf of my king. But do you not now, Lady, see how the felonious thoughts of these people and how the bands of wicked men [101] have conspired against my firm truth? Do you not see how every person that assented to these erroneous opinions and served as aids to the rumor and noise and knew all of these things better than I myself, how they make preparations to find new friends and call me false and study also how they may name even worse conditions for me in their mouths? O God, what may this be? That very band of folk, on the one hand, who, in the time of my provision—when my might extended to these aforementioned matters—commended me then and honored me with the name of truth in so many manners that it was heard by practically everyone where any of them happened to be; and, on the other hand, that same company who, not long ago, were imposing the brand of ill repute on me—now both of those groups have turned the good into bad and the bad into good; which thing fills me with wonder, since they know I am only telling the truth, and yet they are now tempted to retract their praise of old, and, even though they know me certainly in all my deeds to be faithful and true, they openly claim that I have said many things false. And yet they have alleged nothing said by me to be false or untrue—the only untruth here is the same matter acknowledged as such by the parties themselves. And, God knows, other matter is there none. You, also, Lady, know these things for the truth: I am not boasting [102] to praise myself; that way I would lose the precious intimacy of my

30 conscience. But you see well now that false opinion of the people, on account of my truthfulness in my declaration of false, conspired machinations; and, according to the judgment of learned clerks, I should not conceal the truth regarding any sort of person, a master or anyone else. And so I would have no dread if these things were submitted to the consideration of the true and the wise. And so that those who live hereafter shall, without any doubt at all, know the whole truth about these things as they happened, as they were, I have written them down, for perpetual remembrance of their true meaning. For, indeed, Lady, it seems to me that I ought to bear the name of truth who, for the love of righteousness, have thus subjected myself. But now, then, the false fame, which, according to clerks, flies as fast as does the fame of truth, shall spread abroad so far until it is brought to the jewel who is my theme, and so I shall be frustrated, without any measure of truth.”

31 Book 1: Chapter 7 lines 655-739 [102] Then Love beheld me in a solemn manner and said in a changed voice, more subdued than she had been using: “I would gladly,” she said, “see you receive some help, but have you [103] said anything that you cannot prove?” “Indeed,” I said, “the various persons themselves have all acknowledged everything just as I have said it.” “Indeed,” she replied, “but what if they had denied it? How would you have maintained your position?” “Truthfully,” I said, “it is well known, both among the greatest and other people of the realm, that I proffered my body freely to prove these things, such that Mars should have judged the outcome. But precisely because my words were true, they dared not trust that particular judge.” “Now, certainly,” she said, “above all fame in the world the reputation for martial feats most pleases ladies who follow my lore, but since you were ready, and your adversaries refused such engagement in your presence, your fame ought to spread abroad as if indeed it had had endurance until the end. And so, anyone with a drop of reason, who hears infamy about you for these things, has this answer to say: ‘truly you spoke, for your adversaries affirmed your words by their refusal to join combat.’ And if you have lied in the affirmations you offered to prove by combat, they are still discomfited, the honor left to your side, so that your fame shall keep infamy held down and he will bring up nothing on his side. “What grief is it to you that your enemies say to their own shame, ‘We are [104] discomfited, and yet our quarrel is just’? Will not the praise of your friends repress that infamy and say that they conceded a truth without a stroke of battle? Many men in battle are discomfited and defeated in a just quarrel and that is God’s intimate judgment from on high, in Heaven; but, even thought the combatant has yielded, he may still with words claim that his quarrel is true and that out of dread of death he is compelled to yield himself up as if it were not; and he that concedes and has felt no stroke, he may not creep away in this manner by any means of excuse. Careless people will say, ‘indeed, the one who is true, the one who is false, he will himself manifest as much.’ Thus, on every side, fame shows good toward you and not bad.” “But yet,” I said, “some will declare that I should not have, for any fear of death, betrayed my masters, and so with an argument of unnaturalness they will knit a net of infamy to circumscribe me. Thus malicious enemies will seek in many ways secret serpentine contrivances to quench and destroy with their venom of many machinations the light of truth, so as to make the hearts of others murmur against my person, to hold me in hatred without any cause.”

32 “Now,” she said, “hear me out for a few words, and you shall be fully answered, I think. “It seems to me,” she said, [105] ”that just now, by your words, the sacrament of swearing—that is, charging with responsibility by oath—was one of the causes that compelled you to reveal the aforementioned malicious machinations and plots. Every oath, by the knot of copulation, must have these laws—namely, true judgment and righteousness—and if either of these should be lacking, the oath is subverted into the name of perjury. Then, to make a true oath, these things must of necessity follow, for often, a man, to tell the truth, unless judgment and justice follow, he is perjured: for example, Herod, for maintaining his oath, was damned. “Also, to tell the truth rightfully, except in a case of judgment, is at times forbidden because all truths are not supposed to be disclosed. Therefore, in judgment, in truth, and in righteousness, every creature is bound, on pain of perjury, to make full acknowledgment, even if it regards his own person, out of dread of sin. This, according to that Scripture, ‘better is it to die than to live falsely,’ and though perverted people would make false report, with the intent, in unkindness, to publish your infamy, when the light of truth springs forth in these matters and is openly published among the commons, then shall such dark infamy not dare appear, on account of pure shame at its [106] falseness—even as some men there are who can not otherwise eliminate or else excuse their own infamy except by frustrating other men’s fame, which then for no other reason, others call false. Only with their own falseness they may not be advanced or else make their own actual slander seem less by ruining other men with false slandering words, for if such men would turn inward with the conscience’s eye, they should see the same judgment they lay on others spring out of their own sides with so many branches it would be impossible to number them. Regarding which, therefore, it may be said that, in what thing you judge this man, in that thing you also condemn yourself. “But,” she continued, “understand not by these words of mine that I am implying you are deserving slander, for given any matter heretofore written about you, I would witness to the contrary. But I do say that the trumpets of slandering words may not be cast away until the day of doom. For how should there not be still many shrews among such a great plenty of people, since, when there were no more than eight persons enclosed in Noah’s ship, one was still a shrew and scorned his father! “These things,” she said, “show, I think, that false fame is not to be dreaded nor to be believed to be so of wise persons, especially not your Margaret pearl, whose wisdom [107] I intend to make manifest later, wherefore, I am confident, such things shall not startle her or make her depart; therefore, as far as unkindness is concerned, your oath, as you swore it, has excused you completely. But now if you would not mind, I would like to demonstrate a few things.” “Say on,” I said, “whatever you will. I believe you mean only truth and my profit in times to come.”

33 “Truly,” she said, “that is so, as long as you can hold onto these words and, in the inwardmost secret chamber of your heart, enclose them so securely that they never fly away, then you shall find them supportive. Consider now the people whom you have served, which of them all ever remunerated you in your period of exile even as much as the value of the least precious metal that circulates in money. Who was sorry or expressed any pity for your distress? As long as they had satisfied their purpose, they did not care as much as a trifle for your predicament. Lo, when you were imprisoned, how they hastened to help deliver you! I imagine that they did not even care if you died. They took no thought to anything but their own desires. And if it pleases you to tell the truth, the whole crowd that landed you in this brig paid more attention to the aid you could give them than to any relief they might have offered you.[108] “Do not some of them still owe you money for their provisions? Did you not pay for some of their expenses until they were turned out of Zealand? Who ever gave you anything for any journeys you undertook? Yet, indeed, some of them took money intended for your own room and board and pocketed it in their own purse, not caring at all for the proprietor of that money. “Lo, consider the company in behalf of which you were busying yourself, who might help neither you nor themselves; because of their unkindness, they bear the name now you are supposed by them to have—that is, they accuse you of unnaturalness. What more could you have done than you did unless you would in a false quarrel have been a stinking martyr? I think you fled as long as you might cover for them, which you clung to doing longer than you should have done. And those that owed you money would not pay a penny; they assumed your return was impossible. How could you have better tested them to prove what they are than thus in your needy distress? Now you have an example of those with whom you shall get involved; truly, this lesson is worth very much.” [109]

34 Book 1: Chapter 8 lines 740-841 [109] Again Love started to guide me, with these words: “Consider my speech, for indeed hereafter it will please you, and no matter how you see Fortune prepare to spin her wheel, this essay shall in no way shift ground. For certainly, Fortune shows herself fairest when she intends to deceive. And since, it seemed to me, heretofore you said your praise in love—for your righteousness ought to be elevated—should be lowered or abased in times to come, you might in love so comport yourself that praise and fame shall be elevated, so that comfort to your friends and sorrow to your enemies shall endure forever. “But if you were the one sheep among the hundred that were lost in the desert and had wandered out of the way and now are restored to the flock, the shepherd has no joy in you if you turn again to the forest. But just as sorrow and anguish were great in the time of your wandering astray, just so joy and gladness will be doubled when we see you converted, and not, like Lot’s wife, turning to look back, but following the other sheep with an entire commitment, to gather with them herbs and grasses. “Nevertheless,” [110] she said, “I do not say these things for any despair that I harbor in assuming things about you otherwise than I should. For, truly, I know well that you are now committed to such a purpose as you do not want to deviate from. But I mention this on account of the many men there are who busy themselves to pry into other men’s doings and frivolously prefer to chatter about the bad than the good and have no will-power to amend their own manners. They also harbor hatred from old, festering rancor, and where such as that abides, suddenly from their mouths proceeds the abundance of the heart and words like stones are thrown out. Therefore, my counsel is that, wherever you are, openly and overtly rebut the errors and meanings insofar as you know them to be false and do not, on account of anyone, desist from making them known in everybody’s ear. And always be patient, using Jacob’s words, no matter what men call out at you, ‘I shall endure my lady’s wrath which I have deserved, as long as my Margaret pearl has justified my cause.’ “And certainly,” she continued, “I myself affirm that if you, thus converted, sorrow, sincerely in your heart, and will completely abandon all vanity, Margaret the pearl, whom you desire with your heart’s desire, in consolation for that with all sweet [111] pleasantness, in the manner of a mother’s pity, shall accept you completely into grace. For just as you tear your clothes in plain sight of God, having reason to do so because of your error, so openly to repair them at His, God’s, worship, without further reproof, is to be commended. Also, just as you were an example of manifold error, just so, you must be an example of manifold correction, even as good savor toward abandonment of your ways, destroying all error, causes diligent love with many ornate, eloquent praises to follow, and then shall all the original errors cause the honors to come to seem hugely increased. Black and white placed together,

35 each appears more clearly itself for the contrast, and so does every thing’s natural opposite. But infamy that precedes and praising honor that follows after, for any reason, cause that same honor to rise doubled in wealth, and that eliminates the stain of the first infamy. Why do you assume, I wonder, that these things in any way hinder your reputation? Nay, nay, God knows, only they serve as pure increase of worship in commendation of your righteousness and to make your truth seem the greater. Do you not know well yourself that, in the form of your making, you do not surpass Adam who ate the apple? You do not surpass the [112] steadfastness of Noah, who became drunk consuming the grape. You do not surpass the chastity of Lot, who lay with his daughter. Nor the nobility of Abraham, whom God reproved for his pride. Nor David’s meekness, who, on account of a woman, had Uriah slain. What! nor Hector of Troy, in whom no lack could be found, yet he is reproved for not opposing the war’s beginning with his manhood and for not opposing Paris’ raid into Greece, from which all the sorrow of Troy arose. For, truly, there is lacking no venom of secret consent in him who openly evades opposing a wrong. Lo, also an old proverb, among many others, goes, ‘he who is silent, it’s as if he consented.’ “Now, given these examples, you might fully understand that these things have been written for your instruction and in witness of the righteousness of those persons, as thus: with regard to every person, the error he committed made the goodness that afterwards followed the more in reverence and in manifest accessibility. For example, is it not sung in Holy Church, ‘Lo, how necessary was Adam’s sin’? King David begot King Solomon upon her who was Uriah’s wife. Indeed, none of these things is written as a reproof. Just so, although I rehearse your previous deeds, I reprove you never the more for that, nor on account of any villainy on your part are they being rehearsed, rather [113] for your honor, so you continue well hereafter, and for your own profit, I counsel you to think on them.” Then I spoke as follows. “Lady of unity and accord, envy and wrath lurking where you enter, you know well yourself and so do many others, that, while I administered the office of common affairs, as in governing the establishments among the people, I never fouled my conscience with any sort of behavior, but always the matters were brought to their correct conclusions by intelligence and by counsel of the wisest. And thus, truly, for you, Lady, I have desired such obligations, and certainly, I was not idle in your service, as far as fulfillment of my obligations is concerned.” “This is something,” she said, “that may draw many noble hearts as well as the voice of the common-folk into itself; glory and fame are merely wretched and fickle. Alas, that men covet in so ignorant a fashion reward for any and every good deed, since the glory of fame in this world is nothing but hindrance of the glory in the time to come. “And certainly,” she said, “even at the hardest of men’s efforts, such fame into Heaven is not equal to the earth except as a center-point to the circle of Heaven. A pinprick, in other words, is extraordinarily small in respect of the whole circle, and yet

36 in this entire pinprick [114] no name may be borne by piercing, on account of many obstacles—for example, water and wilderness and foreign languages; and not only the names of men are silenced and withheld from knowledge by these obstacles, but also cities themselves and kingdoms, even those that have prospered, are hindered from being known and their renown is blocked so that they may not emerge completely in men’s proper understanding. How, then, should the name of an individual Londoner surpass the glorious name of London—by many commended, by many faulted—and in many more places on earth not known than known? For in many countries, London is hardly heard or spoken of, and yet more, among one sort of people such fame for goodness may not come since, as many as there are who praise, just as many, ordinarily, fault or blame. Fie, then, on such fame. Relax and allow them that know the inwardness of hearts to deal with such fame there in that very place where nothing contradicting a truth shall either be spoken or dare to appear by attorney or by any other manner. How many folk great in name and how many great in worthiness have been praised heretofore that now have slid out of memory and are completely forgotten for lack of written records? And yet, scriptures on account of great age are so [115] defaced that no perpetuality in them may be judged to obtain either. But if you will make comparison to eternity, what joy may you have in earthly renown and name? It is a valid simile: a fragment, or one grain of wheat compared to a thousand ships fully laden with corn. “What number is between the one and the other? And yet both may be enumerated and have a terminus in reckoning. But, truly, all that which may be enumerated is as nothing to reckon compared to that which may not be enumerated. For of the things with definite limits is comparison possible, as with one thing that is small and another large, but in regard to things that have definite limits and other things that have none, such comparison is not possible. Wherefore, in Heaven, to be praised with and by God has no end, but endures eternally, and you can do nothing aright unless you then desire the rumor of it to be spread abroad in everyone’s ear—and that, even so, endures but a moment in comparison with the other. And so you seek reward in folk’s small words and in vain praise. Truly, therein you lose the reward of virtue, and lose also the greatest value of conscience, and also, perhaps, your everlasting renown. Therefore, boldly the renown of earthly fame should be hated, and fame after death should be desired, for works of [116] virtue require, even deserve, rewarding, and the soul causes all virtue. Then, the soul, delivered out of the prison of the earth, is worthiest of such reward in the everlasting fame and not the body that causes all of men’s evils.”

37 Book 1: Chapter 9 lines 842-934 [116] ”Regarding two things you are answered, it seems to me,” Love said, “and if anything should still be in doubt in your soul, show it forth in order to clear your ignorance and do not hesitate on account of any shame.” “Certainly,” I replied, “there is no one in this world who could reasonably rebut any of your arguments, so I believe, and by my wit I feel now that those who speak evil or who bear infamy may hardly grieve me or frustrate my purpose, but rather my quarrel may be furthered as a consequence of such things.” “Indeed,” she said, “and it is proved as well that that very jewel, which is in my keeping, shall not through such infamy be manipulated even for the least moment that might be imagined.” “That is true,” I replied. “Well,” she said, “then next in turn is to declare that your lack of wealth is no manner hindrance, as thus, earlier, you said: since she is worthy, you should not climb so high because your wealth and your estate are null and void—you think yourself fallen into [117] such misery that gladness of your aspiration will not descend on you.” “Certainly,” I said, “that is true: just such a thought is in my heart, for commonly it is spoken, and as an old proverb it is alleged: ‘He who hews too high may lose his sight with chips in his eyes.’ Wherefore, I have been about in all that ever I might do to study means of remedy on one side or the other.” “Now,” she said, “God forbid before you seek any other actions but such as I have taught you in our periods of leisure or before you seek any herbs but such as have been planted in our gardens. You shall understand well that above man there is but one God alone.” “How,” I said, “have men heretofore trusted in writs and enchantments and in the help of spirits that dwell in the air, and thus they have got their desires, whereas initially, for all their manly powers, they danced behind, failing to achieve their desires?” “O,” she replied, “fie on such matters. For truly that is sacrilege, and my servants will not sort with such as that. In my eye shall such a thing not be looked after—this is not a thing I’d ever sponsor looking for. How often is it commanded by the wise men of the past that men shall serve only one God and not gods? And those who desire to have my help shall ask for no help from foul spirits. Alas, is man not made similar to God? Do you not know well that all virtue of [118] life-inanimated behavior on earth is subject, by God’s providence, to reasonable creatures? Is not everything here below made obedient to man’s contemplation, understanding thus things in the heavens and in earth and in Hell? Does not man have simple being with stones, a vegetative soul of growing with trees and herbs? Does he not have an animal soul of feeling with beasts

38 and fish and birds? And he has a rational soul of reason and understanding with angels, so that in him is knit all manner of animated life by means of a reasonable proportion. Also, man is made of all four of the elements. All universality is reckoned in him alone. He has under God the principality over all things. Now is his soul here, now is it a thousand miles hence; now far, now nigh, now high, now low, as far in a moment as in the extent of ten winters, and all of this is in man’s governance and disposition. Then it demonstrates that men are like gods and children of greatest stature. But now since all things are subject to the will of reasonable creatures, God forbid that any man accede to that lordship and then ask help of anything lower than he himself is, and namely of foul things unnamable. Now, then, why should you assume you love too high, since [119] nothing is above you but God alone? Truly, I know well that that same jewel is, in a sense, in the same line of degree as you are yourself and not above you except as follows. Angel over angel, man over man, and devil over devil have a kind of sovereignty, and that shall cease at the day of judgment. And so I say, though you are subject to serve that jewel during your life, yet that is no slavery of subjection, but a kind of travail of pleasure to conquer and obtain what you do not have. I pose now the hardest case: in my service now, you died on account of sorrow at lacking your desires; truly, all heavenly bodies with one voice shall come and make melody at your arrival and say, ‘Welcome, our companion, worthy to enter into the joy of Heaven, Jupiter’s joy, for you have overcome death with your endurance. You would never fly from your service, and we all shall pray now to the gods, row by row, to cause that same Margaret, who had no pity on your person, but unnaturally let you die without any comfort, to comport herself in such a way that, on earth, by way of vengeance, she shall have no joy in Love’s service. And when she is dead, then shall her soul be brought up into your presence, and, wherever you choose, shall that soul be committed.’ Or else, after your death, immediately all the [120] aforesaid heavenly bodies shall, by one accord, take from that same pearl all the virtues that were originally bestowed upon her. For she has forfeited them because she would not allow to work on you, my servant, in your lifetime all the virtues withdrawn, if she so behaves, by might of the high bodies. “Why, then, should you assume that you are loving above your degree any longer? And if it please you to consider the law of nature and the order which was ordained to me, truly, no period nor any revolving age existed but it to this point had no time nor power to change the wedding, nor the knot unbind, of two hearts agreed together through one assent in my presence to endure until death separates them. What, do you believe that every idiot knows the meaning and the intimate intent of these things? They think, indeed, that such an accord may not be unless the rose of maidenhead is plucked. Forget that, forget it. They know nothing of this; for consent alone of two hearts makes the fastening of the knot. Neither the law of nature nor man’s law determines either the age or the quality of persons, but only the accord between those very two. And truly, after such an accord is sealed in their hearts by their consent and

39 stored in my treasury among my intimate [121] things—then the name of marriage commences, and although both of them should break their contract, yet such matter sealed up is kept forever in remembrance. And see, now, that spouses have the name immediately after consent, although the rose is not taken. The angel commanded Joseph to take Mary his spouse and to travel to Egypt. Lo, she was called “spouse,” and yet, neither before nor after, did either of them intend to partake of any fleshly pleasure. Wherefore, the words of Truth in Scripture are consistent that my servants should forsake both father and mother and adhere to their spouses, and the two of them should in the unity of one flesh accord. And, in this way, two who were at first somewhat mis- matched, the one higher and the other lower, are made uniform in degree to stand. “But now to inform you that you are like gods, these clerks say and, as proof, show that three things have been called by the name of gods: that is to say, man, devil, and images—but yet there is only one God from whom all goodness, grace, and virtue come, and He is loving and true and everlasting, and He is the prime cause of all living things. But men are as gods loving and true, but they are not everlasting, and that condition is only by [122] adoption by the everlasting God. Devils are gods with motion by means of a manner of life, but they are neither true nor everlasting, and their name of godhead they have by usurpation, as the prophet says: ‘All the gods of the Gentiles, that is to say, pagans, are devils.’ But images are gods by mere nomenclature, and they are neither living, nor true, nor everlasting: after mere words, they call gods images that are wrought by men’s hands. But now you are a reasonable creature that by adoption alone are like to the great God everlasting, and thereby you are called god: let your Father’s manner so enter into your wits that you might follow, in as much as belongs to you, your Father’s worship so that in nothing might your nature decline from His will nor perversely err from His nobility. If you proceed in this manner, you are above all other creatures except God alone, and so say no more that your heart serves in too high a place.

40 Book 1: Chapter 10 line 935-1025 [122] “I have now fully declared your condition to be good, granting that you follow in accordance with it and that the objection alleged originally by you regarding your worthiness for your Margaret-pearl shall not hinder you so much as [123] it shall promote and augment you. It remains now to declare that the last objection may in no way aggrieve you.” “Yes, indeed,” I replied, “both aggrieve and hinder it must. The contrary may not be proved, and consider now why. While I was glorious in worldly prosperity and had such material goods as make men rich, then I was drawn into companies that afford one an aura of renown, praise, and reputation. Then trumpeters of flattery bowed and scraped, then glib-tongued glossers curried favor, then sycophants welcomed me, then they honored me who now do not even condescend to look at me. Everyone who abounds in material fortune and prosperity is considered noble, worthy, gracious, and shrewd to undertake whatever he shall at any rank men postulate him to occupy, even though the truth should be the contrary of the whole matter. But the one who strives to behave well and has virtue abundant in manifold manners, but is not wealthy in material goods, is considered a fool and of him it is said his wits are besotted. Lo, how the false is considered true for a payment. Lo, how the true is called false for lack of material goods. Also, Lady, dignities of office cause men to be highly commended, as thus: ‘he is so good at his tasks that were he out of office men would not be able to find his peer.’ Truly, I believe, concerning [124] some of them who are praised in this way, that were they out just once, another officer should make them be known, that is, expose them that they should in no way ever again be sought after: but only fools, I know perfectly well, desire such new things. Wherefore I wonder at that governor, from whom alone proceed the causes that govern all things, who has ordained this world to be so governed in the works of the natural bodies, not with unsteadfast or fortuitous thing, but with rules of reason which demonstrate the course of things that are certain. Why does He suffer such variable, sliding changes that misturn such noble creatures as we men are who are a beautiful part of the earth and hold the highest degree under God himself, of benign creatures, as you yourself said just now—in other words, man should never have been established in so worthy a place unless his rank had been ordained noble? Alas, you that knit the providence of all creatures, why do you not look to correct these faults? I see shrews who have wicked manners occupy seats of judges to punish lambs there where wolves ought to be punished. Lo, virtue that naturally shines lurks and is obscured under a cloud on account of poverty. But the false moon, perjured, as I myself know, on account of payment and gifts, has usurped the role of the sun to shine during daylight with the painting of other men’s praisings: and, truly, [125] that foully forged light should fade if the seeming truth of feigned colors were away. Thus night is turned into day and day into night, winter into

41 summer, and summer into winter, not in deed, but in the misnaming of foolish people.” “Now,” she said, “what do you think about these things? How do you feel in your heart about the kind of governance through which this comes to pass?” “Certainly,” I replied, “that I do not know, now or ever, unless it is that Fortune has permission from above to lead the end of man as she pleases.” “Ah, now I see,” she said, “the intent of your meaning. Lo, because your worldly goods are completely spent, you yourself bereft of dignity of office, in which you accumulated those same goods—and yet you did in that office, with the advice of the wise, anything that was successfully concluded, and were true to them whose profit you were supposed to look after—yet you see many who in that time of harvest made much of you, now, on account of the lying of others, deign not to assist you or promote you, but rather enhance false shrews by bearing false witness of apparent truth: these things grieve your heart, to see yourself thus reduced in status. And then, too, frailty of humankind sets but little store by those who lose [126] such riches, no matter how much virtue they may have. And so you are assuming that you will incur despite from your jewel and not be accepted into her grace. All this shall not hinder you in any way. “Now,” she said, “first, you know perfectly well that you lost nothing that you might ever challenge as your own, your property. When nature brought you forth, did you not come naked from your mother’s womb? You had no riches, and when you shall enter upon the end of every mortal body, what shall you have with you then? So all the wealth you have in your lifetime is merely loaned to you. You may not challenge any proprietary ownership in it. And consider now, everything that is a man’s own, he may do with it as he pleases, to give it away or to keep it. But riches you complain as lost from you, if your might had stretched so far, you would have fain kept them, indeed multiplied with more of the same. And so against your will they are departed from you—wherefore they were never yours. And if you praise and glorify anyone, because he is stuffed with such wealth, you are in that belief beguiled, for you assume this joy to be good fortune, or felicity, or else ease and he who has lost such felicity to be wretched and unfortunate.” “Yes, indeed,” I replied. “Well,” she said, “then will I [127] prove that wretchedness in that manner is to be praised, and so the other, namely, prosperity, on the contrary, is to be blamed.” “How so?” I said. “For Misfortune,” she said, “beguiles not but shows the intent of her operation. But on the contrary. Fortune beguiles, for in prosperity, she plays a jest in her victim’s blindness; that is, she winds him about her little finger to cause him sorrow when she withdraws. “Would you not,” she said, “praise him more fully who shows you his heart, although it were with biting words and spiteful, than him who flatters and assumes, in

42 the absence of such words, to do you many harms?” “Certainly,” I replied, “the one is to praise and the other to blame and despise.” “A ha,” she said, “just so, Ease, while it lasts, plays the sycophant and flatters, and just when Fortune most pleasantly shows, Ease disappears, and Fortune, in her absence, is forever about to cause you grief and sorrow of heart. But Misfortune, though with mordant, biting attitude, shows what she is, unlike that other, wherefore Misfortune does not beguile. Fortune deceives; Misfortune puts away doubt. That one makes men blind; the other opens their eyes in the manifestation of wretchedness. The one is full of dread at losing what is not his own; the other is sober and relieves men of heavy burdens. [128] The one draws man away from the true good; the other hauls him to virtue by the hooks of thought. And do you not suppose that your disease has caused you to win much more than ever yet you have lost, and more than ever the contrary, your prosperity, made you win? Is it not a great good in your thinking to know the hearts of your faithful friends? Indeed, they have been tested to the fullest extent, and the true have separated from the false. Indeed, at the departure of that changeable and transitory joy, there went no more away from you than that which was not your own. That false friend of transitory joy was never separated easily from prosperity. Your own good (now worldly adversity), therefore, leaves what is properly yours still with you. “Now my good man,” she said, consider for how much you would once have bought this true knowledge of your friends as distinct from the flattering, groveling parasites who deceived you when you thought yourself fortunate. But you who complain of loss in wealth have found the most valuable thing. What you call misfortune has caused you to win much. And also, in conclusion, he, out of everyone, is your friend who does not withdraw his heart from helping you. And if Margaret the pearl does not deign now to suffer her virtues to shine in your direction with beams spreading as far or farther than if you were fortunate [129] in worldly prosperity—truly, I can say nothing else but that she is somewhat to blame.” “Ah, peace,” I replied, “and speak no more of this. My heart breaks now that you touch on any such words.” “Ah, well,” she said, “then let us sing: you will hear no more about these things at this time.”

