Metàfores morals
The Call and the Response
The Lover and the Beloved engage in a dialogue concerning the nature of their mutual love, the necessity of suffering, and the call to spiritual vigilance.
The lover asked his Beloved if there was anything left in him still to love; and the Beloved answered that whatever could increase the lover's love was still to be loved. The paths by which the lover seeks his beloved are long, dangerous, crowded with reflections, with sighs and with tears, and lit by loves. Many lovers gathered to love one Beloved who filled them all with abundant loves; and each one had as his treasure his Beloved and his pleasant thoughts, through which they felt pleasing tribulations.1 The Lover was weeping and said: How long will darkness last in the world, so that the paths of hell may cease? And water, which is used to running downward—when will the hour come when it has a nature that rises upward?2 And the innocent—when will they outnumber the guilty?3 Ah! When will the Lover who dies for his Beloved rejoice? And when will the beloved see his lover languishing for his love? The Friend said to the Beloved, "You who fill the sun with radiance, fill my heart with love." The Beloved answered, "Without the fullness of love, your eyes wouldn't be in tears, nor would you have come to this place to see your Lover."4 The Beloved tested his Friend to see whether he loved perfectly, and asked him what the difference was between the Beloved's presence and his absence. The Friend answered: "Ignorance and forgetfulness, knowledge and remembrance."5 The Beloved asked the Lover: "Do you remember anything that has rewarded you—is that why you want to love me?"6 He answered, "Yes—truly, because I make no distinction between the trials and the pleasures you give me."7 "Tell me, lover," said the Beloved, "will you have patience if I double your languors?" "Yes—so long as you double my loves."8 The Beloved said to the Lover: "Do you still know what love is?" "If I didn't know what love is, would I know what toil, sorrow, and pain are?" They asked the Friend, "Why don't you answer your Beloved, who is calling you?" He replied, "I am already risking myself in grave dangers to reach him, and I am already speaking to him, desiring his honors."9 — Foolish lover: why do you ruin yourself and spend your money, leave the pleasures of this world, and go about despised among people? He answered: To honor the honors of my Beloved, who is unloved and dishonored by more people than He is honored and loved.10 Tell me, you fool for love: which is more visible—the Beloved in the Lover, or the Lover in the Beloved? He answered, and said that the Beloved is seen through love, and the Lover through sighs, and through tears, and hardships and sorrows.11 The lover was searching for someone to tell his beloved how, for the love of him, he was enduring heavy hardships and was dying; he found his beloved reading a book that detailed all the languors that love would bring him for his beloved, along with all the delights that came from them.12 Our Lady brought her Son to the lover so that he might kiss His foot and write Our Lady's virtues in his book. Tell me, bird that sings: are you more under my Beloved's protection so that he may defend you from lovelessness, and so that he may multiply love in you?13 The bird answered: And who makes me sing, if not the Lord of love alone, who considers lovelessness a dishonor?
Signs of the Beloved
The Lover interprets the world and his own interior life as signs pointing toward the Beloved, finding meaning in birds, nature, and his own tears.
Between fear and hope Love has made an inn, where it lives on thoughts and dies by forgetfulness when the foundations rest on the delights of this world. A dispute arose between the Lover's eyes and his memory, for the eyes said that seeing the Beloved is better than remembering him, and memory said that through remembrance the water rises to the eyes and the heart is set on fire with love.14 The lover asked understanding and the will which of them was closer to his beloved; and both ran, and understanding reached his beloved before the will. The lover and the beloved fell into conflict with each other; and another lover saw it, who wept so long until peace and concord had been made between the beloved and the lover. Sighs and tears came before the Beloved for judgment, asking him by which he felt more strongly loved. The Beloved judged that sighs are closer to love, and tears to the eyes. The Lover came to drink at the spring where anyone who doesn't love falls in love upon drinking, and his languors doubled. And the Beloved came to drink at the spring so that he might more than double his loves for his Lover, and in those loves double the Lover's languors.15 The lover was ill, and the Beloved thought of him: he fed him with merit, and with love he gave him drink, and with patience he put him to bed; he clothed him with humility, and with truth he treated him.1617 They asked the Lover where his Beloved was. He answered: "See him in a house more noble than all other created nobilities; and see him in my loves, and in my languishings, and in my tears." They asked the lover, "Where are you going?" "I'm coming from my beloved." "Where are you coming from?" "I'm going to my beloved." "When will you return?" "I'll be with my beloved." "How long will you stay with your beloved?" "As long as my thoughts are on him." The birds were singing the dawn, and the lover awoke—who is the dawn; and the birds finished their song, and the lover died for the beloved in the dawn. The bird was singing in the Beloved's orchard. The lover came and said to the bird, "If we don't understand each other through language, let us understand each other through love; for in your song my Beloved is set before my eyes."1819 The lover fell asleep—he who had worked so hard seeking his beloved—and he was afraid he might forget his beloved. And he wept so that he would not fall asleep, and so that his beloved would not be absent from his remembrance.20 The lover and the beloved met, and the lover said, "You don't need to speak to me; just give me a sign with your eyes—which are words to my heart—when I give you what you ask." The lover disobeyed his beloved, and the lover wept. And the beloved came to die in his lover's tunic, so that the lover might recover what he had lost; and he gave him a greater gift than the one he had lost.✦✦21 The Beloved makes the Lover fall in love, and doesn't pity him for his languishing, so that he may be loved more strongly, and so that in the greatest languishing the Lover finds pleasure and recovery.22 The lover said: "The secrets of my beloved torment me, as my works reveal them, and because my mouth keeps them secret and doesn't disclose them to others."23 The conditions of love are that the lover be long-suffering, patient, humble, fearful, diligent, and trusting, and that he venture into great dangers to honor his beloved. And the conditions of the beloved are that they be true, generous, merciful, and just toward their lover.24 The lover searched for devotion in the mountains and on the plains to see if his Beloved was being served, but in every place, he found it lacking. So he dug into the earth to see if he might find its fullness there, since devotion is missing across the land.25 Tell me, bird who sings of love to my Beloved: why does he torment me with love—he who has taken me to be his servant? The bird answered: If you don't endure hardships for love, with what would you love your Beloved? The Lover was walking thoughtfully along the paths of his Beloved, and he stumbled and fell among thorns, which seemed to him like flowers, and as if his bed were a bed of love. They asked the lover if he would walk for anyone other than his Beloved. He answered and said: And what other is better or more noble than the sovereign Good—eternal, infinite in greatness, power, wisdom, love, and perfection?26 The Lover sang and wept songs of his Beloved, saying that love in a lover's heart is swifter than the brilliance of lightning or the sound of thunder; that water is more alive in tears than in the waves of the sea; and that a sigh is closer to love than snow is to whiteness.2728 They asked the lover why his beloved was glorious. He answered, "Because he is glory."29 They asked him why he was powerful. He answered, "Because he is power." And why he is wise: "Because he is wisdom."30 And why he is lovable: "Because he is love."31 In the morning the lover rose and went seeking his beloved; and he came upon people going along the road, and he asked if they had seen his beloved.✦ They answered him, asking when that hour is when his beloved is absent from the eyes of his mind.32 The lover answered and said: — Never, once I had seen my beloved in my thoughts, do I keep him absent from my bodily eyes, because all visible things present my beloved to me. With eyes of thoughts, languors, sighs, and tears, the lover gazed on his beloved; and with eyes of grace, justice, piety, mercy, and generosity, the beloved gazed on his lover.33 And the bird sang of that pleasing gaze mentioned above.
The Path of Devotion
The Lover explores the conditions of love, including patience, humility, and the necessity of enduring trials to honor the Beloved.
The keys to the doors of love are gilded with cares, sighs, and tears, and the cord of the keys is conscience, contrition, devotion, and satisfaction; and the doorkeeper is justice and mercy.3435 The Lover was knocking at the Beloved's door with a knock of love and hope. The Beloved heard the Lover's knock with humility, compassion, patience, and charity.36 The doors of divinity and humanity opened, and the Lover went in to see the Beloved.37 Ownership and community met and mingled, so that friendship and goodwill could exist between the lover and the beloved.38 There are two fires that warm the lover's love: one is built of desires, pleasures, and thoughts; the other is composed of fear, languishing, and of tears and weeping. The lover longed for solitude, and he went to be all alone so that he might have the company of his beloved, with whom he is all alone among people.39 The lover was all alone under the shade of a beautiful tree. Men passed by that place and asked him why he was alone. The lover replied that he was only alone once he saw and heard them, and that before that, he had been in the company of his Beloved.40 The lover and the beloved spoke to each other with signs of love; and with fear, thoughts, tears, and weeping, the lover recounted to the beloved his languishings. The lover doubted that his beloved would not fail him in his greatest needs.41 The beloved fell out of love with his lover.42 The lover had contrition and repentance in his heart; and the beloved restored hope and charity to the lover's heart, and tears and weeping to his eyes, so that love might return in the lover.43 Nearness and distance are equal between the lover and the beloved; for just as water and wine blend, so the loves of the lover and the beloved blend; just as heat and light chain together, so their loves are chained; and just as essence and being agree and draw near, so they agree and draw near. The lover said to his beloved, "In you is my healing and my languishing; the more strongly you heal me, the more my languishing grows, and the more you make me languish, the greater the health you give me." The beloved answered: "Your love is the seal and imprint by which I show my honors to the peoples."✦44 They saw the lover seized and bound, wounded and killed for the love of his beloved. Those who were tormenting him asked, "Where is your beloved?"✦ He answered, "See him in the multiplying of my loves, and in the support he gives me under my torments."45 The lover said to the beloved, "I never ran from you or stopped loving you from the moment I first knew you; for in you46 and for you and with you I have been, wherever I was." The beloved answered: "Nor have I forgotten you, since you first knew and loved me; never have I deceived you or failed you."47 The lover wandered through the city like a madman, singing of his beloved, and the people asked him if he had lost his mind.48 He answered that his beloved had taken his will, and that he had given him his understanding; so only remembrance was left to him, with which he remembered his beloved.49 The Beloved said: "It's a miracle against love — a lover who falls asleep forgetting his Beloved." The Lover answered: "And it’s a miracle against love if the Beloved doesn’t awaken the Lover, since He has desired him." The lover's heart rose into the heights of the Beloved, so that the sea would not hinder them in the abyss of this world.50 And when it was with the Beloved, it contemplated Him with sweetness and delight; and the Beloved lowered it to this world, so that it might contemplate Him also amid tribulations and longings.51 They asked the lover, "What are your riches?" He answered: "The poverties I bear for my Beloved." "And what is your rest?" "The languishing that love gives me."52 "And who is your physician?" "The trust I have in my Beloved." "And who is your master?"53 He answered, and said that it was the meanings creatures give of his Beloved.54 The bird sang on a branch of leaves and flowers, while the wind stirred the leaves and carried the scent of the flowers. The lover asked the bird what the movement of the leaves and the scent of the flowers meant.55 It answered, "In their movement, the leaves signify obedience; and the scent, suffering and hardship."56 The lover was walking along, longing for his beloved, when he met two friends who greeted each other with love and tears, embracing and kissing. The lover fainted, so powerfully did those two friends bring his beloved to mind.57 The lover thought about death and was afraid, until he remembered his beloved. And he cried out to the people who stood before him: "Ah, my lords! Love, so that you fear neither death nor dangers, to honor my beloved."58 They asked the Lover where they should first speak of his loves. He answered: in the noble qualities of his Beloved; and that from that beginning they would incline to love themselves and their neighbor, and to unlove deceit and fault. Tell me, fool: if your beloved stopped loving you, what would you do? He answered and said that he would love so that he wouldn't die, since unlove is death and love is life.59 They asked the lover what perseverance was. He said that perseverance was good fortune and misfortune in a lover who keeps loving, honoring, and serving his beloved with fortitude, patience, and hope.60 The lover told his beloved to pay him for the time he had served him. The beloved tallied the thoughts, the desires, the tears, the dangers, and the labors his lover had endured for love of him; to that total he added eternal blessedness, and gave himself as payment to his lover.61 They asked the Lover what blessedness was. He answered that it was misfortune endured for love.62 Tell me, fool: what is misfortune? Remembering the dishonors done to my beloved, who is worthy of every honor. The lover gazed once more at the place where he had seen his beloved and said, "Ah, place that brings back to me the beautiful ways of my beloved!" Tell my beloved that for love of him I endure toil and adversity. The place answered: "When your beloved was in me, he suffered for love of you greater toil and adversity than all the other toils and adversities that love can give its servants." The lover said to his beloved, "You are everything, through everything, in everything, and with everything."✦ "I want you completely, so that I may have you completely and you may be completely mine."63 The beloved answered, "You can't have me completely unless you yourself are mine." And the lover said: "Have me wholly, and I'll have you wholly."64 The beloved answered, "What will your son, your brother, and your father have?"✦ The lover said: "You are such an All that you can overflow to be wholly of each one who gives himself wholly to you."65 The friend set and prolonged his thoughts on the greatness and the lastingness of his beloved, and he found there neither beginning, nor middle, nor end. And the beloved said: “What are you measuring, fool?” The friend answered: — I am measuring the lesser against the greater, and lack against fullness, and beginning against infinite eternity, so that humility, patience, charity, and hope may be more strongly fixed in my memory.6667 The paths of love are both long and short, because love is clear, pure, clean, true, subtle, simple, strong, diligent, radiant, and rich in new thoughts and old memories. They asked the lover what the fruits of love are. He answered: Pleasures, thoughts, desires, sighs, anxieties, hardships, dangers, torments, languishings. Without fruits like these, love won't let itself touch its servants. Many people stood before the lover, who was complaining of his beloved that his loves were not growing, and complaining of love that it gave him hardships and pains. The beloved excused himself, saying that the hardships and pains of which he accused love were multiplications of loves.68 Tell me, fool: why aren't you speaking? And what are you so tangled up in, lost in thought?69 He answered: — In the beauties of my Beloved, and in the likeness of the joys and the pains that bring me and give me loves.7071 Tell me, fool: which comes first—your heart, or love? —72 He answered and said that his heart and love came into being at the same time; for if they had not, the heart would not have been created to love, nor would love have been created to think.73 They asked the fool where his love first began: in the secrets of his Beloved, or in revealing them to others. He answered and said that love makes no division there when it is in its fullness; for the friend keeps the secrets of his Beloved in secret, and reveals them in secret, and by revealing them keeps them secret.74 Love's secret kept without revelation brings passion and languishing; and revealing love brings fear through fervor. And for this reason, the lover languishes in every way. Love called his lovers and told them to ask him for the gifts that were most desirable and most pleasing to him. And they asked Love to clothe them and adorn them with his fashionings, so that they would be more pleasing to the Beloved.75 The Lover cried out aloud to the people and said that Love commanded them to love while walking and while sitting, while waking and while sleeping, while speaking and while silent, while buying and while selling, while weeping and while laughing, in pleasure and in languor, while gaining and while losing; and in whatever they did, they should love in all of it, for they had Love's commandment.✦
The Dialogue of the Fool
The Lover, often addressed as a 'fool' for his devotion, engages in deep metaphysical and devotional questioning about the nature of love and the Beloved.
