VISIO SECUNDA, cap. XIX
Brought into the King's Cellars
The soul is welcomed into the intimate cellars of the King, where love and joy overflow beyond all earthly wine.
The king has brought me into his cellars.✦ We will rejoice and be glad in you, remembering your breasts, more than wine; the upright love you.✦
Ascending from Virtue to Virtue
The faithful soul, redeemed by the Son of God, is brought into the fullness of divine gifts and rejoices in the promise of eternal life.
This is plain to the understanding because I, the faithful soul of a man, walking in the truth of the— who through his humanity redeemed humankind — am secure; he who is the ruler of all has brought me into the fullness of his gifts, where I find every kind of virtue in abundance, and where I confidently ascend from virtue to virtue.✦ And so all of us who have been redeemed through the blood of that same Son of God will exult with our whole body and rejoice with our whole soul in you, O holy Divinity, through whom we have our being, calling to mind the sweetness of heavenly rewards: above all the sufferings and tribulations that we have endured from the enemies of truth, so that we count them as nothing while we taste the delights that you set before us in the showing of your commandments. And so those who are upright in the works of holiness love you with true and perfect love, because you grant all good things to those who love you, and because in the end you also grant them eternal life.
Wisdom Poured into the Cellars
Wisdom fills human minds with true faith, quenching vice and nourishing every virtue like wine poured for the thirsty.
But wisdom also pours into the cellars — that is, into human minds — and sets before them the justice of true faith, through which the true God is known, where this same faith so suppresses the winter and all the dampness of vices that they can no longer sprout or grow, and where it draws to itself and joins all the virtues, just as wine is poured into a vessel to be given to people to drink. Therefore the faithful, rejoicing and exulting in the true confidence of the eternal reward, carry the bundles of good works that they have done, thirst for God's justice, and suck holiness from his breasts, and they cannot be wearied by this, but always delight in the contemplation of the Divinity, because holiness surpasses every human understanding. For when a person receives uprightness, they leave themselves behind, taste and drink the virtues, and are strengthened through them, just as the veins of one drinking wine are filled, and they are not, in the vices of unbelief, the servant and the immoderate one — just as a person drunk with wine is beside themselves, not paying attention to what they are doing.
The Upright Love Without Weariness
The upright love God with tireless perseverance, for in him there is no weariness but enduring blessedness.
So the upright love God, because there is no weariness in him, but perseverance in blessedness.
The Winds Beneath the Image
The western wind appears as a wolf's head beneath the image, with two collateral winds shown as a stag and a crab's head in the circle of watery air.
This is why the principal western wind appears in the effigy of a wolf's head under the feet of the aforementioned image, in the circle of the watery air; and why two collateral winds are also shown, one in the form of a stag, the other in the form of a crab's head.12
Read the original Latin
« Introduxit me rex in cellaria sua. Exsultabimus et laetabimur in te memores uberum tuorum super vinum; recti diligunt te . » Quod sic intellectui patet: Quia ego anima fidelis hominis, gressu veritatis Filium Dei, qui per humanitatem suam hominem redemit, secura sum, introduxit me ille, qui cunctorum rector existit, in plenitudinem donorum suorum, ubi omnem saturitatem virtutum invenio, et ubi de virtute in virtutem fiducialiter ascendo. Unde et nos omnes qui per sanguinem ejusdem Filii Dei redempti sumus, toto corpore exsultabimus, totaque anima laetabimur in te, o sancta Divinitas, per quam subsistimus, ad memoriam revocantes dulcedinem supernorum praemiorum super omnes passiones et tribulationes quas ab adversariis veritatis passi sumus, ita ut illas quasi pro nihilo ducamus, dum delicias quas nobis in ostensione mandatorum tuorum proponis degustamus. Et sic qui in operibus sanctitatis recti sunt diligunt te vera et perfecta dilectione, quoniam omnia bona te diligentibus concedis, et quia etiam tandem vitam aeternam eis tribuis. Sed et sapientia cellariis, id est mentibus hominum infundit et apponit justitiam verae fidei per quam verus Deus cognoscitur, ubi eadem fides hiemem et omnem humiditatem vitiorum ita comprimit, ut nequaquam ulterius virescere aut crescere possint, et ubi ipsa omnes virtutes etiam sibi attrahit et adjungit, ut vinum vasi infunditur, quod ad bibendum hominibus datur. Quapropter et fideles in vera fiducia aeterni praemii exsultantes et gaudentes manipulos bonorum operum quae operati sunt portant, justitiamque Dei sitiunt, et sanctitatem de uberibus ejus sugunt, nec hoc modo extaediari poterunt, quin semper in contemplatione Divinitatis delectentur, quoniam sanctitas omnem humanum intellectum praecellit. Cum enim homo rectitudinem recipit, se ipsum relinquit, virtutesque gustat et bibit, ac per illas confortatur, sicut venae bibentis vino implentur, nec in vitiis infidelitatis officialis et immoderatus est, quemadmodum ebrius a vino extra se est, non attendens quid faciat.
Sic recti diligunt Deum, quia taedium in illo non est, sed perseverantia in beatitudine.
Quare principalis ventus occidentalis in effigie capitis lupi sub pedibus supradictae imaginis in circulo aquosi aeris appareat; cur etiam duo collaterales venti, alter in cervi, alter in forma capitis cancri demonstrentur.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Song.1.4 — Draw me after you—let us run together! The king has brought me into his chambers. We will rejoice and be glad in you; we will remember your love more than wine. The upright love you.
- ↩Song.1.4 — Draw me after you—let us run together! The king has brought me into his chambers. We will rejoice and be glad in you; we will remember your love more than wine. The upright love you.
- ↩Ps.83.8 — Gebal and Ammon and Amalek, Philistia with the inhabitants of Tyre
Notes
- 1 ↩The subjunctive verbs (appareat, demonstrentur) likely indicate a result clause following from the previous section's explanation of the winds' natures, rendered here as 'This is why...'.
- 2 ↩The phrase 'alter in cervi' lacks an explicit noun like 'effigie' or 'forma', but context from the surrounding phrases ('in effigie capitis', 'in forma capitis') implies 'in the form of a stag'.
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