Thus the first book of The Testament of Love ends; and hereafter follows the second.

43 Book 2: Chapter 1 lines 1-96 [130] True wealth may not be found in this entire world, and that is clearly demonstrable: lo, how I was in my greatest comfort and I assumed, fully, that I would have complete answers for my conflicted thoughts—suddenly it vanished. And all man’s works fare the same way: when folk assume most securely that they will achieve their intents and perform their wills, immediately, the wheel turns from the left to the right, so sharply, in another direction, that matters will never return to the earlier condition of action. Concerning this wrongful governance of Fortune and Fame so soon altered beyond comprehension, given that it was my purpose from the beginning and continues so now, if God of his grace will grant me time, I think to proceed to conclude this work, as I have begun it, in Love, according as my thin wit, with the inspiration of Him who pours out all grace, will allow it. Grievously, God knows, I have suffered [131] a great fall, such that the Roman emperor, who in unity of Love should bring everyone to accord, had not done so, all the same, failing to unite everyone with the other in the cause of the other’s agenda to advance—and, namely, because this empire, to be corrected of so many sects in heresy of faith, of service needs one rule in Love’s religion. Indeed, even if it were only to destroy erroneous opinions, I may no longer suffer it. For there are many men who say that Love rests on gravel and sand that, with the ebb and flow of the sea, weaves in and out like waves, even as riches suddenly appear and then vanish. And some say that Love should exist in blasts of wind that turn at times like a weathervane, and some in glory of renown which, following the fickle interests of changeable people, is raised up or stilled. Many also assume that in the sun and in the moon and other stars Love should be found, for among all the other planets, these shine most brilliantly, like sovereigns, even as dignities, in reverence of estates and ranks, shine out rather than the estates and ranks occupying and maintaining the good for itself. There are a great many, too, who suppose Love to be grounded in oaks and in huge posts, as if in strength and might, which, to the contrary, may not help their own wretchedness when they start to fall. But, with such diversity of sects against the lawful faith of Love, these errors are spread forth [132] so broadly that Love’s servants in true rule and steadfast faith dare not appear anywhere. Thus, irrecuperable joy is lost, and endless frustration enters. For no one properly reproves such errors, but rather others confirm their words and claim that the bad is the noble good and goodness is bad—to which people, the prophet bids woe without end. Also, many tongues of great false teachings in a deceitful manner, in my times principally, not only with words but also with arms, pursue Love’s servants and those professed in Love’s religion, of the true rule, to confound and destroy them. And inasmuch as holy fathers of the Church there were who demonstrated our Christian

44 faith and corroborated it to the Jews, as to men reasonable and learned in divinity, they did so prove that faith with arguments and with authorities of the Old Testament and the New, to destroy their obstinacy. But to pagans that were considered beasts and hounds, miracles of God were shown to separate them from their error. These things were figured by the coming of the angel to the shepherds and by the coming of the star to the pagan kings—as you might say, angels who are reasonable to the reasonable creature and a star of miracle to bestial people (not learned) were sent to inform them of the revelation. But I, a clerk of lovers, in all my wit and with all my might, truly I have no such grace in virtue [133] of miracles; nor in order to discomfit falsehoods do authorities alone suffice because of such heretics and maintainers of falsities. Wherefore, I know very well, since they are men and proven to possess reason, the cloud of error has wound itself around their reason with probable reasons which apprehending wit may not properly resist. By my laboring study, though, with which I have ordained them, they shall be induced to concede that authority is wrongly glossed by man’s reason. Now my pen begins to quake and tremble to think on the judgments of the envious people who are always ready, both rich and poor, to scorn and laugh at this uncultured book, and they shall so despise me, on account of the rancor and the hatred in their hearts, that although my book is uncultured, it shall be considered even more so and disparaged in many ways by wicked words. Certainly, it seems to me that both my ears are full of the sound of their bad speech right now. O good precious Margaret, my heart would weep if I knew you were paying any attention to such speech, but truly, I know that your wisdom will not [134] stoop to involving itself in that. For I take witness of God, maker of nature, that I have assembled this material together out of no envy nor evil, but only in order to maintain goodness and to destroy errors in falsities. Wherefore, as I said, I plan to destroy and quash these aforementioned errors with reason. These reasons, and such others as I may adduce, if they lead men to believe in Love’s true service of perfect bliss, yet they may not fully suffice to complete faith as meriting desert since faith has no merit of reward or desert when man’s reason manifests prior knowledge through actual experience. For, absolutely, no reason may in any way make comprehensible the perfect bliss of Love. Lo, what is even only a part of lovers’ joy? Perfect knowledge, in good service of their desire, to comprehend the liking and likeness of the soul in bodily experience—not to have contemplation of times to come as in a glass, but rather to have, beholding face to face, that very desire first imagined and thought. What heart, what reason, what understanding can make his heaven felt and known without actual experience? Certainly, none. Since, then, such fruit in bliss comes from Love, and Love in himself is the greatest among other virtues, as clerks say, the seed of such springing in all places, in all countries, in all [135] worlds should be sown.

45 But o, alas, that seed is forsaken and the land-tillers may not be allowed to set to work without the meddling of cockle: bad weeds, which formerly stank, have caught the name of Love among idiots and bad-meaning people. Nevertheless, howsoever it may be that men call that very thing most precious in nature with many nicknames, that there are other things that the soul gives that same noble name, shows well that, in a way, men have a great liking in worshipping that name. Wherefore I have written this work, and to you Margaret, I have dedicated it, entitled with Love’s name, in a kind of sacrifice, so that, wherever it may be read, it may in merit, by the excellence of that very name, wax the more in authority and honor, due attention being paid to it; and so that also the readers may be moved to comprehend to what intent it was ordained. Aristotle supposes that, concerning everything to which an occasion is owing, that being carried out or done as for its end or goal, the acts of execution then of everything are, in a way, its final cause. A final cause is more noble, or else as noble, as that thing that is, ultimately, owing as occasion to that very end, wherefore action of a thing everlasting, for example, is judged to be [136] eternal and not temporal since the eternal is its final cause. Just so is it with the acts of my book, Love, which are noble because Love is noble. Wherefore, although my book is uncultured, the causes by which I am moved and guided and for which I am obligated to write it, are both noble indeed and hence my writing it is also noble. But, because I am young in intelligence and learning and can only, so far, crawl, I have set down this ignorant A B C as a means toward learning. For I cannot get past counting to three yet. And, if God will, in a short while I shall correct this ignorance in the joining of syllables, which, on account of the dullness of my wit, I may not declare in three letters. For, truly, I claim that the goodness of my Margaret-pearl would give matter for composition to many clerks. Certainly, her mercy is sweeter to me than any living creature’s, wherefore my lips may not suffice to speak of her full praise and honor as they should. But who is he who, conscious of the orders of Heaven, puts his reasons in terms of the earth? Indeed, I may not with bleary eyes behold the shining sun of virtue in the bright wheel of this Margaret-pearl; therefore, I may not as yet describe her in virtue as I would. In future, in another treatise, I plan to acknowledge, through God’s grace, this sun in clearness of virtue, and how she illumines the entire day I also plan to declare. [137]

46 Book 2: Chapter 2 lines 97-199 [137] In the meantime, this comfort-bringing lady sang a composition in Latin wondrous in its content. But, truly, the noble colors were knit together rhetorically so skillfully that my wit will not stretch to a memory of the song; but the sentence or meaning, I think, I have in mind to some extent. Certainly, her words were wondrously sweet of sound, and they resonated entirely of lamentation, no notes of mirth. Lo, thus did she sing in Latin, as I may construe it in our English tongue: “Alas, that these heavenly bodies manifest their light and their course, as nature commanded them to do at the beginning of time, but these things in the free choice of reason enjoy no understanding. Rather, man, who ought to surpass all things in following the right course in Nature, has overwhelmed truthfulness by misappropriation with wrongful title and has drawn the star of envy to go by his side, so that the eclipse of me that should be his shining sun is seen so often that it is assumed that the very error originating with him should be my own fault. Truly, therefore, I have withdrawn myself and made my dwelling far from [138] land in an island by myself enclosed within the ocean, and yet many claim that they have me there harbored, but, God knows, they are mistaken. These things grieve me when I think on them, and namely on gladness now passed for me, who was accustomed to entertain myself in this world among the high and the low. And now that has ceased. They who would have me as their mistress in those times, they were lodged in Heaven on high, above Saturn’s sphere in a seasonable hour, but now devious counselors have arrived who will suffer me to dwell in no house, and this is a pity; and yet some say that they possess me shut up in the cellar with their wine, or in their granary where the corn is stored, covered with wheat, or sewed up in sacks with the wool, or knit fast together with their money in their purses, or among clothes stored away in a chest, or in press laid out among clothes arrayed with rich fur, or in their stables with horses and other beasts, such a hogs, sheep, and cattle, and in many other ways they think they have me in their possession. But you Maker of the light (in a wink of your eye the sun is quenched) know very well that I, as I am in my true name, was never thus lodged. “Sometime before the sun was struck in the third part, I bore both cross and mitre to bestow it, my true name, where I would. With me, the pope travelled on foot, and I was worshipped then [139] by all of Holy Church. Kings bad me hold their crowns. The law was established as it should be: before the judge, the poor dared to show his grief as well as the rich, for all his money. I resisted then taxes and was prepared to pay for the poor. I made great feasts in my time and noble songs, and I married damsels of gentle feature without gold or other wealth. Poor clerks, because of their scholarly aptitude, I placed in churches and made such persons preach; and then, service in Holy Church was honest and devout to the delight both of God and of the

47 people. But now the ignorant, on account of simony, is advanced and they destroy all of Holy Church. Now is the steward for his purchases, now is the courtier for his bombast, now is the collector of escheats on account of his wrong-doings, now is the flatterer on account of his songs each a partaker, and each has his provisions by himself with which many, who were thrifty, should be able to improve their lot. And yet such a shrew as even this lags behind compared to the flatterer; a liberal heart is forsaken, and the flatterer advances. Lo, it’s of a piece, for there are such who willfully haunt lusts in court with ribaldry, who will play and stay awake until midnight, but in church the next morning at matins, they are out of it, for the evil disposition [140] of their stomachs—they should eat bean-bread, as did their fathers, to strengthen their constitutions. There is such a churchman his altar is broken and sags almost to crumble to the ground, but his horse must be an easy-ambler and high enough to bear him over deep waters. His chalice is poor, but he owns rich cups. No towel, only a sheet where God shall be handled in the mass—and on his meat board, there shall be table cloths and towels many the pair. At mass only a young cleric serves—in hall, five squires. Poor chancel, with open holes all around, but beds of silk with tapestries hung through his bedchamber. Poor mass-book and an ignorant, uneducated chaplain and a ripped surplice with many holes, but good hounds and plenty of them to hunt the hart and the hare to feed them at their feasts. Of poor men they have great anxiety since they are always begging and offer nothing: they would have them buried. But among lawyers I dare not appear: my actions, they say, render them needy. They would not have me around for anything, for then tort and individual cases in court would not be worth a haw nearby and would please no men; but these lawyers are oppressive and extortionate in power and activity. These things just now [141] mentioned may well, if men like, rhyme. Truly, though, they are congruous not at all. And, inasmuch as everything should be governed by me by right, I am sorry to see that governance fails thus: for example, to see the small and the low govern the high and the bodies above. Certainly, that policy is nought. It is forbidden by those who treat of governance and inform us about it. And just as the appetites should be subject to reason, so earthly power, in itself lower, should be subject to the higher. What is your body worth unless it is governed by your soul? Just so, worth little or nothing is earthly power unless governing prudence in superiors rules inferiors, to which superiors the inferiors owe obedience as they are also obligated to endure patiently under their governance. But sovereignty, on the other hand, should think of itself in this manner: ‘I am the servant of these creatures delivered to my responsibility, not lord but defender, not master but teacher, not possessor but in their possession; and to them I shall be like a tree, in which sparrows shall steal to nourish their young and bring them up, under surety against all ravenous foul and beasts—I shall not be tyrant to them.’ And then the small, in rest and quiet, well-disposed and ordered by their superiors, are obligated to pray for their sovereign’s health and prosperity, and they are also obligated to perform, in maintenance thereof, in other

48 activities without any other administration [142] in rule of any sort of governance, without any other orders, instead doing their duty. ”And if they have the intelligence and the grace to come to such things, still, they should hold back until their superiors have called them, even though profit and delight should follow from their activity. But, truly, they ought not claim other governance nor other interference in government affairs, nor ought their superiors impose any on them. Truly, among friends and relatives I dare not come unless riches are my means and pave the way; truthfully, riches and other material possessions make very close kin where there never was propinquity nor alliance in life nor ever should have been, were it not for her meddling ways—wherefore, naturally, I am not lodged there. Poverty lacks relatives; riches let him go—he says, indeed, that he never descended from Japhet’s children, the endowed heirs. Whereof I am sorry that on account of poverty those who should be Japhet’s children are not reckoned in the lineage of those who inherit, and Ham’s children, on account of riches, are made Japhet’s heirs. Alas, this is a bizarre change between those two children of Noah, since knights descended from Japhet’s offspring, and from Ham’s descended the line of slaves in service to his brother’s children. Lo, how both gentility and slavery descended, as cousins, out of two brothers of one parent’s body. Wherefore, I say, in truth, that gentility of birth does not produce gentility in the line of succession unless there is desert on the part of a man [143] himself. Where is now the line of Alexander the noble or else that of Hector of Troy? Who is descended from King Arthur in the pure blood-line? Indeed, Sir Perdicas, whom King Alexander appointed his heir in Greece, was of no king’s blood—his mother was a dancer. Of what lineage are the gentle folk in our time? I believe therefore, that if there should be any good in gentility, it is only this, that it serves as a kind of necessity constraining gentlemen to behave in such a way that they should not vary from the virtues of their ancestors. Certainly, all manner lineage of men are equal in birth, since one Father, maker of all goodness, created and informed them all, and all mortal folk are sprung from one seed. To what end do men boast of their lineage in relatives or in forefathers? Consider now the origin of man and also God, maker of man’s person—there is no clerk then nor any one noble in gentility; and he who nourishes his heart with vices and unreasonable lusts and abandons the natural course to which his birth brought him forth as a final goal, truly, he is ungentle and among clerks who record history may be condemned. And, therefore, he who will be gentle, he must control his flesh from vices that cause ungentleness and abandon also the tyranny of wicked lusts and draw [144] virtue toward him, acknowledging that in all places gentleness makes gentlemen. “And so I speak, in feminine gender in general, concerning those persons who behave in reverence of one whom every person honors, since her bounty and her nobility made her so dear to God that she became his mother, and she has held me so high in esteem that I will not, under any circumstances, openly declare in such a way that in any thing it may conduce against her sect. For all virtue and all worthiness of

49 pleasance abound in those persons. And even if I wanted to speak, truly, I could not. I may find no evidence of evil in them.”

50 Book 2: Chapter 3 lines 200-297 [144] Immediately with these words, she ceased that lamentable melody, and I, with an animated heart, did pray her, if it pleased her noble grace, that she would condescend to declare to me the matter that was begun earlier, which she had interrupted and left off discussing, when she started to sing. “O,” she said, “this is no new thing to me to see you men desire matter which you yourselves have caused to disappear.” [145] ”Ah, good Lady,” I replied, “in whom powerful victory is proved, above all other things (according to the judgment of Esdram), whose lordship may be said to rule everything: who is it that commands, just as an emperor commands his subjects, if not women, in whose likeness you appear to me? For just as man holds the principality of everything under his being in the masculine gender—and there are no other genders but the masculine and the feminine (all the rest are not ‘genders,’ being neuter, except by grace of the conventions of grammar)—just so, in the feminine, women hold the highest degree of everything contained under that gender. Who brings forth the kings who are lords of sea and of earth? And all people are born of women: they nourish those that dig the vine, they comfort men with their glad countenances. Their sorrow is death to man’s heart. Without women, the being of men would be impossible. They can, with their sweetness, ravish the cruel heart and render it meek, obeisant, and benign, without any violent behavior. In the beauty of their eyes or of others of their features lie all men’s desires, indeed, more than in gold, precious stones, or any material wealth. And to this extent, you yourself, Lady, have so bound the hearts of many men that they assume that perfect bliss resides in womankind and nowhere [146] else. Also, Lady, the goodness and the virtue of women, by property of discretion, is so well known by the paucity of malice that it is also known that desire to someone who asks graciously can they in no way deny. And you then who will not deviate from the natural working of your sects by general discretion, I know very well that you will so incline to my prayer that grace for my request shall be fully granted.” “Certainly,” she replied, “thus fares all mankind, for the more part, praying and crying after woman’s grace and feigning many fantasies to make hearts incline to your desires; and when these innocent women, on account of frailty of their kind, believe your words and assume that the promise of your oaths is the very gospel truth, then they grant you their hearts and satisfy your pleasures, wherethrough their liberty in mastery that theretofore they had reserved is placed in thrall, and so the male is made sovereign and to be entreated, who was previously servant and himself used the voice of prayer. Immediately your lust is satiated, you are, many of you, so true that you take little heed of such kindness, but with treason you immediately decide to beguile them, and you make light of that thing which at first you made out to be wondrously dear to you, so, what a thing it is to a woman to love [147] any man before she knows

51 him well and has tested him in many ways. For everything that glitters is not gold, and under color of fair speech, many vices may be hidden and concealed. Therefore, I counsel no one to trust you too quickly. “Men’s demeanor and their speech are very often full of guile. Wherefore, without reliable experiment, it is not worth it to trust many of you. Truly, it is very natural to do so in every man who devises ways to betray women and show outwardly all kinds of goodness until he has performed his will. Lo, the bird is beguiled with the merry voice of the fowler’s whistle! When a woman is enclosed within your net, than you invent causes and accuse her of unkindness, or brand her with the label of falsity, in order to excuse in this way your own malicious treason. Lo, then, women have no other retribution in vengeance but to blubber and weep until it pleases them to stop and complain about their misfortune sorrowingly, and each woman is led to suppose that all men are thus untrue. How often have men changed their loves in a little while or else, on account of failing to get their will, put others in their places! For friendship shall be his argument for one, and fame he argues it pleases him to have with another, [148] and a third for delight, or else he were lost both in his bundle and his clothes. “Is this fair? No, God knows! I may not tell the thousandth part of the wrongs done in treachery by such false people, for however good a bond they make, you set everything at a trifle when your heart turns to someone new. And as for those who think they are going to die out of sorrow over you, the pity of your false hearts has flown out of town. Alas, therefore, that any woman would ever take any man into her grace before she knew fully whom she might trust at every trial. Women do not con the craft in highly wrought artifices of knowingness to be able to understand the false, deceiving pretenses of men’s beguiling tricks. Lo, consider how it fares: though you men groan and cry, for sure, it is merely deceit and that proves clear by the outcomes of your devices. How many women for a very long time now have been lost and foully ruined with shame who have been deceived by men’s guile? Forever shall their bad reputation endure and their deeds be read and sung in many lands; what they have done, recover shall they never; but always they shall be judged as light and frivolous should they fall again into such a circumstance—of which slanders and sorrows, you men, false and wicked, [149] are the causes indeed. On you, justly, ought these shames and these reproofs utterly descend. Thus are nearly all of you untrue, for all your fair talk, your heart is utterly fickle. “What cause do you have to despise women? Better fruit than they are and sweeter spices to your needs you may not find as far as worldly bodies stretch. Look to their forming at the making of their persons by God in the joy of Paradise; for the goodness of man’s own body were they made, according to the teachings of the Bible, rehearsing God’s words in this manner: ‘It is good for mankind that we make a helper for him.’ Lo, in Paradise for your help was this tree planted, out of which the entire lineage of man descends. If a man should be noble fruit, from noble fruit is he sprung:

52 the bliss of Paradise to the sorrowful hearts of men yet in this tree abides. O, noble helps are these trees and they are gentle jewels worthy of worship by every good creature. He who consternates them brings shame to himself. Each is a comforting pearl against all sorrows. Every company is mirthful just by their being present. Truly, I never knew a virtue unless a woman were the root of it. What, is Heaven the worse though pagans tell lies about it? Is your faith untrue even if heretics invent lies about it? If the fire burns someone, [150] blame him and his own wit who put himself so far into the heat. Is not fire the gentlest and most comfortable element among all others? Fire is the main worker in furthering sustenance to mankind. Shall the fire be blamed because it burned a fool, inevitably, because of his own stupid wit in handling himself? Ah, wicked folks, on account of your own malice and innate deviousness: you blame and despise the most precious thing of your kind and the very things among others you desire the most. Truly, Nero and his children are shrews who despise their mothers the way they do. It would be impossible to write or to name the wickedness and deceit of men in slandering those who have gladdened and pleased them the most. Nevertheless, I still say, that he who knows a path may traverse it easily. Also, an herb well-tested may safely be applied to painful sores: so I say that in him who has been tested, there is no ground to guess such evils. But I have gone over these things to warn you women all at once that you not, without reliable proof, assent to men’s speech too easily. The sun, in daylight, is to be distinguished from the moon that shines in the night. “Now as for you,” she said, “as I have often said, I know your heart well. You are not like any of these I have named here, for I know well the continuing steadfastness of your service such that never [151] since I set you to task, might your Margaret- pearl, on account of pleasure, friendship, or physical beauty of any other woman, be in any way removed from your heart, wherefore I will have it that you hastily enter into my household and I will also have it that all the perfect intimacy of my operation will be made known in your understanding, as one of my intimate familiars.” “You desire,” she said, “eagerly to hear of the things I was discussing when I left off.” “Yes, indeed,” I replied, “that would be a great bliss to me.” “Now,” she said, “so that you shall not assume that woman’s condition, on account of fair speech, [mis]appropriates such things to itself as I was discussing, you shall understand first …”

53 Book 2: Chapter 4 lines 298-406 “You shall understand first, among all other things, that in every man’s heart, however much of a wretch he may be, all the solicitude of my service is desired in the perfect bliss in action. But every man labors by diverse studies and seeks this very bliss in diverse ways. But all the ends are knit together in felicity of desire in the perfect bliss that is such joy that when men have gotten it, there exists nothing else to be desired. But however that desire of such perfection in my service is established naturally [152] in lovers’ hearts, yet their erroneous opinions misdirect it by falseness of inference. And although men’s understanding, by which they know what should be the way to my person and whither it abides, should be misdirected, yet they know that there is a love in every one who assumes, by means of that thing that he covets the most, that he should come to that very Love, and that is the perfect bliss of my servants; but, then, complete bliss may not exist, if there should be lacking anything of that bliss in any way. Also, it follows, then, that he who must have complete bliss should lack no bliss in Love in any way.” “Therefore, Lady,” I replied then, “that very bliss have I desired and sought myself heretofore by means of riches, dignity, power, and renown, assuming that that bliss had been in those things, but it goes against the grain where those things are concerned. When I thought for sure to have gotten that bliss and to have come to the full purpose of your service, suddenly I was hindered and thrown so far back that I think it would have been impossible to return to where I left.” “I know it well,” she said, “and therefore you have failed, for you went not by the high way: a little misdirection at the start causes great error in the end, wherefore you failed of that bliss, for having riches or any of the other things [153] you named may not make such perfect bliss in Love, as I shall show. So they are not worthy as a way to that bliss. And yet there must be something that is a cause and a way to that bliss. Therefore, there is some such thing and some way, but it is not much used and it is not openly known. But what do you feel in your heart about the service upon which through me you have entered? Do you consider yourself in any way to be yet on the high way to my bliss? I shall show it to you so that you shall not be able to say the contrary.” “Good Lady,” I said, “ although I have an idea of it in my heart, still I want to hear your words, how you mean in this matter.” She replied, “That I shall do, with my good will. This bliss desired by all you are familiar with somewhat, although not perfectly, for natural intention leads you to it, but in three manners of life are all such ways shown. Everyone in this world, to have this bliss, must proceed by one of these three ways of life, which, according to the opinions of great clerks, are called by the names ‘reasonable,’ ‘human,’ and ‘bestial.’ The ‘reasonable’ life is virtuous, the ‘human’ is worldly, and the ‘bestial’ is lustful

54 and given to pleasure, in no way restrained by the bridle of reason. Everything that delights and gives gladness to the heart, if it is against reason, is likened to bestial living, which follows after lust and [154] pleasure; wherefore, in such things, that precious bliss that is master of all virtues may not abide. Your fathers before you have called such lustful living according to the flesh ‘passions of desire,’ which are unnamable before God and man alike. Then, according to the determination of such wise folk, we agree that such passions of desire shall not be named, but they shall be held absolutely separate from all other manners of life and experiences, and so there remain two manners of life, the ‘human’ and the ‘reasonable,’ to continue in discussion of the matter we have begun. “But to make you understand fully the manner of life called ‘human,’ which is considered worldly or secular among these matters, so that your ignorance may be no hindrance, I will,” she said, “name these aforementioned ways by titles and conclusions or consequences. First, riches, dignity, renown, and power shall be called in this work ‘bodily goods,’ for man’s trust of felicity in Love has for a long while been in them: as in riches, to have enough to have maintained what was initiated by means of worldly chattels; in dignity, honor and reverence from them who were subordinated by mastery thereby to obey the one having dignity; in renown, glory of people’s praise, according to the whims of their hearts, without any heed being paid to the quality and the comportment of the action; and in power, matters to proceed to accomplishment by the binding truth of lordship’s maintenance, as the lord compels things to be done. In all which things, for a long time, [155] commonly men’s desire to come to the bliss of my service has been deeply grounded, but truly they have been beguiled, and that because the principal assumption must necessarily fail, and it may be of no avail. See why: for do you not consider him poor who is needy?” “Yes, indeed,” I replied. “And him dishonored whom many folk deign not to reverence?” “That is true,” I said. “And what about him whose powers fail him and may not help him?” “Certainly,” I said, “ it seems to me that of all men he should be considered a wretch.” “And do you not suppose,” she continued, “that he who enjoys little renown but rather is missing the praise of more men than a few lives in shame?” “Indeed,” I replied, “it is shame and baseness to him that more people do not praise him in name than praise another.” She said, “You speak the truth, but all of these things are consequences of such behavior as assumes sufficiency in riches, might in power, worship in dignity, and glory in renown, wherefore they have degenerated into deceitful supposition, and in that service deceit is the consequence. And thus, in general, you, and all others who so behave, fail of my bliss that you have long desired, wherefore truly, in the life of reason is the high way to this bliss, as I [156] plan more openly to declare hereafter.