— Tell me, fool: when did love come into you? He answered: — At the time when it enriched me, and peopled my heart with thoughts, desires, sighs, and languors, and filled my eyes with tears and weeping.76 What did love bring you? The beautiful features, the honors, and the worth of my Beloved.77 — In what did they come? — In memory and in understanding. — With what did you receive them? — With charity, hope.78 How do you maintain them? Through justice, prudence, fortitude, and temperance. The Beloved was singing and saying that the Lover knew little of love if he was ashamed to praise his Beloved, or if he feared to honor him in those places where he is most strongly dishonored; and little does he know of loving who is vexed by misfortune; nor does he who despairs of his Beloved keep love and hope in harmony.7980 The lover sent letters to his beloved, asking if there was another lover who could help him bear and endure the heavy trials he suffers for love of him. The beloved wrote back to his lover, saying that he has nothing with which to injure him or fail him.81 They asked the Beloved about the love of his Lover. He answered that the love of his Lover is a mixture of pleasure and misfortune, and of fear and boldness. They asked the friend about the love of the beloved. He answered that the love of his beloved is an influence of infinite goodness, eternity, power, wisdom, charity, and perfection—the influence the beloved has on the friend.82 Tell me, fool: what is a marvel? He answered: To love things that are absent more than things that are present; and to love visible, corruptible things more than invisible, incorruptible ones. The lover was searching for his beloved, and he found a man who was dying without love; and he said that it was a great loss for a man to die any death without love.83 So the lover asked the dying man, "Tell me: why are you dying without love?" He answered, "Because I lived without love."84 The lover asked his Beloved which was greater: love, or the act of loving.85 The Beloved answered that, in a creature, love is the tree and the act of loving is the fruit, while the labors and the languishings are the flowers and the leaves; but in God, love and the act of loving are one and the same, without any labor or languishing.86 The lover was in languishing and sorrow from an overabundance of thoughts; and he sent prayers to his Beloved that he would send him a book in which his qualities were written, so that it might give him some remedy.87 The Beloved sent that book to his lover, and the lover's labors and languishings were doubled. The Lover fell sick with love, and a doctor came in to see him who multiplied his languors and his thoughts; and the Lover was healed in that hour. The lover and Love drew aside, and they took solace in the beloved; and the beloved presented himself. The lover wept, and love vanished as the lover swooned.88 The beloved revived his lover when he recalled his features to him.89 The lover told the beloved that he reached his heart by many paths and appeared to his eyes, and that his speech called him by many names; but the love with which he hungered for him and which mortified him was one alone.90 The Beloved shows himself to his Lover in red and new garments; and he stretches out his arms so that he may embrace him, and he bows his head so that he may give him a kiss, and he stands on high so that his Lover may find him.✦ The Beloved withdrew from his Lover; the Lover sought his Beloved with memory and understanding, so that he might love him. The Lover found his Beloved; he asked him where he had been. He answered: 'In the absence of your remembrance and in the ignorance of your understanding.'91 Tell me, fool: are you ashamed of people when they see you weeping for your beloved? He answered that shame without sin comes from a failure of love that doesn't know how to love.92 The Beloved sowed desires, sighs, virtues, and loves in the Lover's heart. The Lover watered those seeds with tears and weeping.✦ The Beloved sowed hardships, tribulations, and languishings in the Lover's heart. The Lover healed his heart with hope, devotion, patience, and consolation. At a great feast the Beloved held a great court of many honored barons, and he made great banquets and great gifts. The Lover came to that court; the Beloved said to him: — Who has called you to come to my court? The Lover answered: — Need and loves have made me come to see your features and all your ways.93 They asked the lover to whom he belonged. He answered: "Of love." "What are you made of?"94 "Of love." "Who begot you?" "Love." "Where were you born?" "In love." — Who nourished you? — Love. — What do you live on? — On love. — What is your name? — Love. — Where do you come from? — From love. — Where are you going? — To love. — Where are you? — In love. — Do you have anything besides love? — He answered: — Yes: blows and wrongs against my Beloved. — Is there forgiveness in your Beloved? —. The Lover said that in his Beloved there was mercy and justice, and for that reason his dwelling was between fear and hope.95 The Beloved withdrew from the Lover, and the Lover sought him with his thoughts; and he asked the people for him in the language of love.✦96 The light of the Beloved's chamber came to light up the Lover's chamber, so that it might cast the darkness out of it and fill it with delights, with languors, and with thoughts.✦97 And the Lover cleared everything out of his chamber so that his Beloved would have room there. They asked the Lover what sign his Beloved bore on his banner.98 He answered: that of a dead man. They asked him why he carried such a sign.99 He answered: "Because the dead man is crucified, and so that those who boast that they are his lovers may follow his slave."✦100101 The Beloved came to stay at his Lover's inn, and the steward asked him for the lodging fee. But the Lover said that his Beloved ought to be lodged in forgiveness.102 Memory and will went together and climbed the mountain of the Beloved, so that the understanding might be raised up and love might be doubled in loving the Beloved. Every day, sighs and tears are messengers between the lover and the beloved, so that between them both there may be solace, companionship, friendship, and goodwill. The lover longed for his beloved, and he sent him his thoughts so that they might bring him, from his beloved, the bliss in which he had long held him. The Beloved gave his lover a gift of tears, sighs, languors, thoughts, and sorrows; and with that gift the lover served his Beloved. The Lover asked his Beloved for abundance, peace, and honor in this world, and the Beloved revealed his features to the Lover's memory and understanding, and gave himself to the will as its object.103104 They asked the lover where honor lies. He answered that it lies in understanding and loving his Beloved. And they asked him where dishonor lies. He answered that it lies in forgetting and ceasing to love his Beloved.105 Love kept tormenting me until I told it that you were present at my torments; then love eased my languishing, and you, as a reward, multiplied love, which doubled my torments. I met on the path of love a lover who did not speak; with tears, a gaunt look, and languishing, he accused love and blamed it. Love excused itself through loyalty, hope, patience, devotion, fortitude, temperance, and blessedness.106 For that reason, I blamed the lover who complained about love, since love was giving him such noble gifts. The lover sang out, saying, "Oh, what a great misfortune love is!" Ah, how great a blessedness it is to love my Beloved, who loves his lovers with infinite eternal love, complete in every perfection!107 The lover was traveling through a strange land hoping to find his beloved, when two lions attacked him on the road.108 The lover was afraid of death, because he longed to live so he could serve his beloved; and he sent his remembrance to his beloved so that love would be with him in his trials, and by that love he might better endure death.109 As the lover remembered his beloved, the lions approached him humbly; they licked the tears from his weeping eyes and kissed his hands and feet. Then the lover went on in peace to search for his beloved. The lover went over mountains and plains, and he could not find a gateway by which he might leave the prison of love that had long held his body, his thoughts, and all his desires and pleasures captive. While the Lover was going along so worn out, he came upon a hermit who was sleeping near a beautiful spring. The Lover woke the hermit, asking whether, while dreaming, he had seen his Beloved.110 The hermit replied that his thoughts were just as imprisoned in the prison of love, whether he was awake or asleep. The Lover was very pleased to have found a companion in prison, and both of them wept, for the Beloved did not have many such lovers. There's nothing in the Beloved in which the lover does not feel anguish and tribulation, nor does the lover have anything in himself in which the Beloved does not take pleasure and hold dominion; and for that reason the Beloved's love is in action, and the lover's love is in languishing and passion.111 A bird was singing on a branch, saying it would give a new thought to a lover who would give it two in return. The bird gave the new thought to the Lover, and the Lover gave the bird two in return so that his torments might be eased; and the Lover felt his pains multiplied.112 The Lover and the Beloved met, and the witnesses of their meeting were greetings, embraces, and kisses, and tears and weeping. And the Beloved asked the Lover about his condition; and the Lover was left tongue-tied in the presence of his Beloved.113 The lover and the beloved contended with each other, and their loves made peace between them; and it became a question which love had put greater friendship there. The lover loved everyone who feared his Beloved, and he feared everyone who didn't fear his Beloved; because of this, the question arose as to which was greater in the lover: love or fear. The Lover swore to follow his Beloved, and he traveled a road where a vicious lion killed anyone who passed by lazily and without devotion. The lover said: “Whoever doesn't fear my Beloved must fear everything; and whoever fears my Beloved needs boldness and daring in all things.”✦ They asked the lover about opportunity, and he said that opportunity is pleasure in penance, understanding in conscience, hope in patience, health in abstinence, consolation in remembrance, love in diligence, loyalty in shame, wealth in poverty, peace in obedience, and war in ill will.114115 Love lit up the cloud that had stood between the Lover and the Beloved, making it as bright and radiant as the moon at night, the morning star, the sun by day, and the understanding within the will. And through that bright cloud, the Lover and the Beloved speak to each other. They asked the lover which darknesses are the greatest. He answered: the absence of his beloved. They asked him what the greatest radiance is, and he said: the presence of his beloved. The sign of the Beloved appears in the Lover, who for love is in tribulations, sighs and tears, thoughts, and in the contempt of people. The Lover was writing these words: — My Beloved rejoices; my heart sends him my thoughts, and for him my eyes weep, and without longings I do not live, nor feel, nor see, nor hear, nor smell.116 — Ah, understanding, will! Bark, and wake the great dogs that sleep, forgetting my Beloved. Ah, eyes! Weep. Ah, heart! Sigh. Ah, memory! Remember the dishonor shown to my Beloved by those he has so honored. — Multiply the enmity that is between the peoples and my Beloved, and promise the gifts and rewards of my Beloved, and threaten with justice, Wisdom.117 And memory and will despise her threats and her promises. The Beloved was drawing near to the Lover so that he might console him and comfort him in the languishings he was enduring and the tears he was shedding; and the more the Beloved drew near to the Lover, the more fiercely the Lover wept and languished over the dishonors he grieved for his Beloved. With a pen of love and with water of tears, and on paper of passion, the lover was writing letters to his beloved, in which he told him that devotion was lagging and love was dying, and that failure and error were multiplying his enemies. The loves of the lover and the beloved bound themselves with memory, understanding, and will, so that the lover and the beloved would not part; and the cord in which the two loves were knotted was made of thoughts, languishings, sighs, and tears.
The Passion and the Witness
The Lover meditates on the Passion of the Beloved and the necessity of bearing witness to his honor despite the world's scorn.
The lover lay in a bed of love; the sheets were of pleasures, and the coverlet was of languishings, and the pillow was of tears. It was unclear whether the fabric of the pillow came from the sheets or from the coverlet.118 The Beloved clothed his Lover in a mantle, a coat, and a tunic; and he made him a hat of love, a shirt of thoughts, hose of tribulations, and a garland of tears. The Beloved begged his Friend not to forget him. The Friend replied that he couldn't forget him, because he couldn't ignore him.119 The Beloved said that in those places where it is most feared to praise him, he should praise him and defend him.120 The Lover said that He should equip him with love.121 The Beloved answered that for love of him, He had become incarnate and been hung to die.122 The Lover said to his dear Beloved that he should show him a way he could make him known and loved and praised among the people. The Beloved filled his Lover with devotion, patience, charity, trials, thoughts, sighs, and tears; and in the Lover's heart there was the boldness to praise his Beloved, in his mouth were praises of his Beloved, and in his will, a contempt for the blame of people who judge falsely.123 The lover said to the people: "Whoever truly remembers my Beloved forgets everything else in that moment of remembrance; and whoever forgets everything else to remember his Beloved—my Beloved defends him from all things and gives him a share in all things."124 They asked the lover what love is born from, what it lives on, and why it dies. The lover answered that love is born of remembrance, lives by understanding, and dies by forgetfulness. The lover forgot everything under the highest heaven, so that the understanding could climb higher to know the Beloved, whom the will desires to preach and to contemplate.125 The lover went out to fight to honor his beloved, taking with him faith, hope, charity, justice, prudence, fortitude, and temperance, so that he might defeat the enemies of his beloved. The lover would have been defeated if his beloved had not helped him by making known his noble qualities to the lover.126 The lover wanted to pass on to the final end for which he loved his beloved, and the other ends hindered him on his way; and for this reason long desires and thoughts brought the lover sadness and languishing. The lover rejoiced and took delight in the noble qualities of his beloved; the lover languished from overthinking and thoughts.127 And the question was which he felt more strongly: the pleasures or the torments. The friend acted as a messenger to Christian princes and to unbelievers on behalf of his beloved, so that he could show them the art and the first principles of knowing and loving the beloved.128 If you see a lover honored with fine clothes, honored out of vainglory, fat from eating and sleeping, know that in that one you see damnation and torments. And if you see a lover poorly clothed, despised by others, and pale and thin from fasting and keeping vigil, know that in that person you see salvation and everlasting blessing. The Friend laments, and his heart cries out from the heat of love. The Friend dies; the Beloved weeps for him and offers him the consolation of patience, hope, and reward. The lover wept for what he had lost, and no one could console him, because his losses were beyond recovery. God has created the night for the lover to meditate and keep watch on the noble qualities of his Beloved; and the lover thought He had created it so that those worn out by love could rest and sleep.✦ People mocked and rebuked the Lover because he went about like a fool for love. And the Lover despised their mockery, and rebuked the people because they did not love his Beloved. The lover said: "I'm clothed in base cloth, but love clothes my heart with pleasing thoughts, and my body with tears, languishings, and passions." The Beloved was singing, and said: "My praisers prepare themselves to praise my excellences; and the enemies of my honors torment them and hold them in contempt." For this reason, I have sent word to my lover that he should lament and weep for my dishonor; his laments and his tears are born of my love." The friend swore to the beloved that for love of him he loved and endured hardships and sufferings; and for this he begged the beloved to love him and to have compassion for his hardships.129 The beloved swore that it was the nature and property of his love to love everyone who loved him, and to have pity on those who endured hardship for his sake.130 The friend rejoiced and found consolation in the nature and essential property of his beloved. The Beloved forbade his lover to speak, and the lover found consolation in gazing upon his Beloved. The lover wept and cried out to his Beloved so much that the Beloved came down from the sovereign heights of heaven and came to earth to weep, to grieve, and to die for love, and to train people to love Him, and to know and praise His honors.✦131 The lover rebuked Christians for not putting the name of his Beloved Jesus Christ first in their letters, so that they might do him the honor the Saracens do to Muhammad, who was a deceitful man, whom they honor when they name him first in their letters.132133 The Lover met a squire who was walking deep in thought, thin, pale, and poorly dressed; and the squire greeted the Lover, saying that God might guide him to find his Beloved. And the Lover asked him how he had recognized him. And the squire told him that some secrets of love reveal the others; and for that reason lovers know one another.134 The noble qualities, honors, and good works of the Beloved are the treasure and riches of the Lover. And the treasure of the Beloved is the thoughts, and the desires, and the torments, and the tears and the languishings that the Lover endures to honor and love his Beloved.135 Great hosts and great companies of spirits of love have gathered, and they carry the banner of love, on which are the figure and the sign of their beloved; and they will not bring into their company anyone who is without love, so that their beloved may not take dishonor there. People who foolishly exhaust themselves to accumulate wealth inspire the lover to be a fool for love; and the shame the lover feels before others when acting like a fool provides a way to gain love and the esteem of people.136 So the question is which of these two impulses is the greater occasion for love. Love has put the friend in sadness through anxious overthinking; and the Beloved sang, and the friend was glad when he heard it.137 The question is which of the two was the greater cause for increasing love in the friend.138 In the friend's secrets the beloved's secrets are revealed, and in the beloved's secrets the friend's secrets are revealed. And it's a question of which of the two secrets is the greater occasion for revelation. They asked the fool how his Beloved could be recognized. He answered and said that it was by mercy and compassion, by remaining essentially in will, without any change.139 Because of the special love the lover had for the Beloved, he loved the common good above the particular good, so that among people his Beloved would be commonly known, praised, and desired. Love and Lovelessness met in an orchard where the lover and the Beloved were speaking in secret; and Love asked Lovelessness with what intention she had come to that place; and Lovelessness answered that it was to make the lover fall out of love and to dishonor the Beloved. What Lovelessness said greatly displeased the Beloved and the lover; and they multiplied love so that it would conquer and destroy Lovelessness. Tell me, fool: where do you feel a stronger will—in love, or in hate?140 He answered that in loving, because he hated so that he could love.141 Tell me, lover: where do you have more understanding—in understanding truth, or falsehood? He answered that it was in understanding truth.142 Why? Because he understands falsehood so that he can better understand truth.143 The Lover realized he was loved by his Beloved, and he asked the Beloved if His love and His mercy were one and the same. The Beloved affirmed that, in His essence, there is no difference between His love and His mercy. So the Lover asked why His love tormented him, and why His mercy didn't heal him of his pangs of longing. The Beloved answered that mercy had given him those pangs of longing so that, through them, he might honor His love more perfectly. The Lover wanted to go into a foreign land to honor his Beloved, and he wanted to disguise himself so that they would not seize him on the way.144 Yet he could never hide the tears in his eyes, the gaunt look and sallow color of his face, or the laments, thoughts, sighs, sadness, and languors in his heart; because of this, he was seized on his journey and handed over to torments by the enemies of his Beloved.145 The lover was held captive in the prison of love. Thoughts, desires, and memories kept watch over him and chained him so he wouldn't flee to his Beloved; languors tormented him, while patience and hope comforted him.146 The lover would have died, but the Beloved showed him His state and revived him.147 The Lover met his Beloved; the Lover knew his Beloved, and wept.148 The Beloved rebuked his Lover because he had not wept before he knew him; and he asked him how he had known him, since he was not weeping.149 The Lover answered that it was in memory, and in understanding, and in his will—where that knowing multiplies the moment the Beloved is present to his bodily eyes.150151 The Beloved asked the Lover what love was. Rest is the presence of the Beloved's features and words in the lover's sighing heart, and languishing from desire and tears in the Lover's heart.152 Love is a seething of boldness and of fear through fervor; and love is the final will to desire its beloved.153 Love is what killed the lover when he heard the beauties of his beloved sung. And love is that which is death, and that in which my will abides every day.154 Devotion and longing sent thoughts, by messengers, to the lover's heart, so that the water would rise to the eyes that wanted to stop the weeping in which they had long remained. The Lover said: If you lovers want fire, come to my heart and light your lamps; if you want water, come to my eyes, which stream with tears; and if you want thoughts of love, come take them from my meditations. One day it happened that the friend was thinking of the great love he had for his beloved, and of the great hardships and dangers he had long endured for love of him; and he considered that his rewards would be great. While the friend was thinking in this way, he remembered that his beloved had already paid him—because he had made him fall in love with his beauty, and because for love of him he had given him the pangs of longing.155 The lover wiped his face and his eyes of the tears he was bearing for love, so that he would not reveal the languishings his beloved was giving him; and the beloved asked his lover why he was concealing the signs of love from the other lovers—signs he had given him so that he might make them fall in love with honoring his virtues.156 — Tell me, man who go about like a fool for love: how long will you be a slave and subject to weeping and bearing hardships and languors? He answered: — Until the time when my Beloved makes a parting of soul and body in me.157 — Tell me, fool: do you have money? He answered, “I have a Beloved.”158 “Do you have towns, castles, cities, counties, or duchies?” He answered, “I have loves, thoughts, tears, longings, labors, and sufferings, which are better than empires or kingdoms.” They asked the Lover how he knew his Beloved's judgment. He answered that it was in the equality of pleasures and languishings by which his Beloved judged those who love him.159 Tell me, fool: who knows more about love—the one who finds pleasure in it, or the one who experiences trials and longings because of it?160 He answered and said that one without the other cannot have knowledge of it. They asked the Friend why he didn't excuse himself for the failings and the false charges people accused him of. He answered that it was his Beloved he had to excuse—the one people were falsely slandering—and that a human being, open to deceit and error, is hardly worthy of any excuse.161 Tell me, fool: why do you excuse love when it labors and torments your body and your heart? He answered: "Because it multiplies my merits and my blessedness."162 The Lover complained of his Beloved that Love made him suffer so severely; and the Beloved excused himself by multiplying for the Lover labors and dangers, thoughts and tears and weeping. Tell me, fool: why do you excuse the guilty? He answered: So that I won't be like those who accuse both the innocent and the guilty.
