Ascensiones ad virtutes a frigore orientis.
The Ladder of Ascent
Fear, pain, and love are depicted beside ascending ladders, while virtues are arranged within the fields beside them.
First, from the cold of the east, fear climbs up against the scroll, stripped bare, having cast down the trappings of pride, because of the fire and the worms that are depicted beneath the foot of the ladder. On the second ladder, pain is depicted, and beside it the Babylonian captivity, beginning from Joachim, and descending obliquely all the way to the foot of the second ladder, and there going out from the ark into Babylon, whose location is marked in the same place on the map of the world. Beside the third ladder, love is depicted like one of the virgins with a burning lamp and a vessel of oil, awaiting the coming of the bridegroom. Each of the virtues, however, with one hand stretched upward, expresses the gesture of one ascending. In this connection a distinction must also be noted, because people climb on the ladders, while the virtues are arranged beside the ladders, within, across the fields.
Vices and Virtues in the West
A woman shaded by a branch is assailed by an inciter of vices, while patience and mercy are shown on the ladders.
In the heat of the west, beside the foot of the first ladder, a certain woman, naked, fully mature, proceeds from a cave, shaded by the leaves of the aforementioned branch, against whom an inciter of vices from the side emits fire from mouth and nostrils, to represent desire.1 A little higher on the same ladder, a certain naked man is beaten with rods, to represent patience. On the second ladder, a certain man gives alms, to signify mercy.
Compunction and Humility
A figure beats his breast in prayer to represent compunction, and all virtues must look upward to avoid human praise.
On the third step someone is shown in the posture of a person at prayer, beating his breast, to represent compunction. All the virtues, however, must look upward, so that nothing is done for human praise.
From Ignorance to Contemplation
Ignorance shatters the soul's vessel, but knowledge, meditation, and contemplation restore it through the fire of divine love.
From the cold of the west, at the foot of the first step, someone comes out of a cave with a covered face, falls, and strikes a stone, smashing the vessel he carries — representing ignorance, which shatters the soul's wholeness through various wanderings. After this, on the same step, knowledge is pictured standing upright against the scroll that is held out with its hand pointing downward, and beside it, fragments of the vessel. In this scroll, as we have said, it is written, In the beginning God created heaven and earth — because the first knowledge of God is found in created things.✦ On the second step, meditation is pictured sitting and gathering the fragments of the broken vessel. On the third step, contemplation is shaped like a craftsman melting down those same fragments, so that the molten flow through the channel of color (which we directed upward along the edge of this step) seems to run through a pipe into the middle of the cubit, as if into a coin being struck. By this mystery: the wholeness of the soul that ignorance shatters, knowledge finds, meditation gathers together, and contemplation, through the fire of divine love, melts it down and pours it, to be reformed into the coin of God's likeness.
Read the original Latin
Primum a frigore orientis timor contra volumen nudus ascendit, exuviis superbiae deorsum abjectis, propter ignem et vermes, qui sub pede scalae depicti sunt. In secunda scala depingitur dolor, et juxta eum transmigratio Babylonis incipiens a Joachim, et ita oblique descendens usque ad pedem secundae scalae, ibique exiens ab arca in Babylonem, cujus situs in mappa mundi ibidem constat. Juxta tertiam scalam amor pingitur quasi una de virginibus cum ardente lampade et vase olei, expectans adventum sponsi. Singulae autem virtutes, una manu sursum porrecta, gestum ascendentis exprimunt. In hoc etiam differentia attendenda est, quia in scalis ascendunt homines, juxta scalas intrinsecus per campos disponuntur virtutes. In calore occidentis juxta pedem primae scalae mulier quaedam nuda pubetenus de caverna procedit foliis supradicti rami obumbrata, contra quam a latere incentor vitiorum ignem de ore et naribus emittit, ad exprimendam concupiscentiam. Paulo altius in eadem scala nudus quidam virgis caeditur, ad exprimendam patientiam. In secunda scala quidam eleemosynam largitur, ad significandam misericordiam.
In tertia scala quidam in similitudine orantis pectus tundens describitur, ad compunctionem denotandum. Omnes autem virtutes sursum respicere debent, ut pro humana laude nihil fiat. A frigore occidentis juxta pedem primae scalae quidam de caverna obvoluta facie prodiens corruit, et in lapidem offendens, vas quod portat confringit, ad exprimendam ignorantiam, quae per varios errores animae integritatem dissipat. Post haec in eadem scala cognitio erecta pingitur contra volumen, quod deorsum extenta manu porrigitur, et juxta eam fragmenta vasis. In hoc volumine, sicut diximus, scriptum est: In principio fecit Deus coelum et terram, quia primo cognitio Dei in creaturis est. In secunda scala meditatio sedens exprimitur, et colligens fragmenta vasis fracti. In tertia scala contemplatio formatur ad similitudinem fabri, conflans eadem fragmenta, ita ut liquefactio per ductum coloris (quem superius juxta versum hujus scalae sursum porreximus) quasi per fistulam in medium cubitum, quasi in monetam currere videatur. Propter hoc mysterium, quia integritatem animae, quam ignorantia frangit, cognitio invenit, meditatio colligit, contemplatio per ignem divini amoris liquefaciendo in monetam divinae similitudinis reformandam fundit.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Gen.1.1 — In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
Notes
- 1 ↩Rendered 'pubetenus' as 'fully mature' to convey the rare form's likely sense of adult maturity; precise nuance is uncertain and could affect the allegorical force.
De Arca Noe Morali et Mystica (On the Moral and Mystical Ark of Noah) companion
Keep the ark under construction
Hugh's method only works with daily practice — the Chosen Portion app gives you a short, structured devotional every morning, free.
Hugh's daily discipline of ordered meditation continues in Chosen Portion, which serves one structured devotional portion each day so the mind returns to the same interior work Hugh prescribed.
- A 10-minute structured meditation delivered each morning
- Progress through classic texts like Hugh's in small daily portions
- Build a 30-day streak of ordered prayer instead of improvised moments