55 Nevertheless, to comfort your heart yet a little, by showing in what way you are entered yourself, and so that your Margaret-pearl may know you set on the high way, I will inform you in this manner. You have failed of your first purpose, because you went the wrong way and left the high way on your right side, as follows: you looked on worldly secular life, and it beguiled you, and lightly, therefore, as if for a short trial, you dreamed, but when I turned your purpose and showed you a part of the high way, then you abode therein, and no death nor fear of any enemy might steal or wrest you off that path. But, ever focused in your heart to come to that bliss, when you were arrested and imprisoned the first time, you were loath to change your path, for in your heart you believed you were there where you should be; and, since I took pity on you to see you miscarried, and since I knew well your ability to promote and increase my service, I came myself, without other means, to visit you in person as a comfort to your heart. And, indeed, you were greatly encouraged by my coming, after which no disease, no anxiety, no sorrow might move me out of your heart. And I am still and greatly moved to feel pity at how continually [157] you had me in mind, with good advisement from your conscience, when your king and his princes inspected your speech for variance and inconsistency with their big threatening words. And you were ever ready for my sake, to the satisfaction of your Margaret-pearl and many others, to obligate your body in martial challenge, if anyone contradicted your sayings. Steadfast upon the way makes for a steadfast heart, with good hope for the end. Truly, I know that you know it well, for I see you so firm and not changing your heart you had in my service; and I brought it about that you had grace of your king, in forgiveness of significant misdeed. To the gracious king you are greatly beholden, concerning whose grace and goodness I plan hereafter sometime to inform you when I show the ground where moral virtue grows. Who brought you to work? Who brought this grace about? Who made your heart hardy? Truly, it was I, for if you had failed of me, then you would never have undertaken this purpose in this manner. And therefore I say you might well trust to come to your bliss since your beginning has been difficult but ever graciously after your heart’s desire has it continued. Silver refined with many immersions in the fire men know to be true, and safely men may trust the alloy in working with it. [158] This distress has proven what way you plan to maintain henceforward.” “Now, in good faith, Lady,” I replied then, “I am on that way. It seems to me the high way and the right one.” “Yes, in truth,” she said, “and now I will disprove your first ways, by means of which many men expect to get that bliss. But in as much as every heart that has caught complete Love is tied with intricate knittings, you shall understand that Love and that bliss, mentioned earlier in this demonstration shall be called the knot in the heart.” “Well,” I said, “this naming I want to understand.” “Now also,” she said, “since the knot in the heart must connect from one to another, and I know your desire, I want you to understand that these matters are spoken

56 regarding you yourself, in disproof of your first service, and in strengthening of that service that you have undertaken for your Margaret-pearl.” “In God’s name,” I replied, “right well do I feel that all this case is possible and true, and therefore I admit it altogether.” “Understand well,” she said, “these terms and look that you grant no contradiction.” “If God will,” I replied, “I will not fail in all these things, and if I grant any contradiction, I should be granting an impossibility and that would be a foul inconvenience, on account of [159] which things, Lady, I plan hereafter indeed to moderate myself.”

57 Book 2: Chapter 5 lines 407-502 [159] “Well,” she said, “you know that everything by which any other thing having being is called ‘caused’ is a cause. Then, if riches cause the knot in the heart, those riches are the cause of that same precious thing being. But, according to the sentence of Aristotle, every cause is greater in dignity than the thing it causes. From that, it follows that riches are greater in dignity than that knot. But riches by their nature are nothing, evil, and full of need, and that knot is a thing by its nature good, most praised and desired. Therefore, a thing, which in natural and sane understanding is nothing, evil, and full of need, is more worthy than a thing by its nature good, most praised and desired. The consequence is false; hence, the antecedent must be likewise. “But now I will prove that riches are evil, nothing, and full of need, as a result of which they may not cause such a thing that is so glorious and good. The more riches you have, the more need of help to maintain them you also have. Hence, you suffer need in riches which you should not have to suffer if you lacked them. Therefore, riches must be full of need since having them makes you needy for help to maintain your riches in security [160]—whereby it follows that riches are full of need. Everything that causes evils is bad and full of nothing; but riches in one person cause distress in another, they may not evenly stretch all around. Whereof come plea at law, debate, theft, beguilings solely to win riches, all of which things are bad and are caused by riches: hence, those riches are bad, which badness and need are knit into riches by a manner of natural appropriateness; and every cause and thing caused accord, so that it follows that those riches have the same accord with badness and neediness that is appropriate to their cause. Also, everything has its being through its cause. Then, if the cause should be destroyed, the being of the thing caused vanishes. And so if riches cause Love, and riches were destroyed, the Love should vanish. But that knot, if it is true, may not vanish on account of the departure of riches. Therefore, riches are no cause of the knot. And many men, as I have said, put the cause of the knot in riches. These make the knot of the riches and ignore the evil in them. These persons, whoever they are, assume that riches are the thing most worthy to possess, and so they make them the cause; and thus they also assume that these riches are better than the person. Commonly, such folk as this are more interested in the quantity than in the quality, [161] and such assume, regarding themselves and others alike, that the conjunction of their lives and of their souls is of no more value than can be measured in the quantity of riches they have. Alas, how may he consider such things precious or noble that have neither life nor soul nor ordinance of working limbs! Such riches are of greater worth when they are being gathered in; in disbursing them begins a man’s love of other men’s praise. And avaricious accumulation makes a man hated, as well as needy for many external aids. And when the possession of such goods departs, and they begin to vanish, then enters sorrow and grief in men’s hearts. O, evil

58 and pinched are those things that at their departure make men sorrowful and grief- stricken, and in their accumulation make them needy. Many people may not together have much thereof at once. A good guest gladdens his host and all his entourage, but he is a bad guest who makes his host needy and afraid of his guest’s departure, too.” “Certainly,” I said, “I wonder therefore that the common opinion is thus: ‘He is worth no more than what he owns in possessions’.” “O,” she replied, “see that you are not of that opinion, for if gold or money or other manner of riches shine in your sight, whose is that? Not yours. And although they [162] have a little beauty, they are nothing in comparison with our kind. And therefore, you should not set your worthiness in a thing lower than you yourself, for the riches, the fairness, the worthiness of those material goods, if there is any such preciousness in them, are not yours. You never made them so. From another they come to you, and to another they shall go from you. Wherefore do you embrace another person’s goods as though they were yours? Nature has created them as their own. True, the goods of the earth have been ordained for your food and nourishing, but if you will hold yourself satisfied with what suffices to your nature, you shall be in no danger from such riches; a little suffices for nature, whoever pays attention to the matter. And if you will anyway be gorged with a superfluity of riches, you shall quickly be annoyed or else suffer discomfort. And the fairness of the fields or the fairness of habitations, or a multitude of servants, may not be counted as riches that are yours. For if they are bad, it is a great slander and villainy to the owner. And if they are good or fair, the matter of the workman who made them should be praised. How otherwise should the bounty be counted as yours? This same goodness and fairness are proper to [163] the things themselves. Then, if they are not yours, do not sorrow when they depart, nor gladden yourself in pomp and in pride when you have them. For their bounty and their beauties come out of their own nature and not out of your person. They are as fair when you do not have them as they are when you do. They are not fair because you have them, but you have gotten them on account of the fairness they contain in themselves. And there where the value of men is judged to exist in riches externally, men are assuming they have no proper good in themselves, but rather seek it in strange, foreign things. Truly, the condition of good assuming is misdirected in you when you assume your nobility is not in yourself but in the goods and beauty of other things. Indeed, beasts that have only feeling souls have sufficiency in themselves proper; and you, who are like to God, seek, from so excellent a nature, increase of sufficiency from such low things. You do great wrong to Him who made you lords over all earthly things, and you put your worthiness under the number of the feet of lower things that are foul. When you judge those riches to be your worthiness and value, then you put yourself beneath those foul things by mis-esteeming yourselves, and then you abandon the knowing of yourselves, so that you are viler than any dumb beast; that comes from conniving vice on your part. Just so, those persons who love [164] no one for the value of his or her person, but only for

59 foreign, strange goods, and who say the adornment in the knot lies in such things— their error is perilous and wicked; and they conceal much venom with a lot of wealth, and that knot may not be good when he has gotten it. “Certainly, riches have in this way annoyed many with flickering eyesight, a distorted view; and often, when there is a complete shrew, he coins all the gold and all the precious stones that may be found, to possess them for himself. He assumes no one is worthy to have such things but himself alone. How many have you known lately who, in their riches, supposed themselves to have sufficiency as a consequence and now it is all failed?” “Indeed, Lady,” I replied, “that is for meddling amiss and governing those riches otherwise than they should have done.” “Indeed,” she said then, “had not the flood risen hugely and thrown both gravel and sand in their direction, they would not have had any meddling to make. And just as the sea gives the flood, so the sea ebbs and pulls again under the waves all that first washed ashore, unless good pillars of noble governance in Love are soundly and firmly grounded in a well-meaning manner, which [165] will hold that gravel for a time, so that it may not easily turn again to the sea. And if the pillars are true, the gravel and the sand will abide. And certainly, full protection in Love you shall never get through them nor recover, when they easily, with an ebb, before you are even aware of it, will move again. In riches, many men have had sorrows and distress which they would not have had if they had not gotten the riches. With this now declared it is partly shown that the knot should not be caused either in one person or another for riches. Truly, the knot may be knit and, I believe, more steadfastly in Love, even though riches should fail. Else the knot is in riches and not in the heart. And then such a knot is false, when the sea ebbs and withdraws the gravel, such that riches vanish—that knot will unknit itself. Wherefore no trust, no path, no cause, no perfect being is to be found in riches for such a knot ; therefore, we must have another path.”

60 Book 2: Chapter 6 lines 503-619 [165] “Honor in dignity is assumed to grant a complete knot.” “Yes, certainly,” I replied, “and many are of that opinion, for they say that dignity, with honor and reverence, causes hearts to [166] enchain themselves and be thus enabled to be knit together for the excellence in sovereignty of such degrees of honor.” “Now,” she said, “if dignity, honor, and reverence cause this very knot in the heart, this knot is good and profitable. For every cause of a cause is the cause of the thing caused. Then, it follows, good things, profitable, are caused by dignity, honor, and reverence. Therefore, they accord, and dignities are good with reverences and honor, but contraries may not accord; wherefore, reasonably speaking, neither dignity nor reverence nor honor should accord with shrews, but that is false: they have been the cause in many misdeeds for shrews since they do, in fact, accord with them. Therefore, to argue from the beginning, conversely now, until we arrive at the final conclusion, they are not a cause of the knot. Lo, are not shrews always visibly in reverence, honor, and dignity? Yes, in truth, rather than good folk. Then, it follows that shrews, rather than good folk should be a cause of this knot. But the opposite of this is believed by all lovers and is determined by them to be held openly for a truth.” “Now,” I said, “I would gladly hear how such dignities accord with and are appropriate to shrews .” [167] “O,” she replied, “I will show you that in multiple ways. “You assume,” she continued, “that dignities of office here in your city are like the sun; it shines brightly without any cloud. But concerning this thing, when such dignities come into the hands of malicious tyrants, much harm arises as a result and more grievance comes about than from a wild fire even were it to burn an entire street. Certainly, in dignity of office, the works of the office-holder show the malice and the badness in his person. With shrews, they cause multiple harms, and they shame many people. How often have rancors, concealed on account of the governor’s malice, been maintained? Have not, then, such dignities caused debate, rumor, and evil? Yes, God knows, but such things have been at the same time relied upon to make men’s understanding incline to many weird things. You know very well what I mean.” “Indeed,” I replied, “therefore, as dignity wrought such things in sorrow, so, on the opposite side, with the substance that is in dignity changed, it is regrouped to bring anew a good circumstance in performance. “ “No, no, not at all!” she said. “If it were to happen so, yes, but it is seldom that such dignity is entrusted to a good man’s governance. What thing is there to reckon in favor of the dignity’s goodness? Indeed, the bounty [168] and the goodness is theirs who use it in good governance, and therefore, it comes about that honor and reverence should be accorded to dignity because of the increasing virtue of the office-holder,

61 and not to the ruler because of any sovereignty in dignity. Since dignity of itself may cause no virtue, who is deserving of the worship for such goodness? Not dignity, but rather the person who makes goodness shine in the dignity.” “This is a marvelous thing,” I replied, “for it seems to me that since the person in dignity is deserving honor for goodness, so, although a person has deserved disdain for badness, yet the dignity inclines still to be commended.” “Let be!” she said. “You err foully. Dignity allied with badness is a helper to performing the felonious action. Indeed, were it naturally good in itself, or had any property of natural virtue in itself, shrews should never have it; with such as they it would never accord. Water and fire that are naturally contrary to each other may not be assembled together. Nature will not allow such contraries to join. And since we see by experience plainly in the action itself that malefactors possess dignity more often than good men do, you may be certain that good is not naturally appropriated to such things. Indeed, were they naturally good, one person as much as another should be equally worthy in the virtue of governance. But one fails in goodness, [169] another does the opposite of goodness; and so it is clear that goodness is not naturally grounded in dignity. “And this same reasoning,” she continued, “may be applied, in general, to the case of all bodily goods, for often they come to utter shrews . It goes this way: he is strong who has might to bear great burdens and he is light and swift who has superiority in running so as to pass others; just so, he is a malefactor on whom wicked and bad things have most influence. And just as philosophy makes philosophers, and service in my cause makes lovers, just so, if dignities were good or virtuous, they should make shrews good and also make them turn away from their malice and become virtuous, but they do not have this effect, as it has been proved, but rather cause rancor and debate. Therefore, they are not good but utterly bad. Had Nero never been Emperor, his mother should never have been slain in order for him to open the private parts of his birth. Herod, on account of his dignity, slew many children. The dignity of King John would have destroyed all of England. Therefore, much wisdom and goodness both are needed in a person who would slyly bridle the malice in dignity and who would pull it back, with a good bit for arresting it, in case it would prance otherwise than it ought. Truly, you give to dignities [170] wrongful names in your nomenclature. They should be called not dignity but displays of badness and maintainers of malefactors. “Indeed, let the sun shine never so bright, if it should bring forth no heat nor seasonably bring the herbs out of the earth, but rather allow frosts and cold and also allow the earth to lie barren in the course of his annual circuit, you would wonder and have no praise for that sun. Or if the moon should be at full and show no light, but appear dark and dim to your sight, and cause destruction of the waters, would you not suppose it to be under a cloud or in eclipse? And that some secret thing, unknown to your intelligence, is the cause of such contrarious action? Then, if scholars who have

62 full insight into and knowledge of such impediments should inform you of the truth, you would be very idiots unless you paid attention to and gave credence to those scholars’ words. And yet, it grieves me to see many wretches rejoice in such planets as these. Truly, they understand philosophy very little, no more my lore either, who have any desire for such ill-shining planets to appear any more in that manner.” “Good Lady,” I said, “tell me what you mean here.” “Lo,” she replied, “the dignities of your city, the sun and the moon, do not in any way naturally demonstrate their brilliance [171] as they should. For the sun made no burning heat in love but froze envy in men’s hearts on account of the feebleness of its shining heat. And the moon was about under an old cloud, to destroy living creatures by water.” “Lady,” I said, “it is assumed that they shone as they should.” “Indeed,” she replied, “but now it is proved completely that their beauty in natural brilliance failed, wherefore their dignity has no intrinsic beauty in fairness nor does it drive away vices, but increases them and thus it is no cause of the knot. Now see, in good truth: do you not consider such suns worthy of no reverence and such dignities worthy of no worship that make men perpetrate more harms?” “I do not know,” I replied. “No,” she said, “if you see a wise man who is also good, will you not do him worship on account of his goodness and wisdom? Thereof he is worthy, is he not?” “That is sound reasoning,” I replied, “it is fitting to show both reverence and worship to such as that.” “Then,” she said, “a shrew, although he should be promoted before others on account of intimidation, still, he is deserving, for his wickedness, of no worship or honor. Of reverence he deserves no part; just the contrary belongs to him as his portion. And that is good deducing, for just as he harms the dignities, these same dignities, answeringly, harm him, or else they should [172] harm him. “And in addition to this, you know well,” she continued, “that fire heats wherever it may be in any location, and water makes things wet. Why? For natural operation is put into them so to do such things. For everything natural shows its nature in its operation. But although a person had been mayor of your city for a long time, if he came into a strange place where he was not known, he should receive no reverence for his dignity. Hence, neither worship nor reverence is naturally proper in any dignity since, if it was, it would manifest its nature in such a case. And if neither reverence nor worship is established in dignities—and even so they are more manifest therein than goodness, for that absence is evident in dignities—it only proves that goodness is not naturally grounded in them. Indeed, neither worship, nor reverence, nor goodness performs any natural office in dignity. For they have no such property in their nature of operation except as attributed by false opinion of the people. Lo, how formerly those who were noble in dignity within your city, if you were pleased to name them, they would now be overturned in worship, name, and reverence. Wherefore, such

63 dignities possess no natural operation of worship and reverence, nor have they any worthiness in themselves. Now they rise and now they set following the [173] varying opinion of unstable people in their false hearts. Wherefore, if you desire the knot of this jewel, or else, if you suppose that she should set the knot on you for such dignity, then you also assume that the beauty or goodness of that increases to some extent the goodness or virtue in the body. But dignities in themselves are not good, nor do they give reverence or worship from their own nature. How then should they give to any other thing what they may not have by any means themselves? It is evident in the dignity of the emperor and of many others that they may not maintain their worship nor their reverence by themselves—in a blink it is one moment up, another moment down, through the unsteadfast hearts of the people. What bounty may they bestow that with a cloud lightly abandon their shining? Certainly, much is worsened for the office- holder, since such behavior does villainy to him who may not sustain it. Wherefore, this way to the knot is crooked. And if anyone desires to come to the knot, he must leave this way on his left side, or else he shall never arrive there.” [174]

64 Book 2: Chapter 7 lines 620-720 [174] “Does,” she said, “power of might in maintenance of the worthy avail in any way to come to this knot?” “Indeed,” I replied, “yes, for hearts are ravished by such things.” “Certainly,” she continued, “though a fool’s heart is ravished by something, that does not mean that we can find there a general cause of the powers nor that we can look there for a secure, perfect heart. Was not Nero one of the most heinous shrews that men read about anywhere, and yet he had power to make senators, justices, and princes of many lands? Was not that great power?” “Yes, certainly,” I replied. “Well,” she continued, “even so he might not help himself out of distress when he began to fall. How many examples can you remember of kings both great and noble, who also held great power, and yet they might not protect themselves from wretchedness? How wretched was King Henry II, ‘Short-cloak,’ before he died? He had not even enough to cover his naked body, and yet he was one of the greatest kings of all the offspring of the Normans and one of the wealthiest in possessions. O, a noble and illustrious thing is power that is not found mighty enough to protect itself! Now, truly, a great fool is he who for such a thing would set the knot in your heart. ”Also, is not power of kingdoms considered the greatest power among the [175] worldly powers? And if such powers are wretched in themselves, it follows that other powers of even feebler condition are also wretched and then it would also follow that wretchedness such as this would be the cause of such a knot. But everyone who is reasonable knows well that wretchedness may not by any means be the cause of such a knot; wherefore, such power is not a cause. That powers contain wretchedness in themselves may be proved very easily. If power is lacking anything on any front, on that front there is no power, but to have no power is wretchedness. For although the power of emperors or kings, or else that of their realms (which is the power of the prince), should stretch far and wide, yet, even so, there are many folk over whom he has no commandment or lordship; and there where his power is lacking enters his nonpower, whence springs that which makes them wretches. To have no power is wretchedness and nothing else. But, in this way, kings actually have a greater portion of wretchedness than of power. Truly, such powers are unmighty, for they are always in dread how that power may be preserved from loss on account of sorrow at the thought of losing it; so dread is always sorely pricking in their hearts: little is the power that is anxious and fearful to maintain itself. Impotent is that wretchedness which is entered into by the fearful assumption [176] of the wretch himself, and the knot made by wretchedness is between wretches—and wretches bewail all things. Wherefore, in which case the knot should be bewailed, and there is in that case no such perfect bliss such as we supposed at the beginning of our conversation.

65 Therefore, power in no way should cause such knots. Wretchedness is a natural property in such power as, for example, by way of dread, which they who hold power may not eschew nor, on account of it, live in security by any means. “For you know well,” she continued, “he is not mighty who would do a thing that he may not undertake or accomplish.” “Therefore,” I said, “these kings and lords who have complete sufficiency of men and other things may not rightly be considered mighty. Still, their commandments are carried out, it is never denied.” “Fool,” she replied, “either he knows he is mighty or he knows it not. For he is not mighty who is blind to his might and knows it not.” “That is true,” I replied. “Then, if he knows it, he must needs be afraid to lose it. He who knows he is mighty is in doubt that he might necessarily lose his might, and so dread leads him to be impotent. And if he cares nothing about losing his might, of little worth is that which reason cares not at all about losing. And if it were mighty in power or in strength, losing it should be resisted; and yet when it comes to losing it, he may not resist it. Therefore, that might is [177] corrupt and empty. Such might is like posts and pillars that stand upright and possess great might to bear many weights; and if they are crooked on any side, a little thing causes them to be overthrown.” “This is a good example,” I added, “with regard to pillars and posts that I have myself seen overthrown, and if they had been planted with any supports, they would not have so easily fallen.” “Then, do you consider him mighty who has many armed men and many servants, and he is always afraid of them in his heart, and, since he frightens them sometimes, he must have even more fear? Commonly, he who frightens others finds that others do the same to him in turn, and thus guarded he must be and dread the hour of guarding at the same time. Little is that might and quite corrupt, if someone takes a moment to think about it.” “Then it seems,” I replied, “that such familiars and attendants about kings and great lords should have great might. Although a cipher in arithmetic has no might in itself of signification, yet it gives power to other numbers in signification, and I call such as these supports for a post to keep it from falling.” “Certainly,” she said, “those arguments are uninformed. Why? Unless the foundations are well grounded, the supports shall slide and allow the weight to fall— their might little [178] avails.” “And so it seems to me,” I said, “that a post standing upright by itself on a base may bear a great burden longer than crooked pillars for all their supports if their foundation is not secure.” “That is true,” she replied, “for as the blind bearing the lame would stumble and both should fall, just so, such pillars, even if they were so surrounded with supports, if the ground were to fall away, everything would fail altogether at once. How often then

66 such familiars, when most entrenched in their pride of prosperity, suddenly are overthrown! You have known many who, in just a moment, were so far overthrown, they might never recover. When the heaviness of such failing befalls them by casualty of fortune, they may not eschew it; and might and power, if there were any, should avoid and avert such things by means of strength, and so it is proved that there is not any. Lo, then, what thing is this power that, although men possess it, they are afraid, and at no time are they secure that they have full possession of it! And, if they would avoid dread, as they may not do, that would prove that this power is worth little. Fie, therefore, on so empty a thing to serve as a cause of any knot! Lo, in adversity, those are his foes who, when he was in prosperity, flattered him and seemed his friends. Thus are his familiars now his foes and his enemies; and nothing is worse nor more empowered to annoy one than a familiar enemy is; and these things they may not avoid. So, truly, their might is not worth a [179] trifle. And, above all, he who may not control the bridle on his fleshly lusts and on his wretched complaining (think now of yourself!), truly, he is not mighty. I can see no way here that lies in the direction of the knot. Those people, then, who set their hearts upon such mights and powers are often beguiled. Indeed, he is not mighty who may do anything that another may do to him in return, exactly the same thing, and equally he is not mighty over whom men have as great power as he has over others. A judge who condemns men has often, in turn, been himself condemned. Busirus slew his guests, and Hercules, his guest, slew him. Hugest betrayed many men and Collo betrayed him. He who smites with the sword shall be smitten with the sword.” Then I paused to concentrate a while on these things and made a sign with my hand for us to be quiet a moment. “Now, let us see,” she said, “it seems to me that there is something that troubles your understanding within your soul. Say on, tell me what it is.” I replied then: “It seems to me that although a man has by his power such might over me as I have over other men, that does not prove impotence in my person, but I may yet have power and might never the less.” “See now,” she replied, “your own ignorance. He is mighty who may do his will [180] without wretchedness, and he is impotent who may not resist it. Therefore, you see yourself what follows. “But now,” she continued, “would you not scorn, if you were to see a fly have the power to harm another fly and the latter have no might nor response whatsoever to defend himself?” “Yes, certainly,” I replied. “What is more frail,” she asked, “than the fleshly body of a man over which often flies and even less things than a fly have great might to cause grief and annoyance without any resistance possible on his part for all his might? And since you see your fleshly body fail in natural power, how then should the accident be more secure in being than the substance of which it is an accident? Wherefore those things that we

67 call power are but as an accident to the fleshly body, and so they may not have that security in might which is lacking even in the substantial body. And here is why there is no way to the knot along this path for him who looks aright, searching for the high way as he should.