Metaphysics of Love
The Lover contemplates the divine nature, the Trinity, and the relationship between being and non-being, seeking to understand the Beloved through reason and faith.
The Beloved lifted the mind to grasp His heights, so that the lover would turn his memory toward his own failings, and so that his will would despise them and rise to love the Beloved's perfections.163 185.164 The lover sang of his Beloved, saying he bore Him such goodwill that everything he hated for the love of Him was more pleasing and a greater blessing than the things he loved apart from the love of his Beloved.165 The lover was going through a great city, and he asked whether he would find any man with whom he could speak of his beloved as he wished. They pointed him toward a poor man who was weeping for love and searching for a companion with whom he could speak of love. The friend stood pensive and bewildered, because his labors could not even begin from the noble qualities of his beloved, who has in himself so much blessedness.166 The Lover's thoughts stood between forgetfulness of his torments and remembrance of his pleasures: for the pleasures he has from love make him forget his misery, and the torments he endures for love bring back to mind the blessedness he has through love. They asked the friend if it was possible for his beloved to make him fall out of love. He answered that it wasn't—not as long as his memory could recall and his understanding could grasp the excellences of his beloved.167 Tell me, fool: of what is the greatest comparison and likeness made? He answered: "That of lover and beloved." They asked him why. He answered that it was because of love, which stood between them both. They asked the Beloved if he had ever had pity. He answered that if he had not had pity, he would not have made the Lover fall in love, nor would he have tormented him with sighs, and with tears, and with toils and languors.168 The lover was in a great wood, searching for his beloved; he found truth and falsehood arguing over him, for truth was praising him while falsehood was reviling him. Because of this, the lover cried out to love to help truth. Temptation came to the lover so that it would take his beloved from him, and so that memory would awaken and recover the presence of his beloved, remembering him more strongly than he had remembered him—so that the understanding, raised higher, would be lifted to understand his beloved, and the will to love him.169 One day the lover forgot his beloved, and on another day he remembered that he had forgotten him. And on that day when the lover remembered that he had forgotten his beloved, the lover was in sadness and pain, and in glory and bliss, through forgetting and through remembering.170 The Lover longed so intensely for the praises and honors of his Beloved that he doubted he could keep them in mind; and he hated the dishonors of his Beloved so intensely that he doubted he could hate them enough.171 Because of this, the Lover was caught between love and fear for his Beloved.172 The lover was dying of pleasure and living by longing; in the lover's will, these pleasures and torments joined and united into one and the same thing.173 Because of this, the lover was dying and living at the very same time. The lover would have wanted to forget and not know his Beloved for just one hour, so that he might have some rest from his languishings.174 But because forgetting and not knowing would have been a torment to him, he remained patient, lifting up his mind and memory to contemplate his Beloved.175 The lover loved his beloved so much that he believed everything the beloved told him, and he longed so much to understand him that he wanted to understand, by necessary reasons, everything he heard said about him. And for that reason, the lover's love stood between belief and understanding.176 They asked the Lover what was farthest from his heart, and he answered that it was lovelessness.177 And they asked him why. He answered that it was because what was closest to his heart was love, which is the opposite of lovelessness.178 Tell me, you fool: are you envious? He answered: Yes, every time I forget the generosity and the riches of my Beloved.179 Tell me, lover: do you have wealth? He answered: Yes: love. Do you have poverty? Yes: love. Why? Because there is no greater love, and because it doesn't move many lovers to honor the honors of my beloved.180 “Tell me, lover: where is your power?” He answered: “In the power of my Beloved.” “What do you use to fight against your enemies?” “The strength of my Beloved.” “What do you use to find comfort?” “The eternal treasures of my Beloved.”✦ Tell me, fool: which do you love more—the mercy of your beloved, or the justice of your beloved? He answered that it so suited him to love and fear justice that he ought not to have any stronger desire in his will to love anything above the justice of his beloved.181 Faults and merits were battling each other in the lover's conscience and will; and justice and remembrance multiplied conscience; and mercy and hope multiplied blessedness in the will of the Beloved.182183 And so, the merits overcame the faults and wrongs in the lover's penance.184 The lover affirmed that all perfection was in his beloved, and denied that there was any defect in him. And so the question arose as to which was greater: the affirmation or the denial. There was an eclipse in the sky and darkness on the earth, so the friend remembered that sin had long kept his beloved absent from his will. Through that absence, darkness had banished the light of his understanding, by which the beloved is made known to those who love him.185 Love entered the lover, and the lover asked love what she wanted. And love told him that she had come into him so that she might train him and nourish him in such a way that, at death, he could overcome his mortal enemies.186 Love grows sick when the lover forgets his Beloved; and the lover is sick, because through over-remembering, his Beloved gives him toils, anxieties, and languishings.187 The Lover found a man who was dying without love. The Lover wept over the dishonor the Beloved was receiving in the death of that man who was dying without love, and he asked that man why he was dying without love; and he answered that it was because there had been no one to give him knowledge of love, nor anyone to nourish him into being a lover. Because of this, the Lover sighed while weeping and said, "Ah, devotion!" When will you grow greater, so that this fault may be smaller, and so that my Beloved may have many fervent, bold praisers and lovers who don't hesitate to praise his honors?188 Love tested the lover to see if he could hold firm in his spirit without remembering his beloved; and his heart stopped thinking and his eyes stopped weeping; and love annihilated itself, and the lover was left stunned, and he asked the people if they had seen love.189 Love, loving, lover, and beloved fit together so tightly in the Beloved that they are one actuality in essence—and yet the lover and the beloved are distinct things, in concord without any opposition or diversity of essence.190 And for that reason the Beloved is lovable above every other love. Tell me, fool: why do you have such great love? He answered: "For the journey on which I go seeking my beloved is long and dangerous."191 I have to search for him while carrying a heavy burden, and I must move quickly; I couldn't do all this without great love.192 The lover kept vigil, fasted, wept, gave alms, and went into foreign lands so that he might move his will toward his Beloved, and win the love of His subjects so they would honor His honors.193 If the lover's love isn't enough to move his beloved to pity and forgiveness, the beloved's love is enough to give his creatures grace and blessing. Tell me, fool: by what can you be more like your Beloved? He answered: By understanding so as to love with all my power the ways of my Beloved.194 They asked the Friend if his Beloved lacked anything, and he answered that he did: lovers and those who praise him, to honor his worth.195 The Beloved struck the Lover's heart with rods of love, so that he would make him love the tree from which the Beloved cut the rods with which he beat his lovers; on that tree he suffered death, and languors and dishonors, to restore to love the lovers he had lost.196 The lover met his Beloved and saw that He was most noble, powerful, and worthy of every honor; he told Him he was deeply amazed that people loved, knew, and honored Him so little, even though He was so worthy of it.✦ And the Beloved answered him, saying that he had suffered a very great deception in that he had created man so that among them he might be loved, known, and honored; and of a thousand men, only a hundred feared and loved him; and of those hundred, ninety feared him so he would not punish them, and ten loved him so he would give them glory; and there was scarcely anyone who loved him for his goodness and nobility.✦197198 When the lover heard these words, he wept bitterly over the dishonor of his Beloved and said, "Beloved, You who have given so much to man and honored him so much—why does man forget You so completely?"✦199 The lover praised his beloved and said that he had moved beyond any place, because he is where no place can be reached.200 And so, when they asked the lover where his beloved was, he answered: "He is; but he did not know where. Yet he knew that his beloved is in his remembrance."201 With his honors the Beloved bought a man who was a slave and subject to thoughts, languishings, sighs, and tears; and he asked him what he ate and drank.202 He answered that he ate whatever He wanted.203 He asked him what he wore. He answered that he wore whatever He wanted.204 The Beloved said, "Do you have any will of your own?"205 He answered that a serf and one who is subject has no other will but to obey his lord and his Beloved.206 The Beloved asked his Lover if he had patience. He answered that everything pleased him; and for that reason he had nothing over which to have patience; for whoever had no mastery over his own will could not be impatient.207 Love gave itself to whom it wished; and because it did not give itself to many people and did not deeply enamor the lovers—since it was free to do so—the friend complained of love on that account, and accused love before his beloved. But love excused herself, saying that she wasn't against free will, because she desired great merit and great glory for her lovers.208 There was a sharp contrast and deep discord between the lover and Love, because the lover grew weary of the hardships he was enduring for Love. The question arose whether this was due to a failing of Love or of the lover; they brought the matter to the Beloved for judgment, who punished the lover with languor and rewarded him with an increase of love.209 The question was whether love was closer to thought or to patience. The lover resolved the question by saying that love is born in thoughts and is sustained in patience. The Lover's neighbors are the Beloved's beautiful ways, and the Beloved's neighbors are his Lover's thoughts, and the labors and tears he endures for love. The lover's will wanted to climb very high so that it might love his beloved deeply, and it ordered the understanding to climb with all its power; and the understanding ordered memory to do the same. And all three rose to contemplate the beloved in his honors.210 The lover’s will left him and gave itself to the beloved; the beloved then imprisoned that will within the lover, so that he would be loved and served by them through him.211 The friend said, "My Beloved shouldn't think I've turned aside to love another; for love has bound me entirely to loving one Beloved alone." The Beloved answered and said: "My friend shouldn't think that I am loved and served by him alone; rather I have many lovers by whom I am loved more strongly and longer than by his love." The lover said to his beloved, "Lovable Beloved: you have trained and nourished my eyes to see your honors, and my ears to hear them; because of this, my heart has grown used to thoughts that have made my eyes accustomed to weeping and my body to languishing." The beloved answered the lover and said that without such habits and nourishing, his name would not be written in the book in which are written all those who come to eternal blessing, and their names are erased from the book where those who go to eternal damnation are written.✦212 The noble ways of the beloved converge in the heart of the lover, multiplying the thoughts and labors of the one who would be finished and dead if the beloved were to multiply his honors further in the lover's thoughts.213214 The Beloved came to lodge at his Lover's inn, and his Lover made him a bed of thoughts; and sighs and tears served him. And the Beloved paid for his lodging with remembrances.215 Love mingled hardships and pleasures in the lover's thoughts; the pleasures complained about this mixing and accused Love before the Beloved; and the pleasures failed and raved when the Beloved separated them from the torments that love gives its lovers.216 The signs of the loves the lover has for his beloved are these: at the beginning, tears; in the middle, tribulations; and at the end, death.217 And by those signs the lover preaches to the lovers of his beloved. The friend would withdraw into solitude, and thoughts kept his heart company, and tears and weeping his eyes, and afflictions and fasts his body.218 And when the friend returned to the company of people, all the things named above forsook him, and the friend was all alone among the people. Love is a sea tossed by waves and winds, with neither harbor nor shore. The lover perishes in the sea, and in his peril his torments perish and his fulfillments are born.219 Tell me, fool: what is love? He answered: Love is the concordance of theory and practice toward one end, to which the fulfillment of the lover's will is moved, so that he may make people honor and serve his beloved.220 And it is a question whether that end accords more strongly with the will of the lover who desires to be with his beloved.221 They asked the lover who his beloved was. He answered that it was what made him love, desire, languish, sigh, weep, be mocked, and die.222 They asked the Beloved who his friend was. He answered that it was the one who, to honor and praise his honors, shrank from nothing, and who renounced everything in order to obey his commandments and his counsels. Tell me, fool: which burden is heavier and harder—working for love, or working without it? He answered that he should ask the people who do penance for the love of their Beloved, or out of fear of hell's torments. The Lover fell asleep, and love died, because it had nothing to live on. The Lover woke, and love revived in the thoughts the Lover sent to his Beloved. The lover said that infused knowledge came from will, devotion, and prayer, and acquired knowledge came from study and understanding. And so the question is which knowledge is sooner in the lover, which is more pleasing to him, and which is greater in the lover.223 — Tell me, fool: where do you get your needs from? He answered: From thoughts, and from desiring, adoring, working, and perseverance. — And where do you get all these things from? He answered: From love. — And where do you get love from? From my Beloved. — And where do you get your Beloved from? From himself alone. “Tell me, fool: do you want to be free of everything?” He answered that yes, except his Beloved.224 “Do you want to be a captive?” He answered: — Yes: of sighs and thoughts, of labors and dangers and exiles, of tears, to serve my Beloved, for whom I was created to praise his excellences.225 Love tormented the lover, and for that torment the lover wept and lamented. He cried out to his Beloved to draw near so that he might be healed. The closer the lover drew to his Beloved, the more intensely love tormented him, because he felt more love. And because he felt more delight the more he loved, the more strongly the Beloved healed him of his languishing.226 Love was sick. The lover treated her with patience, perseverance, obedience, and hope, and healed love.227 The lover fell sick; the beloved healed him by reminding him of his virtues and his honors.228 Tell me, fool: what is solitude? He answered: "The solace and company of the lover and the beloved." And what is solace and company? He answered that solitude is being in the heart of the lover who remembers nothing but his beloved alone.229 Someone asked the Lover: Where is the greater danger—in bearing hardships for love, or in prosperity?230 The Lover consulted his Beloved and said that the dangers in adversity come from impatience, while the dangers in prosperity come from ingratitude.231 The Beloved set love free and gave people leave to take of it as freely as they wished; and he barely found love that would put it into its heart. And for that reason, the Lover wept and grieved over the dishonor love suffers here below among us, through false lovers and through those who don't recognize it.232 Love killed everything in the heart of its true lover so that it could live and find room there; and the lover would have died if he hadn't kept the remembrance of his Beloved. The Lover had two thoughts: one pondered the essence and virtues of his Beloved every day, while the other pondered the works of his Beloved. The question then was which thought was more luminous, and more pleasing to both the Beloved and the Lover.233 The Lover died by the force of great love. The Beloved buried him in his own earth, in which the Lover was raised again.234 And the question remains: which gift did the Lover receive as the greater one?235 In the Beloved's prison there were misfortunes, dangers, languishings, dishonors, and estrangements, so that they would not hinder his Lover from praising his glories and from kindling love in those who hold him in contempt. One day, the lover stood before many men whom his beloved had honored too highly in this world, because they dishonored him in their thoughts. Those men despised his beloved and mocked his servants. The lover wept, tore his hair, struck his face, and tore his clothes; and he cried out loudly, "Was there ever such a great wrong done as to despise my beloved?"236 Tell me, fool: do you want to die? He answered: — Yes—in the pleasures of this world and in the thoughts of the damned who forget and dishonor my Beloved; in those thoughts I don't want to be understood or wanted, since my Beloved is not there.237 If you tell the truth, you fool, people will wound you, mock you, rebuke you, torment you, and put you to death.✦ He answered: — By words like those, it follows that if I spoke falsehoods, I would be praised, loved, served, and honored by the people, and defended by the lovers of my Beloved.✦238 One day, false flatterers were slandering the Lover in the presence of his Beloved. The Lover had patience, and the Beloved had justice, wisdom, and power.239 And the Lover preferred to be slandered and rebuked rather than to be one of those false slanderers. The Beloved sowed various seeds in his Lover's heart, from which only one fruit was born, putting out leaves, flowering, and setting grain. And it's a question whether various seeds can be born from that fruit. Above love the Beloved stands very high, and beneath love the Lover stands very low. Love, which stands in the middle, brings the Beloved down to the Lover and raises the Lover up to the Beloved. From that descent and ascent, the love by which the Lover languishes and the Beloved is served comes to life and takes its beginning. The Beloved stands on the right side of love, and the Lover on the left; for this reason, unless the Lover passes through love, he cannot reach his Beloved.240 The Beloved stands before love, and the Lover stands behind the Beloved. So the Lover can't reach love until he has passed his thoughts and desires through the Beloved.241 The Beloved makes for his Lover three Beloveds like himself, in honors and in worth. And the Lover falls in love with all three equally, though love is only one, to signify the unity—one essentially in three Beloveds. The Beloved clothed himself in the same fabric his Lover wore, so that they might be companions in glory forever.242 And for this reason the Lover longed every day for red garments, so that the cloth might more closely resemble the garments of his Beloved.✦243 Tell me, fool: what was your Beloved doing before the world existed?✦ He answered: It was fitting that he should exist through various eternal, personal, infinite properties, in which there is both Lover and Beloved.244 The lover wept and was sorrowful when he saw unbelievers lose his Beloved out of ignorance; and he rejoiced in the justice of his Beloved, who tormented those who knew him and were disobedient to him. Because of this, he was asked which was greater—his sorrow or his joy—and whether he felt more bliss when he saw his Beloved honored, or more misery when he saw him dishonored.245 The lover contemplated his beloved in the greatest difference and concordance of virtues, and in the greatest contrariety of virtues and vices, and in the perfection of being, which cohere more strongly without defect and non-being than with defect and with non-being.246 The lover saw the secrets of his beloved through diversity and harmony, which revealed to him both plurality and unity in his beloved, through a greater agreement of essence without opposition. They said to the lover that if corruption—which is against being in that which is against generation, which is against non-being—were eternally both corrupting and corrupted, it would be impossible for non-being and end to agree with corruption or the corrupted.247 So, through these words, the lover saw eternal generation in his beloved.248
The Final Union
The Lover concludes his journey by contemplating the unity of the Beloved, the nature of sin, and the ultimate surrender of his will to the Beloved's glory.
