VISIO TERTIA, cap. XVII
The Body's Dryness and the Soul's Languishing
Disordered bodily humors that dry up marrow and flesh mirror a soul that, through undisciplined desire and neglect of abstinence, loses the dew of grace and languishes in spiritual weakness.
The veins of the kidneys of the same person are sometimes affected when the aforementioned humors are unjustly disturbed, and then, shaking the other veins that adhere to those same calves or to the rest of the body, as was said, they dry up the marrow of the bones and the veins of the flesh of that person in dryness, and so the person languishes for a long time, dragging out life in that weakness, because when someone neglects to restrain their navel and loins, so that they even allow their thoughts to wander through tyranny and through every useless thing, they despise the steady practice of the virtues that cling to abstinence, and abstinence itself, which must be held discreetly and in an orderly way to preserve chastity.123 Therefore, and the remaining works, lacking the infusion of heavenly dew, are turned into dryness, and they cause that person's soul to languish until it returns to the vigor of the virtues.45
Overflowing Humors and the Question of Spiritual Meaning
Excess humors rising from the navel to the brain raise the question of what such interior disturbances signify in a person's spiritual life.
What do the humors in a person's chest, overflowing to excess, stirring up the liver and the veins of the ears or kidneys, and then rising from the navel to the brain — what do these signify in that person's spiritual life?
Read the original Latin
Venae quoque renum ejusdem hominis a praefatis humoribus injuste commotis interdum tactae, alias venas quae ipsis in suris, aut in reliquo corpore adhaerent, ut praedictum est, concutientes, medullas ossium et venas carnis illius in siccitate arefaciunt, et sic homo diu languet, in languore isto vitam diu trahens, quoniam cum homo umbilicum lumbosque suos constringere negligit, ita ut etiam cogitationes suas per tyrannidem et per quaeque inutilia vagari permittat, tenorem virtutum quae abstinentiae adhaerent, ipsamque abstinentiam, quae pro conservanda pudicitia discrete et ordinate tenenda est, contemnit. Quapropter et reliqua opera infusione superni roris carentia, in ariditatem vertuntur, animamque illius languescere faciunt quousque ad vigorem virtutum redeat.
Quid humores in pectore hominis superflue abundantes, jecur et venas aurium vel renum moventes, et ex umbilico ad cerebrum ascendentes, in spiritualibus ejus designent.
Notes
- 1 ↩The passage uses bodily and humoral imagery as an allegory for spiritual disorder: the 'veins of the kidneys' and disturbed 'humors' signify interior appetites or passions that, when disordered, drain the person's spiritual vitality. 'Navel and loins' (umbilicum lumbosque) likely symbolize the seat of desire and concupiscence that must be restrained through abstinence and ordered living.
- 2 ↩The Latin is a medieval visionary text with dense, sometimes strained syntax. The translation preserves the causal chain (humoral disturbance → draining of marrow and flesh → prolonged weakness) and the result clause (ita ut… permittat) showing how failure to restrain desire leads to despising virtue and abstinence.
- 3 ↩Abstinentia and pudicitia (chastity) are rendered in their plain senses; the passage ties abstinence to the preservation of chastity through discreet, orderly practice, consistent with ascetical teaching on temperance.
- 4 ↩The 'infusion of heavenly dew' (infusio superni roris) is an image of divine grace or spiritual refreshment; its absence causes good works to become barren ('turned into dryness'). The soul's languor and hoped-for return to virtue's vigor frame the whole passage as a call to seek grace and ordered self-discipline.
- 5 ↩The opening 'et' after 'Quapropter' is continuative, linking this sentence to the previous one as a further consequence; rendered as 'and' to preserve the additive force.
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