68 Book 2: Chapter 8 lines 721-812 [180] “Certainly, it is proved that riches, dignity, and power are not the true way to the knot, [181] but, to the contrary, just as soon, the knot will be unbound by such things. Wherefore, I counsel no one to trust these things to get any good knot. But what shall we say of renown in people’s mouths? Should that be any cause of the knot? What do you think in your heart?” “Certainly,” I replied, “yes, I think so, though because of your sly reasonings, I dare not safely say it.” “Then,” she said, “will I prove that shrews, in that case, will just as soon be in the knot as good people, and that would be contrary to nature.” “Gladly,” I replied, “would I hear that. It seems to me a wonder how renown should knit itself as a knot with a malefactor as well as a good person. Renown in every rank has advanced, yet I never knew the contrary. Should then renown accord with a shrew? It may not sink into my stomach until I hear more.” “Now,” she said, “have I not always said that shrews shall not have the knot?” “What need is it,” I replied, “to rehearse that any more? I know very well that everyone, by natural reasoning, will eschew such shrews in determining what the knot will be.” “Then,” she said, “the good ought to have this knot.” “How else!” I said. “It would be a great harm,” she continued, “if the good were deflected and cast from hope of obtaining the knot, if he desired it.” “O,” I replied, “alas, to consider such a thing, I [182] believe that Heaven weeps to see such wrongs suffered here on earth. The good ought to have it and no one else.” “The goodness,” she said, “of a person may not be known externally except by the renown among the knowers. Wherefore he must be renowned for goodness to come to the knot.” “So it must be,” I replied, “or else everything we are discussing is lost.” “Truthfully,” she said, “that would be a great harm if a good man could not have his desires in service of this knot and if a shrew could not be prevented from having it, and they are not known in general, cannot be distinguished, except by blame and praise and in renown. And so it would follow, by the logical consequence, that such a shrew would be praised and made a participant in the knot while a good man would be forsaken and cast out of such participation.” “Ah,” I said then, “have you, Lady, been busying yourself with this? Still, I would like to see better declared, by grace of these our arguments, how good and bad accord by blaming and praising. It seems to me unnatural.” “No,” she replied, “and you shall see this quickly. These elements have contrary qualities naturally by which they may not accord any more than good and bad; and in

69 qualities they accord, so that contraries by quality may accord by quality. Is not the earth dry and water, that is next the earth and between land-masses, wet? Dry and wet are [183] contrary and may not agree with other, and yet this discordance is bound to reach accord by means of clouds, for both elements are cold. Just so the air that is next to the water is wet, and it is also hot. This air, by its heat, is contrary to water that is cold, but this same contrariety is made one by moisture, for both are moist. Also, fire that is next to the air and encloses it all about is dry, because of which it is contrary to the air that is wet; and in heat nonetheless they accord, for both are hot. Thus by these accordances discordants are joined, and in a manner of accordance they accord by a connection that is a knitting together. Of that accord comes a manner of melody that is very noble. Just so, good and bad are contrary in their deeds by blaming and praising: good by some is both blamed and praised, and bad by some is both blamed and praised. Wherefore their contrariety accords both by blaming and praising. Then it follows, although good should be praised never so much, it ought more than the bad to be made participant in the knot; or else the bad, for the renown that it has, must be accepted as well as the good, and that ought not be.” “No, forsooth,” I said. “Well,” she continued, “then renown is no way to the knot. “Lo, you fool!” she said, “how scholarly clerks have written of such glory of renown. ‘O glory, glory, you are [184] no other thing to thousands of people but a great sweller of ears.’ Many have had exceedingly great renown through the false opinion of the fickle people. And what is more foul than folk wrongfully praised, or guiltless nonetheless blamed by malice of the people? Shame has to follow from this to them who praise wrongfully; and the shame extends also to the merits praised, and baseness and reproof attend whoever slanders another. “Good child,” she said, “what increase to the conscience of a wise man does such renown offer who considers and measures his goodness not by sleeveless words of the people but by the truthful steadfastness of his conscience? By God, nothing! And if it should be fair for a man’s name to be augmented by the praise of many folk, then it is an even more repugnant thing that more folk do not praise his name. I told you a little while ago that folk in foreign countries do not praise it; such renown may not come to their ears because of their ignorance of it and because of other obstacles such as I described: as a consequence, more folk do not praise it; and that is very repugnant to him who desires renown—namely, that fewer folk praise and enhance renown. I believe that the gratitude of a people is hardly worth remembering, nor does it proceed of wise judgment. Never either is it steadfast and enduring. It is vain and fleeting, with the wind diminishing and increasing. [185] Truly, such glory should be hated. “If gentility or noble birth should be an illustrious thing that enhances renown and glory, as in tallying the effects of your lineage, then the gentility belongs to your kin, whence it appears obvious that the gentility of your kin is merely praise and renown that derives from their, your ancestors’, merits—and if it should turn out that praise

70 and renown of their merits contribute to their illustrious gentility, then they must be noble for their noble deeds and not you. For such gentility does not derive from you yourself nor from praise of your merits. Therefore, the gentility of your ancestors, that is foreign to you and does not belong to you, does not make you noble, but ignoble and reproved if you do not continue their acts of gentility. And therefore a wise man once said: ‘It is better that your kin are ennobled by you than that you should glorify yourself of your kin’s gentility when you have no merit of your own and do not deserve theirs.’ “How fleeting is the beauty of the flesh? More fleeting than the perishable flowers of the summer. And if your eyes were as good as those of the lynx that can see through stone walls, both ugly and handsome in their inwardness would appear in no way exalted; that would be an ugly spectacle. Then fairness results from the feebleness of the eyes that are looking and not from anything natural. Wherefore this should be no way to come to the knot. When this way is finished, the [186] knot goes with it. Lo, now in every way it is proved that none of all of these things may be understood to be perfectly a way to the enduring bliss of the knot. But now to draw to the conclusion of these matters, pay attention to these words. “True summer is distinguished from winter: in shorter course do the days of December draw their length than they do in the month of June. The new shoots of May fade and fall fallow in October. These things are not unbound from their primordial nature. They have not lost their operation deriving from their appropriate estate. Men, of their subjective will, resist what governs the heavens. Other creatures, though, patiently allow things to work. Man, no matter what estate he is in, would still welcome change. Thus bliss is desired through weird things, and the fruit that comes of these shoots is merely excruciating and bitter. Although it is sweet for a while, it may not be maintained—swiftly it vanishes: thus fail things always that fools expect. Just so have you failed in your earlier expectation. He who thinks to sail and directs his course according to the star de polo antartico shall never come northward to the opposite star polus articus; concerning which things, if you consider them carefully, your first expedition may be called prison and exile. The ground [187] underneath you proved false, and so you have failed. No person, I believe, blames him who ceases from heading in the wrong direction and seeks a ready path to his bliss. “Now, it seems to me,” she said, “that my demonstration has sufficed to show that the ways of dignity, riches, renown, and power are not, if you consider matters carefully and clearly, ways to the knot.”

71 Book 2: Chapter 9 lines 813-951 [187] ”Every argument, Lady,” I said then, “that you have made in these aforementioned matters seems to me now one that I fully conceive in my own wit; I shall no more, God willing, be beguiled by the contrary. But I would gladly have declared to me, if it should be your will, the bliss of the knot. I might feel the better how my heart might assent to pursue the goal in service as it has begun.” “O,” she replied, “there is a melody in Heaven which clerks and scholars call ‘harmony,’ but it is not in uttering of the voice, rather it is a manner of sweetness of natural operation that causes joy impossible to reckon by computation, and it is joined by reason and by wisdom in a quantity of proportion of knitting. God made all things in reason, and in wit of proportion of melody we may not suffice to [188] show what He made. It is written by great and wise scholars that learning may be acquired in earthly things easily by study and by labor. But of such heavenly melody great labor will bring out very little in learning. Sweetness of this Paradise has ravished you. It seems you slept, rested from all other stresses, so naturally are your hearts therein grounded. The bliss of two hearts knit in complete Love may not rightly be imagined. Their contemplation is always replete with thoughtful study to their pleasure, adducing matter for contemplation, each to comfort the other. And, therefore, concerning earthly things, much matter easily comes within the scope of your learning: knowledge of understanding, comprehension that is based on experience, that is, close to the eye, comes easily, but not so nigh the eye is the desire of knitting the knot in your hearts. A greater and sovereign desire has everyone when it comes to even a little hearing of heavenly understanding than is the case with many material purposes on earth. Just so, it is in the property of my servants that they are more committed to the governing of a little thing that pertains to their desire than of much other matter that is less in their consciences. This bliss is a manner of delicious sound touched in a marvelous voice, with no din of notes. There is no impression of articulatory labor. I cannot name or describe it otherwise, [189] for lack of appropriate terms, than to call it terrestrial paradise full of delicious melody, without labor in sound, where perpetual service in full joy is coveted to endure. Nature alone makes hearts to sleep so in understanding that otherwise it may not be named, nor in other manner of names for a comparable sweetness can I declare it. All sugar and honey, all minstrelsy and melody are merely soot and gall in comparison to it, by no manner of proportion to be quantified in respect of this blissful joy. This harmony, this melody, this enduring joy may not exist in earthly deed, but between the heavens and the elements or between two sympathetic hearts fully knit in the truth of natural understanding, without presumption and deceit, like the heavens and the planets, which continually for natural sympathies forget all their contrarious motions such as may conduce to distresses that block responsiveness. Evermore it thirsts after more

72 and greater operation, never desiring rest. These things in proportion are so well joined that the knot undoes everything which by any means may be accounted as leading into badness.” “Certainly,” I said, “this is a thing both precious and noble. Alas, that falsity, on the one hand, or despair, on the other, should ever be maintained in such a way as to render this joy void. Alas, that any wretch should ever, through wrath or envy, dare [190] to noise complaints so as to shove this melody so far backward that one dare not openly and freely let it be heard. Truly, such wretches are filled with envy and wrath more than anyone else. Chattering and tale-telling in such wretches dare to appear so openly in everyone’s ear, charged with and from a full mouth, intended to destroy many innocents with much malice—would God that their souls were strangled with the same! Lo, truth is hidden in this bliss, and generally, hides itself under cover. It dares not appear in a place on account of the ambush laid by shrews. Commonly, the bad overcomes the good. With myself and my soul this joy I would buy if the goodness were as much as the nobleness in melody.” “O,” she replied, “ what goodness may be reckoned greater in this material world? Truly, none. That you must understand. Is not everything good that opposes and destroys evil?” “How else?” I said. “Envy, wrath, and falsity are general,” she continued, “and so every man knows who is in his right mind. The knot which we have in this bliss opposes and destroys such evils. Therefore, it is good. What has caused anyone to do any good deed that he performed? Find me any good but if this knot is its chief cause. Necessarily it must be good that causes so many good deeds. [191] Every cause is greater and worthier than the thing it causes and in that superior’s possession, all things are reckoned less. As the king is superior to his people and has accordingly his whole realm in his possession, just so, the knot is superior to all other goods. Just as the knot is greater than all other goods, so you can reckon all things less. And what belongs to the knot ought to turn into a cause of honor and desire for its greater part; otherwise, it is rebel and ought to void away from defending its superior. And, truly, everything that has being profitably is good, but nothing has being more profitably than this knot. It maintains kings and helps them to maintain their powers: it causes error to be corrected and amended with good governance in action. It so joins hearts together that rancor is thrust out. He who keeps it longest, longest rejoices.” “I believe,” I said, “that heretics and evil-intentioned people henceforward will maintain this knot, for in this way they shall be maintained and will turn completely and abandon their old, evil understanding and form the knot with this goodness and proffer themselves in service so far that they might have the name of your servants. Their absurdities shall cease. It seems to me that they lack [192] matter now to allege against you and your arguments.”

73 “Certainly,” Love replied, “if they, converted from good will thus, as you say, will perform faithfully and truly, they shall still be able to participate in this bliss. And if they will not, yet my servants shall sustain the war well to the end with my help maintaining them. And they shall be so rewarded for their good work that endless joy for them, body and soul together, shall abide in this. There is action of bliss forever without possible corruption; there is perpetual action in work without pains of travail; there is everlasting passive without any admixture of labor—a continual condition, without cessation, coveted to endure. No tongue may tell nor any heart conceive the least point of this bliss.” “God bring me thither!” I exclaimed then. “Continue well,” she replied, “to the end, and you may not then fail, for although you do not prosper here, yet the passion of your martyred life shall be written and read in the presence of the great Jupiter, who is god of pity, on high in the hollowness of Heaven, where he sits enthroned: and you shall forever be considered among all these heavens a knight who might not be distressed for any amount of pain. He is a true martyr who still living is gnawed to [193] the bones.” “Certainly,” I said, “these are good words of comfort; my heart rejoices a little in a merry way.” “Indeed,” she said, “and he who is in Heaven feels more joy than when he first heard Heaven spoken of.” “It is so,” I said, “but if I knew for truth that after distress comfort would follow with bliss, as you have often declared, I would suffer this passion with the better demeanor; but my anxious sorrow is endless when I think how I am cast out of all welfare; and yet this evil deigns to send my way neither head not heart, either of which would greatly, by means of their comfort, refresh me, to know within myself that I am lamented a little by others; and yet my sorrows count not the weight of a pea in their balance. The slings of their disdain toward me weigh so much that they draw my causes so high as a result that they, my causes, seem merely light and just trivial in their eyes.” “O,” she said, “for a heaven that clouds make foul and dark storms as well, with great, huge tempests, since such a heaven makes the merry days of summer, too, with soft, shining sunlight. Also, the year withdraws the flowers and the beauty of herbs and the earth, but the same year makes spring and the jollity of Summer so to renew with painted colors that the earth seems as gay [194] as the heavens. Seas that blast and hurl ships about with waves, of which all living creatures have dread on account of the great peril, these same seas, just so, make smooth waters and golden sailing and comfort them with a noble haven who were at first so afraid. “Have you not,” she continued, “in your youth learned that Jupiter keeps garments of both joy and sorrow in his wardrobe? What do you know about how soon he will remove from you the garment of care and clothe you in one of bliss? Indeed, it is not far from you. Lo, here is an old proverb, adduced by many wise men: ‘When harm is

74 greatest, then remedy is nearest.’ Why will you give into dismay? Hope well and serve well, and that shall save you, along with your firm faith.” “Yes, yes,” I said, “but I still do not see by reason how this bliss is coming—I know it is contingent and uncertain. It may fall out differently.” “O,” she replied, “I have a great deal to do to clear your understanding and remove these errors from your mind. I will prove by reason that your woe may not endure forever. “Everything,” she continued, “is governed and ruled naturally by the heavenly bodies, which have full operation on earth here below, and according to the course of these bodies, the entire course of your actions here is governed and ruled by nature. [195] “You know that all your days proceed by course of the planets, and to every one of the singular hours interchange at regular intervals happens, by subordinate operation suffering change naturally, from which changes come the transitory periods that make the regular revolving of your years. Every one of the hours has full might of operation until all seven have had their regular course. From these operations and possessions of the hours, the days of the week have taken their names after the denomination available in the seven planets. Lo, your Sunday begins at the first hour after night on Saturday, in which hour the sun is in full might of operation, thence Sunday’s name. Next come Venus and Mercury, and then the Moon, then Saturn, and after him Jove, and then Mars, and then the Sun again, and so forth, over the twenty-four hours together as a repeating unit, until the second day begins in which hour of beginning stands the Moon, as master for that time to rule, thence Monday’s name. And this course of intervals all the other days follow too in their general operation. This natural course or rhythm followed by these changing bodies stops at a given term, limited thus by their primordial nature. And from them proceeds all government in this elemented world—as, for example, in the coming of spring, constellations, engendering, and everything that follows nature and reason. Wherefore, it follows that the courses that sorrow and joy follow naturally must interchange [196] their periods, too, so that one and the same prosperity may not always endure just as one and the same woe may not always endure. Thus you see clearly that your sorrow must be changed into joy and prosperity; wherefore, you should always incline to the better side in such a case and be positive in case the change is imminent. “Truly, when sorrow ends, joy enters. By a manner of necessity, it may not and will not turn out otherwise, and so your contingency is disproved. If you hold this opinion any longer, your wit is simply stupid. Wherefore, to bring this to a full conclusion, that Margaret-pearl whom you desire has been dear to you in your heart, and for her you have suffered many an anxious turmoil—hereafter she shall be the cause of great mirth and joy to you, and look now how glad you can be, and drop all your previous heaviness in exchange for many joys. And then I will as happily hear you speak of your joys as I have just now listened to you speak of your sorrow and your

75 complaints. And if there is anything I can do to increase your joy, by my truth, nothing on my part shall be omitted, no matter what the effort, that I with all my might may offer cheerfully to help you, and I shall be ready to please you both always.” And then I thanked that lady with all the best manners appropriate to her I could, and truly I greatly rejoiced in my heart hearing her fair promises, and I offered myself ready to be slain in any commandment she should order me to fulfill as long as my life endured.[197]

76 Book 2: Chapter 10 lines 952-1069 [197] “It seems to me,” I said, “that you have declared very well that the way to the knot should not consist in any of these things just now disproved, and now the order of our purpose asks this, that you should show me if there should be any way to the knot, and what that should be, so that openly the true high way may be seen in full confusion of these other arguments.” “You shall,” she replied, “understand that from one of three lives (as I said at first) every man born is sprung, and proceeds so forth. These lives are distinguished in three kinds by their names: ‘bestial,’ ‘human,’ and ‘reasonable,’ of which two are used by, and pertain to, the fleshly body and the third, man’s soul. The bestial life is forbidden among reasonable people in every law and every sect, both Christian and otherwise, for everyone despises those who live by lusts and delights, as one who is thrall and a servant bound to things right foul. Such are reckoned worse than men; they shall not be included in their degree nor allowed to be counted as one. Heretics, they say, choose the bestial life, who live voluptuously, so that (as I said to you at first), our matter was to do with human and reasonable livings. But by human life in living after the flesh or else [198] choosing fleshly ways may the bliss in this knot not be conquered, as it is has been proved by reason. Wherefore, by reasonable life he must needs have it who attains it, since a way to this knot lies in that direction but not by way of the first two lives, wherefore it has to be the third. And to live in the flesh but not according to it is reckoned by clerks and scholars to be more reasonable than merely human. Therefore, I will now happily declare how this way leads to the knot. “See now,” she continued, “that these bodily goods of human living yield seasons of sorrow and hours of pain. Whoever carefully remembers the consequences of indulging them understands that in their operations they are full of anxiety and sorrow. Just as a bee that has shed its honey immediately upon flying begins to sting, so, these bodily goods must depart in the end, and then they sting at their going, at which time all the bliss of this knot ends and completely disappears.” “Indeed,” I replied, “it seems to me that I am well served in the demonstration contained in these words. Although I possessed little compared to others great and worthy, still I had a fair part, so it seemed to me, for awhile to promote my livelihood; as long as it lasted, I thought I had much honey in my estate. I had wealth sufficient to stave off need; I had dignity to receive reverence in honor. I thought I had power to [199] protect myself from my enemies, and it seemed that I was illustrious in renown, as manhood asks, in moderation. For no one, during my administration, could impute to me either evils or treachery by a truthful case. Lady, you know yourself that I was only a servant of those confederacies formed by my sovereigns, and yet many mean people will, utterly unreasonably, maintain such matters against me, in which maintenance they themselves glory; and as you have often said, nothing evil from

77 those associations ought to be imputed to me since, repentant, I have turned from them, and no more do I consider supporting those things nor any others like them, but rather I concentrate on destroying them utterly with all my might and without meddling in them in any way. How am I now cast out of all sweetness of bliss and my joy now passed mischievously stung? Sorrowfully I must bewail my lot and live as a wretch. “Every one of those joys has turned into its opposite: for wealth, I now have poverty; for dignity, I am now imprisoned. Instead of power, I suffer wretchedness, and in place of illustrious renown, I am now despised and foully hated. Fortune has so fared that I am suddenly overthrown and despoiled of all wealth. Truly, it seems to me that this way of entering into the knot is very hard. God grant me better grace before it has all come to pass. The other way, [200] Lady, seemed to me very sweet.” “Now, certainly,” she replied, “I am disposed to chide you. What ails your dark dullness? Will it not be sharpened in clarity? Have I not shown you by many arguments that such bodily goods fail to give bliss, since their might will not stretch that far? “It’s a shame,” she continued, “but true to say that you lie in your words. You have known only a very few who have had these bodily goods all at once. Commonly, they do not dwell together. He who has plenty in riches is ashamed of his kin; another is noble in descent and widely known, but poverty handles him so roughly he would prefer to be unknown. Another has these, but renown from people’s praise he may not have—generally he is hated and defamed by rumor of things very foul. Another is fair and handsome, but dignity of status fails him, and he who has dignity is crooked or lame or else misshapen and foully despised. Thus, commonly, these goods dwell separated and not whole; they are but seldom in one household. Lo, how wretched your trust on a thing that will not accord with it! It seems to me that you are calling that plight you were in the felicity of Fortune and that you are saying now that since the felicity has departed, you are a wretch. Then the following would ensue from your words. Every rational soul in humankind may not die, and if death ends felicity and makes wretches, necessarily it also makes an end of [201] Fortune: then souls after the death of the body should have to live in wretchedness. But we know many who have gotten the bliss of Heaven after their death. How then may this life not make men blissful that, when it passes, gives no wretchedness, rather many times bliss if he can live as he should in this life! “And will you present a bill to Fortune now that she has caused you grief and sorrow for the first time? If you look to the manner of all things glad and sorrowful, you may not deny that still, and namely now, you stand in a noble plight in a good beginning with a good prospect of going forth hereafter. And if you assume you are a wretch because such wealth has passed, why then are you not fortunate because bad things and anguished wretchedness have passed, a much worse wretchedness? Are you now come for the first time into the hostelry of this life or else the booth of this

78 world? Are you now a sudden guest in this wretched exile? Do you believe anything on this earth is stable? Is not your first arrest over with, that brought you into mortal sorrow? Are not these mortal affairs passed now and with them the ignorance of bestial wit and in exchange you have received reason in the knowing of virtue? What comfort is in your heart? The knowledge that you are certainly grounded in my service. And do you not know, for a fact, that, as I said, death makes an end of all Fortune? What then? [202] You stand in a noble plight, paying little heed or attention, if you let Fortune pass dying, or else if she should fly away when it suits her, now, by your life. Indeed, a man has nothing so precious as his life, and to preserve it, he does everything in his power, laboring diligently. Then I say that you are blissful and blessed by Fortune with felicity, if you know your goods, those that you have still left, of which there can be no doubt, that even so they are not more worthy than your life.” ”What are they?” I said. “Good contemplation,” she replied, “of doing well in virtue in times to come, both to my pleasure and to that of your Margaret-pearl. Quickly shall your heart be eased with her in full bliss. Therefore, do not dismay. Fortune, in her hatred for you, has acted grievously against your bodily person, but even so, she has not sent too great a tempest against you, since the holding cables and anchors of your life are so firm by a knitting so fast that you do not discomfort yourself at all regarding this present moment, nor do you despair of times to come, but they give you comfort in hope of doing well and getting again double what you lost, with increasing love of your Margaret-pearl added thereto. For this, you have hitherto had all her resistance, at the full, and so you might now amend all that is amiss, and all the trespasses that you formerly committed; moreover, your heart has now continued all your hours and days in full service of my lore to that same Margaret-pearl, [203] wherefore she ought much the more to step down from her haughty position. These things are still knit in your life by the holding anchor, and hold they must. Lo, God, I pray that all these things come to pass fully. For while this anchor holds, I hope you shall safely escape, and well bring about and realize your true-meaning service, despite all false-meaning people, who hate you anew; for in this true service you are now entered.” “Certainly,” I replied. “Among other things I asked a question, namely what is the way to the knot. Truly, Lady, although I tempt you with my questions and answers in talking about my first service with you, I am now fully resolved, in the minutest scruple of my heart, that that service was an imprisonment and always bad and good for nothing, in no way desirable—nor may it, I now see, avail in any way for getting the knot. A wise and gentle heart looks after and contemplates virtue and no other bodily joys singularly. And because earlier I was set in those ways, I know indeed I have erred and failed of the bliss and have run, thus, far out of my way.” “Certainly,” she replied, “that is true, and there where you have gone astray, eschew that path from henceforward, I counsel you. I wonder, truly, why mortal folk of this

79 world [204] seek these external ways and means, and the matter is proved in you. Lo, how you are confounded with error and folly! Knowing the true cause and way is goodness and virtue. Is there anything more precious to you than yourself? You shall have in your power that which you would never lose and which in no way may be taken from you, and that very thing is what is the cause of this knot. And if death may not steal it from you any more than an earthly creature can, that thing then abides with your very soul. Hence our conclusion: to make such a knot obtainable, abide with this thing and with the soul in you, as long as they endure. A soul never dies. Virtue and goodness endure forevermore with the soul, and this knot is perfect bliss. Then this soul in this bliss shall endure endlessly. Thus hearts of a true knot shall be eased. Thus their souls shall be pleased. Thus they shall sing perpetually in joy.” “In good truth,” I said, “here is a good beginning; give us more in this way.” She replied, “I said to you just a little while ago that the reasonable life was one of three things and that it was proved to the soul.”