If what lets the lover love his beloved more were falsehood, then what keeps the lover from loving his beloved as much would be truth; and if that were so, it would follow that there would be a deficiency of the greater and of truth in the beloved, and there would be in the beloved a concordance of falsehood and the lesser.249250 The lover was praising his beloved, and said that if his beloved has a greater possibility of perfection and a greater impossibility of imperfection, then his beloved must be simple, pure actuality in essence and in operation.251 And as the lover was praising his beloved in this way, the Trinity of his beloved was revealed to him. The Lover saw greater concordance in the number one and in the number three than in any other number, because every bodily form came from non-being into being through that number named above. For this reason, the Lover contemplated the unity and the trinity of his Beloved through that greater harmony of numbers. The lover praised the power, the knowledge, and the will of his Beloved, which had created all things except sin; that sin would not exist without the power, the knowledge, and the will of his Beloved; yet of that sin the power, the knowledge, and the will of his Beloved are not the occasion.252 The lover praised and loved his beloved because he had created him and given him all things; and he praised and loved him because it pleased him to take on his likeness and his nature.253 And from this, the question should be asked: which praise and love ought to have the greater perfection. Love tested the lover with wisdom, and put the question to him whether the Beloved loved him more in taking on his nature or in re-creating him.254 And the lover was confounded by it until he answered that re-creation is ordered toward warding off misfortune, and the Incarnation toward giving blessedness.255256 Following that answer, he was asked another question: which love is greater.257 The lover went from door to door begging alms, so that he might remind his beloved's servants of his beloved's love, and so that he might practice humility, poverty, and patience—things that please his beloved. They asked the friend for forgiveness for the love of his beloved; and the friend not only forgave them, but gave them himself and his goods.258 With tears from his eyes the Friend recounted the Passion and the pain that his Beloved had borne for love of him; and with sadness and thoughts he wrote the words he was saying; and with mercy and hope he consoled himself. The Beloved and Love came to visit the lover, who was asleep. The Beloved called out to his lover, and Love woke him up. The lover obeyed Love and answered his Beloved. The Beloved was nurturing his Friend to love; and Love was teaching him to risk danger, and Patience was instructing him how to bear hardships for the love of the one to whom he has given himself as a servant. The Beloved asked people if they had seen his Lover, and they asked him for the qualities of his Lover; and the Beloved said that his Lover was bold, fearful, rich and poor, joyful, sad, full of care, and that he languished every day for love of him. They asked the Friend if he wanted to sell his desire, and he replied that he had sold it to his Beloved for such a price that the whole world could be bought with it.259 — Preach, fool, and speak words of your beloved. Weep, fast! The lover renounced the world, and went seeking his beloved with love, and praised him in those places where he was dishonored.260 The Lover was building and shaping a beautiful city where his Beloved might dwell. With love, thoughts, laments, tears, and languishings he built it; and with delights, hope, and devotion he adorned it; and with faith, justice, prudence, fortitude, and temperance he furnished it. The Lover drank love from the fountain of his Beloved, where the Beloved washed the feet of his Lover, who had so often forgotten and despised his honors; and that is why the world is in decline.261 Tell me, fool: what is sin? He answered: It is an intention turned and inverted against the final intention and reason for which my Beloved has created all things.262 The lover saw that the world is created, since eternity suits his Beloved—who is infinite essence in greatness and in all perfection—better than it suits the world, which is finite in quantity. And out of love for the justice of his Beloved, the lover watches that the eternity of his Beloved must stand prior to time and to finite quantity.263264 The Lover defended his Beloved against those who said the world is eternal, saying that his Beloved would not have perfect justice if He did not restore to each soul its body—for which neither place nor original matter would be enough; nor would the world be ordered to one end alone if it were eternal; and if that were not so, perfection of will and wisdom would be lacking in his Beloved.265266 — Tell me, fool: how do you know that the Catholic faith is true, and that the belief of the Jews and of the Saracens is in falsehood and error? He answered: In the ten conditions of the Book of the Gentile and the Three Wise Men.267 — Tell me, fool: in what does wisdom begin? He answered: In faith and in devotion, which are the ladder by which the understanding climbs to grasp the secrets of my Beloved.268 And faith and devotion—where do they begin? He answered: From my Beloved, who illumines faith and warms devotion.269 They asked the Lover which was greater: possibility or impossibility. He answered that possibility was greater in the creature, and impossibility in his Beloved; since possibility and potency agree with each other, and impossibility and actuality.270271 Tell me, fool: which is greater—difference or concordance? He answered that outside of his Beloved, difference was greater in plurality, and concordance in unity; but in his Beloved, they were equal in both difference and unity.272 — Tell me, lover: what is worth? He answered that it is the contrary of the worth of this world, which is desired by the false, vainglorious lovers who want to count for something while they have no worth, or by being persecutors of worth.273 — Tell me, fool: have you seen a man who's mad? He answered that he had seen a bishop who had many cups and many bowls and silver platters on his table, and who had many garments and a great bed in his chamber, and much money in his chests; and at the door of his palace there were few of the poor.274 Fool, do you know what baseness is? He answered: Base thoughts. And what is loyalty? Fear of my Beloved, born of charity and of shame—not the fear of one who dreads people's blame.275 And what is honor? He answered: To think on my Beloved, and to long for and praise his honors. The hardships and tribulations the lover was enduring for love unsettled him and inclined him toward impatience; and the Beloved rebuked him with his honors and with his promises, saying that anyone who was unsettled by hard treatment or by good fortune knew little of love.276 The lover had contrition and tears, and begged his Beloved to restore love to him.277 Fool, tell me: what is love? He answered that love is that which puts free people into servitude and gives freedom to slaves. And the question is whether love is closer to freedom or to servitude. The Beloved was calling to his Lover, and he answered him, saying: "What would please you, Beloved—you who are the eyes of my eyes, the thought of my thoughts, the fulfillment of my fulfillments, the love of my loves, and yet the beginning of my beginnings?" "Beloved," said the lover, "I go to you and I go in you, for you call me." I go to contemplate contemplation, by way of contemplating your contemplation.278 I am in your virtue, and with your virtue I come, from which I take virtue.279 I greet you with your greeting, which is my greeting in your greeting, from which I hope for an everlasting greeting in the blessing of your blessing, in which I am blessed in my blessing.280281 You are high, Beloved, in your heights, to which you raise my will—a will raised in your raising by your height, which raises my understanding in my remembrance, that understanding raised in your raising—so that I may know your honors, and so that the will may have from this a raised love and the memory a high remembrance.282 You are the glory, Beloved, of my glory; and with your glory and in your glory, you give glory to my glory, which has its glory from your glory. Through that glory of yours, the struggles and exhaustion I face for the sake of honoring your glory are just as much a glory to me as the pleasures and thoughts that come to me from your glory.283 Beloved: in the prison of love you keep me enamored with your loves, which have made me fall in love with your loves—through your loves and in your loves. My heart is nothing else but loves, and in them you leave me to be alone and in the company of your loves and your honors.284 For you alone are in me alone, who live solitary with my thoughts, since your solitude—alone in honors—has set me alone to praise and honor its worth, without fear of those who do not know you and who do not hold you alone in their loves.285 — You are solace, Beloved, solace itself; that is why I rest my thoughts in you with your solace, which is solace and comfort for my languishings and my tribulations—which are distressed over your solace, since you do not console the ignorant with your solace, and since you do not make those who know your solace love more strongly to honor your honors.286 The lover cried out to his Lord about his beloved, and to his beloved about his Lord. The lord and the beloved said: "Who makes a division in us, who are so entirely one?"287 The lover answered and said that it was a lord's compassion and tribulation for a beloved.288 The lover was in peril in the great sea of love, and he confided himself to his beloved, who came to his aid with tribulations, thoughts, tears and weeping, sighs and languishings, because the sea was a sea of loves, and of honoring his honors.289 The lover rejoiced that his beloved existed, because through his being every other being has come to be, is sustained, is bound, and is subject to honor and serve the being of his beloved, who cannot be destroyed, blamed, diminished, or increased by any other being.290 Beloved: in your greatness you make my desires, my thoughts, and my labors great; for you are so great that everything that remembers you, understands you, and delights in you is great; and your greatness makes small all things that go against your honors and commandments.291 — My Beloved forever begins, and has begun, and will begin; and forever he does not begin, nor has he begun, nor will he begin. These beginnings aren't a contradiction in my Beloved, because he is eternal and holds within himself both unity and Trinity.292 — My Beloved is one, and in his unity my thoughts and my loves join in a single will; and the unity of my Beloved is enough for every unity and every plurality; and the plurality that is in my Beloved is enough for every unity and every plurality. The supreme good is the good of my Beloved, who is the good of my good; for my Beloved is good without any other good, because if He were not, my good would belong to another—and that other would be supreme.293294 And since that isn't the case, let all my good in this life be spent on honoring the supreme good, for that is how it should be. If you, Beloved, know me as a sinner, then show yourself merciful and forgiving.295 And because what you know in yourself is better than I am, I therefore know forgiveness and love in you, since you let me know contrition, sorrow, and the desire to die in order to praise your worth.296 Your power, Beloved, can save me through kindness, compassion, and forgiveness, and it can damn me through justice and through the guilt of my failings.297 May your power fulfill your will in me, for everything is a fulfillment, whether you grant me salvation or condemnation.298 Beloved: truth visits the contrition of my heart, and water rises to my eyes because my will loves it; and because your truth is sovereign, raise truth up within my will to honor your honors, and bring it down to unlove my failings.299300301 Nothing has ever been true without my Beloved; whatever my Beloved isn't in is false; and whatever my Beloved won't be in will be false.302 And for this reason it must be that everything that will be, or was, or is, is true if my Beloved is in it; and for this reason, whatever is held as true where my Beloved is not is false — otherwise a contradiction follows.303304 The Beloved created and destroyed the Lover. The Beloved judged; the Lover wept. The Beloved restores; glory to the Lover. The Beloved finished his work, and the Lover remained forever in the company of his Beloved. Along the paths of vegetative life, of sense, of imagination, of understanding, and of will, the lover went seeking his beloved; and on those paths the lover had dangers and languishings for his beloved's sake, so that he might raise his understanding and his will to his beloved, who wants his lovers to understand him and love him highly.305 A friend is drawn toward being by the perfection of the beloved, and drawn toward non-being by their own failings.306 So the question is, which of these two movements naturally has a greater hold on the friend?307 Beloved, you have set me between my evil and your good. On your side, let there be pity, mercy, patience, humility, forgiveness, help, and restoration; on my side, let there be contrition, perseverance, and a remembrance of your holy passion, with sighs, tears, and weeping.308309 Beloved, who let me love you: if you don't help me, why did you want to create me?310 And why, for my sake, did you bear so many sufferings and endure such a heavy Passion?311 Since you've helped me so much to rise, help me, Beloved, to come down, to remember and to hate my faults and my failings, so that my thoughts may better rise to desire, honor, and praise your excellences.312313 You’ve set my will free to love your honors and to despise your excellences, so that through my will you can multiply your loves.314 In this freedom, Beloved, you have put my will in danger. Beloved, in this danger you must remember your lover, who draws servitude from his own free will—to praise your honors and to multiply languors and tears in his heart.315 Beloved: never did fault or failure come from you into your friend, nor did your friend ever reach fulfillment without your gift and forgiveness.316 And so, since the friend holds you in such possession, don't forget him in his tribulations or in his peril. Beloved, you who are named by the single name of man and God! In that name, Jesus Christ, my will wants you as man and God; and if you, Beloved, have so greatly honored your lover without his merits in naming and desiring your name, why do you not honor so many countless people who knowingly have not been as guilty against that name, Jesus Christ, as your lover has been?317 The Lover was weeping, and he said these words to his Beloved: "Beloved, you were never stingy or covetous toward your Lover in giving him being, or in re-creating him, or in giving him many creatures for his service."318 So then, Beloved, how could it be that you, who are sovereign freedom, would be stingy toward your Lover—with tears, thoughts, longings, wisdom, and loves—for the honoring of your glory?319 And for that reason, Beloved, your Lover asks you for a long life, so that he may receive from you many of the gifts mentioned above. Beloved: if you help the just against their mortal enemies, help multiply my thoughts in desiring your honors; and if you help the unjust when they recover justice, help your friend so that he may make of his will a sacrifice to your praise, and of his body a witness of love by the way of martyrdom.320 My Beloved makes no distinction between humility, the humble, and the humbled, for everything is humility in its pure, actual state.321 And for this reason the Lover rebukes pride, which wants to raise up to his Beloved those whom the humility of my Beloved has so greatly honored in this world—and pride has clothed them in hypocrisy, vainglory, and vanities. Humility has humbled the Beloved before the lover through contrition, and so it was accomplished through devotion. And the question is by which of the two the Beloved was