Pregueres d'amor: De bonea e amor
Prayers of Goodness and Love
The Friend prays to Love and the Beloved for the growth of good love, personal transformation, and the spread of virtue.
The Friend was in pain and in sadness, because the Beloved had so few lovers, given that his Beloved is of such great greatness of goodness and love that he ought to be loved, honored, and served by many good and great lovers; and for this reason the Friend prayed Love, with very good and great loving, to make many good and great lovers fall in love with his Beloved.1 ii. The Friend prayed Love to endure in his loving, so that his love might multiply in goodness; for the goodness of love cannot grow without lasting. iii. "Beloved," said the lover, "without your goodness and power I can't have the good love I desire to love you with; so I ask the power of your good love to give me the power of good love with which I can love you, and with which I can love the good and unlove the evil."2 iv. The Friend prayed that the Beloved would make known the goodness of His love; for when the goodness of love is known, it strengthens lovers to bear hardships and languors for love. v. The Friend prayed to his Beloved to heal his will with the goodness of love, which is a medicine that casts out of the will the evil thoughts, imaginings, and loves that make the will sick. 6. My beloved, the Lover said: since you want to be loved by me, and you cannot be loved without the goodness of love, nor can love be good without virtues, give me the virtues through which I can love you. vii. The Lover prayed the Beloved's goodness and truth to make his loving good and true, because without them he didn't want to love his Beloved.3 viii. The Lover prayed to the Beloved's goodness and glory, asking them to make the love with which he loved his Beloved good and glorious, so that his love might find its good rest in the Beloved.4 ix. The Lover asked good Love to reveal to him the nature by which she inherently contained within herself the distinction of lover and beloved, for such a revelation was good for loving greatly. x. Valor of Love said: "Good Love, show the lovers the nature you have through the concordance of lover and beloved, so that they may know how to bring their good loves into concordance with it."5 xi. Flower of love prayed to good love to make good lovers who would love a good beloved. xii. The Lover prayed the greatest Lord of love and goodness to fill the world with good love and cast bad love out of it; for all good love begins with loving well, and all bad love begins with loving badly. 13. The Lover prayed that his loving would remain in the midst of good love, so that it could not share in loving badly. 14. The Lover was praying Goodness and Love's End to clothe his loving for him, with which he wanted to go see his Beloved and have good rest in him.67 15. The Maiden of Love asked the Lover to love his Beloved with greater goodness and love, and to send his loving through her to the greatest Beloved, whom she so longed to honor and serve. xvi. The Lover prayed that Goodness and Love would accompany him in his works, for with them, their lovers could destroy evil and sin.8 17. The Lover wanted to be a good and great lover, and he prayed that lesser goodness would not be his intimate companion; for intimacy with lesser goodness hinders the intimacy of greater friendship between the Lover and the Beloved.9
Read the original Catalan
En dolor e en tristicia estava lamic, per so car lamat avia tan pocs amadors, com sia so que son amat sia en tan gran granca de bontat e amor, que per molts bons e grans amadors deuria ésser amat honrat e servit; e per aysò lamic pregà l amor, ab molt bo e gran amar, que enamoràs de son amat molts bons e grans amadors.
ij. Pregà lamic amor que duràs en son amar, per so que la sua amor pogués montiplicar en bontat; car bontat damor sens duració no pot créxer.
iij. Amat, dix lamic: sens vostra bontat e poder jo no pusc aver bona amor, ab la qual vos desir amar; e per aysò deman al poder de vostra bona amor quem do poder de bona amor ab que us pusca amar, e que ab él pusca amar be, e desamar mal.
iiij. Pregava lamic lamat que la bonea de sa amor feés ésser coneguda; cor quant bonea damor es coneguda, enfortex los amadors a sostenir trebayls e langors per amor. V. Pregà lamic son amat que li sanàs sa volentat ab bontat damor, qui es medicina qui gita de volentat males cogitacions ymaginacions e amors qui fan volentat ésser malauta.
vj. Amat, dix lamic: pus vols per mi ésser amat, e tu no pots ésser amat sens bontat damor, ni amor no pot ésser bona sens vertuts, dona m vertuts ab quet pusca amar.
vij. Bonea e veritat de lamat, pregà lamic, que li bonificassen e verificassen son amar, car sens eles no volia amar son amat.
viij. Pregava lamic la bonea e glòria de son amat que li bonificassen e li gloriejassen l amor ab que amava son amat, per so que en lamat agués sa amor bon repòs. viiij. Pregà lamic bona amor que li revelàs la natura per la qual avia essencialment en sí metexa diferencia damic e damat, car aital revelació era bona a molt amar. X. Bona amor, dix valor d amor: la natura que avetz per concordansa damic e damat, mostratsla als amadors, per so que sapien ab ela concordar lurs bones amors.
xj. Flor d amor pregava bona amor que feés bons amadors qui amassen bo amat.
xij. Pregà lamic lo major senyor d amor e bontat que umplís lo mon de bona amor, e quen gitàs mala amor; car tota bona amor comensa bo amar, e tota mala amor comensa mal amar.
xiij. Pregà lamic son amar que estegués en lo mig loc de bona amor, per so que ab mal amar no pogués participar. xiiij. Pregava lamic bonea e fi damor que li vestisscn son amar, ab lo qual volia anar veer son amat e en él aver bo repòs. XV. Donzela damor pregà lamic que amàs son amat ab major bontat e amor, e que trameses son amar per ela al major amat, lo qual desirava molt honrar e servir.
xvj. Bonea e amor, pregà lamic, que segualassen en ses obres, car ab eles porien lurs amadors destruir mal e peccat.
xvij. Volc csser lamic bo e gran amador, e pregà menor bontat que no fos sa privada; car privadea de menor bontat empatxa privadea de major amistat damic e damat.
Notes
- 1 ↩Source reading "granca" is taken as Old Catalan "granea" (greatness), matching the work's bonea/granea rubric elsewhere; sense: greatness of goodness and love.
- 2 ↩Rendered as the Llullian contrast 'love the good / unlove the evil' (bé/mal as objects). An adverbial reading ('love well / unlove badly') is far less plausible in context; desamar is kept as 'unlove' rather than softened to 'hate' or 'reject'.
- 3 ↩Catalan bonificassen / verificassen are Llullian coinages: endow with goodness and make true (or verify). Rendered here as 'make … good and true' to keep the paired technical force without inventing English neologisms.
- 4 ↩Catalan bonificassen / gloriejassen are Llullian coinages from bonea and glòria: endow with goodness and glorify. Rendered as 'make good and ... glorify' to keep the paired technical force, parallel to bonificassen / verificassen at LlullArbreAmor.1.50.6.
- 5 ↩valor d'amor rendered as the personified 'Valor of Love', matching elsewhere-capitalized Valor; concordansa kept as 'concordance' for Llull's technical correlative.
- 6 ↩Source reading vestisscn is treated as vestissen (3rd pl. imperfect subjunctive of vestir, 'to clothe').
- 7 ↩Catalan fi damor is rendered as Love's End (the end/purpose of love as a personified figure in Llull's allegory).
- 8 ↩Old Catalan 'segualassen' (cf. 'segualen' at 1.28.2) taken as imperfect subjunctive of seguir: 'follow along / accompany'. 'ses obres' read as the Lover's works.
- 9 ↩Source reading csser treated as ésser (‘to be’); medieval Catalan volc ésser = ‘wanted to be’.
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