80 Book 2: Chapter 11 lines 1070-1165 “Every rational soul has two things of steering life, one in virtue and another in [205] bodily operation. And when the soul is master over the body, then man is a master of himself. And when a man is master over himself, he lives in virtue and in goodness. And as reason teaches virtue, so the soul and the body working together to create virtue live a reasonable life, which scholars and clerks call felicity in living. And therein lies the highway to this knot. These old philosophers, before Christ, who had no knowledge of divine grace, and could not have such knowledge by natural reason alone, assumed that by means of nature merely, without any help of grace, men might have shunned the other livings.” I interrupted and said: “Reasonably have I lived. Since, though, I plan at a later time, if God is willing (and I have the space) to declare and elaborate on this same grace, to the best of my admittedly uninformed knowledge, I leave it for now.” “But,” the lady continued, “as I said, he who looks to external means for the ways to this knot, is one for whom the understanding, by which he should know the way internally, sleeps the while. Wherefore, he who will come to know this way must abandon looking externally for ways that are after all false, and open the eyes of his conscience and unclose his heart as well. Do you not see that he who has trust in bodily life is so busy to anoint his bodily wounds with medicine, to avoid as much pain as possible (for they may not be healed absolutely), that he takes no heed of the wounds in his true understanding? His knowledge, just in proportion to his distraction, sleeps so hard; but immediately he is awake in his knowledge, then the intimate, [206] internal medicines begin to work for the healing of his true intent— inwardly, conscience heals easily if it should be handled well. Then these ways must come out of the soul by governing the life of the body—else no man may come to the perfect bliss of this knot. And thus he shall come to the knot by this way and to the perfect felicity that he thought to have had externally in bodily goods.” “Indeed,” I said, “ shall he have all—knot, riches, power, dignity, and renown—in this way?” “Yes,” she replied, “I shall show you that. Is he not rich who has sufficiency and power such that no man may master him? Is it not great dignity to have honor and reverence? And does he not have glory of renown whose name endures perpetually and exceeds any quantification of comparison with others?” “These are things that men expect to get externally,” I commented. “Indeed,” she replied, “they who look for a thing that does not exist, long may they gape after it, whether all of it or just a part of it.” “That is true,” I said. “Therefore,” she continued, “they who seek gold in green trees and expect to gather precious stones among vines and who lay their nets in mountains in order to fish and

81 think to go hunting in the deep seas after hart and deer and seek in the earth those things that reach to heaven’s height—what may I say about them? What, but that foolish ignorance misleads wandering [207] wretches by unknown ways that should be abandoned, and makes them blind to the right path of the true way that should be used. Therefore, in general, error in mankind by blind and misdirected seeking tears to pieces those goods which they should have whole if they sought for them by way of reason. Thus he goes on, cheated out of what he sought. In his hood men have whiffed a joke and made a mockery of him.” “Now,” I said, “if a man is virtuous and lives entirely in virtue, how does he possess all these things?” “That I shall demonstrate,” she replied. “What power does any man have to prevent another man from living in virtue? For imprisonment, or any other distress, if he takes it patiently, he does not suffer from them—the tyrant, then, may have no power over his soul. Then that man, tormented thus, has such power over himself that he will not be distressed nor may he be overcome, since patience in his soul overcomes and is not itself overcome. Such a creature who may not be mastered, he has need of nothing, for he has sufficient within himself to help himself. And that creature who thus has power and sufficiency and from whom no tyrant may seize them and who has dignity and honor to set all things here below at nought, to him it is a great dignity that even death may not master or overcome. Wherefore, this same power and sufficiency, enclosed with dignity, must have renown on any reasonable account. These are the riches, with sufficiency, that you should seek; this [208] is that honorable dignity that you should desire; this is that power of might, in which you should trust; this is that renown of glory that endures endlessly, and it all comes down to substance in virtuous living.” “Certainly,” I said, “all this is true, and I see clearly therefore that virtue with a firm grip encloses all these things. Wherefore, in truth, I may say, by my truth, virtue of my Margaret-pearl first brought me into your service, to have the knitting of the knot with that jewel, not sudden longings nor the petty words of people, but only our conversation together; and then, seeing the intent of her true meaning, with flourishing virtue of patience, such that she used no evil to take requital against the wicked lies that false tongues have often perpetrated against her, I have seen it myself: beneficial forgiveness has sprung from her heart—unity and accord, above all other things, she desires in a good meek manner, and she suffers many wicked tales. Truly, Lady, it would be much to your honor that such things were amended by due chastisement.” “Indeed,” she said, “I excuse you for this outburst. All of these things may not be redressed just yet: I commend your Margaret-pearl’s virtue all the more when she patiently suffers such annoyances. King David was meek and suffered much hatred and many evil slanders. [209] No spite or shameful action that his enemies perpetrated against him might dislodge patience from his heart, but ever did he mercy use without variation. Wherefore, God himself rewarded those actions and let such punishment as they deserved fall on them. Truly, what He did ought, by any standard of reason, to be

82 an example, dreadful in implication, to the mirth of all manner people. A man who is wrathful when taking vengeance ought to have no governance in meting out punishment. Plato had reason to scourge his servant, yet he called on his neighbor to perform the action; he himself would not do it, lest wrath had mastered him and caused him to strike too hard. Virtue, perpetually grounded, shows its intent from within. And truly I know well that, on account of her goodness and virtue, you have desired my service, to her pleasure, all the more and indeed have proffered yourself to that service completely.” “Good Lady,” I said then, “is virtue the high way to this knot that we have been discussing for so long?” “Yes, in truth,” she replied, “and without virtue rightly performed this knot may not be attained.” “Ah, now I see,” I continued, “how virtue fails in me, and, like a dry tree, without blossoms or fruit, I am always withered, and so I stand in despair of attaining this noble knot since virtue has no manner of working within me. A wide detour it is that I have traveled.” “Peace,” she said, “your journey on the first route you took is in vain; and, concerning the second way, I see your [210] meaning clearly. You would confute me, if you could, because I brought you into my service, and I help everyone of my servants to come to this bliss, as I said earlier. And you said yourself that you might not be helped, as you assume you ought to be, because virtue fails in you. If this bliss may not be perfectly achieved without virtue, you assume a contradiction follows from these words. Indeed, to express the case at the hardest, I have no servant unless he is virtuous in deed and in thought. I brought you into my service, yet you are still not my servant. But I say that you might so work in virtue hereafter that you shall then be my servant, and accounted generally as my servant. For the habit does not make the monk, nor does the wearing of gilt spurs make the knight. Nevertheless, to comfort your heart, I will answer still in another way.” “Certainly, Lady,” I replied then, “so must you do, or else I had so nearly suffered heart-failure for sorrow, that I know very well I should never have recovered. And now, therefore, I pray you to inform me in this more, or else I consider myself without hope of recovery. I may not long endure until this lesson has been learned and the remedy of this mischief found out.” “Now,” she continued, “do not be angry, for there is no man alive who may come to a precious thing he has long desired unless he sometimes suffers sorrowful distresses, and do you consider [211] yourself to be unlike all others? That may not be. And with the more sorrow that a thing is achieved, the more joy has a man afterwards to keep that same thing—as it fares in school, for example, with children, who, to promote learning, are beaten when they forget their lesson. Commonly, after a good disciplining with a rod, such children retain very well the teachings of their school.”

83 Book 2: Chapter 12 lines 1166-1251 [211] With these words, I cast my eyes upon this lady to observe her countenance and her demeanor, and she, perceiving this fantasy in my heart, cast her semblance upon me in a goodly manner and spoke as follows. “It is well known, both to reason and to experience in performance, that every active principle works on its corresponding passive, and when they are together they are called by philosophers active and passive. Thus, if fire is in a position that it warms a thing capable of being warmed or heated, and those things are placed at such a distance from each other that the one may operate, the other shall receive the effects of the operation. This Margaret-pearl you desire is full of virtue and able to be active in goodness. But every herb shows its virtue outwardly from what it is within. The sun provides light so that [212] things may be seen. Every fire heats that thing that it approaches if it is capable of being heated. The virtue of this Margaret-pearl operates outwardly, and nothing is more capable of receiving the effects of the operation or catching the work of the active than the passive proper to that same active, and no passive to the virtues of this Margaret-pearl can I find in all my book of first principles except you. In order that her virtue necessarily operate on you in whatever place you are (within distance of her worthiness), you are included as her very passive. But virtue may not profit you at all unless your desire is fulfilled and all your sorrows finished. Therefore, through the operation of her virtue, you shall be helped easily and driven out of all care and welcomed to this consummation desired by you for so long.” “Lady,” I said, “this is a good lesson for the inception of my joy. But understand well, in truth, that though I suppose she has great virtue, I would that my spousal to her were certain, and then I may live out of doubt and greatly rejoice in thinking of those virtues so demonstrated.” “I heard you say,” she continued, “when I first received you into my service at the beginning, that your jewel, this Margaret-pearl, that you desire, was enclosed in a mussel with a blue shell.” “Yes, indeed,” I replied, “so I said, and so it is.” “Well,” she resumed, “everything natural shows itself for what it is: this jewel, enclosed in a blue shell, by [213] the excellence of colors shows its virtues from within, and so everyone should consider the virtue proper to things rather than to other goods alien and unrelated. If a thing is engendered of good matter, commonly and for the most part, it follows that, after the initial formation, the virtue of the original matter, providing it is not corrupt with vices, leads to increase of good virtues: also, just so, it fares of the bad. Truly, great excellence in virtue of the line of descent, for the more part, descends naturally to the succession in virtues following. Wherefore, I say, that the colors of every Margaret-pearl show from within fineness in virtue.

84 “Naturally, heaven, when the weather above is merry, appears to men’s eyes in the color of blue, betokening steadfastness in peace both within and without. Margaret- pearl is engendered by heavenly dew and shows in itself by fineness of color whether the engendering occurred in the morning or in the evening: thus nature dictates of this pearl. This precious Margaret-pearl whom you serve shows itself descended by nobility of virtue from this heavenly dew, nourished and formed in meekness, mother of all virtues; and, by works that men see externally, the signification of the colors is shown—mercy and pity in the heart, with peace to all others. And all this is enclosed within a mussel, whoever [214] considers these virtues advisedly. “All things endowed with a soul participate in the good by mediatory entities, as thus, for example: in God man participates by his reasonable soul, and so, accordingly, beasts or bodies that may not move according to their place participate in man by the motion of beasts that do move from place to place. So that those bodies that have sentient souls but do not move from their places hold the lowest degree of entities endowed with sentient souls, and such participate in man by such means as I have described. So, it follows, that the mussel, as mother of all virtues, holds the place of meekness, and to its lowest degree descends dew of Heaven, and there, by a manner of virgin birth, are these Margaret-pearls engendered and afterward formed. Did not meekness itself make the high Heaven so low as to enclose and catch out of it so noble a dew that, after formation, a Margaret-pearl with endless virtue and everlasting joy, with a full vessel of grace, was given to every creature that in goodness would receive it?” “Certainly,” I said, “these things are very noble. I have before now heard these same sayings.” “Then,” she resumed, “you know well that these things are the truth?” “Indeed,” I replied, “utterly.” “Now,” she continued, “that this Margaret-pearl is full of virtue is well established, wherefore some grace and mercy among other virtues, I know for [215] sure, shall descend on you?” “Indeed,” I said, “still I would like to have explained more fully how the virtues in this Margaret-pearl are naturally grounded.” “I will show you that,” she said, “if you would learn it?” “Learn?” I replied. “What is the need of such words? Do you not clearly know, Lady, yourself, that all my anxiety, all my diligence, and all my might, through your counsel, have turned in the direction of pleasing that pearl? All my thought and all my study, with your help, desire to augment that jewel in honor and all my labor and all my industry in your service, to gladden this Margaret-pearl in some way. I would prefer that her honor, good pleasure, and her good demeanor be maintained and kept through me—and that I be the cause of such to her satisfaction—than all the wealth of material goods that you could reckon. And would to God that never would it be otherwise than that I would put myself in great jeopardy regarding everything I would

85 will to sacrifice (now no more than my life alone)—as far as I might endure it and stretch myself with my capacities—rather than let that jewel be blemished in any respect.” “Such a thing,” she replied, “may further you a great deal, and advance you in my service. “But now,” Love continued, “will you grant me that this Margaret is good?” “O good God,” I said, “why do you tempt me and torment me with such a manner of talk? I would grant that [216] even though I should die immediately and I would fight in the quarrel by my truth if anyone would contradict it.” “So much the easier,” said Love, “is it to prove our deliberations.” “Indeed,” I said, “but still I want to hear how you would prove that she is good by means of reasonable argumentation, such that it may not be denied. For, although I know, and so many others, that manifold goodness and virtue are imprinted in this Margaret-pearl, still there are some men who speak no goodness about her. And wherever your words are heard and your reasons are demonstrated, such evil speakers, Lady, shall be stopped and ashamed by the authority of your excellence. Moreover, they who have no acquaintance with her person, even they may know her virtues and be the more informed in what manner they may dedicate their hearts when it pleases them to make any entry into your service. For, truly, to get all this underway, I say I know myself quite well that this jewel is such a precious pearl, as a feminine lady in her nature, one in whom nothing is flawed as regards the goodness of virtue and also of the answering shape of her limbs and features, according so well in all points. I believe that Nature made her with great study, for Nature in her person has forgotten nothing, and that is well observed. In every good person’s heart, she has and receives grace of commending and [217] of virtuous praising. Alas, that Nature should have ever made her mortal, save only in this regard, that Nature, I know, has in no way erred in forming her.”

86 Book 2: Chapter 13 lines 1252-1348 [217] “Certainly,” she said, “you have begun well and I ask you now this question: is not, generally speaking, everything good?” “I do not know,” I replied. “No?” she asked, “did not God see everything that He made, that it was very good?” “Then it is a wonder,” I said, “how evil things happen, since all things were very good.” “Thus,” she said, “I will explain: every quality and every action and everything that has any manner of being, it is of God and God made it, of whom is all goodness and all being—of Him there is no badness. Bad exists as privation, the absence of good; good exists as a positive, as a somewhat; and therefore, good and being are one in understanding—to be at all is to be good.” “How may this be?” I asked, “for shrews have often assailed me, and I have experienced much badness in that, and so it seems to me that bad in fact does exist, and is a somewhat in its nature.” “You shall,” she replied, “understand that the kind of badness that is used to purify wrongdoers is a somewhat, and God made it, and it has positive being. And that is good. Other types of badness have no positive being whatsoever. Each is the privation of a somewhat; [218] and that is empty and to be naught. The essential parts of being are said in a double manner, insofar as it is what it is, and these parts are found in every creature. For everything, on this side the Primordial being, is being through participation, taking part in being, so that in every creature there is a difference between being and the being of Him through whom that being is and his own being. Just as every good is a manner of being, so is it good by means of being, for to be at all is nothing else. And everything, though it be good, is not good of itself, but it is good by virtue of the fact that it is ordered with respect to the great goodness. This duality, according to scholarly clerks’ determination, is found in every creature, no matter how single in unity it may be.” “Indeed,” I said, “but there where it is said that God saw everything He had made, that it was very good, as you yourself said just a moment ago, I want to ask whether every creature is said to be good through goodness unformed, or else formed, and afterwards accepted as utterly good?” “I shall tell you,” she replied. “These great scholars and clerks of the past have divided good into good in and of itself, alone in its own being, and that is nothing but pure good—for nothing is good in that way but God. Also, they have divided it into good by participation, and that is called good, metaphorically speaking and as representative of goodly goodness, and according to this manner of speech manifold good is [219] predicated—that is to say, good in nature and good in type, and good as

87 a consequence of grace, and good of joy. Of good in nature, at the level of nature, St. Augustine says, ‘all that is, is good.’ “But, perhaps, you want to know whether it is good of itself or else of another’s goodness, for the natural goodness of every substance is nothing else than its substantial being, which is called goodness by analogy with its primal goodness, insofar as it is assignable mediately to the primal goodness. Boethius demonstrates this matter fully that this name ‘good’ is the natural, generic name, to which various ‘goods’ are referred, by analogy with its principal end, which is God, the knot of all goodness. Every creature cries out, ‘God made us,’ and so they have a profound appetite for that God by those affections that are proper to them. And in this manner, all things are good of the great God, who is good alone.” “This is a wondrous thing,” I said, “how you have proved by many reasons that my first path was error and wandering astray and a cause of badness and feeble meaning. In the ground you alleged good to be rooted. Whence is it, then, that such badness has shoots since all things in general are thus good, and badness has no positive being, as you have declared? I assume, if all things are good, I might have then ended in that good, following the way I originally took, and so by [220] goodness have come to the bliss in your service I have desired.” “All things,” she replied, “are good by having their being participate in the primal goodness, which goodness is corrupted by badness and bad-meaning manners. God has it in good things that they are good by virtue of being and not in evil does He have it, for there is absence of just and right love in evil. For badness is nothing but the evil will alone of the user, through the guilts of the doer; wherefore, at the beginning of the world, everything was good in and of itself, and universally they were very good. An eye or a hand is fairer and better if attached to a body in its natural place than if severed from the body. Everything in its natural place of being works natural good, and voided from that place, it dissolves and is itself defiled. “Our noble God, in shining manner, ordained this world by harmony, as in historiated portraiture mixed with colors, in which black and other dark colors commend by setting off the golden paint and the azured. Every one of these colors positioned in its natural place, one beside the other, shines the more on account of the other: just so, a small thing that is fair justly makes another fair thing more glorious, and just so, of goodness and of other things in virtue. Wherefore, other pearls, bad and not so good as this Margaret-pearl, who is our topic and matter of discourse, provided with little goodness [221] and little virtue by the air which engenders them, prove by contrast that very much goodness and virtue are to be found and displayed in shining manner in your Margaret-pearl. How should the goodness of peace have ever been known unless strife sometimes reigned and great evil wrath? How should mercy be tried and proven if no trespass were to be punished by appropriate justification? Therefore, grace and goodness of a person are found where sorrowful hearts are comforted to endure in good meaning—unity and accord between hearts knit to abide

88 in joy. What! do you suppose I rejoice or else account him among my servants who pleases Pallas to the undoing of Mercury, although he should be knit to Pallas by title of law (not according to reasonable conscience), and Mercury has grace to be allowed his doings—or else him who dismisses the moon for the fairness of the evening star? Lo, sometimes at night, the light of the moon greatly comforts the traveller in his dark and blind thoughts. Understanding of Love gives great gladness. Whoever is pleased not to believe it when a true tale is told, ‘good-bye and to the devil’ his name is entered. Wise folk and those worthy in gentleness, both of virtue and of their way of living, give full credence with a good heart in the truthfulness of Love where good evidence or experience in action does not demonstrate the [222] contrary. Thus you might have proof of your Margaret-pearl’s goodness by means of the contrast with the badness and evil actions of other jewels. Occasionally, distress yields several hours of joy afterwards.” “Now, by my truth,” I replied, “this is well said, that my Margaret-pearl is good; for, since other jewels are good, and since she surpasses these others in goodness and virtue, it follows, by a manner of necessity, that she must be good. And the goodness of this Margaret-pearl is nothing else but virtue, wherefore she is virtuous. And if any virtue should fail in any dimension, that would constitute a lack of virtue. Bad is nothing else and may be nothing else but the lack and want of good and goodness, and so, she would have that same lack—that is to say, bad—and that may not be, since she is good; and that is good, it seems to me all good. And so, consequently, it seems to me also that she is virtuous and has no lack of virtue. But the sun is not known unless it shines, nor are virtuous herbs known unless they possess their natural operation, nor is virtue, unless it extends to goodness or profit for another, truly virtue. Then, by all the paths of reason, since mercy and pity are most commended among other virtues, and they might never be demonstrated for refreshment of help and of comfort for me except now, [223] at my greatest need, and since that is the natural operation or function of these virtues—truly, I believe I shall not fall wide of these helps. “Fire, if it provides no heat, is not considered fire. The sun, unless it shines, is not accounted sun. Water, unless it is wet, shall have its name changed. Virtue, unless it works goodness, it fails, and its name shall be turned over to its contrary. And since these are impossible, therefore the contradictory that follows I must necessarily believe.” “Certainly,” she replied, “these words are most proper to issue from your mouth and your person now, and they are most appropriately to be believed in your understanding as regards the intent of this Margaret-pearl herself. And listen now to what I have to say in conclusion of these exchanges.”

89 Book 2: Chapter 14 lines 1349-1421 [223] “In these things,” she continued, “that it pleases me now to demonstrate openly to you, the matter of your sickness shall be found, and, as well, what the medicine shall be that may be comfort and relief to your sorrows; and this applies not only to you but also to all others who have erred and strayed amiss and walked wide of the way, [224] provided that any drop of good will directed toward amendment be dwelling in their hearts. The Proverbs of Solomon openly teach how once an innocent walked by the way, blinded by the dark night, who encountered a woman dressed (if it is permissible to say it) like a whore, ready and prepared for turning his thoughts with vain pratings, and, impatient of rest, dissimulating my terms, spoke in this manner: ‘Come and let us be drunk of my sweet breasts; let us indulge lustful embraces.’ And thus this innocent was led like an ox to the slaughter.” “Lady,” I said, “this is a curious and difficult thing to understand for me. I pray you, explain to me the intent of this parable.” “This innocent,” she continued, “is a scholar studying my lore in pursuit of my bliss, in which process the daylight of his thought, turning, inclines toward evening, and the sun, failing in its own light, makes dark night in his understanding. Thus he walks in the darkness of many doubts, and on account of the blindness of his understanding, he does not know what path he is on. Indeed, such a person may easily be beguiled. To him comes feigned love, not clothed in my distinctive robes but in an unlawful and provocative habit, speaking with soft and frivolous speech; and with fair, honeyed words, such heretics and mis-meaning people veil and conceal their errors. Augustine [225] is an example of a heretic who, when he first started out, was a man expert in reasons and sweet in his words—and the works of his actions failed to accord with them. Thus feigned love behaves in the first operations. You know these things for a truth. You have proved them by experience, sometimes in action upon your own person, in which action you have found matter of great distress. Was not feigned love ready and prepared to catch your wits and pervert your good thoughts? Truly, she has wounded the conscience of many with the flourish of many prattling words, and without any sugaring over, I called it of good worth. Hence I am glad that following my prudence you have turned her away in such a manly fashion. You are greatly beholden to me that I have returned your mind to your natural course of good meaning. I believe that, had I not shown you your Margaret-pearl, you would never have returned. From the beginning feigned love was ever impatient in good, perfect joy—as the water of Siloam, which always flows with stillness and muted noise until it approaches the brink and then out of measure begins to boil so with the variableness of changing storms that, in the course of every current, it is on the verge of spilling out over its entire circuit of banks. Thus, feigned love [226] at full spate secretly plots new storms to incite debate.

90 “And although Mercury often knows such perilous matters with complete understanding, yet followers of Venus are lusty and so unenlightened in their wits that they feel very little or indeed nothing in such matters and so write and cry out to their fellows, ‘Here is bliss! here is joy!’; and thus they draw many people into one and the same error: ‘Come,’ they say ‘and let us be drunk of our sweet breasts’ that are fallacious and mendacious glossing, from which the people may not suck the milk of health but deadly venom and poisonous corruption of sorrow. The milk of fallacy is the venom of deceit; the milk of mendacious glossing is the venom of corruption. Lo, what stuff comes from these breasts!—’Let us indulge lustful embraces, let us desire, and let us mix false words with sweet and sweet with false.’ Truly, this is the sorriness of feigned love. “Necessarily, sickness must follow from such surfeit. Thus, like an ox to your lingering death were you drawn; the soot of the smoke has completely defaced you. The deeper you waded in then, the sooner you found death waiting for you. If it had killed you, it would have been little wonder! But, to look at matters now from the other side, my true servants cannot feign, cannot deceive. Truly, their actions are [227] open, and my foundation for them endures no matter how great the burden may be. It is always the same, lastingly. Although the beginnings may be sharp, it provides life and blissful goodness in the end, when all is settled. “Thus of two contraries, the effects are contrary, and they oppose each other. And so that Margaret-pearl whom you serve shall see you delivered from perilous tribulation on account of your service for her precisely because you fell into such new distress on account of serving her, and this through hope of amendment at the end, when all is settled, to be gladdened with joy. Wherefore, out of her pure nature, she shall grant you her mercy with the grace of good help, else I shall so constrain her that with pity she shall be overcome. Remember in your heart how horribly you have trespassed against your Margaret-pearl on occasion before and how you have transgressed against her in a very serious way. Call this again to mind and recognize your own guilts. What goodness, what bounty, with great subsequent pity, did you find at that time? Were you not accepted into grace in a goodly manner? By my prompting she was inclined to forgiveness. And afterwards I steered her to bring you into her house, and yet you assumed utterly you would be refused forever. “But you know very well since that time that I in such sharp distress might greatly avail. What are you thinking? Just how far my management of affairs [228] extends? If you are not negligent for your part, I will make the knot. Certainly, in your good comportment, I will accord with the Psalter—I have found David true in my service, and he shall be anointed completely with holy oil of peace and of rest desired by him for so long. Trust well in me and I will not fail you. Your abandoning the earlier way and your intention that I can see grounded in you to continue performing this purpose with a good heart draws me by a manner of constraining such that, necessarily, I must be your helper. Although mirth will be delayed a while, it shall still come at such a

91 season that your thought shall be rejoiced with it. And would God never allow it but that mercy followed—since your heart has assented to my reasons and you have openly confessed your erroneous wanderings and now cry after mercy. Your bliss shall be prepared—indeed, you do not know how soon. Now, be a good child, my advice is. The nature of the virtues in your Margaret-pearl rehearsed in your person by my strength shall operate as they should. Comfort yourself in this, for you may not miscarry.” These words said, she reclined and rested a while.