more strongly humbled before the lover.322 The Beloved showed mercy to His Lover out of His own perfection, and He also showed mercy for His Lover's needs. And the question is for which of these two reasons the Beloved more strongly forgives His Lover's faults.323 Our Lady, the angels, and the saints in glory were praying to my Beloved; then I remembered the error the world lives in through ignorance—I remembered how great the justice of my Beloved is, and how great the ignorance of his enemies.324 The lover was lifting the powers of his soul up the ladder of humanity to glorify the divine nature, and through that divine nature, he was lowering the powers of his soul to glory in the human nature of his Beloved.325 The narrower the paths by which the lover goes to his beloved, the wider the loves; and the narrower the loves, the wider the paths. And so, in every way, the lover has for his beloved loves and labors, and longings and pleasures and consolations.326 Loves come forth from loves, and thoughts from languishings, and tears from languishings; and loves enter into loves, and thoughts into tears, and languishings into sighs. And the Beloved looks upon his lover, who has all these tribulations for love of Him.327 The Lover's desires and remembrances kept night vigils and made pilgrimages among the excellences of his Beloved, and they brought forms to the Lover and filled his understanding with radiance, by which the will multiplied its loves.328329 In his imagination, the lover painted and shaped the features of his beloved in physical things; with his understanding, he refined them in spiritual things; and with his will, he adored them in all creatures. The lover bought a day of tears for another day of thoughts, and sold a day of loves for another of tribulations; and his loves and his thoughts multiplied. The lover was in a foreign land, and he forgot his Beloved, and he longed for his lord and his wife and his children, and for his friends. But he turned back to remembering his Beloved, so that He might console them, and so that his exile wouldn't fill him with longing or grief.330 The lover heard the words of his beloved, and in them his understanding saw him, because the will took pleasure in that hearing; and memory recalled the virtues of his beloved, and his promises. The lover heard people reviling his beloved, and in that reviling, he saw the justice and patience of his beloved—because justice was punishing the revilers, while patience was waiting for them to come to contrition and repentance.331 So the question is, which of the two did the lover believe in more firmly? The lover fell ill, and he drafted his will with the counsel of his Beloved. Faults and wrongs he left to repentance and penance; and temporal pleasures he left to contempt. To his eyes he left tears, and to his heart sighs and loves; and to his understanding he left the features of his Beloved; and to his memory, the Passion that his Beloved endured for love of him; and to his work he left the setting in order of the unfaithful, who go in ignorance to ruin.332333334 The lover smelled flowers, and he recalled the stench in the greedy rich man, the lustful man, and the ungrateful, proud man.335 The lover tasted sweetness, and he understood the bitterness in temporal possessions, and in the entering and leaving of this world.336 The lover felt temporal pleasures, and his understanding grasped the brief passing of this world and the everlasting torments for which the delights that please people in this world are the occasion. The Lover had hunger, thirst, heat and cold, poverty, nakedness, illness, and tribulation, and he would have been finished if he had not had remembrance of his Beloved, who healed him with hope and remembrance, and with renunciation of this world, and with scorn for the people's blame.337338 The Lover's bed was between toil and pleasure; he fell asleep in pleasure, and woke to toil. It's a question of which of these two the Lover's bed is closer to. The friend fell asleep in anger, for he feared the blame of the people; and he woke in patience when he remembered the praises of his beloved. The question is, who was the friend more ashamed of: his beloved, or the people? The lover thought about death. And he was afraid until he remembered the city of his beloved, of which death and love are the gates and the entrance. The Lover cried out to his Beloved about the temptations that troubled his thoughts every day. And the Beloved answered him, saying that temptations are an occasion for a person to turn, by remembrance, to remembering God and loving his honorable ways.339 The lover lost a jewel he loved very much; and he would have been inconsolable, until his beloved asked him which was more profitable for him: the jewel he had had, or the patience he had in the works of his beloved.340 The lover was asleep, reflecting on the toils and obstacles he faces in serving his beloved, and he was afraid his works would perish because of those obstacles. But the beloved sent him conscience, who woke him to his merits and to the powers of his beloved.341 The lover had long roads to travel, hard and rough; and it was time for him to go along them and to carry the great burden that love makes its lovers bear. So the lover unburdened his soul of worldly thoughts and pleasures, so that his body could carry the load more easily and his soul could walk those roads in the company of his beloved. One day, in the lover's presence, people spoke ill of his beloved, and the lover neither answered nor excused his beloved. And the question is who is more at fault: the men who were blaming the beloved, or the lover who kept silent and did not excuse his beloved. As the lover contemplated his beloved, he refined his understanding and fell more deeply in love in his will.342 And the question is: through which of the two did he more strongly refine his memory for remembering his beloved?343 With fervor and fear the lover went on his journey to honor his Beloved: fervor carried him, fear kept him. As the lover traveled on, he encountered sighs and tears that brought him greetings from his Beloved.344 The question remains as to which of these four brought the lover the most comfort in his Beloved.345 The lover looked at himself so that he might be a mirror in which he would see his beloved, and he looked at his beloved so that the beloved might be a mirror for him in which he would gain knowledge of himself.346 The question is, which of the two mirrors was his understanding more closely drawn to? Theology and Philosophy, Medicine and Law met the lover, who asked them for news of whether they had seen his beloved. Theology was weeping, Philosophy was doubting, and Medicine and Law were rejoicing. And the question is what each of the four meanings signifies for the lover who went seeking his beloved.347 In anguish and tears, the lover went searching for his beloved along the paths of the senses and the roads of the intellect. The question is: which of the two paths did he enter first while seeking his beloved, and on which did the beloved reveal himself more clearly to the lover?348 On the day of judgment, the Beloved will say that what you gave Him in this world should be set on one side, and what you gave to the world on the other, so it may be seen how deeply He was loved from the heart, and which of the two gifts is nobler and greater in measure.349 The will of the lover loved itself, and the understanding asked it whether it was more like its Beloved in loving itself or in loving its Beloved, since his Beloved loves himself more than any other thing. So the question is which answer the will can give the understanding more truthfully.350 — Tell me, fool: what is the greatest and most noble love there is in a creature? He answered: The love that is one with the Creator. Why? Because the Creator has nothing with which He could make a nobler creature.351 One day the lover was at prayer, and he noticed that his eyes weren't weeping; and so that he might weep, he sent his thought to dwell on money, women, children, food, and vainglory; and he found in his understanding that each of the things just named has more people as its servants than his Beloved does.352 Because of this, his eyes filled with tears, and his soul with sadness and pain. The lover was walking absorbed in his Beloved, and on the road he came upon great crowds of people and large companies who asked him for news; and the lover, because he found delight in his Beloved, did not answer what they asked him, and said that so as not to be drawn away from his Beloved he would not answer their words.353 The Friend was covered with love inside and out, and went seeking his Beloved. Love asked him, "Where are you going, lover?" He answered, "I'm going to my Beloved so that you may be greater." Tell me, fool: what is religion? He answered: Purity of mind, a longing to die so as to honor my Beloved, and renouncing the world so that nothing will hinder me from contemplating him and speaking the truth about his praises. Tell me, fool: what are toils, weepings, sighs, worse afflictions, tribulations, and dangers in the lover?354 He answered: The Beloved's pleasure. Why? So that through them the Beloved may be more loved, and the lover more rewarded.355 They asked the lover in which love was greater: in the lover who was living, or in the lover who was dying. He answered that it was in the lover who was dying. Why? Because it cannot be greater in a lover who dies for love, and it can be greater in a lover who lives for love.356 Two lovers met; one was showing his Beloved, and the other was understanding him. And the question was which of the two was closer to his Beloved. And through the solution the Lover gained knowledge of the demonstration of the Trinity.357 Tell me, fool: why do you speak so subtly? He answered: — So that it may give occasion to raise understanding to the excellences of my Beloved, and so that by more people He may be honored, loved, and served.358 The Lover was drunk on wine—he who remembered, understood, and loved the Beloved.✦359 That wine made the Beloved bitter with its tears and with the tears of his Lover.360 Love warmed and set the lover on fire in remembrance of his beloved; and the beloved cooled him with tears and weeping, and with forgetting the pleasures of this world, and with renouncing vain honors. And love grew as the lover remembered for whom he endured languor and tribulation—more than worldly men grow in love for those for whom they endure toil and persecution.361 Tell me, fool: what is this world? He answered: "It's a prison for those who love and serve my Beloved." "And who puts them in prison?"362 He answered: Conscience, love, fear, renunciation, contrition, the company of wicked people; and it is toil without reward, where there is punishment.363
Read the original Latin
Demanà l'amic a son amat si havia en ell nulla cosa romasa a amar; e l'amat respós que ço per què l'amor de l'amic podia muntiplicar, era a amar.
Les carreres per les quals l'amic encerca son amat són llongues, perilloses, poblades de consideracions, de sospirs e de plors, e enluminades d'amors.
Ajustaren-se molts amadors a amar un amat qui els abundava tots d'amors; e cascú havia per cabal son amat e sos pensaments agradables, per los quals sentien plaents tribulacions.
Plorava l'amic e deïa: - ¿Tro a quant de temps cessaran tenebres en lo món, per ço que cessen les carreres infernals? Ni l'aigua, qui ha en costuma que decórrega a enjús, ¿quan serà l'hora que haja natura de pujar a ensús? Ni els innocents ¿quan seran més que els colpables?
— Ah! quan se gaubarà l'amic que muira per son amat? Ni l'amat, quan veurà son amic llanguir per sa amor?
Dix l'amic a l'amat: — Tu qui umples lo sol de resplendor, umple mon cor d'amor. Respòs l'amat: — Sens compliment d'amor no foren tos ulls en plor, ni tu vengut en est lloc veer ton amador.
Temptà l'amat son amic si amava perfectament; e demanà-li de què era la diferència qui és enfre presència e absència d'amat. Respòs l'amic: — D'innorància e oblidament, coneixença e remembrament.
Demanà l'amat a l'amic: — ¿Has membrança de nulla cosa que t'haja guardonat, per ço cor me vols amar? Respòs: — Hoc, ver ço cor enfre los treballs e els plaers que em dónes, no en faç diferència.
— Digues, amic —dix l'amat—: ¿hauràs paciència si et doble tes llangors? — Hoc, ab que em dobles mes amors.
Dix l'amat a l'amic: —Saps, encara, què és amor? — Si no sabés què és amor, ¿sabera què és treball, tristícia e dolor?
Digueren a l'amic: — ¿Per què no respons a ton amat qui t'apella? Respòs: — Ja m'aventur a greus perills per ço que a ell pervenga, e ja li parle desirant ses honors.
— Amic foll: ¿per què destruus ta persona e despens tos diners, e lleixes los delits d'aquest món e vas menyspreat enfre les gents? Respòs: — Per honrar los honraments de mon amat, qui per més hòmens és desamat, deshonrat, que honrat e amat.
— Digues, foll per amor: ¿e qual cosa és pus vesible, o l'amat en l'amic, o l'amic en l'amat? Respòs, e dix que l'amat és vist per amors, e l'amic per sospirs, e per plors, e treballs e dolors.
Encercava l'amic qui recomptàs a son amat com ell per sa amor sostenia greus treballs e moria; e atrobà son amat qui lligia en un llibre on eren escrites totes les llangors que amor li donaria per son amat, e tots los grats que n'havia.
Portà nostra Dona son Fill a l'amic per ço que li besàs son peu, e que escrivís en son llibre les virtuts de nostra Dona.
— Digues, aucell qui cantes: ¿est-te mes en guarda de mon amat per ço que el defena de desamor, e que muntiplic en tu amor? Respòs l'aucell: — ¿E qui em fa cantar, mas tan solament lo Senyor d'amor, qui es té a deshonor desamor?
Enfre temor e esperança ha fet hostal amor, on viu de pensaments e mor per oblidaments com los fonaments són sobre los delits d'aquest món.
Qüestió lo enfre los ulls e la memòria de l'amic, cor los ulls deïen que mellor cosa és veer l'amat que membrar-lo, e la memòria dix que per lo remembrament puja l'aigua als ull e el cor s'enflama d'amor.
Demanà l'amic a l'enteniment e a la volentat qual era pus prop a son amat; e corregueren ambdós, e fo ans l'enteniment a son amat que la volentat.
Contrastaren-se l'amic e l'amat; e viu-ho un altre amic, qui plorà tan llongament tro hac feta pau e concordança enfre l'amat e l'amic.
Sospirs e plors vengren a jutjament a l'amat e demanaren-li per lo qual se sentia amat pus fortment. Jutjà l'amat que els sospirs són pus prop a amor, e los plors als ulls.
Venc l'amic beure a la font on hom qui no ama s'enamora com beu en la font, e doblaren sos llanguiments. E venc l'amat beure a la font per ço que sobredoblement doblàs a son amic ses amors, en les quals li doblàs llangors.
Malalte fo l'amic, e pensava'n l'amat: de mèrit lo peixia, e ab amor l'abeurava, e paciència lo colgava, d'humilitat lo vestia, ab veritat lo metjava.
Demanaren a l'amic on era son amat. Respòs: — Ve'l-vos en una casa pus noble que totes les altres nobilitats creades; e ve'l-vos en mes amors, e en mos llanguiments e en mos plors.
Digueren a l'amic: — On vas? — Venc de mon amat. On véns? — Vaig a mon amat. — Quan tornaràs? — Estaré ab mon amat. — Quant estarás ab ton amat? — Aitant de temps con seran en ell los meus pensaments.
Cantaven los aucells l'alba, e despertà's l'amic, qui és l'alba; e los aucells feniren llur cant, e l'amic morí per l'amat en l'alba.
Cantava l'aucell en lo verger de l'amat. Venc l'amie, qui dix a l'aucell: — Si no ens entenem per llenguatge, entenam-nos per amor; cor en lo teu cant se representa a mos ulls mon amat.
Hac son l'amic, qui molt havia treballat en cercar son amat; e hac paor que no oblidàs son amat. E Plorà, per ço que no s'adormís, ni son amat no los absent a son remembrament.
Encontraren-se l'amic e l'amat, e dix l'amic: — No cal que em parles; mas fé'm senyal ab tos ulls, qui són paraules a mon cor, con te do ço que demanes.
Desobeí l'amic son amat, e plorà l'amic. E l'amat venc morir en la gonella de son amic, per ço que l'amic recobràs ço que havia perdut; e donà-li major do que cell que perdut havia.
L'amat enamora l'amic, e no el plany de son llanguiment, per ço que pus fortment sia amat e en lo major llanguiment atrop l'amic plaer e reveniment.
Dix l'amic: — Turmenten-me los secrets de mon amat, com les mies obres los revelen, e cor la mia boca los té secrets e no els descobre a les gents.
