Tuesday, November 21, 2017

Marguerite Porete - He is, and I am not

 
Leonardo da Vinci  Annunciazione


Thought is no longer of worth to me,
nor work, nor speech.
Love draws me so high
(thought is no longer of worth to me)
with her divine gaze,
that I have no intent.
Thought is no longer of worth to me,
nor work nor speech.
Love has made me find by nobility
these verses of a song.
It is [of] the Deity pure,
about whom Reason knows not how to speak,
and of a Lover,
which I have without a mother,
who is the issue
of God the Father
and of God the Son also.
His name is Holy Spirit,
from whom I possess such joining in the he art,
that He causes joy to remain in me.
It is the peace of the nourishment
which the Lover gives in loving.
I wish to ask nothing of Him,
to do so would be too wretched of me.
Instead I owe Him total faith
in loving such a Lover.
O Lover of gentle nature,
you are to be much prized:
generous, courteous without measure,
sum of all goodness,
you do not will to do anything,
Lover, without my will.
and thus I must not hold silence
about your beauty and goodness.
Powerful you are for my sake, and wise;
such I cannot hide.
Ah, but to whom will I say it?
Seraphim know not how to speak of it

Lover, you have grasped me in your love,
to give me your great treasure,
that is, the gift of your own self,
which is divine goodness.
heart cannot express this,
but willing pure nothingness purifies [the heart],
which makes me climb so high,
by union in concordance,
which I ought never to reveal.

I used to be enclosed in the servitude of captivity,
When desire imprisoned me in the will of affection.
There the light of ardor from divine love found me,
Who quickly killed my desire, my will and affection,
which impeded in me the enterprise of the fullness of divine love.

Now has Divine Light delivered me from captivity,
and joined me by gentility to the divine will of Love,
there where the Trinity gives me the delight of His love.
This gift no human understands, As long as he serves any Virtue whatever,
or any feeling from nature, through practice of reason.
O my Lover, what will Beguines say and religious types,
when they hear the excellence of your divine song?
Beguines say I err, priests, clerics, and Preachers,
Augustinians, Carmelites, and the Friars Minor,
Because I wrote about the being of the one purified by love.
I do not make Reason safe for them, who makes them say this to me.
Desire, Will, and Fear surely take from them the understanding,
the out-flowing, and the union of the highest Light
of the ardor of divine love.
Truth declares to my heart
that I am loved by One alone,
and she says that it is without return
that He has given me His love.
This gift kills my thought
by the delight of His love,
which delight lifts me and transforms me throughout union
Into eternal joy of the being of divine Love.
And Divine Love tells me that she has entered within me,
a nd so she can do whatever she wills,
such strength she has given me,
from One Lover whom I possess in love
to whom I am betrothed,
who wills that He loves,
and for this I will love Him.
I have said that I will love Him.
I lie, for I am not.
it is He alone who loves me:
He is, and I am not;
and nothing more is necessary to me
than what he wills,
and that He is worthy.
He is fullness,
and by this am I impregnated.
This is the divine seed and Loyal Love.


The mirror of simple souls 
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