Thus the second book ends, and the third book follows hereafter. [229]

92 Book III: Chapter 1 lines 1-133 [229] Scholars and clerks speak of number, saying that it is the natural sum of discrete things—as in telling one, two, three, and so forth—but among all numbers, three is determined as the most certain. Wherefore, I intend to realize and conclude this work of my busy ignorance in a number that is certain. Take an example: this world is divided into three ages. The first is called Deviation—that is to say, wandering out of the true way—and all those who died during that age were punished in Hell for one man’s sin, until grace and mercy fetched them thence, and that was the end of the first age. The second age lasts from the coming of the grace that grants mercy until the end of transitory time, in which age the true way is shown in destruction of the bad, and that is called the age of Grace. And that is not given through any desert of exchanging one benefit for another, but only through the goodness of the Giver of grace in that age. Whoever can well understand this is shaped for salvation [230] in bliss appropriate to the soul. The third age shall begin when transitory, secular things have reached their end, and that shall be in an age of Joy, glory, and rest, for both the body and the soul, which have well deserved it in the age of grace. And thus they shall dwell together in that Heaven perpetually without any plotting, malicious evil on any side. These ages are figured by those three days during which our God was enclosed in the earth, arising on the third day in witness of our resurrection to joy and bliss for those who deserve it through His grace that grants mercy. So this ignorant and uncultivated book may be understood easily by a careful reader to accord with those three ages in three topics: the first demonstrates the error of wandering astray, punished with sorrowful pining that cried after mercy; the second demonstrates grace in the good way, which is availing without any desert or merit, amending that first wandering astray in correction of those errors and bringing the even way, waxing into amendment with comfort of welfare; the third demonstrates joy and bliss granted to him who well can deserve it and who has the savor of understanding in the age of grace. Thus in joy shall the matter of my third book be until it ends. But I have a special cause in my heart to produce this text about a Margaret-pearl that is so precious a gem (white, clear, small), concerning which stones or jewels, the tongues of us [231] English people turn from the correct names to call them “Margery pearls.” Thus our speech varies from many other languages; for, truly, Latin, French, and many other languages call them Margery pearls by the name Margarites or Margarite-pearls—wherefore, using that denomination, I will accord with other men’s tongues calling them by that name. These scholars and clerks who treat of the natures of things and analyze the property of things say that the Margaret-pearl is a little white pearl, completely hollow and round and virtuous; and, along the seaside of Great Britain, the best are engendered in mussel shells from heavenly dew. In them are

93 found by experience three fair virtues. The first is, it gives comfort to the animal spirits in persons possessed of both bodies and reason. Another good it manifests is that it affords profitable health against the passions afflicting the hearts of sorrowing men. And the third is that it is necessary and noble in stanching the flow of blood where otherwise too much would flow and be lost. To this pearl and its virtues I would like at this time to compare Philosophy with her three branches—that is, natural, moral, and rational, concerning which hear now what these great scholars and clerks have to say. Philosophy is knowledge of divine and human affairs, conjoined with the study of good living. This consists in two things, that is, understanding and opinion. Understanding is [232] when a thing is conceived and grasped by certain reason. But wretches and fools and ignorant men will many of them conceive a thing and maintain it as the truth, though reason contradicts it, wherefore understanding is a stranger to them and alien. Opinion is when a thing is uncertain and hidden from men’s true knowledge and by no perfect reason completely demonstrated and declared—as, for example, thus: if the sun should be as large as men assume or else larger than the earth. For, in truth, the certain quantity of that planet is unknown to earthly dwellers, and yet according to the opinion of some men, it is considered larger than middle earth. The first branch of philosophy is natural; it treats of things in nature and shows the causes of Heaven and the strength of natural cycles: for example, by arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy, it teaches the ways and the course of the heavens, the planets, and the stars throughout Heaven, and about the earth and other elements. The second branch is moral, which teaches manners in the order of living and by means of reason proves the virtues of the soul most worthy in our living—these virtues are prudence, justice, temperance, and strength or fortitude. Prudence is goodly wisdom in the knowledge of things. Strength overcomes all adversities alike. Temperance destroys bestial living and habits with moderation. And justice judges rightfully, [233] distributing to every person what is his own. The third branch submits all things to be discussed and verified to the discourse of understanding; and this is divided into two things. One is art, the other is rhetoric; in these two all the laws of man’s reason are grounded or else maintained. And since this book is all about Love and bears its title accordingly, and since philosophy and law must hereto accord through their scholarly and clerkly descriptions—as, for example, philosophy is declared the “love of wisdom” and law is understood for maintenance of peace—and these, as I say, must necessarily accord with Love, therefore, I have touched on them in this place. The order of domestic matters and the honest manner of living in virtue, with rightful judgment in causes and profitable administration in the communities and cities of realms, with reigning profitably by fairness, not by singular, personal advantage nor by private, secret envy, nor by sullen, anti-social intentions toward covetousness of honor or of goods—all these as they should be disposed in open rule are demonstrated by Love, philosophy,

94 and law; and yet by Love above all else. Wherefore, as sisters in unity these three accord, and toward one end—that is, peace and rest—they cause nourishing and maintain it to endure in joy. Now, then, as I have declared, my book accords with the description of three things, [234] and the Margaret-pearl is likened in virtue to Philosophy, with her three branches. In these matters, two are always in accord with embodied reason, and the third with the soul. But in conclusion of my book and in knitting together of this Margaret-pearl with the theme of my book, law shall be likened under three several manners; that is to say: law, right, and custom, which I will now explain. All that is law comes from God’s ordinance by natural operation, and those matters ordained by man’s wits are called “right” or civil law, which is ordained by many manners and written down in a constitution. But custom is a thing that is accepted for right or for law, where law and right fail, and there is no difference whether it comes from scripture—that is, written form—or from reason. Wherefore it shows that law is natural governance. Right or civil law comes out of man’s probable reason, that is, the reason that deliberates and proves; and custom derives from common usage in effect over length of time—and custom not written down is usage; written down, though, it is called constitution and inscribed as such. But the law of nature is common to every nation, as, for example, conjunction of man and woman in love, succession of children in inheritance, restitution of something taken or “borrowed” by force; and this law, among all others, holds the most sovereign degree in honor, having been instituted at the beginning of the rational creature’s existence. It has never yet varied [235] for any changing of the age or period of history. The cause, in truth, for ordaining the law was to constrain men’s violence into peace and to withdraw his evil will and turn his malice into goodness; also in order that innocence might safely dwell among shrews by protection of safe-conduct in certainty without painful annoyance, with the result that the shrews, harm being repaid for harm, should restrain themselves by the bridle of fear of retribution. But, in truth, in natural law, nothing is commended but such as God’s will has confirmed, nor is anything denied except what is contrary to God’s will in Heaven. Also, then, it follows that all laws or custom or else constitution, whether by custom or by written form, that contradict the law of nature are utterly repugnant and also are adversaries to the will of our God in Heaven. Truly, the law of nature, for the sake of God’s own passionate will, is verily to be maintained; and under this law, even if they are unworthy, both professed religious and regular, are bound by obedience to this Margaret-pearl as by a knot of Love’s statutes and an establishment in nature, which may not be resisted decently. Lo, I am constrained to abide under this bond, as a man under a living law ruled; and by that law am obligated to be rewarded according to my deserts by pain or wealth unless mercy waives the debt of pain. So, then, may be seen through reason, at least partially, that mercy surpasses both right and law. [236]

95 The intent of all these matters is, by the minimum clear understanding, to know the end or final cause of this third book. Nevertheless, complete knowledge through God’s grace I intend to produce if these things have a good as their end; and a perceptive reader—one who can suck honey of the hard stone, oil of the dry rock— may easily feel the nobility of the matter enclosed in my uncultivated imagination. But since my book shall be of joy, as I said, and since I am so far set from that place whence gladness should come, my cord is too short to let my bucket catch any of that water; and few men are about to increase the length of my cord; and many are in full purpose prepared to make it shorter and to seal up the entry, so that my bucket should catch nothing of joy, but return empty, to increase my anxious sorrows. And if I die on account of the pain, that would be a gladness to their hearts. Good Lord, send me water onto the summit of these mountains, and I shall drink of it to quench my thirst, and say, “These are comfort-bringing wells—into the health of the goodness of my savior I am helped.” But I say even more: the house of joy is not open for me. How dare my sorrowful spirit consider treating in any matter of gladness then? For sobbings and complaints are always ready as refrains in my spirit’s meditations, as warblings recurring many times I [237] am not sure when. And therefore what manner of joy could I compose? But yet at the door I shall knock if the key of David would open the lock and He bring me in who opens and closes himself at the call of children’s tongues—whose spirit works where He will, distributing in goodly manner as it pleases Him. Now, to the praise and reverence of God, to the profit of the readers, the amendment of the manners of the hearers, the increase of honor among Love’s servants, the relief of my heart into the grace of my jewel, and the pleasure of friendship with this pearl, I am directed in the making of this book and for no other motives. And if anything of value be found in this writing to men’s liking, give thanks for that to the Master of grace, who is the author and principal agent of that and all other good. And if anything should be inadequate or else to anyone’s dislike, blame that on the ignorance of my inadequate knowledge and understanding, for the body in distress annoys and inhibits the understanding in the soul. Dwelling in distress inhibits the wits in many dimensions and namely, in sorrow. I intend, nevertheless, to pursue the custom of Love as revealed by a long period of service in terms which are lively and promote understanding as well in other things. But to inform you now of this Margaret-pearl’s goodness, I may not praise her the half of what she deserves. Wherefore, not she on account of my book, but [238] rather my book on account of her, is worthy of commendation, even though the book is ignorant and uncultivated—just as things ought not to be desired and praised for the places where they are located but the places for the things that they contain.

96 Book III: Chapter 2 lines 134-243 [238] “Now,” Love resumed, “truly I have understood your words well. Certainly, they seem very good to me, and I wonder why still you pass so quickly over the law.” “Truly,” I replied, “my wit is uncultured, and I am simply blind and that matter deep. How should I have waded in then? I might easily have drowned and destroyed myself there.” “Indeed,” she said, “I shall help you swim. For just as the law punishes those who break precepts and those who do the contrary of written constitutions, just so, on the other hand, the law rewards and gives meed to them who strengthen the law. By one law is this rebel punished and that innocent rewarded; the shrew is imprisoned and the lawful individual is crowned. The same law that joins two people by wedlock without their forsaking each other provides a writ of separation because of divorce both deemed and declared.” “Well, well” I replied, “I do not find in any law that the guilty are to be enfranchised and rewarded in the goodness of deserts.” “Fool,” she retorted, “the guilty who have converted deserve much merit in your law. Also, Paul of Rome was [239] crowned with honor because through him the supporters of Pompey were found out and destroyed; and yet, earlier, this Paul was chief of Pompey’s council. To this day, this law in Rome bears his name as his measure in reward for the betrayal of the conspiracy. Ordained by those senators, the death of Julius Caesar is assigned to Cato’s righteousness, for his name always flourishes in truth among those renowned as discovers of treason. Perdicas was crowned as heir to Alexander the Great on account of his revealing a secret hatred that king Porrus harbored against Alexander. Wherefore, everyone, lawfully, according to his righteousness, clearly may claim his reward; and so, to you, who support the law of nature and have suffered therefore, it is most proper in the law for a reward to be ordained and handed out, and clearly, you may claim your just reward.” “Certainly,” I said, “I have learned this well, and henceforward I shall always draw myself thereafter to abide in unity of will both to maintain and support this law; and in this way I have my best hopes of entering into your grace. Uncompelled and meritorious conduct in honor of a person ought to be rewarded richly.” “Truly,” Love replied, “that is so, and although, according to written law, good service should receive profit and advantage, many men thoroughly judge it to have more desert of reward than [240] even good will not compelled.” “See now,” I replied, “how many men think just the opposite. And what is good service? I would like to hear this question answered by you.” “I shall answer it for you,” she said, “in a few words: reasonable actions performed to the pleasure and profit of your sovereign.” “How should I perform this?” I said.

97 “Very easily,” she said, “and listen to me now a little while. It is firmly to be understood that just as matter follows its perfection and form by due and proper transmutations, just so every man by proper operations ought to follow the lawful desires in his heart and see beforehand toward what end his merit is tending. For many times he who does not consider the ends but is utterly ignorant of them, it befalls him often to commit many evils, wherethrough, before he is aware of it, he is shamefully confounded. The end of such things needs to be considered in advance. “To everyone who desires such foresight in good service, three things especially are needed to be rulers in his works and deeds. First, he must do good; next, he must do what he does out of free election in his own heart; and third, he must behave in a godly manner without any pride in his thoughts. Many authorities may be alleged to the effect that your works should be good, in service or in any other acts; nevertheless, by reason it may be [241] demonstrated thus. “All your works are called secondary and function by virtue of the First Worker, who created you to proceed in good works; and just so, your works proceed into the virtue of the last end, this principle of your creation; and if right or justice were not in the first working, no man should work or perform in the second. Just so, unless you felt to what end and also saw the conclusion of the goodness of the end, you should no more care about what you wrought; but the beginning begun with good, there shall it also cease in the last end, if it should be well considered. Wherefore, the middle, if it should draw in directions not in accord with the ends, there the course of good ceases, and another manner of course enters. And so it is a part by itself, and if every part is not in accord with its whole, it is foul and ought to be eschewed. Thus those persons who do neither good nor harm foully shame their making: wherefore no man may be accepted in good service without the operation of good acts. Truly, those who have might to do good and do not do it, from them shall the crown of honor be taken, and with shame they shall be annulled. And so to make one work according to his ends, every good servant, if we reason by the rule of consequence, [242] must necessarily do good. Certainly, it suffices not to do good alone unless good consequences follow withal. Otherwise he deserves no gratitude for goodness in anything. For just as your being comes from the greatest good in whom all goodness is enclosed, just so your ends are directed toward the same good. Aristotle determines that the end and the good are one and convertible in understanding; and he who spurns good in his will and considers not the end, looks not to the good. But he who does good and does not behave in a good manner and draws away the direction of the end toward the not good—he must of necessity be bad. Lo, the bad is nothing else but the absence or the negative of the good, as darkness is the absence or the negative of light. Then, he who does not behave in a good manner directs that good he is otherwise involved in into the end of the bad. So a thing not good must follow; also, badness often follows upon such folk. Thus those who are workers contrary to the end that is good are worthy to endure the contrary of the end that is good.”

98 “How,” I replied, “may any good deed be done unless it promotes the good?” “Yes,” she answered, “the devil does many good deeds, but the good he leaves behind. For he always works bad and in a deceitful manner, wherefore the contrary of the end follows him. And let him do never so many good deeds, because the good in itself is missing, his goodness does not count. Lo, then, although a man does good, unless he does so in a goodly manner, the end in goodness will not follow; and [243] thus both the good deed and performing it in a goodly manner must join together in good service and also it must be done with the heart’s free choice— otherwise he does not deserve the merit in good, and I will prove it. For if you do anything good by chance or accident, in what thereof are you worthy to be commended? For nothing of that, reasonably speaking, redounds either to your praise or your blame. Lo, that thing which is done by accident is not caused by your will, and should one thus deserve praise or blame? And since in that case the end fails which should rightly follow, reward also must necessarily fail. Scholars and clerks say that no man is blessed unless he is willing to be blessed; if a good deed that he has done is not done of free choice and will, blessedness may not follow. Therefore, neither praise of goodness nor of service resides in that which is the contrary of the good end, so then to good service belong the good deed done in a goodly manner through free choice in one’s heart.” “Truly,” I said, “I have understood this.” “Well,” she continued, “everything that is done thus in sufficient accordance with the law, that is as a consequence called justice, may claim its reward. For law and justice were ordained to reward in this manner such deserts in goodness by a just proportion of reward; and, necessarily, free choice toward exercising such justice (that is to say, righteousness) was granted to reasonable creatures for deserving well or evil in reward. Every man has [244] free will to choose to perform good or evil.” “Now,” I said at that moment, “if I deserve this Margaret-pearl by my good will and am not compelled to her service and have free choice to do what I like, she is then beholden, it seems to me, to reward the intent of my good will.” “God forbid otherwise,” replied Love, “no one means anything else, I believe. Free will from a good heart deserves its reward.” “Has every man,” I said, “by God’s providence free choice, by a necessary manner of the will, in each of the actions it suits him to undertake? I would like to see this explained clearly to my ignorant understanding since ‘necessary’ and ‘necessity’ are words of complex meaning, including (so to speak), ‘so it must needs be,’ and ‘otherwise it may not happen’.” “This you shall learn,” she said, “as long as you pay attention to my speech. If it were not in man’s liberty of free will to do good or to do bad, but instead he were tied to the one or the other by a bond of God’s preordinance, then no matter how well he might act, it would be by a needful compulsion of that same bond and not by free choice, whereby he would deserve nothing; and, similarly, no matter how much evil

99 he committed, it would not be his fault, to blame him, but rather the fault of Him alone who ordained that he perform such a thing. As a result, he would not deserve to be punished for bad deeds nor rewarded for good; but out of the necessity for righteousness, therefore, was free choice of [245] will put in man’s proper disposition. Truly, were it otherwise, it would be contrary to God’s charity which rewards badness and goodness according to its merit of pain or blessing.” “This seems to me a wonder,” I replied, “since God foreknows all things coming by necessity, and it must needs be that they happen; and yet those things that are done by our free choice come not at all by necessity but only by will. How may these stand together and be reconciled? And so it seems to me truly that free choice completely opposes God’s foreknowledge. Truly, Lady, it seems to me that they may not stand together.”

100 Book III: Chapter 3 lines 244-383 [245] Then Love drew near to me and with a noble countenance and comportment of both face and limbs arranged herself close to my seat. “Take up,” she began, “your pen and write promptly these words, for, if God will, I shall so inform you with them that your ignorance, which I have perceived in this particular matter, shall be openly cleared away, and your sight amended for full contemplation in it. First, if you think that God’s prescience opposes liberty of will, it is impossible that they should accord with each other in the unity of truth to our understanding.” “Indeed,” I replied, “so I conceive it, in truth.” “Well,” she said, “if that [246]impossibility should be removed, the opposition that seems to be therein would also be completely removed.” “Show me the absence of that impossibility,” I said.

Usk (I translate here without emendation.) St. Anselm (line 252) “So I shall,” she replied. “Now, I (181) Therefore, let us posit as suppose that they may stand together— existing together both God’s namely, God’s prescience, whom the foreknowledge (from which the necessity of things coming follows, and our necessity of future things seems to liberty of will, through which you believe follow) and freedom of choice (by many things to be without necessity.” which many actions are performed, “Both of these proportions are true,” I we believe, without any necessity); said, “and well may they stand together, and let us see whether it is wherefore I admit this case as possible.” impossible for these two to coexist. “Truly,” she replied, “this case is If this coexist- (182) ence is impossible.” impossible, then some other “How so?” I said. impossibility arises from it. For, “For,” she replied, “another impossible indeed, an impossible thing is one follows and grows from this.” from which, when posited, some “Prove that to me,” I said. other impossible thing follows. Now, “That I shall,” she continued. “For on the assumption that some action is something is coming without necessity, and going to occur without necessity, God knows that beforehand, since He God foreknows this, since he foreknows all things coming—and what He foreknows all future events. And that foreknows, of necessity is coming, as which is foreknown by God is, indeed He foreknows shall be the case. By a necessarily, going to occur, as is

101 necessary manner, then, or else through foreknown. Therefore, necessity, something is to be, without it is necessary that something be necessity, and whether, to everyone who going to occur without necessity. has good understanding, it is clear that these Hence, the foreknowledge from things are opposed: God’s prescience, which necessity follows and the which necessity follows, and liberty of will, freedom of choice from which from which necessity is removed; for truly, necessity is absent are here seen (for it is necessary that God should have one who rightly understands it) to be foreknowledge of a thing without any not at all incompatible. For, on the necessity coming.” (line 265) one hand, it is necessary that what is foreknown by God be going to occur; and, on the other hand, God foreknows that something is going to occur without any necessity.

(line 265) “Indeed,” [247] I said, “yet, you have not removed from my understanding the necessity following God’s foreknowledge, as thus, for example: God foreknows that I am bound in the service of Love to this Margaret-pearl, and therefore I am by necessity in this way bound to love, and if I had not loved, it is through necessity I would have been kept from all of Love’s deeds.” “Certainly,” Love replied, “because this matter is a good one to expound and also necessary, I intend to abide herein appropriately and not pass over it lightly. “You shall not,” she continued, “say only ‘God foreknows I am a lover or no lover,’ but rather you shall speak thus, ‘God foreknows I am a lover without necessity.’ And so it follows, whether you love or do not love, each of them is, and shall be without necessity. But now you see the impossibility of the one case and the possibility of that case you had assumed to be impossible, wherefore the opposition is annulled.” “Yes,” I replied, “and yet you do not cast away the strength of necessity when it is said, ‘through necessity I abide in Love, or do not so abide, without necessity, because God foreknows it.’ This manner of necessity, in truth, seems to some men to lead into compulsion—that is to say, constraining, or else prohibition, which is preventing or forbidding, wherefore by necessity I love of will. I understand myself to be constrained by some secret strength to the will of loving, and, if I am not loving, I understand myself to be prohibited from the will of loving, and so through [248] necessity it seems to me I love because I love, or else, through necessity not to love, if I, in fact, do not love—wherethrough I may deserve neither thanks nor displeasure in those matters.” “Now,” she said, “you shall understand well that we often say that something is through necessity that is neither compelled nor constrained by any strength or force

102 and equally not to be through necessity that is removed from being so by no prohibition. For we say, for example, that it is through necessity that God is immortal, not mortal, and it is through necessity that God is just; but we do not say that any strength of a violent manner constrains him to be immortal or prevents him from being unjust, for nothing may make him mortal or unjust. And, just so, if I say that through necessity you are a lover or else not one, only through will as God foreknows, it is not to be understood that anything prohibits or forbids you your will that which it will not be or else constrains it to be that which it will be.

Usk (I translate here without emendation.) St. Anselm (line 292) That same thing, in truth, God (183) For God, who foresees that foreknows, which He foresees, anything some action is going to occur coming of will alone, that will is neither voluntarily, foreknows the very constrained nor defended through any other fact that the will is neither thing. And so through liberty of will that is compelled nor prevented by done which is done of the will. And truly, my anything. Hence, what is done good child, if these things are [249] well voluntarily is done freely. understood, I believe that you shall find Therefore, if these matters are nothing inconvenient between God’s carefully pondered, I think that no foreknowledge and the liberty of the will, inconsistency prevents freedom of wherefore I know well that they may stand choice and God’s foreknowledge together. (line 297) from coexisting.

(line 298) “Also, furthermore, whoever properly considers the understanding of prescience sees that in the same way that anything is said to be foreknown, it is also pronounced to be coming in the future, since there is nothing foreknown but something coming. Foreknowledge is only of the truth; doubt may not be known— wherefore, when I say that God foreknows anything, through necessity that same thing is understood to be coming. It is all one if I say that ‘if it shall be, of necessity it shall be’, but this necessity neither constrains nor prohibits anything to be or not to be. Therefore, truthfully, if love is postulated to be, it is said of necessity to be, or, else, if it is postulated not to be, it is affirmed not to be of necessity, not because necessity constrains or prohibits love to be or not to be but because those are the postulates that are the case. For when I say that ‘if love shall be, of necessity it shall be,’ here follows the necessity in the thing postulated prior—it is as much as to say (as if it had been thus pronounced), ‘that thing shall be.’ This necessity signifies nothing else but only this, that ‘shall be’ may not exist together with ‘not be.’ It is also equally true: love was, and love is, and love shall be but not of necessity; rather think of it this way:

103 necessary is to have been all that was, and necessary is to be all that is, and necessary is coming to be all [250] that shall be. And to explain further. It is not the same thing to say, ‘love to be passed’ and ‘love passed to be passed’ or ‘love present to be present’ and ‘love to be present’ or else ‘love to be coming’ and ‘love coming to be coming’—in other words, the diversity in the setting of the words makes diversity in understanding (although, in the same sentence, they accord in signification), just as it is not the same thing to say ‘sweet love is sweet’ and ‘love is sweet,’ for much love is bitter and sorrowful before hearts are eased, and yet it gladdens that sorrowful heart to think about such love.” “In truth,” I replied, “sometimes I have had great bliss in my heart from Love that at other times has annoyed me sorrowfully. And, certainly, Lady, since I see that I am thus knit with this Margaret-pearl, as by a bond of your service and not out of the liberty of my will, my heart will now not accord this service to Love. I can judge within myself no otherwise than that through necessity I am constrained to abide in this service. But alas! Then if through needful compulsion in spite of my will I am withheld, I will have deserved little merit for all my great travail.” “Now,” this lady replied, “I say as I said: it pleases me to expound this matter fully, and here is why. For many men have had various fantasies and reasons both on one side of this matter and on the other. Concerning all which, very soon, I think, if you will [251] understand, you shall be able to give the sentence to the side more probable by means of reason and in true knowledge, by the time I have reached the conclusion of this matter.” “Certainly,” I said, “I have for a long time had a great desire to be instructed in these things, for I still think God’s will and His prescience accord with my service in loving this precious Margaret-pearl, after whom with thirsting desire that is all the same wet I do burn in my heart. Without wasting away I still languish and fade, and the day of my destiny I abide in death or in joy, but yet, in the end, I am comforted by my expectation of bliss and joy to be determined according to my desires.” “That thing,” Love said, “draw near you quickly, God grant it of His grace and mercy, and this shall be my prayer, until you are pleased in your heart at your own will. “But now to inform you further in this matter,” this lady resumed, “you recall where I left off—that was ‘love that is sweet’ and ‘sweet love that is sweet’ are not the same thing to say. For a tree is not always white necessarily. Sometime before it was white, it might have been not white, and after the period when it is white, it may be not white again. But a white tree must always necessarily be white, for neither before nor after it was white might it be at one and the same time white and not white. [252] Also, love is not present as of now in you by necessity, for before it was present it might have been that it should not now have been. And yet it may still be that it shall not be present, but your love which is present, which has bound you to her, Margaret-pearl, that love necessarily is present. Truly, some deed of action is not coming by necessity

104 since before it happens it may be that it shall not be coming. A thing verily coming, however, necessarily is coming since it may not be that coming shall not be coming. And just as I have said concerning present and future times, the same sentence is true of the preterit—that is to say, time passed—for a thing passed must necessarily be passed. And before it happened, it might have not been, wherefore it should not have passed. Just so, when ‘love coming’ is predicated of love that is to come, necessarily is going to happen what is said, for a thing coming is never not coming; and so, often, we predicate the same thing of the same: as when we say, ‘every man is a man’ or ‘every lover is a lover,’ it must necessarily be so—in no way, may he be a man and no man together at the same time. And if it should be not by necessity (that is to say, needful) that all things coming are coming, then something coming is not coming, and that is impossible. “Just as these terms ‘needful,’ ‘necessity,’ and ‘necessary’ betoken and signify ‘a thing must be, and it may not otherwise be,’ and just as this term ‘impossible’ [253] signifies that ‘a thing is not and may not be by any means,’ then, through plain necessity, all things coming are coming—but this is by following necessity which constrains nothing to be. Lo, when ‘coming’ is predicated of a thing, it is not always the case that that thing is through necessity coming, although it be coming. For if I say ‘tomorrow love is coming into this Margaret-pearl’s heart,’ that love shall not therefore through necessity come to be. Yet it may be that before it be, it shall not be, although it were coming. Nevertheless, sometimes it is true that something that is said to come should be coming of necessity, as if I say, ‘tomorrow the rising of the sun is coming.’ If, therefore, I pronounce the coming of a thing to come with necessity, ‘in this manner, love toward you tomorrow is coming into your Margaret-pearl,’ it is coming by necessity, or else, ‘the rising of the sun is coming tomorrow morning,’ it is coming through necessity. Love, truthfully, which may not be only of following necessity, through preceding necessity, is made certain. For future of future is predicated; that is to say, coming of something coming is said—as if tomorrow coming is through necessity, coming it is then. The rising of the sun should be understood through two necessities in coming: one is preceding necessity, which causes a thing to be—therefore it shall be, for it is necessary that it be; another is following necessity, which constrains nothing [254] to be, and so by this necessity it is to come. Why? For it is to come. “Now, when we say that God foreknows a thing coming, it is necessary that it be coming, yet we do not therefore make it forever certain that that thing is through necessity coming. Truthfully, a thing coming may not be not coming in any way, for it is the same sentence of understanding as if we say thus, ‘if God foreknows anything, it is necessary that it be coming.’ But therefore it does not follow that the prescience of God makes a thing through necessity to be coming. For although God foreknows all things coming, yet He does not therefore foreknow everything coming through necessity. Some things He foreknows to be coming of free will from a reasonable

105 creature.” “Certainly,” I said, “these terms ‘need’ and ‘necessity’ have a curious and difficult mode of being understood. They would dull many men’s wits.” “Therefore,” she said, “I will explain them openly and more clearly than I have done heretofore before I depart hence.”

106 Book III: Chapter 4 lines 384-574 [254] “Here, concerning this matter,” she said, “you shall understand that just as it is not necessary for God to will what He does will, no more is it necessary in many items for a man to will what [255] he will. And just as always it is necessary for what God does will in fact to be, equally so is it necessary for what man wills in fact to be, in those things which God has put into man’s subjection of willing—as, if a man will love, that he loves, and, if he will not love, that he does not love, and of such other things that are in man’s disposition. Therefore, what God wills may not not be when He wills that the will of man through no necessity is to be constrained or else prohibited from willing, and if He wills the effect to follow the will, then it is necessary that the will of man be free and necessary also to be what he, man, wills. In this manner it is true that through necessity is man’s work in loving, whatever he will do, although he wills it not with necessity.” I replied then, “How stands it in Love concerning that will, since men love willingly of free choice in their hearts? Wherefore, if it be through necessity, I pray you, Lady, to solve this question with an answer.” “I will,” she said, “answer you happily. Just as men do not will through necessity, just so there is no love in the will through necessity, nor through necessity did that same will operate. For if he would not will it with a good will, it should not have been wrought, although what he does do, it is necessary that that be done. But if a man sins, it is nothing else [256] except to will what he should not.