Les condicions d'amor són que l'amic sia sofirent, pacient, humil, temorós, diligent, confiant, e que s'aventur a grans perills a honrar son amat. E les condicions de l'amat són que sia vertader, liberal, piadós, just, a son amic.
Encercava l'amic devoció en los munts e en los plans, per veer si era servit son amat; e atrobà'n defalliment en cascú d'aquests llocs. E per açó cavà en la terra, si hi atrobaria lo compliment, pus que per terra devoció ha defalliment.
— Digues, aucell qui cantes d'amor al meu amat: ¿per què em turmenta ab amor, qui m'ha pres a ésser son servidor? Respòs l'aucell: — Si no sostenes treballs per amor, ¿ab què amaries ton amat?
Consirós anava l'amic en les carreres de son amat, e encepegà, e caec enfre espines, les quals li foren semblants que fossen flors, e que son llit fos d'amors.
Demanaren a l'amic si camiaria per altre son amat. Respòs, e dix: — ¿E qual altre es mellor ni pus noble que sobiran bé, eternal, infinit en granea, poder, saviea, amor, perfecció?
Cantava e plorava l'amic cants de son amat, e deïa que pus ivaçosa cosa es amor en coratge d'amador, que llamp en resplandor, ni tro en oïment; e pus viva es aigua en plor que en ondes de mar; e pus prop es sospir a amor que neu a blancor.
Demanaren a l'amic per què era son amat gloriós. Respòs: — Per ço cor és glòria. Digueren-li per què era poderós. Respòs: — Per ço cor es poder. Ni per què és savi: — Per ço cor és saviea. Ni per què és amable: — Per ço cor és amor.
Llevà's matí l'amic, e anava cercant son amat; e atrobà gents qui anaven per la via, e demanà si havien vist son amat. Respongueren-li dient quan lo aquella hora que son amat lo absent a sos ulls mentals. Respòs l'amic, e dix: — Anc, pus hac vist mon amat en mos pensaments, no lo absent a mos ulls corporals, cor totes coses vesibles me representen mon amat.
Ab ulls de pensaments, llanguiments, de sospirs e de plors, esguardava l'amic son amat; e ab ulls de gràcia, justícia, pietat, misericòrdia, liberalitat, l'amat esguardava son amic. E l'aucell cantava lo plaent esguardament damunt dit.
Les claus de les portes d'amor són daurades de consirers, sospirs e plors, e el cordó de les claus és de consciència, contrició, devoció, satisfació; e el porter es de justícia, misericòrdia.
Tocava l'amic a la porta de son amat ab colp d'amor, esperança. Oïa l'amat lo colp de son amic ab humilitat, pietat, paciència, caritat. Obriren les portes deïtat e humanitat, e entrava l'amic veer son amat.
Propietat e comunitat s'encontraren, e es mesclaren, per ço que fos amistat e benvolença enfre l'amic e l'amat.
Dos són los focs qui escalfen l'amor de l'amic: la un es bastit de desigs, plaers, cogitacions; l'altre és compost de temor, llanguiment, e de llàgremes e de plors.
Desirà l'amic soliditat, e anà estar tot sol per ço que hagués companyia de son amat, ab lo qual està tot sol enfre les gents.
Estava l'amic tot sol, sots l'ombra d'un bell arbre. Passaren hòmens per aquell lloc, e demanaren-li per què estava sol. E l'amic respòs que sol fo com los hac vists e oïts, e que d'abans era en companyia de son amat.
Ab senyals d'amor se parlaven l'amic e l'amat; e ab temor, pensaments, llàgremes e plors recomptava l'amic a l'amat sos llanguiments.
Dubtà l'amic que son amat no li fallís a ses majors necessitats. Desenamorà l'amat son amic. Hac contrició, penediment, l'amic en son cor; e l'amat reté al cor de l'amic esperança, caritat; e als ulls llágremes e plors, per ço que retornàs amor en l'amic.
Eguals coses só'n propinqüitat e llunyedat enfre l'amic e l'amat; cor enaixi com mesclament d'aigua e de vi, se mesclen les amors de l'amic e l'amat; enaixí con calor e llugor, s'encadenen llurs amors; e enaixí com esséncia e ésser, se convenen e s'acosten.
Dix l'amic a son amat: — En tu és mon sanament e mon llanguiment; e en pus fortment me sanes, pus creix mon llanguiment, e on pus me llangueixs, major sanitat me dónes. Respòs l'amat: — La tua amor és segell e empremta en mestres los meus honraments a les gents.
Veïa's pendre l'amic, e lligar, e ferir e auciure per amor de son amat. Demanaren-li aquells qui el turmentaven: — On és ton amat? Respòs: — Ve'l-vos en lo muntiplicament de mes amors e en la sustentació que em fa de mos turments.
Dix l'amic a l'amat: — Anc no fugí ni em partí de tu a amar, depús que t'hac conegut; cor en tu. e per tu e ab tu fui on que fos. Respòs l'amat: — Ni jo, depús que tu m'haguist conegut e amat, no t'oblidé, ni null temps no fiu contra tu engan ni falliment.
Anava l'amic per una ciutat com a foll, cantant de son amat; e demanaren-li les gents si havia perdut son senv. Respòs que son amat havia pres son voler, e que ell li havia donat son enteniment per açò era-li romàs tan solament lo remembrament, ab què remembrava son amat.
Dix l'amat: — Miracle es contra amor, d'amic qui s'adorm oblidant son amat. Respòs l'amic: — E miracle es contra amor si l'amat no desperta l'amic, pus que l'ha desirat.
Pujà-se'n lo cor de l'amic en les altees de l'amat, per ço que no los embargat a mar en l'abís d'aquest món. E con fo a l'amat, contemplà'l ab dolçor e plaer; e l'amat baixà'l a aquest món, per ço que el contemplàs e ab tribulacions e ab llanguiments.
Demanaren a l'amic: — Quals són tes riquees? Respòs: — Les pobretats que sostenc per mon amat. — E qual és ton repòs? — Lo llanguiment que em dóna amor. — E qui és ton metge? — La confiança que he de mon amat. — E qui és ton maestre? Respòs, e dix que les significances que les creatures donen de son amat.
Cantava l'aucell en un ram de fulles e de flors, e lo vent menava les fulles e aportava odor de les flors. Demanava l'amic a l'aucell què significava lo moviment de les fulles ni l'odor de les flors. Respòs: — Les fulles signifiquen en llur moviment, obediència; e l'odor, sufre e malanança.
Anava l'amic desirant son amat, e encontrà's ab dos amics qui ab amor e ab plors se saludaren, e s'abraçaren e es besaren. Esmortí's l'amic: tan fortment li remembraren los dos amics son amat.
Cogità l'amic en la mort, e hac paor tro que remembrà son amat. E cridà a les gents qui li estaven davant: — Ah, senyors! Amats per ço que mort ni perills no temats, a honrar mon amat.
Demanaren a l'amic on comentaran primerament ses amors. Respòs que en les noblees de son amat; e que d'aquell començament s'enclinarien a amar si mateix e son proïsme, e en desamar engan e falliment.
— Digues, foll: si et desamava ton amat, què faries? Respòs, e dix que amaria per ço que no morís, con sia cosa que desamor sia mort, e amor sia vida.
Demanaren a l'amic quina cosa era perseverança. Dix que perseverança era benanança e malanança en amic perseverant en amar, honrar, servir son amat ab fortitudo, paciència, esperança.
Dix l'amic a son amat que el pagàs del temps en què l'havia servit. Comptà l'amat los pensaments, e els desigs, e els plors, e els perills e els treballs que havia sostenguts son amic per sa amor; e afegí en aquell compte, eternal benauirança, e donà si mateix en paga a son amic.
Demanaren a l'amic qual cosa era benanança. Respòs que malanança sostenguda per amor.
— Digues, foll: quina cosa es malanança? — Membrança de les deshonors qui són fetes a mon amat, digne de tots honraments.
Remirava l'amic un lloc en lo qual havia vist son amat, e deïa: — Ah, lloc qui em representes les belles costumes de mon amat! Diràs a mon amat que jo sostenc, per sa amor, treball, e malanança. Respòs lo lloc: — Con en mi era ton amat, soferia per ta amor major treball e malanança que tots los altres treballs ni les altres malanançes que amor pot donar a sos servidors.
Deïa l'amic a son amat:—Tu est tot, e per tot, e en tot, e ab tot. Tu vull tot, per ço que haja e sia tot mi. Respòs l'amat: — No em pots haver tot sens que tu no sies de mi. E dix l'amic: — Hages-me tot, e jo tu tot. Respòs l'amat: — ¿Què haurà ton fill, ton frare e ton pare? Dix l'amic: — Tu est tal tot, que pots abundar a ésser tot de cascú qui es dóna a tu tot.
Estec e perllongà l'amic sos pensaments en la granea e en la durabletat de son amat, e no hi atrobà començament, ni mijà, ni fi. E dix l'amat: — Què mesures, foll? Respòs l'amic: — Mesur menor ab major, e defalliment ab compliment, e començament ab infinita, eternitat, per ço que humilitat, paciència, caritat, esperança, ne sien pus fortment en ma membrança.
Les vies d'amor són llongues e breus per ço cor amor és clara, pura, nèdea, vera, subtil, simple, forts, diligent, llugorosa, abundosa de novells pensaments e d'antics remembraments.
Demanaren a l'amic quals són los fruits d'amor. Respòs: Plaers, cogitaments, desigs, sospirs, ànsies, treballs, perills, turments, llanguiments. Sens aitals fruits no es lleixa amor tocar a sos servidors.
Estaven moltes gents denant l'amic, qui es clamava de son amat com no creixia ses amors; e clamava's d'amor com li donava treballs ni dolors. Escusà's l'amat, dient que los treballs e les dolors d'on acusava amor, eren muntiplicaments d'amors.
— Digues, foll: com no parles? —Ni què és ço en què estàs embarbesclat, consirós? Respòs: — En les bellees de mon amat, e en lo ressemblament de les benanances e de les dolors que m'aduen e em donen amors.
— Digues, foll: ¿qual cosa lo enans: o ton cor, o amor? —. Respòs, e dix que en un temps foren son cor e amor; cor si no ho fossen, lo cor no fóra creat a amar, ni amor no fóra creada a cogitar.
Demanaren al foll on començà enans sa amor: o en los secrets de son amat, o en revelar-los a les gents. Respòs, e dix que amor no hi fa null departiment, com és en son compliment; cor ab secret té l'amic secret los secrets de son amat, e ab secret los revela, e ab revelació los té secrets.
Secret d'amor sens revelació, dóna passió e llanguiment; e revelar amor dóna temor per frevor. E per açó l'amic en totes maneres ha llanguiment.
Apellà amor sos amadors, e dix-los que li demanassen los dons qui li eren pus desirables e pus plaents. E ells demanaren a amor que els vestís e els ornàs de sos afaiçonaments, per ço que fossen a l'amat pus agradables.
Cridà l'amic en alt a les gents, e dix que amor los manava que amassen en anant e en seent, e en vetlant e en dorment, e en parlant e en callant, e en comprant e en venent, e en plorant e en rient, e en plaer e en llanguiment, e en guanyant e en perdent; e en qualsque coses faessen, en totes amassen, cor d'amor n'havien manament.
— Digues, foll: quan venc en tu amor? Respòs: — En aquell temps que m'enriquí, e em poblà mon cor de pensaments, desirers, sospirs, llanguiments, e abundà mos ulls de llàgremes e de plors. — Què t'aportà amor? — Belles faiçons, honraments e valors de mon amat. — En què vengren? — En membrança e en enteniment. — Ab què els reebist? — Ab caritat, esperança.
— Ab què els guardes? — Ab justicia, prudència, fortitudo, temprança.
Cantava l'amat e deïa que poc sabia l'amic d'amor si havia vergonya de lloar son amat, ni si el temia honrar en aquells llocs on pus fortment és deshonras; e poc sap d'amar qui s'enuja de malanança; ni qui es desespera de son amat, no fa concordança d'amor, esperança.
Tramès lletres l'amic a son amat, en les quals li dix si havia altre amador qui li ajudàs a portar e a soferir los greus afanys que sosté per sa amor. E l'amat rescrisc a son amic dient que no ha ab què faça vers ell injúria ni falliment.
Demanaren a l'amat, de l'amor de son amic. Respòs que l'amor de son amic és mesclament de plaer e malanança, e de temor, ardiment.
Demanaren a l'amic, de l'amor de l'amat. Respòs que l'amor de son amat és influència d'infinida bonea, eternitat, poder, saviea, caritat, perfecció; la qual influencia ha l'amat a l'amie.
— Digues, foll: quina cosa és meravella? Respòs: — Amar més les coses absents que les presents; e amar més les coses vesibles corruptibles, que les invisibles incorruptibles.
Encercava l'amic son amat, e atrobà un home qui moria sens amor; e dix que gran damnatge era d'home qui moria a nulla mort sens amor. E per açò dix l'amic a l'home qui moria: — Digues: per què mors sens amor? Respòs: — Per ço cor sens amor vivia.
Demanà l'amic a son amat qual cosa era major: o amor o amar. Respòs l'amat, e dix que, en creatura, amor és l'arbre e amar és lo fruit, e els treballs e els llanguiments són les flors e les fulles; e en Déu, amor e amar són una cosa mateixa, sens negun treball, llanguiment.
Estava l'amic en llanguiments e en tristícia per sobre abundància de pensaments; e tramès precs a son amat que li trametés un llibre en fossen escrites ses faiçons, per ço que li donàs alcun reme¡. L'amat tramès aquell llibre a son amic, e doblaren a l'amic sos treballs e sos llanguiments.
Malalte fo l'amic per amor, e entrà'l veer un metge qui muntiplicà ses llangors e sos pensaments; e sanat fo l'amic en aquella hora.
Apartaren-se l'amic e amor, e tenien solaç de l'amat; e representà's l'amat. Plorà l'amic e esvaneí's amor en l'esmortiment de l'amic. Reviscolà l'amat son amic com li remembrà ses faiçons.
Deïa l'amic a l'amat que per moltes carreres venia a son cor e es representava a sos ulls, e per molts noms lo nomenava sa paraula; mas l'amor ab què l'avidava e el mortificava no era mas una tan solament.
Entresenya's l'amat, a son amic, de vermells e novells vestiments; e estén sos braços per ço que l'abraç, e enclina son cap per co que li do un besar, e està en alt per ço que el pusca atrobar.
Absentà's l'amat a son amic, encercava l'amic son amat ab memòria e ab enteniment, per ço que el pogués amar. Atrobà l'amic son amat; demanà-li on havia estat. Respòs: — En l'absència de ton remembrament e en la innoráncia de ta intel·ligència.
— Digues, foll: ¿has vergonya de les gents con te veen plorar per ton amat? Respòs que vergonya sens pecat és per defalliment d'amor qui no sap amar.
Sembrava l'amat en lo cor de l'amic desigs, sospirs, virtuts e amors. Regava l'amic les sements ab llàgremes e ab plors.
Sembrava l'amat en lo cors de l'amic treballs, tribulacions, llanguiments. Sanava l'amic son cors ab esperança, devoció, paciència, consolacions.
A una gran festa tenc l'amat gran cort de molts honrats barons, e féu gran convits e gran dons. Venc l'amic a aquella cort; dix-li l'amat: — Qui t'ha apellat a venir a ma cort? Respòs l'amic: — Necessitat e amors m'han fet venir veer tes faiçons e tots capteniments.
Demanaren a l'amic de qui era. Respòs: — D'amor. — De què est? — D'amor. — Qui t'ha engenrat? — Amor. — On nasquist? — En amor.
— Qui t'ha nodrit? — Amor. — De què vius? — D'amor. — Com has nom? — Amor. — D'on véns? — D'amor.
— On vas? — A amor. — On estàs? — En amor. — Has altra cosa mas amor? —. Respòs: — Hoc, colpes e torts contra mon amat. — Ha en ton amat perdó?