Usk (I translate here without emendation.) St. Anselm (line 400) Just so, sin of will is not to be For since, in the present case, to sin manner necessary done, no more than will is is nothing other than to will what necessary. Nevertheless, this is true: if a ought not [to be willed]: just as man will sin, it is necessary for him to sin, willing is not necessary, so sinful but through that necessity nothing is either willing is not necessary. constrained nor prohibited in the will—just Nevertheless, it is true that if a man as that thing that free will wishes and may, wills to sin, it is (187) necessary that and not may not will. And necessary is that he sin—in terms, that is, of that to will he may not will, but that to will is necessity which (as I have said) necessary; for it is impossible to him one neither compels nor prevents thing and the same to will he may not anything. Thus, on the one hand, will. (Lines 405-7 are a verbatim repetition free will is able to keep from willing of lines 404-5.) The operation, in truth, of what it wills; and, on the other hand, the will to which is given that it be that he it is not able to keep from willing has in will and that he will not, it is what it wills—rather, it is necessary

107 voluntary or spontaneous, for it is done by for free will to will what it wills. spontaneous will, that is to say, with a good For, indeed, before it wills, it is able will not constrained: then by will not to keep from willing, because it is constrained, it is constrained to be, and that free. And while it wills, it is not able is it may not together be. If this necessity not to will; rather, it is necessary makes liberty of will that, before they were, that it will, since it is impossible for they might have been eschewed and it to will and not to will the same shunned. God then, who knows all truth and thing at the same time. Now, it is the nothing but truth, sees all these things as will’s prerogative that what it wills they are spontaneously or necessarily; and as occurs and that what it does not will He sees, so they are. And so with these does not occur. And the will’s deeds things well considered, it is completely clear are voluntary and free because they that, without any manner of repugnance, are done by a free will. But these God foreknows all manner things done by deeds are necessary in two respects: free will which, before they were, might (1) because the will compels them to have been [257] they never should be. And be done, and (2) because what is yet they are through a manner necessity being done cannot at the same time descended from free will.” (line 417) not be done. But these two necessities are produced by freedom-of-will; and the free will is able to avoid them before they occur. Now, God (who knows all truth and only truth) sees all these things as they are—whether they be free or necessary; and as He sees them, so they are. In this way, then, and without any inconsistency, it is evident both that God foreknows all things and that many things are done by free will. And before these things occur it is possible that they never occur. Nevertheless, in a certain sense they occur necessarily, and this necessity (as I said) derives from free will.

(line 418) ”Hereby,” she continued, “may be easily known that not all things of necessity are to be, though God should have them in His prescience. For some things are to be of liberty of the will.

108 “And to cause you to fully know God’s foreknowledge, hear,” she said, “what I shall say.” “Gladly, Lady,” I replied, “it pleases me to understand this matter completely.” “You shall,” she resumed, “understand that God’s being is in Heaven; although He is over all by His power, yet the abiding of the divine person is there, where there is everlasting presence, without any transitory time. There is nothing preterit there or past; there is nothing future or coming; but all things in that place are together everlasting, without any moving. Wherefore, to God, all things are as now; and though a thing is not as yet in the natural state of things, and though it should be in the future hereafter, still, we shall say, always, ‘God makes it to be present and now, for no future nor past may be found in him.’ Wherefore His knowledge and His foreknowledge are all one in understanding, the same.

St. Anselm Therefore, if (188) God’s Usk (I translate here without emendation.) knowledge or foreknowledge (line 430) Then if God’s knowledge and imposes necessity on everything foreknowledge subject to necessity all things He knows or foreknows, then He which He [258] knows or foreknows, nothing, does not freely will or cause according to either eternity or else time, He anything (either in accordance with wills or does of liberty, but all of necessity— eternity or in accordance with a which thing, if you think it is against reason, temporal mode); rather, He wills not through necessity either to be or not be, and causes everything by necessity. all things that God knows or foreknows to be Now, if this conclusion is absurd or not to be, and yet, nothing prohibits even to suppose, then it is not the anything to be known or to be foreknown by case that everything known or Him in our wills or our actions-to-come, or foreknown to be or not to be occurs else coming to be out of free arbitrement. or fails to occur by necessity. When you have understood these Therefore, nothing prevents God’s explanations well, then you shall find it knowing or foreknowing that in reasonable at proof and that many things are our wills and actions something not through necessity but through liberty of occurs or will occur by free choice. will, except necessity of free will, as I said Thus, although it is necessary that before and explained completely, I what He knows or foreknows, think.” (line 438) occur, nevertheless many events occur not by necessity but by free will—as I have shown above.

(line 439) ”It seems to me, Lady,” I replied, “so I should not displease you and always keep your reverence, that these things are contradictory in anyone’s understanding, for

109 you say, some time it is through liberty of will and sometime also through necessity. Concerning this I still have no savor, without better explanation.” “What wonder,” she said, “is there in these things, since you shall see all day long, with your very own eyes, many things receive reversal in themselves, through various reasons? Consider, for example, thus. “I pray you,” she continued, “what are more opposite than ‘come’ and ‘go’? For, if I bid you ‘come to me,’ and you come, afterwards, when I [259] bid you ‘go,’ and you go, you reverse from your first coming and do the opposite.” “That is true,” I said. “And yet,” she resumed, “in your first movement away from me, when you erred, complete reversing was to be understood for various reasons.” “How so?” I said. “That I shall show you,” she continued, “with examples of things that have natural movement. Is there anything that moves more naturally than the heaven’s eye, which I call the sun?” “Truly,” I said, “it seems to me to move most naturally.” “You speak the truth,” she said. “Then, if you consider the sun, in whatever part in the heavens it is located, it always hastens in moving away from that place, and returns toward that same place; to that place whence it goes, it hastens returning, and without cessation to that place it draws nigh from which it withdrew and changed places. But now, in these examples, according to diversity of reason, reversal in one thing may be seen, without opposition. Wherefore, in the same manner, without any opposition, according to my arguments heretofore entered, it is all one to believe something to be through necessity coming since it is coming and yet with no necessity constrained to be coming except with the necessity that comes of free will, as I have said.” Then it pleased me to speak a bit and I stopped my pen from writing and [260] said: “Truly, Lady, so it seems to me, I can allege major authorities who contradict your sayings. Job says of man’s person, ‘you have established his term, which you may not pass.’ Then, I say that no man may shorten or lengthen the day ordained for his dying, although sometimes it seems to us that a man does a thing of free will through which he seizes and hastens the date of his death.” “No, indeed,” she said, “it in no way contradicts what I am saying; for God is not beguiled, nor does He see anything but the truth, whether it shall come of liberty or else of necessity, yet it is said to be ordained by God as immoveable which by man, before it is done, may be changed. Such a thing also is what Paul the Apostle says of them that earlier were purposed to be saints, as thus, for example: whom God foreknew and has predestined conformable to the image of His Son such that He should be the first begotten—that is to say, here among many brethren. And whom He has predestined them He has called, and whom He has called them He has justified and whom He has justified them He has magnified. This purpose, according to which

110 they are called saints or holy, is in the everlasting present where there is neither time passed nor time coming, but it is always only present time, and now a moment is as much as seven thousand winters. And [261] so, on the other hand, is nothing there like temporal presence for a thing that is there is ever present without any moving. Yet, among you men, before it is in your presence, it is movable through liberty of arbitrement. And just as in the everlasting present, no manner of thing was or shall be but only is, and just as here and now in your temporal moment, something was and is and shall be, but is so by moving periods, and in this is no manner of opposition, just so in the everlasting present, nothing may be changed; and still, at other times, in your temporal moment, it is proven moveable by the liberty of the will before it is done, without any inconvenience in argument following therefrom. “In your temporal moment is no such presence as in the other, for your present is done when it has passed and to come has begun to enter, of which moments, here among you, each easily follows after the other. But the everlasting presence endures in unity without any imaginable changing, and is always present and now. Truly, the course of the planets and the overwhelmings of the sun in days and nights, with a new beginning of its circuit after the previous one has ended (that is to say, one year following another)—these make your transitory moments, with changing of lives and mutation of peoples. But just as your temporal present contains every place and all things [262] are contained in each of your moments, so now are both realities seen and known to God’s true knowledge in the same instant.” “Then,” I replied, “I wonder why Paul spoke these words in a voice signifying time passed, namely, that God has predestined His saints foreknown, has called, has justified, and has magnified them. It seems to me he should have said those words in the present tense—that would have been more in accord with the everlasting present than to have spoken in the preterit voice of passed understanding.” “O,” replied Love, “I see clearly by these words that you have little understanding of the everlasting presence, or else of my words spoken just now, for never a thing of those you have mentioned was before or after the other, but all are equally in view of God at once, and all together in the everlasting present are now to understanding. The eternal presence, as I said, has enclosed together in one all times, in which are closed and united all things that are temporal in diverse times and places; without posteriority or priority are they closed therein perpetually now and made to dwell in His present sight. But concerning what you say about Paul, that he should have spoken that aforementioned sentence in present tense, and that would have been most in accordance to the everlasting presence, why do you chatter such [263] words? Truly, I say, Paul uttered the words by signification of the past tense to show fully that these words were not assigned for temporal signification, for at that time those saints were not temporally born whom Paul pronounced God to have foreknown and called, then magnified, wherethrough it may well be known that Paul used those words of past signification out of necessity and the lack of a word in man’s bodily speech

111 betokening the everlasting presence. And, therefore, in words most fitting in likeness to the everlasting presence, he took his sentence, for things that have passed heretofore are completely immoveable, like the everlasting presence. As those things that are there may never not be present, so things of time past may not in any way not be past. But all things in your temporal present that pass, in a little while shall not be present. So, then, in that, it is more a similitude to the everlasting present to use signification of time past than of time in the temporal present, and so more in accordance with the divine knowing. In this manner, what of these things that are done through free arbitrement or else as necessary, Holy Writ pronounces. According to eternity, it speaks, in which presence is everlasting truth and nothing but immoveable truth, not according to time in which [264] your wills and your acts do not perdure. And just as while they are not, it is not necessary for them to be, so often it is not necessary that at some time they should be.” “As how?” I said. “I still need to be taught by some example.” “Of Love,” she replied, “I will now offer examples since I know the head knot of that yoke. Lo, sometimes you do not write nor are then in any intention to write. And while you are not writing or not intending to write, it is not necessary for you to write or else to intend to write. And in order to make you informed completely that things are otherwise in the everlasting present than they are in your temporal moment, see now, my good child:

Usk (I translate St. Anselm here without emendation.) A thing is known to exist in time so (line 528) for something is in the differently from the way it exists in everlasting presence, then in temporal eternity that at some point the following time it was not; in eternity time in statements are true: (1) in time eternal presence it shall not be. Then no something is not present which is reason prohibits that something may not present in eternity; (2) in time something be in temporal time, moving, that in is past which is not past in eternity; (3) eternal time is immoveable. Indeed, it is in time something is future which is not no more contrary nor paradoxical to be future in eternity. Similarly, then, it is moveable in the temporal moment and seen to be impossible to be denied, in immoveable in eternity, than not to be in any respect, that in the temporal order any time and to be always in eternity, something is mutable which is and have to be or else to come in the immutable in eternity. Indeed, being temporal moment, and not have to be mutable in time and being immutable in nor be coming to be in eternity. Yet, eternity are no more opposed than are nevertheless, I do not say that something not existing at some time and always never is in the temporal moment that existing in eternity—or than are existing ever is in eternity but only that in the past or future according to the

112 sometimes it is not; for I do not say that temporal order and not existing in the your love tomorrow will not be in time, past or future in eternity. For, indeed, but only today do I deny it to be, and the point I am making is not that yet, nevertheless, it is always in something which always exists in eternity.” eternity never exists in time, but is only [265] ”Ah, so,” I said, “it seems to me that there is some time or other at which that a thing coming or else passed here it does not exist. For example, I am not in your temporal moment ought not be saying that my action of tomorrow at no denied to be ever in eternity and present time exists; I am merely denying that it there; and yet it does not follow that that exists today, even though it always thing that was or else is to be is not there exists in eternity. And when we deny in eternity in any manner, past or else that something which is past future; we shall completely deny that, or (191) future in the temporal order is because there in eternity it is without past or future in eternity, we do not ceasing in its manner of the present.” maintain that that which is past or future “O,” she replied, “my own disciple, now does not in any way exist in eternity; you begin to be able to have the name of instead, we are simply saying that what my servant. Your wit is cleared; the exists there unceasingly in its eternal- error of the cloud of your ignorance is present mode does not exist there in the away now, away is the blindness of love, past or future mode. In these cases no away is anxious study on meddling contradiction is seen to raise an manners. You shall enter hastily into the obstruction. Thus, without doubt and joy I who am your own mistress bring without any contradiction, a thing is said with me. to be mutable in time, prior to its “You have,” she continued, “in a few occurrence, although it exists immutably words well and clearly grasped much of in eternity. [In eternity] there is no time my matter. And just as there is no before it exists or after it exists; instead, reverse or contrariousity in those things, it exists unceasingly, because in eternity just so, without any opposition, nothing exists temporally. something is said to be moveable in the temporal moment that, before it comes to be, dwells immoveable in eternity, not before it is here below or after it is, but perpetually without ceasing. For there is nothing according to temporality; there that same thing is everlasting that in the temporal moment sometimes is not, and, as I have said, before it comes to be, it may not be.” (line 550)

113 (line 550) “Now, truthfully,” I said, “I have understood this well, so that now it seems to me that the prescience of God and free arbitrement [266] accord without any opposition, and that results from the strength of eternity which encloses by enduring presence all times and all things that are, have been, and shall be in any time. “I would now,” I continued, “understand a little, since God thus foreknows all things, whether that knowledge results from those things, or else, those things are as a result of God’s knowledge—and if everything is through God’s knowledge and takes its being thereof, then God should be the maker and author of evil works, and so, as a result, He should not rightfully punish the evil doings of mankind.” Love replied, “I shall tell you this lesson to learn: my own true servant, the noble philosophical poet in English, Chaucer, who evermore occupies himself and works very hard to augment my name, wherefore all who bear me good will ought to do him honor and reverence both—truly, I could never find his better nor his peer in the school of my rules—he,” she continued, “in a treatise that he made of my servant Troilus, has touched on this matter and has solved this question completely. Certainly, I cannot amend his noble sayings. In goodness of manly speech, without any manner of nicety, of the fabler’s imagination [267] he surpasses all other makers in wit and in goodly reason of sentence and meaning. In the Book of Troylus, the answer to your question may you learn. “Nevertheless, your understanding may yet be easily instructed if you have knowledge of these hitherto discussed things: namely, if you have an understanding of the last two chapters of this second book—that is to say, good to be something in the sense of positive being and bad to want all manner of being (to be a privation of being), for bad is nothing else but the absence of good—and that God causes good deeds to be good in goodness, whereas in evil He causes that deeds be merely naught since they are bad (for badness is to be equal to nothing).” “I have,” I replied then, “enough knowledge in these matters. I need now to hear of other matters: that is to say, how I shall come to my bliss desired for so long.”

114 Book III: Chapter 5 lines 575-695 [267] “In this matter already discussed,” Love said, “I have shown clearly that every man has arbitrement of the things in his power to do or undo what pleases him. Out of this ground must come the shoot or sprout that shall, by process of time, spread in greatness to have branches and blossoms of swelling fruit in grace, of which the taste and the savor is the endless bliss of abiding in joy forever.” [268] “Now, Lady,” I said, “I would gladly learn how to set that tree.” “So you shall,” she replied, “before you depart hence. The first thing is that you must set your work on certain ground that is good and fertile and in accord with your shoots. For if you desire grapes you do not go to the hazelnut; nor do you seek oaks to fetch roses; and if you shall have honeysuckles, you leave the fruit of the sorrel. Wherefore, if you desire this bliss in perfect joy, you must set your purpose where virtue follows and not look after bodily goods, as I said when you were writing in your second book. And because you have set yourself in so noble a place and admitted in your heart completely the errors and mis-directions of your initial purpose, this slip is the easier to cultivate and grow and the more conveniently your soul can be healed in grace. And, truly, your desire, that is to say, your will, must at any rate be steadfast in this matter, without any change, for, if it is not steadfast, no man may deflect it.” “Yes, indeed,” I replied, “my will may be turned by fear and the disease of menace and by the threat of losing my life and limbs and by many other things that do not come to mind just at this moment. And, also, my desire must often be out of mind, for no remembrance may hold one thing in one’s heart continually no matter how intensely it is desired.” [269] “Now, see,” she resumed, “how your desire shall follow your free will to be grounded so as to abide continually. It is according to your free will that you love and have loved and shall still love this Margaret-pearl, and in your will you intend to hold it. Then your will is knit in Love, not to change for any new delight on the side: this will instructs your heart away from all manner of variance. But, then, although you are threatened with death or with something else, yet it is still in your arbitrement to choose to stray from your love or hold fast to it and this arbitrement is, in a manner, a debate between your desire and your heart. And if you decide such that your good will fails to love, then you are not worthy of any of the bliss that good will should deserve. And if you choose to continue in your good service, then your good will abides; necessarily, then, bliss following upon your good will must come by the strength of that decision. For your first or primary will that taught your heart to abide and held it from the shifting exchange is in accord with your reason. Truly, this manner of will shall abide in this way; it would be impossible for it to shift if your heart is true, and if every man diligently considers the meanings and intentions of his will, he shall understand very well that good will knit with reason is never deflected except in a

115 false heart. For the power and the might of keeping this good will lies through liberty of arbitrement in one’s heart, [270] but good will may not fail to keep. And, then, if it does fail, it shows itself that good will in keeping is not there. And thus false will that puts out the good eventually constrains the heart to accord with it in the loving proper to your good will; and this accord between false will and your heart results in their being likened together in falsity. “Still I will say a little more to you to lift and strengthen your good wills in good will. “Take heed how you shall understand your wills. Just as you have in your body various members and five individual senses, each separate for its own action, which you use as instruments—as, for example, your hands appropriate for handling, feet for going, tongue for speaking, eyes for seeing—just so, the soul has in it certain steerings and strengths which it uses as instruments for its particular actions. Reason is in the soul to be used for knowing and proving things and the will too for willing things; and yet neither will nor reason is the entire soul, but each is a thing by itself in the soul. And just as each has this singular instrument by itself, each has as well various propensities and various manners of application, and these propensities in the will may be called ‘affections.’ Affection is an instrument of willing in its appetites. Wherefore many people say that if a reasonable creature’s soul [271] fervently wills anything, it also wills affectuously. And thus the will may be understood in three ways through equivocal terms: one is as instrument of willing; another is as the affection of this instrument, its inclination; and the third is as the application that sets it to work. “Instrument of willing is that strength of the soul which constrains to will, just as the reason is the instrument of reason which you use when you reason, and the eye is the instrument of seeing which you use when you look. Affection of this instrument is a thing by which you are drawn through desire to will anything in a covetous manner— although, for the time being, it is out of mind, as if it comes into your thought to remember that thing, immediately you are willing to do it or else to have it. And thus is the instrument the will—and affection is the will also—to will a thing, as I said, as, for example, to will health, when the will is not even thinking about it, for immediately it comes to memory, it is in the will, and so is affection to will sleep when it is out of mind, but immediately it is remembered, will wills sleep when the time to sleep comes. For the affection of the will never accords itself with sickness nor does it desire always to be awake. Just so in a true lover’s affection of willing, the instrument is to will truth in his service, and this affection always abides, although he should be sleeping or threatened or else not concentrating on it; but as soon as it comes to mind, immediately he is steadfast to abide in that will. “The use of this instrument, in truth, is another thing to itself, and you do not have [272] that except when you are acting in a willed thing by the affect or instrument of a purposed will or an intended desire. And from this manner of usage in my service interfering people walled up in envy need prudently to be excluded, also

116 speakers full of gossipy words, and proud people, haughty, who scorn and despise lambs and innocents. Thus in action the acts of willing vary each from the other; and yet they are called will, and the name of will they ought to have without question, as the instrument of will is the will when you turn to purpose to accomplish anything, whether it be to sit down, to stand up or anything else like that. This instrument may be in effect, although the affect and the usage are not in action, just as you have sight and reason, and yet you do not always use sight to consider things for proving with reason. And so the instrument of will is will, and yet it differs from both effect and use. The affection of the will is also called the will, but it differs from the instrument in this manner, namely that when it comes to mind immediately it is desired in willing, and the negative thereof will not accord with willing. This is closed within the heart, though usage and the instrument sleep. This sleeps when the instrument and usage awaken; and of such manner affection, truly, some men have more and some, less. Certainly, true lovers assume always [273] that they have too little of it. False lovers assume that they have a great deal in just a little. Lo, the instrument of the will is proportioned evenly in both false and true lovers, but the affection is more in some than in others because of the goodness that follows—and later I intend to demonstrate that. “The use of this instrument is the will, but it takes its name when the thing willed is in action. But to catch the grace entirely so as to be rewarded in your desired bliss, you must have then affection of the will entirely and you must also have the use when its time asks prudently to be governed. Truthfully, my disciple, no man may be saved without fervent affection of the will. This affection of good service in good love may not be grounded either without fervent desire toward the thing coveted in the will. But he who never cares to have or not to have affection of the will in that has no resting place in that. Why? For when a thing comes to mind and no attention is paid to its coming or not coming, then, in that place, affection fails; and since that affection is little through which he should come to his grace in goodness, the littleness will not suffer it to avail by any means to his help—certainly grace and reason follow that affection. This affection, knit together with reason, endures in every true heart and is always increasing; no fear nor strength of duress may remove it [274] while truth abides in the heart. Indeed, when falsehood begins to enter, truth draws away, grace and joy, too, both; but then, it is the case that that falsehood which has voided the truth has unknit the bond of understanding reason between the will and the heart. And whoever undoes that bond and unknits that will so as to cause it to be in another purpose than that first accorded, knits himself with the contrary of reason, and that is unreason. Lo, then, will and unreason bring a man away from the bliss of grace, which every man ought to shun and eschew in his very nature and rather confirm himself to the knot of will and reason. “It seems to me,” she continued, “by your studious looks that you think to contradict me on the basis of other sayings heretofore entered in another place, as when you

117 were formerly in the affection of will toward things that have now brought you into distress, which I have since advised you to eliminate and free your heart from. And there I caused your will to change, which now you think I am arguing you should withhold and keep steady. Shortly, I say the opposite in these words of mine may not be found; for, though drunkenness is forbidden, men shall not always be without drink. I believe, precisely, that because you should not turn your will out of reason, your will should not for that abide always in one reason. I say that your will in your first purpose was locked in with unreason [275]—construe forth for the rest what pleases you best. Truly, that the will and reason should be knit together was a consequence of the free will of reason; after a while your heart assents to both of them. You might not change unless you deviate and vary from the rule of reason, in which case of variance, you would work the contrary of coming to that bliss you desire—and nothing but Love alone may know and be intimate with will and reason. Then, if you eliminate Love, you waive the bond that knits, and so, necessarily, or else at least very easily, that other goes asunder, wherefore you see openly that Love holds this knot and masters them to be bound together. These things are knit in your soul without separating like a ring in the circuit of a wreath.” “A, let be, let be,” I said, “it is not necessary to make any rehearsal of this; my soul is still in perfect bliss just in thinking of that knot.”

118 Book III: Chapter 6 lines 696-801 [275] ”Now, truly, Lady, I have understood my ground well, but what is that shoot that should grow into a tree? Explain to me what you mean by it.” “That I shall,” she replied, “happily—and pay good heed to the words I counsel you with. Continuing [276] in your good service, by a long process of time, abiding in complete hope the while, without willing any change in your heart: this is the shoot which, if it be well maintained and governed, shall so hugely spring up till the fruit of grace is plentifully bursting forth. For although your will be good, still that bliss you desire may not therefore hastily descend on you —it must abide its seasonable time. And so, by process of growth, with your good work tending it, it shall grow ever larger, until it be found so mighty that winds of evil speech and the scornings of envy may not overthrow it nor the travail invested in it, nor shall frosts of mistrust nor hails of jealousy have any power at all to harm such shoots. Every young plant is damaged easily with small storms, but when it has grown somewhat in stature, then great blasts and storms have but little might to cause them any disadvantage.” “My own sovereign Lady,” I said, “and wealth of my heart, if it were pleasing to your noble grace not to be offended thereby, I must say I suppose you err here. Now, you stipulate that jealousy is envy and a disturbance to those who are your servants. I have learned many times before this moment that in every lover’s heart, great plenty of jealousies and their sorrows are sown, wherefore [277] it seems to me that you ought not in any manner reckon that thing among these other swollen vipers and venomous serpents—such as envy, mistrust, and evil speech.” “O fool,” she retorted, “mistrust mixed with folly and evil will engenders that swollen toad. Truly, if they were destroyed, jealousy would be undone forever; and yet some manner of jealousy, I know very well, is always prompt in all the hearts of my true servants—for example, thus: to be jealous over himself lest he be the cause of his discomfit and unrest. Such jealousy as this should be kept fully in mind out of fear of losing his love by failing to maintain it through his own ignorant and unseemly action. Or else, again, thus: lest she whom you serve so fervently is installed there where she is better pleased, so that she cares not a jot for all your good service. These jealousies are judged acceptable qualities in the heart. Every true lover naturally ought to have them evermore in his mind until the grace and bliss of my service have descended on him completely at will. And he who then catches jealousy, or else mistrusts by mis-assumption of his own foolish willfulness, truly he is foully beguiled with fantasy of venom. Evil will has grounded that matter of sorrow in his ignorant soul, and yet, all the same, everyone should not[278] fully trust me nor fully misbelieve me—the mean of these things ought to be followed. Truthfully, without convincing evidence, mistrust in jealousy should not be assumed in any wise person commonly; such boorish wickedness should not find me. He who is wise and not

119 encumbered with evil will can abide his time well until grace and bliss following upon his service to me have eased him as much as his abiding patiently before has diseased him.” “Certainly, Lady,” I said then, “one thing causes me to wonder, since this bliss is so precious and naturally good and also well and worthy in its nature when it is mixed with Love and reason as you have explained heretofore. Why, as soon as one is sprung up high, does not also the other spring up? And as soon as the one comes, why is the other not received? For everything dislocated from its natural place naturally always comes to draw toward it with a full appetite, and its natural being constrains it thereto. And the natural seat of this bliss is admixed with such will to abide and necessarily in that it should have its natural being. Wherefore, it seems to me, as soon as that will proffers itself to be shown and made known, that bliss should hasten itself to receive that will, or else nature of goodness works [279] not in them as should be the case. Lo, let the sun be never so far away, it always performs its natural operation for the earth. A great weight carried high aloft never stops until it comes to its resting place. Waters to the sea are ever flowing; a thing that is light will not easily sink but always ascends and draws upward. Thus, nature in everything shows its proper course and its place of being. Wherefore, naturally, this bliss should descend on this good will as soon as it has sprung up, their nature being that they would dwell together, as you yourself have said.” “Certainly,” she said, “your heart aches sorely for this bliss and it is sorely aggrieved that it tarries so long; and if you dared, as it seems to me by your words, you would blame this bliss for it. But yet I say that this bliss is naturally good and its natural place is to abide in that will. Nevertheless, their coming together according to nature’s ordinance may not suddenly happen; it must wait its time, as nature gives leave, for as this will combined in a man began to show itself, if this bliss followed then in haste, so its coming easily should cause its departing just as easily: long time thirsting causes drink, when it is tasted at last, to be more delicious.” “How is it,” I replied then, “that I see regularly with my own [280] eyes, at first glance, so many blisses accord with such will? Indeed, and still, at other times, bliss assents singularly by itself with will where reason fails. There was no travail; service had no time to come to be. This is a strange manner of thing, how such an event comes about.” “O,” she resumed, “that happens thus. The earth naturally according to the season and the times of the year brings forth innumerable herbs and trees, both those that are profitable and those that are otherwise. But such as do not serve for nourishment to mankind or else such as turn soon into mankind’s confusion, in case they are tasted, men might leave, though they had come forth out of the earth by their own nature without any manner care or any business of labor. And the very herbs that serve men’s livelihoods, without which creatures in this life may not properly endure and which are most nourishing to mankind, these do not come out of the earth without great

120 travail, great tillage, and long growing times; and yet, as well, with seed ordained beforehand to make such herbs spring up and grow. Just so, the perfect bliss, that we have to abide in the time of duration, may not come so easily, but rather with great travail and extremely busy cultivation and with as well the sowing of good seed, for often the crop fails because of bad seed [281] no matter how hard the ground is worked. And that bliss you spoke of that comes so easily, truly, it is neither necessary nor abiding. And unless it is the more thoroughly stamped so that the venomous juice is wrung out, it is likely to poison all those who taste of it. Certainly, the herbs that appear first in the year of their own nature are very bitter. Far better is the harvest that yields much grain, though long and hard was the working of the ground. What would you think if a man would give three quarters of gold nobles—would that be a precious gift?” “Yes, indeed,” I replied. “And what about three quarters full of pearls?” she continued. “Certainly,” I said, “that would be a rich gift.” “And what about as much azure?” she said. “A very precious gift,” I said. “Would it not be,” she asked, “a noble gift to offer all of these at once?” “In good faith,” I said, “I cannot give a name to such preciousness for lack of an English equivalent to so noble a word.” “Correctly,” she said, “have you judged, and yet Love knit with virtue surpasses all the gold in the earth. Good will, accorded to reason, may not be opposed by any kind of property. All the azure in the world is to be accounted as nothing in respect of reason. Love that accords with good will and reason may not be improved by any earthly riches. This gift you have given, I know myself, and your Margaret-pearl has received this gift, and to reward it she has thus bound [282] herself. But, as I said, your gift may not by any kind of riches be improved; wherefore, similarly, you shall be rewarded by your Margaret-pearl’s righteousness with a thing that may not be improved. Justice never yet allowed it otherwise except every good deed is repaid at some time. Although your Margaret-pearl would not repay you with a reward, justice, that never dies, will provide your reward in merit. Certainly, such sudden bliss as you first mentioned, justice will reward it as is well worthy to you if you seek such, and although to your view it seems that the reward surpasses desert, justice can afterwards send such bitterness as will even out the reward. As a consequence, sudden bliss, by all reasonable paths, may not be accounted in great goodness, but bliss attained through long labor long abides and will last endlessly. Consider why. Your will is endless, for if you love always, your will is always abiding there and nevermore changing: equality of reward must be done by right, then your grace and this bliss must necessarily abide endlessly in joy. An equal measure of disease asks an equal measure of joy, which quickly you shall have.”