—. Dix l'amic que en son amat era misericordia e justícia, e per açò era son hostal enfre temor e esperança.
Absentà's l'amat a l'amic, e encercà'l l'amie ab sos pensaments; e demanava'l a les gents ab llenguatge d'amor.
Lo llum de la cambra de l'amat venc intuminar la cambra de l'amic, per ço que en gitàs tenebres e que l'omplís de plaers, e de llangors e de pensaments. E l'amic gità de sa cambra totes coses, per ço que hi cabés son amat.
Demanaren a l'amic quin senyal faïa son amat en son gamfanó. Respòs que d'home mort. Digueren-li per què faïa aital senyal. Respòs: — Per ço cor lo home mort crucificat, e per ço que aquells qui es gaben que son sos amadors, seguesquen son esclau.
Venc l'amat albergar a l'hostal de son amic, e lo majordome demanà-li hostalatge. Mas l'amic dix que son amat devia ésser albergat en perdó.
Acompanyaren-se memòria e volentat, e pujaren en lo munt de l'amat per ço que l'enteniment s'exalçàs, e l'amor se doblàs en amar l'amat.
Tots jorns són sospirs e plors missatges enfre l'amic e l'amat, per ço que sia enfre ambdós solaç, companyia, e amistat, e benvolença.
Envorava l'amic son amat, e tramès-li sos pensaments, per ço que li aportassen de son amat la benanança en la qual l'havia tengut llongament.
Benefici donà l'amat a son amic, de plors, sospirs, llangors, pensaments e dolors; ab lo qual benefici servia l'amic son amat.
Pregà l'amic son amat que li donàs llarguea, pau, honrament en est món, e l'amat demostrà ses faiçons al remembrament e l'enteniment de l'amic, e donà's a la volentat per object.
Demanaren a l'amic en què està honrament. Respòs que en entendre e amar son amat. E demanaren-li en què està deshonor. Respòs que en oblidar, desamar son amat.
— Turmentava'm amor tro que li hac dit que tu eres present als meus turments; e adoncs amor afluixà mos llanguiments, e tu, per guardó, muntipliquist amor, qui em doblà mos turments.
— Encontré en la via d'amor amador qui no parlava; ab plors, magres faiçons, llanguiments, acusava amor e blasmaya. Escusava's amor ab lleialtat, esperança, paciència, devoció, fortitudo, temprança, benanança. E per açò blasmé l'amador qui d'amor se clamava, pus que tan nobles dons li donava amor.
Cantava l'amic e deïa: — Oh, con gran malanança és amor! Ah, con gran benauirança és amar mon amat, qui ama sos amadors ab infinida amor eternal, complida en tots acabaments!
Anava l'amic en una terra estranya en cuidava atrobar son amat, e en la via assaltejaren-lo dos lleons. Paor hac de mort l'amic, per ço cor desirava viure per servir son amat; e tramès son remembrament a son amat, per ço que amor fos a sos traspassaments, per la qual amor mills pogués sostenir la mort. Dementre que l'amic remembrava l'amat, los lleons vengren humilment a l'amic, al qual lleparen les llàgremes de sos ulls qui ploraven, e les mans e els peus li besaren. E l'amic anà en pau encercar son amat.
Anava l'amic per munts e per plans, e no podia trobar portal on pogués eixir del carçre d'amor qui llongament havia tengut en presó son cors, e sos pensaments e tots sos desirers e plaers.
Dementre que l'amic anava enaixí treballat, atroba un ermità qui dormia prés d'una bella font. Despertà l'amic l'ermita, dient si havia vist, en somniant, son amant. Respòs l'ermità, e dix que egualment eren encarcerats sos pensaments en lo carçre d'amor, en vetllant e en dorment. Molt plac a l'amic com havia atrobat companyó en presó; e ploraren ambdós, cor l'amat no havia molts d'aitals amadors.
No ha en l'amat nulla cosa en què l'amic no haja ànsia e tribulació, ni l'amic no ha cosa en si en què l'amat no haja plaer e senyoria; e per açò l'amor de l'amat és en acció e l'amor de l'amic en llanguiment, passió.
En un ram cantava un aucell, e deïa que ell daria un novell pensament a amador que li'n donà's dos. Donà l'aucell lo novell pensament a l'amic, e l'amic donà'n dos a l'aucell, per ço que alleujàs sos turments; e l'amic senti muntiplicades ses dolors.
Encontraren-se l'amic e l'amat, e foren testimonis de llur encontrament saluts, abraçaments, e besars, e llàgremes e plors. E demanà l'amat a l'amic, de son estament; e l'amic lo embarbesclat en presència de son amat.
Contrastaren-se l'amic e l'amat, e pacificaren-los llurs amors; e fo qüestió qual amor hi mes major amistat.
Amava l'amic tots aquells qui temien son amat, e havia temor de tots aquells qui no temien son amat; e per açó fo qüestió qual era major en l'amic: o amor o temor.
Jurcava l'amic a seguir son amat, e passava per una carrera on havia un mal lleó qui auceïa tot home qui en passava pererosament e sens devoció.
Deïa l'amic: — Qui no tem mon amat, a tembre li cové totes coses; e qui tem mon amat, audàcia e ardiment li cové en totes coses.
Demanaren a l'amic d'ocasió, e dix que ocasió és plaer en penitència, e enteniment en consciència, e esperança en paciència, e sanitat en abstinència, consolació en remembrament, e amor en diligència, e lleialtat, en vergonya, e riquea en pobretat, e pau en obediència, e guerra en malvolença.
Enllumenà amor lo nuvolat qui es mes enfre l'amic e l'amat; e féu-lo enaixí llugorós e resplendent con és la lluna en la nit, e l'estel en l'alba, e lo sol en lo dia, e l'enteniment en la volentat. E per aquell nuvolat tan llugurós se parlen l'amic e l'amat.
Demanaren a l'amic quals tenebres són majors. Respòs que l'absència de son amat. Demanaren-li qual és la major resplendor, e dix que la presència de son amat.
Lo senyal de l'amat apar en l'amic, qui per amor és en tribulacions, sospirs, e plors, pensaments, e en menyspreament de les gents.
Escrivia l'amic aquestes paraules: — Alegra's mon amat, cor a ell tramet mos pensaments, e per ell ploren mos ulls, e sens llanguiments no viu, ni sent, ni veig, ni oig, ni he odoraments.
— Ah, enteniment, volentat! lladrats, e despertats los grans cans qui dormen, oblidants mon amat. Ah, ulls! : plorats. Ah cor! : sospirats. Ah memòria! : membrats la deshonor de mon amat, la qual li fan aquells que ell ha tan honrats.
— Muntiplica l'enemistat qui és enfre les gents e mon amat, e promet dons e guardons mon amat, e menaça ab justícia, saviea. E memòria e volentat menyspreen ses menaces e sos prometiments.
Acostava's l'amat a l'amic per ço que l'aconsolàs e el conhortàs dels llanguiments que sostenia, e dels plors que havia; e en més l'amat a l'amic s'acostava, pus fortment plorava e llanguia l'amic per les deshonors que planyia de son amat.
Ab ploma d'amor e ab aigua de plors, e en carta de passió, escrivia l'amic unes lletres a son amat, en les quals li deia que devoció se tardava e amor se moria, e falliment e error muntiplicaven sos enemics.
Nuaven—se les amors de l'amic e l'amat ab membrança, enteniment, volentat, per ço que l'amic e l'amat no es partissen; e la corda en què les dues amors se nuaven era de pensaments, llanguiments, sospirs e plors.
Jaia l'amic en llit d'amor; los llençols eren de plaers, e lo cobertor era de llanguiments, e el coixí era de plors. E era qüestió si el drap del coixí era del drap dels llençols o del cobertor.
Vestia l'amat son amic mantell, cota, gonella; e capell li faïa d'amor, e camisa de pensaments, e calces de tribulacions, e garlanda de plors.
Pregava l'amat son amic que no l'oblidàs. Deïa l'amic que no el podia oblidar, pus que no el podia innorar.
Deïa l'amat que en aquells llocs on és més temut a lloar, lo lloàs e l'escusàs. Deïa l'amic que d'amor lo bastàs. Responia l'amat que per sa amor s'era encarnat e penjat per morir.
Deïa l'amic al seu car amat que li mostràs manera con lo pogués fer conèixer e amar e lloar a les gents. Ompli l'amat son amic de devoció, paciència, caritat, tribulacions, pensaments, sospirs, e plors; e en lo cor de l'amic fo audàcia en lloar son amat, e en sa boca foren llaors de son amat, e en sa volentat lo menyspreament de lo blasme de les gents qui jutgen falsament.
Deïa l'amic a les gents aquestes paraules: — Qui vertaderament remembra mon amat, oblida, en les circumstàncies de son remembrament, totes coses; e qui totes coses oblida per membrar son amat, de totes coses lo defèn mon amat, e part li dóna de totes coses.
Demanaren a l'amic de què naixia amor, ni de què vivia, ni per què moria. Respòs l'amic que amors naixia del remembrament, e vivia d'intel·ligència, e moria per oblidament.
Oblidà l'amic tot ço qui es dejús lo sobirà cel, per ço que l'enteniment pogués pus alt pujar a conèixer l'amat lo qual la volentat desija preïcar, contemplar.
Anava's l'amic combatre per honrar son amat, e menà en sa companyia fe, esperança, caritat, justícia, prudència, fortitudo, temprança, ab què vencés los enemics de son amat. Fóra venqut l'amic, si no li ajudàs son amat a significar ses nobilitats a son amic.
Passar volia l'amic a la darrerana fi per la qual amava son amat, e les altres fins donaven-li embargament en son passatge; e per açò llongs desigs e pensaments diven a l'amic tristícia e llanguiment.
Gaubava's e alegrava's l'amic en les noblees de son amat; llanguia l'amic per sobrecogitacions e pensaments. E era qüestió qual sentia pus fortment, o els plaers o els turments.
Missatge era l'amic als prínceps crestians, e als infeels, per son amat, per ço que els mostràs l'art e els començaments a conèixer, amar, l'amat.
Si veus amador honrat de nobles vestiments, honrat per vanaglòria, gras per menjar e dormir, sàpies que en aquell veus damnació e turments. E si veus amador pobrament vestit, menyspreat per les gents, descolorit e magre per dejunar e vetlar, sàpies que en aquell veus salvació e perdurable benedicció.
Plany-se l'amic, e clama's lo cor de calor d'amor. Morse l'amic, plora'l l'amat, e dóna-li consolació de paciència, esperança, guardó.
Plorava l'amic ço que havia perdut; e no era qui el pogués consolar, per ço cor sos perdiments eren inrecuperables.
Creada ha Déus la nit a cogitar e a vetlar l'amic en les noblees de son amat; e cuidava's l'amic que l'hagués creada a reposar e a dormir aquells qui son treballats per amor.
Escarnien e reprenien les gents l'amic per ço cor anava com a foll per amor. E l'amic menyspreava llurs escarns, e reprenia les gents per ço cor no amaven son amat.
Deia l'amic: — Vestit són de drap vilment, mas amor vest de plaents pensaments mon cor, e lo cors de plors, llanguiments, passions.
Cantava l'amat, e deia: —Endrecen-se los meus lloadors en lloar mes valors; e los enemics de mos honraments turmenten-los e han-los en menyspreament. E per açò he tramès a mon amic que planga e plor ma deshonor; e els seus plants e els seus plors són nats de mes amors.
Jurava l'amic a l'amat que per sa amor amava e sostenia treballs e passions; e per açò pregava l'amat que l'amàs e de sos treballs passió hagués. Jurà l'amat que natura e proprietat era de sa amor que amàs tots aquells qui l'amaven, e que hagués pietat d'aquells qui per sa amor treball sostenien. Alegrà's l'amic, e consolà's en la natura e en la proprietat essencial de son amat.
Vedà la paraula l'amat a son amic, e aconsolava's l'amic en l'esguardament de son amat.
Tant plorà e cridà l'amic a son amat, tro que l'amat davallà de les altees sobiranes dels cels, e venc en terra plorar, e plànyer, e morir per amor, e per nodrir los hòmens a amar, e a conèixer, lloar sos honraments.
Blasmava l'amic los crestians com no meten lo nom de son amat. Jesucrist, primerament en llurs lletres, per ço que li faessen l'honor que els sarraïns fan a Mafumet, qui fo home galiador, al qual fan honor con lo nomenen primerament en llurs lletres.
Encontrà l'amic un escuder qui anava consirós e era magre, descolorit e pobrament vestit; e saludà l'amic dient que Déus l'endreçàs a trobar son amat. E l'amic li demanà en què l'havia conegut. E l'escuder li dix que los uns secrets d'amors revelen los altres; e per açò han coneixença, los amadors, los uns dels altres.
Les noblees, e els honraments e les bones obres de l'amat son tresor e riquees de l'amic. E lo tresor de l'amat son los pensaments, e els desigs, e els turments, e els plors e els llanguiments que l'amic sosté per honrar e amar son amat.
Grans hosts e grans companyes se són ajustades d'espirits d'amors, e porten senya d'amor, on és la figura e el senyal de llur amat; e no volen menar en llur companyia null home qui sia sens amor, per ço que llur amat no hi prenga deshonor.
Los hòmens qui es depenyen folls per ajustar diners, mouen l'amic a ésser foll per amor; e la vergonya que l'amic ha de les gents a anar con a foll, dóna manera a l'amic d'on haja amor e preu de les gents. E per açò és qüestió qual dels dos moviments es major ocasió d'amor.
En tristícia ha amor mès l'amic per sobrecogitaments; e cantà l'amat, e alegrà's l'amic com l'hac oït. E lo qüestió qual dels dos fo major ocasió a muntiplicar amor en l'amic.
En los secrets de l'amic són revelats los secrets de l'amat, e en los secrets de l'amat són revelats los secrets de l'amic. E és qüestió qual dels dos secrets és major ocasió de revelació.
Demanaren al foll per quals senyals era conegut son amat. Respòs, e dix que per misericòrdia, pietat, estant en volentat essencialment, sens negú camiament.
Per l'especial amor que l'amic havia a l'amat, amava lo bé comú sobre lo bé especial, per ço que comunament los son amat conegut, lloat, desirat.
Amor e desamor s'encontraren en un verger on parlaven secretament l'amic e l'amat; e amor demanà a desamor per qual entenció era venguda en aquell lloc: e respòs desamor que per desenamorar l'amic e per deshonrar l'amat. Molt desplac a l'amat e a l'amic ço que deia desamor; e muntiplicaren amor per ço que vencés e destruís desamor.
— Digues, foll: ¿en què et sens major volentat: o en amar, o en aïrar? Respòs que en amar, per ço cor aïrava per tal que pogués amar.
— Digues, amador: ¿en qué has mes d'enteniment: o en entendre veritat, o falsetat? Repòs que en entendre veritat. — Per què? — Cor entén falsetat per ço que pusca mills entendre veritat.
Apercebé l'amic que era amat per son amat, e demaná a l'amat si sa amor e sa misericordia eren en ell una cosa mateixa. Atorgá l'amat que, en sa esséncia, no han diferencia sa amor ni sa misericordia. E per açó dix l'amic per qué el turmeintava sa amor, e per qué no el guaria sa misericordia, de ses llangors. E respós l'amat que la misericordia li doná les llangors per ço que ab aquelles honras pus perfetam'ent sa amor.
L'amic volc anar en una terra estranya per honrar son amat, e volc-se desmerxar per ço que nos los pres en lo camí. E anc no poc desmerxar de sos ulls plors, ni de sa cara magres faiçons e groga color, ni de son cor plants, pensaments, sospirs, tristícia, llanguiments; e per açò lo pres en lo viatge, e lliurat a turments per los enemics de son amat.
Estava pres l'amic en lo carçre d'amor. Pensaments, desigs e remembraments lo guardaven e l'encadenaven per ço que no fugís a son amat; llanguiments lo turmentaven; paciència, esperança lo consolaven. Morira's l'amic; mas l'amat li demostrà son estament, e reviscolà l'amic.