121 “Ah,” I said, “good will alone suffices not, no matter how well conjoined with reason it may be, unless it labors a long time in good service. And so through service men shall come to the joy, and this, it seems to me, should be the growing tree of which you first discoursed.” [283]

122 Book III: Chapter 7 lines 802-913 [283] “You have,” she said, “conceived the exact truth in these things in your heart; quickly you shall be able to receive true joy and perfect bliss. And now I know very well that you desire to know the type of branches that should spring from out of the tree.” “For that, Lady,” I replied, “I pray you heartily. For then I believe strongly that immediately thereafter I shall taste the fruit that I have desired for so long.” “You have heard,” she resumed, “in what manner—I have heretofore explained it— this tree takes root in the ground and then increases its stock in growing. First, the ground should be your free will fully present in your heart and the stock (as I said) should be your continuing in good service over a long period of time in labor until it should be grown very well in greatness. And when this tree shall have reached such a height as I have described, the branches then that should bring forth the fruit must necessarily be speech, in the voice of prayer employed in the manner of complaint or planctus.” “Out, alas!” I said then. “He is sorrowfully wounded who hides his speech and spares to utter his complaints. What, shall I utter the anxiety? But pain like hell-sore has assailed me, and so far has thrust me into pain that I believe my tree is sere and shall never bring forth fruit. Certainly, he [284] is greatly eased who dares discover his private grief to a true fellow who has understanding and also has might by means of which his complaint may in any way be ameliorated. And even more is he blessed with joy who dares complain with a heart of courage to his lady what anxieties he has suffered, by hope of mercy to be advanced with grace. Truly, I say for myself since I began to serve this Margaret-pearl I never dared reveal myself any manner of anxiety, and only now, much later, has my heart grown hardy enough to do such things, on account of the great bounties and worthy refreshments that she has often reckoned up for me out of her goodly grace without any merit on my part; and were her goodness not mixed even more with grace and with mercy, which surpass all merits, labors, and service that I might express in any degree, I would assume that I should be without recourse in acquiring this bliss for ever. Thus I have calmed my anxiety; thus I have covered my cares such that I burn in sorrowful unrest even as sparks and coals consume a fire by burning hotter under dead ashes—the fire is certainly hotter that is overlaid with ashes. For a very long time I have suffered this woe.” “Lo,” said Love, “how you fare! It seems to me that the palsy has encumbered your wits. As fast as you hasten forward, [285] suddenly anon you move backward. Shall your ignorance not yet out of your brains? Your skillful understanding is dull so has your will mastered your wit. “Do you not know very well,” she continued, “unless every tree shows from within its blossoms in its seasonable time of blooming in sign of what fruit should spring out

123 of it, the fruit for that year men consider destroyed, be the ground never so good? And though the stock be strong at full growth, if the branches are sere and show no buds, farewell the gardener! He may pipe with an ivy leaf, his fruit has failed. Wherefore, your branches must bloom in the presence of your lady if you desire any fruit of your lady’s grace, but beware of your life, so that you use no mad custom—as, for example, asking for things that tend to shame—for then you might not prosper by any means that I can see. Virtue will not suffer that villainy should spring out of it. Your words may not be curiously wrought nor be of subtlety for the understanding. Frail- witted people suppose that they are beguiled in such poesies. Every word must be used in open and clear understanding. Aristotle says ‘a word without clear understanding of meaning prints in the heart not at all.’ If then your words are to abide in the heart, plainly must you show them clearly in a complete sentence of true meaning and you must be always obedient to her commands and perform her will [286] and you must be set in such a wit as always to know by just a look what she means. And he who is satisfied not to speak but quietly suffers his malaise, what wonder it that he never comes to his bliss? Whoever travails unknown and desires a thing unknown, unknowing he shall be requited and rewarded with an unknown thing.” “Good Lady,” I replied then, “it has often been seen that bad weather and storms have befallen so hugely in blossoming time and by sheer duress have beaten the shoots down so completely, that the fruit of that year has failed. It is a great grace when buds have good weather to bring forth their fruits. Alas, then, how hard it is to wait after such storms until again the changing of the weather and the year has made its circuit all about, before any fruit can be tasted. He is abashed for shame who is foully rebuked for his speech. He who is burning in the fire suffers sorely for the discomfort. It seems to him terribly long before the water comes that should quench the fire. While men go after a physician the body is buried. Lo, how seemly this fruit grows; it seems to me that no man may taste of those fruits on account of the pure bitterness in their flavor. In this manner, both the fruit and the tree waste away together though much busy occupation [287] may have been spent to bring it up so far that it was able to bloom. A little speech has caused it that all this labor is in vain.” “I do not know,” she replied, “what good it would do to answer your question. It seems to me that you are duller in your wits now than when I first met with you. Although a man is uncultured, commonly he is not reckoned for a fool unless he will learn no good. Idiots and fools easily let out of their minds the good that men teach them. I said, therefore, that your stock must be strong and well-hearted in greatness; the tree is very feeble that falls at the first dent of the ax. And although fruit fails for one or two years, such a season shall yet come one time or another that shall bring out fruit. Have I not, fool, said this before? As time hurts, just so, on another occasion, time heals and rewards, and a tree that has often failed is considered of greater value when it brings forth fruit finally. A merchant who, on account of one loss at sea,

124 intends to venture no more, shall never by venturing come to wealth. Men must strike on the oak frequently until the fortunate stroke has entered which causes the oak with its own sway to come down all at once. So the water acting Lethe-like often falls on the hard rock until it has pierced through it. The even drawing of the wire- drawer [288] makes the wire smooth and supple in its working, and if he stopped in his drawing, the wire would break asunder. Every tree springs up well when it is well- grounded and not frequently transplanted.” “What,” I asked, “shall this fruit be now that it has begun to ripen?” “Grace,” she replied, “to endure in perfect joy and you to be therewith well beset.” “Grace?” I said. “It seems to me I should have a reward for my long travail.” “I shall tell you,” she said, “to have requital of your good intentions toward her from your Margaret-pearl—this is not a matter of reward but only of good grace, and that comes not from your desert but only from your Margaret-pearl’s goodness and virtue.” I said: “Should all my long travail have no reward except through grace? Earlier you yourself said that justice evenly rewards by requiting one benefit with another.” “That is true,” said Love, “now as ever, just as I said, regarding him who does good without having been either beholden or yet constrained to do it.” “That is true,” I said. “Truly,” she continued, “all that you ever do for your Margaret-pearl, either of will or of love or of reason, you ought to do it, yet it is nothing else but yielding your debt in repayment of your grace which she lent to you when you first met.” “I think,” I said, “that she gave me very little grace. Certainly, it was hard grace; it has nearly strangled me.” [289] “I am convinced that you will grant that it was good grace before you depart hence. If any man should give to another man a garment or a coat, a man to whom he owes nothing and who of himself may own nothing he is so poor, though he wears the coat or else that article of clothing, it is not proper to assign to him who was naked the cause of his clothing but rather only to him who was the giver of the garment. Wherefore I say that you who were naked of Love and might have none in and of yourself, it is not to be assigned to your own person that you have love since your love came through your Margaret-pearl. Therefore, she was the giver of the love, although you use it, and there she lent you the grace to begin your service. She is worthy the gratitude for this grace, for she was the giver. All the thoughts, solicitous action, and pleasures you can devise in your might and in your words are merely tiny in the repayment of your debt—had she not been, such things had not been considered. So all these matters naturally draw homeward toward this Margaret-pearl, for from her they were borrowed: all the love that you have is entirely owing to her. And thus you repay your debt in that you serve her steadfastly. And keep well that love, I counsel you, which you have borrowed from her, and use it in her service to repay your debt, and then you will be able to have grace very soon—wherefore [290] you may not look

125 for material reward on any side. Thus the beginning and the ending are but grace alone and you quit your debt in your good deserving. Without grace nothing is worthwhile, whatever you perform. Thank your Margaret-pearl for her great grace that has guided you hitherto and pray to her for continuance of it hereafter in your deeds and also pray that your grace does not adversely turn for the worse on account of some mishap. Grace, glory, and joy come through the deserts of good folk, and in getting grace shall they, the deserts, attain their end. And what is greater glory or more joy than wisdom and Love in perfect charity granted by God to all those who can well deserve them?” And with that this lady all at once moved into my heart: “Here will I abide,” she said, “forever and I will never go hence, and I will keep you from confusion while it pleases me to abide here: your meddling manners shall be changed into steadfastness.”

126 Book III: Chapter 8 lines 914-1051 [290] Soberly then I cast up my eyes and I was greatly astonished at this sudden adventure and I would gladly have learned how virtues should be known, in which [291] things I hope to God that she shall hereafter inform me—and especially now that her resting place is so near my will. And immediately all these things that this lady said I remembered by myself and I turned them over, lines inscribed on my understanding and wits. Then I found all of these matters written there completely and thoroughly: how misrule has governed both realms and cities by feigned love for a long time; how easily one might espy the faults; how rules in Love should be used; how formerly I was beguiled by feigned love; how I should have known Love; and how I shall proceed in Love with my service. Also, furthermore, I found there wonderfully engraved with perdurable letters these matters which I shall name. Certainly, no age nor other thing in earth may the least syllable of this deface in any particular, but as clearly as the sun they shine in my understanding soul. This may never leave my mind now, how I may not otherwise keep my love except through willing it in my heart: I may not will to love unless I have loving in my heart. I have no love except through the grace of this Margaret-pearl. There can be no doubt that will will not love unless it is loving, as will will not will justly unless it is just itself. Also, the will is not loving because it will love, but it will love because it is loving. It is all one, to will to [292] be loving and to have loving in possession. Just so, the will will not love if it has no part of Love in it, and yet I do not deny the loving will to will to have more Love which it does not currently have, when it would have more than it has, but I say it may will no love if it has no Love already, through which it should will that love. But no man in and of himself may have this loving will, but only through precedent grace; just so, no man may keep it but through subsequent grace. Let every man consider now rightly and see if anyone may get this loving will of himself, if he at first has nothing thereof, for if it should spring of himself, either it must be from his willing or not willing. Willing by himself he may not have it since he lacks the matter that should bring it forth—the matter fails him. Why? He may have no knowledge thereof until grace puts it in his heart. Thus willing by himself he may not have it and not willing he may not have it. Indeed, every conceit of every reasonable creature will not otherwise grant it: to will and not will may not accord in any way. And although this loving will come into my heart by the freedom of arbitrement, as is fully demonstrated in this book, yet I ought not therefore applaud my free will as much as the grace loaned to me by that Margaret-pearl. For [293] neither might I get nor keep this grace without grace precedent and subsequent, and I shall never lose it unless free will causes it, as in willing otherwise than grace has granted me to will. For just as when any person takes willing to be sober and throws that away, willing to be drunk, or else takes willing to drink out of

127 measure, as soon as this thing is done, it causes him to lose his grace through his own guilt by free will. In this thing, therefore, I must trust upon the nobility of grace, and set my anxious care to keep that grace so that my free will, should it work otherwise than by reason, not cause my grace to void. For thus I must look both to free will and to grace. For just as natural usage in engendering children may not be without father nor without mother, since it may lack for neither father nor mother in begetting, just so grace and free will accord, and without either of them, loving will may not be got in any part. But yet, free will in getting of that thing is not so much worthy of thanks as is grace, nor does it deserve so much thanks in keeping it, and yet in getting and keeping both they do accord. Truly, oftentimes grace helps free will in destroying those contrary things that do not accord with willing Love, and grace also strengthens the will [294] to resist adversities, wherefore altogether whatever my willing deserves ought to be accredited to grace. In this manner is free will to loving accorded. I remember well how all this book, whoever takes heed, considers how all things accord evenly to the workings of mankind, as in the turning of this word “love” into “truth” or else “righteousness,” whichever seems appropriate. For whatever falls to man in helping free arbitrement, to take that righteousness or else to keep it, through which a man shall be saved, concerning which the whole book has made mention in every point—thereof grace ought be thanked. Wherefore I say that everyone who has this righteousness is righteous, and yet I do not feel therefore in my conscience that the everlasting bliss is promised to all the righteous but only to them who are righteous without any unrighteousness whatsoever. Some men may justly be accounted as chaste after a certain degree and yet they are loose-lipped and pressed full of envy. This bliss shall never be delivered to them. For just as true bliss is without all manner of need, just so it shall be given to no man but the just, found devoid of all manner of unrighteousness; so no man shall succeed to her bliss unless he is just and [295] not bound with unrighteousness and fully acknowledged as such. This righteousness, inasmuch as in himself it is, is the cause of no evil and, truly, it is the mother of all manner of goodness. This helps the spirit to resist the vile lusts of fleshly pleasure. This strengthens and maintains the law of nature, and if at other times it seems to me that harm follows this precious thing, it is nonetheless not the cause in any way—it comes about from something else, whoever rightly pays attention to the matter. By righteousness, indeed, many holy saints were good savor of sweetness unto God almighty, but to some people they were savor of death unto a mortal end. That, however, came not of the saints’ righteousness but proceeded from other wicked men’s badness. Truly, the same will that the Lady of Love taught me to call “affection of will,” which is in willing of profitable things, it is not evil except when it consents to fleshly lusts against the reason of the soul. But in order that this thing more clearly may be understood, it is necessary to know whence and how that will is so vicious and so ready to perform evil deeds. At the

128 beginning, grace ordained that will to have endured forever in goodness and to have never assented to badness. Men should not believe that God made that will to be vicious in our first father, understood as Adam [296] and Eve. For vicious appetites and vicious will consenting to such appetites are not the same thing in nature—one is a different thing from the other and acts independently. And how this will first entered man for man to assent to it I consider it profitable to show. But if the original condition of the reasonable creature is considered and looked at attentively, the cause of such a will may easily be shown. God’s intention was that the reasonable nature should be made justly and blessedly to maintain itself, but without will in them, Adam and Eve both, neither blessed nor just might it be. The will of justice is that same justice as has been shown heretofore. But the will of bliss is not that bliss, for every man does not have that bliss in whom the will for it is abiding. In this bliss, according to everyone’s understanding, is a sufficiency of convenient advantages without any manner of need, whether it be bliss of angels or else that which grace first suffered Adam in Paradise to have. For although angels’ [297] bliss was more than Adam’s was in Paradise, yet it may not be denied that Adam had sufficient bliss in Paradise. For just as a great heart is without all manner of coldness and yet another heart may have more heat, just so nothing prevented Adam in Paradise from having been blessed without any manner of need. Although angels’ bliss is much greater, in truth, it follows not, then, another to have less and therefore he suffers need, but to lack a thing which it is necessary for him to have, that may be called need and that was not Adam’s condition at the primal origin. God and the Margaret-pearl know what I mean. Indeed, where there is need, there is wretchedness. God, without cause preceding His decision, did not make the reasonable creature wretched, for He had made him first to understand and to love. God, therefore, made man blessed, without any manner of indigence. Together and at once, the reasonable creature received bliss and the will of blessedness, and the will of righteousness, which is righteousness itself, and liberty of arbitrement, which is free will, with which he may keep and lose that righteousness. So, and in that manner, God ordained those two that will, the two affections, which are called instruments (as heretofore mention was made), that they should use that righteousness by teaching his soul to good manner of governance in thought and in words and that it should use the bliss received in an obedient manner, without any inconvenience or disadvantage. Indeed, God delivered at once bliss to man’s profit and righteousness to his honor. But righteousness was so given [298] that man might lose it, which if he had not lost it but continually had kept it, he should have deserved advancement into the fellowship of angels. In this matter, if he did lose it, he should never by himself thereafter be able to recover it again, and both the bliss that he was in and the angels’ bliss that was coming to him, should be taken away at once, and he deprived of them both. And thus man fell into the likeness of unreasonable beasts, and with them he was subjected to corruption and undesirable

129 appetites. But yet the will of bliss dwells still, so that he should by right be punished by great wretchedness through the lack now of the goods which he lost. And thus, because he abandoned righteousness, he has lost his bliss, but he may not fail of his desire for his own advantage, and thus where advantages for his reasonable nature, which he has lost, he may not have, he is turned toward false lusts which are bestial appetites. The folly of ignorance has beguiled him into assuming that those are the advantages that ought to be desired. This affection of the will is induced by liberty of arbitrement to will thus a thing that he should not will, and so the will is not made evil but unjust by the absence of righteousness, which by reason he should always have. And the freedom of arbitrement [299] he may not will when he does not have it, for while he had it that did not help him to keep it, so that it may not be recovered without grace. The will for advantages, inasmuch as it is made unjust by willing evil lusts, may not will the will of goodness, for the will of instrument is enthralled to the will of affection since it may not will that other thing. For the will of instrument desires toward affection and yet both are called will. For what instrument wills, through affection it wills, and affection desires that thing toward which the instrument leads it. And so free will is made servant to undesirable affection, since it may not relieve itself from it on account of unrighteousness; and without righteousness, it may never have complete freedom. For natural liberty of arbitrement is vain and idle without it, certainly. Wherefore, I say still, as I have often said exactly the same, when the instrument of will has lost righteousness, it may return again to will righteousness in no manner other than by grace. For since it should will nothing but righteousness only, whatever it wills without righteousness it wills unjustly. These unjust appetites and unthrifty lusts which flesh desires, then, inasmuch as they are natural, they are not bad, but because they are in a reasonable [300] creature, where their being should in no way be allowed, they are unjust and bad. In unreasonable beasts, they are neither evil nor unjust, for there they have their natural being.

130 Book III: Chapter 9 lines 1052-1129 [300] It may well be known now by these things heretofore declared that man does not always have that righteousness which, by duty of right, he should have evermore, and he may not get it or keep it by himself in any way. And after he has it, if he loses it, he shall never recover it without special grace. Wherefore, the common sentence of the people expressing the opinion that everything is ruled according to destiny is false and is wicked to believe.

Usk (I translate here without emendation.) St. Anselm (line 1056) For though predestination pertains (197) . . . we must notice that as well to the good as to the bad, since it is predestination can be said [to said God made badness, which He never did, apply] not only to good men but but for He suffers them to be made, as He also to evil men—even as God is hardens when he does not missay anything, or said to cause (because He permits) led into temptation when He does not deliver. evils which He does not cause. For Wherefore, it is not inappropriate if, in that He is said to harden a man when manner, it is said that God has fore-destined He does not soften him, and to both the bad and their bad works when He lead him into temptation when He neither amends for them their evil deeds nor does not deliver him. Hence, it is loans them grace thereto. But predestination is not inappropriate if in this manner predicated particularly of goodness we say that God predestines vile alone [301] by these great clerks, for in him men and their evil works when He God causes them that they be, and that they does not correct them and their work in goodness. (line 1064) evil works. But He is more properly said to foreknow and to predestine good works, because in them He causes both what they are [essentially] and the fact that they are good.

(line 1064) But the negative hereof is held in badness, as the Lady of Love has taught me, as whoever looks in this book aright will see. And absolutely it is to know that properly predestination in God may not be judged to exist any more than foreknowledge. For in the chapter concerning God’s foreknowledge all these matters, as Love rehearsed them to me, may openly be found. All these are, for God, now wholly at once and together and enduring in the present. Truly, the present and predestination do not fail to accord in any particular, wherefore, as I was taught how God’s foreknowledge and free choice of the will may stand together without

131 contradiction, it seems to me that the same reasoning leads me to see that destiny and free will accord so that neither of them contradicts the other in any particular. And it may not be reasonably judged that, as often as any event happens, with free will in operation—as, for example, if a man wrongfully annoys another man, wherefore he slays him—that it has been constrained to that end, as many people cry and say, “Lo, as it was destined by God who foreknew it, so it has happened through necessity, and it may not have turned out otherwise.” Truly, neither he who wrought the wrong nor he [302] who avenged himself did none of these things through necessity. For if the one with free will had not willed it there, neither had the other done what he did. And so, absolutely, grace that brings free will in goodness and maintains it and turns it away from badness deserves most thanks in all things. This grace makes saints abide in virtue, wherefore, after the day of judgment, they shall dwell endlessly in the everlasting joy in full abundance of knowledge in both body and soul according to their good deserving; and they shall become learned in that kingdom with so much affect of Love and of grace that the least in joy shall rejoice of the greatest in glory and be as glad as if he had the same joy. What wonder? since God is the greatest Love and He shall be the greatest wisdom in them, and they in God. Now, then, when all false folk shall be ashamed, who assume all bestiality and earthly things are sweeter and better for the body than heavenly things are to the soul, this is the grace and the fruit that I have desired for so long: it does me good to smell the savor of it. Christ, I cry to you now for mercy and for grace; and grant of your goodness that every manner of reader has full understanding in this uncultivated pamphlet and let no man assume any other cause in this work than is indeed the truth. For envy is always ready to tear asunder innocents; [303] wherefore I would that good speech should hinder envy always. But let no man assume that this work is sufficiently made, for God’s work surpasses man’s. No man’s wit may in any way purvey the end of a perfect work. How should I, then, assume at all to get any end of perfection so ignorant as I am. Nevertheless, grace, glory and praise I yield and assign with worshipful reverence to the true God in three persons, in unity enclosed, who has turned the heavy languor of my sickness into the mirth of health for recovery. For just as I was in sorrow through the gluttonous cloud of manifold sickly grief, so mirth of returning health has gladdened me and greatly comforted me. I beseech and pray, therefore, and I cry upon God’s great pity and on his huge mercy that this present scourging of my flesh may provide medicine and healing for my inner man’s health, so that my former trespasses and trials may be washed away through the weeping of my eyes, and I may be rid of all manner of disease, and no more weep at last. Hereafter I hope I will now be kept through God’s grace, so that God’s hand, which has out of mercy scourged me, hereafter will out of mercy keep me from scourging and defend me in good condition. In this book many secret things are veiled and folded. Hardly shall ignorant men the folds unwind, wherefore I pray to the Holy Ghost that He [304] will loan his

132 ointments to clear men’s wits; and for God’s love, let no man wonder why or how this question came to my mind, for my great and burning desire was to be informed by this lady in order to amend my ignorance. Certainly, I do not know other men’s minds as to what I should ask or what I should say in answer. I am so ignorant myself that I still need much more learning. I have composed therefore as I could, but not sufficiently as I would, and as the matter gave me sentence and meaning, for my dull wit is hindered by the stepmother of forgetting and with the cloud of unknowing that blocks the light of my Margaret-pearl, wherefore it may not shine on me as it should. I desire not only a good reader, but also I covet and pray for a good book-amender for the correction of my words and meaning. And I covet only this reward for my travail that everyone who looks into or hears this uncultured fantasy yield in my behalf devout orisons and prayers to God the great judge and pray for me in such a way that my sins may be released and forgiven in His judgment. He who prays for another labors as well for himself. Also I pray that every man may know perfectly through what intention of my heart I have drawn out this treatise. How was it that [305] visible Manna was spiritual meat to the children of Israel in the desert?—it was also bodily meat, for it nourishes men’s bodies. And yet, nevertheless, it signified Christ. Just so a jewel betokens a gem and that is a virtuous stone or else a pearl: Margaret, a woman, betokens grace, learning, or the wisdom of God, or else holy church. If bread through virtue is made holy flesh, what is it that our God says? It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh profits nothing. Flesh is fleshly understanding; flesh is worth nothing without grace and Love. The letter slays, the spirit gives life-affirming understanding. Charity is Love and Love is charity. God grant us all that we may therein be befriended. And thus The Testament of Love is ended.

Thus ends The Testament of Love.

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