Encontrà l'amic son amat; conec l'amic son amat, e plorà. Reprès l'amat son amic per ço cor no plorava ans que l'hagués conegut; e demanà-li en què l'havia conegut, pus que no plorava. Respòs l'amic que en lo remembrament, e en l'enteniment, e en sa volentat, on lo multiplicament encontinent que lo present a sos ulls corporals.
Demanà l'amat a l'amic que era amor. Repòs que presència de faiçons e de paraules d'amat en cor sospirant d'amador, e llanguiment per desig e per plors en cor d'amic.
Amor és bulliment d'audàcia e de temor per frevor; e amor és final volentat a desirar son amat. E amor és aquella cosa qui aucís l'amic con oí cantar de les bellees de son amat. E amor és ço què és mort, e en què està tots jorns ma volentat.
Devoció e enyorament trameteren, per missatgers, pensaments al cor de l'amic, per ço que pujàs l'aigua als ulls qui volien cessar dels plors en los quals havien llongament estats.
Deïa l'amic: —Si vosaltres, amadors, volets foc, venits a mon cor e encenets vostres llàntees e si volets aigua, venits als meus ulls, qui decorren de llàgremes; e si volets pensaments d'amor, venits-los pendre a mes cogitacions.
Esdevenc-se un dia que l'amic cogitava en la gran amor que havia a son amat, e en los grans treballs e perills en què havia estat llongament per sa amor; e considera que sos guaardons fossen grans. Dementre que l'amic cogitava en esta manera, ell remembrà que pagat l'havia son amat, per ço cor l'havia enamorat de ses faiçons, e cor per sa amor li havia donats llanguiments.
Torcava l'amic sa cara e sos ulls de plors que sostenia per amor, per ço que no descobrís los llanguiments que li donava son amat; lo qual dix a son amic per què celava los senyals d'amor als altres amadors, los quals li havia donats per qo que els enamoràs d'honrar ses valors.
— Digues, home qui vas com a foll per amor: ¿tro a quant de temps seràs serf e sotsmès a plorar e a sostenir treballs e llanguiments? Respòs: — Tro al temps que mon amat, de l'ànima e del cors farà en mi departiment.
—Digues foll: has diners? Respòs: —He amat. — Has viles, ni castells, ni ciutats, comdats ni dugats? Respòs: — He amors, pensaments, plors, desirers, treballs, llanguiments, qui son mellors que emperis ni regnats.
Demanaren a l'amic en què coneixia la sentència de son amat. Respòs que en l'egualtat de plaers e llanguiments, a la qual son amat jutjava sos amadors.
— Digues, foll: ¿qui sap més d'amor: o aquel¡ qui n'ha plaer, o aquell qui n'ha treballs e llanguiments? Respòs, e dix que la un sens l'altre no en pot haver coneixença.
Demanaren a l'amic per què no s'escusava dels falliments e de los falsos crims que les genis l'acusaven. Respòs que a escusar havia son amat, que les gents blasmaven falsament; e que home, on pot caer engan e error, no es quaix digne de nulla escusació.
— Digues foll: ¿per què escuses amor com treballa e turmenta ton cors e ton cor? Respòs: — Per ço cor multiplica mos mèrits e ma benauirança.
Coniplanyia's l'amic de son amat con tan greument lo faïa turmentar a amor; e escusava's l'amat muntiplicant a l'amic treballs e perills, pensaments e llàgremes e plors.
— Digues, foll: per què escuses los colpables? Respòs: — Per ço que no sia semblant als acusants los innocents e els colpables.
Llevava l'amat l'enteniment a entendre ses altees, per ço que l'amic enclinàs son remembrament a membrar sos defalliments, e la volentat los menyspreàs e pujàs amar los acabaments de l'amat. 185. Cantava l'amic de son amat, e deïa que tant li portava bona volentat, que totes les coses que aïrava per sa amor li eren piaents e benanances majors que les coses que amava sens l'amor de son amat.
Anava l'amic per una gran ciutat, e demanava si trobaria null home ab qui pogués parlar a sa guisa de son amat. E mostraren-li un home pobre qui plorava per amor e cercava companyó ab qui pogués parlar d'amor.
Estava l'amic pensiu e embarbesclat coro podien pendre començaments sos treballs, de les noblees de son amat, qui ha en si mateix tanta de benauirança.
Estaven les cogitacions de l'amic enfre oblidança de sos turments e entre membrança de sos plaers: cor los plaers que ha d'amor li obliden la malanança, e les turments que sosté per amor li remembren la benanança que ha per amor.
Demanaren a l'amic si era possible cosa que son amat lo desenamoràs. Respòs que no, dementre que la memòria membràs e l'enteniment entenés les nobleses de son amat.
— Digues, foll: ¿de què es fa la major comparació e semblança? Respòs: — D'amic e amat. Demanaren-li per qual raó. Respòs que per amor, qui estava entre ambdós.
Demanaren a l'amat si havia haüda null temps pietat. Respòs que si no hagués haüda pietat, no hagra enamorat l'amic, ni l'hagra turmentat de sospirs, e de plors, e de treballs e llangors.
En un gran boscatge era l'amic, qui anava cercar son amat; e atrobà veritat e falsetat qui es contrastaven de son amat, cor veritat lo lloava e falsetat lo blasmava. E per açò l'amic cridà amor que ajudàs a veritat.
Venc temptació a l'amic per ço que li absentàs son amat, e que la memòria se despertàs e recobràs la presència de son amat, membrant aquell pus fortment que no l'havia membrat, per ço que l'enteniment mes a ensús los llevat a entendre, e la volentat a amar, son amat.
Oblidà un dia l'amic son amat, e membrà en altre dia que l'havia oblidat. E en aquell dia en lo qual l'amic membrava que son amat oblidat havia, lo l'amic en tristícia e en dolor, e en glòria e en benanança, per oblidament e per membrança.
Tan fortment desirava l'amic llaors e honraments de son amat, que dubtava que els membràs; e tan fortment airava les deshonors de son amat, que dubtava que les airàs. E per açò l'amic estava embarbesclat, enfre amor e temor, per son amat.
Moria l'amic per plaer, e vivia per llanguiments; e els plaers e els turments s'ajustaven e s'unien en ésser una cosa mateixa en la volentat de l'amic. E por açò l'amic en un temps mateix moria e vivia.
Oblidar e innorar volgra l'amic son amal una hora tan solament, per ço que hagués alcun repòs a sos llanguiments. Mas, cor li fóra passió l'oblidament e la innorància, hac paciència, e exalçà son enteniment e sa memòria a contemplar son amat.
Tant amava l'amic son amat, que de tot ço que li deïa lo creïa, e tant lo desirava entendre, que tot ço que n'oïa dir volia entendre per raons necessàries. E per açò l'amor de l'amic estava enfre creença e intel·ligència.
Demanaren a l'amic qual cosa era pus lluny de son coratge; e ell respòs que desamor. E demanaren-li per qual raó. Respòs que per ço cor ço qui era pus prop a son coratge era amor, qui és contrari de desamor.
— Digues, foll: has enveja? Respòs: — Hoc, totes les vegades que oblit la llarguea e les riquees de mon amat.
— Digues, amador: has riquea? Respòs que: — Hoc: amor. — Has pobrea? — Hoc: amor. — Per què? — Per ço cor no és amor major, e cor no enamora molts amadors a honrar los honraments de mon amat.
— Digues, amant: on es ton poder? Respòs: — En lo poder de mon amat. — Ab què t'esforces contra tos enemics? — Ab les forces de mon amat. — Ab què et conhortes? — Ab los tresors eternals de mon amat.
— Digues, foil: ¿qual ames mes: o la misericòrdia de ton amat, o la justícia de ton amat? Respòs que tant li covenia amar e tembre justícia, que nulla majoritat de voler no devia haver en sa volentat a amar nulla cosa sobre la justícia de son amat.
Combatien-se colpes e mèrits en la consciència e en la volentat de l'amic; e justícia, membrança, muntiplicaven consciència; e misericòrdia, esperança, muntiplicaven benanança en la volentat de l'amat. E per açò los mèrits, vencien colpes e torts en la penitència de l'amic.
Afermava l'amic que en son amat era tota perfecció: e negava que en son amat no havia null defalliment. E per açò era qüestió qual era major: o l'afermació, o la negació.
Eclipse lo en lo cel, e tenebres en la terra; e per açò l'amic remembrà que pecat li havia llongament absentat son amat de son voler, per la qual absència tenebres havien exilada la llugor de son enteniment, ab la qual se representa l'amat a sos amadors.
Venc amor en l'amic, a la qual amor l'amic demanà què volia. E amor li dix que ella era venguda en ell per ço que l'acostumàs e el nodris en tal manera que, a la mort, pogués vençre sos mortals enemics.
Malalta lo amor con l'amic oblidà son amat; e malalte és l'amic, cor, per sobremembrar, son amat li dóna treballs, ànsies, e llanguiments.
Atrobà l'amic un home qui moria sens amor. Plorà l'amic la deshonor que l'amat prenia en la mort d'aquell home qui moria sens amor, e dix a aquell home per què moria sens amor; e ell respòs que per ço cor no havia qui li hagués donada coneixença d'amor ni qui l'hagués nodrit a ésser amador. E per açò l'amic sospirà en plorant e dix: —Ah, devoció! ¿quan serets major, per ço que la colpa sia menor e que lo meu amat haja molts fervents, ardits lloadors, amadors, qui no dubten a lloar sos honraments
Temptà l'amic amor si es poria sostenir en son coratge sens que no remembràs son amat; e cessà son cor de pensar e sos ulls de plorar; e aniquilà's amor, e romàs l'amic embarbesclat, e demanà a les gents si havien vista amor.
Amor, amar, amic e amat se covenen tan fortment en l'amat, que una actualitat són en essència, e diverses coses son l'amic e l'amat concordants sens nulla contrarietat e diversitat d'essència. E per açò l'amat és amable sobre totes altres amors.
— Digues, foll: per què has tan gran amor? Respòs: — Cor llong e perillós és lo viatge en lo qual vaig cercar mon amat. Ab gran feix lo'm cové encercar, e ivaçosament me cové anar; e totes aquestes coses no poria complir sens gran amor.
Vetlava, dejunava, plorava, almoina faïa, e en terres estranyes anava l'amic per ço que pogués a son amat moure sa volentat, e enamorar sos sotsmeses per honrar sos honraments.
Si no abasta l'amor de l'amic a moure son amat a pietat a perdó, abasta l'amor de l'amat a donar a ses creatures gràcia e benedicció.
— Digues, foll: ¿per qual cosa pots ésser pus semblant a ton amat? Respòs: — Per entendre a amar de tot mon poder les faiçons de mon amat.
Demanaren a l'amic si son amat havia defalliment de nulles coses, e respòs que hoc: d'amadors, lloadors, a honrar ses valors.
Feria l'amat lo cor de son amic ab vergues d'amor, per ço que li faés amar l'arbre d'on l'amat collí les vergues ab què fér sos amadors; en lo qual arbre soferí mort, e llangors e deshonors per restaurar a amor los amadors que perduts havia.
Encontrà l'amic son amat, e viu-lo molt noble e poderos, e digne de tot honrament; e dix-li que fortment se meravellava de les gents, qui tan poc l'amaven, e el coneixien e l'honraven, com ell ne los tan digne. E l'amat li respòs dient que ell havia pres molt gran engan en go que havia creat home per go que en los amat, conegut, honrat; e de mil hòmens, los cent lo temien e l'amaven tan solament; e de los cent, los noranta lo temien per ço que no els donàs pena, e los deu l'amaven per ço que els donàs glòria; e no era quaix qui l'amàs per sa bonea e sa nobilitat. Con l'amic oí aquestes paraules, plorà fortment en la deshonor de son amat, e dix: — Amat, qui tant has donat a home e tant l'has honrat, per què home tant tu en oblit?
Lloava l'amic son amat, e deïa que ell havia traspassat on, cor ell és lla on no pot atènyer on. E per açò com demanaren a l'amic en era son amat, respòs: — És; mas no es sabia on; emperò sabia que son amat és en son remembrament.
Comprà l'amat ab sos honraments un home esclau e sotsmès a pensaments, llanguiments, sospirs, e plors; e demaná-li què menjava ni bevia. Respòs que ço que ell volia. Demanà-li què vestia. Respòs que ço que ell volia. Dix l'amat: — Has gens de volentat? Respòs que serf e sostmès no ha altre voler mas obeir a son senyor e son amat.
Demanà l'amat a son amic si havia paciència. Respòs que totes coses li plaïen; e per açò no havia ab què hagués paciència; cor qui no havia senyoria en sa volentat, no podia ésser impacient.
Amor se donava a qui es volia; e cor a molts hòmens no es donava e los amadors fortment no enamorava, pus n'havia llibertat, per açò l'amic d'amor se clamava, e amor acusava a son amat. Mas amor s'escusava dient que ella no era contra franca volentat, per ço cor gran mèrit e gran glòria des¡rava a sos amadors.
Gran contrast e gran discòrdia lo enfre l'amic e amor, per ço cor l'amic s'ujava dels treballs que sostenia per amor. E era qüestió si era per defalliment d'amor, o de l'amic; e vengren-ne a jutjament de l'amat, lo qual puní l'amic ab llanguiment, e guaardonà-lo ab muntiplicament d'amor.
Qüestió lo si amor era pus prop a pensament o a paciència. Solvé l'amic la qüestió, e dix que amor és engenrada en los pensaments, e és sostentada en la paciència.
Veïns de l'amic són los bells capteniments de l'amat, e los veïns de l'amat són los pensaments de son amic, e los treballs e els plors que sosté per amor.
Volc pujar molt altament la volentat de l'amic per ço que molt amàs son amat, e manà a l'enteniment que pujàs a tot son poder; e l'enteniment ho manà al remembrament. E tots tres pujaren contemplar l'amat en sos honraments.
Partí's volentat de l'amic e donà's a l'amat; e l'amat mès en presó la volentat en l'amic, per ço que los per ell amat e servit.
Deïa l'amic: — No es cuit mon amat que jo sia departit a amar altre amat; cor amor m'ha tot ajustat a amar un amat tan solament. Respòs l'amat, e dix: — No es cuit mon amic que jo sia amat e servit per ell tan solament, ans he molts amadors per qui són amat pus fortment e pus llongament que per sa amor.
Deïa l'amic a son amat: — Amable amat: tu has mes ulls acostumats e nodrits a veer, e mes orelles a oir, tos honraments; e per açò és acostumat mon cor a pensaments, per los quals has acostumats mos ulls a plorar e mon cors a llanguir. Respòs l'amat a l'amic e dix que sens aitals costumes e nodriments no fóra escrit en lo llibre son nom, en lo qual són escrits tots aquells qui vénen a eternas benedicció, e son delits llurs noms del llibre on són escrits aquells qui van a eternal maledicció.
En lo cor de l'amic s'ajusten los nobles capteniments de l'amat, e muntipliquen los pensaments e els treballs en l'amic, lo qual fóra finit e mort si l'amat muntiplicàs en los pensaments de l'amic pus de sos honraments.
Venc l'amat albergar a l'hostal de son amic, e féu-li son amic llit de pensaments; e servien-li sospirs e plors. E pagà l'amat son hostal, de remembraments.
Mesclà amor los treballs e els plaers en los pensaments de l'amic; e clamaren-se los plaers d'aquell mesclament, e acusaren amor a l'amat; e feniren e deliren los plaers, con l'amat los hacs departits dels turments que amor dóna a sos amadors.
Los senyals de les amors que l'amicfa a son amat son: en lo començament plors, e en lo mig tribulacions, e en la fi mort. E per aquells senyals l'amic preica los amadors de son amat.
Assoliava's l'amic, a acompanyaven son cor pensaments, e sos ulls llàgremes e plors, e son cors afliccions e dejunis. E com l'amic tornava en la companyia de les gents, desemparaven-lo totes les coses damunt dites, e estava l'amic tot sol enfre les gents.
Amor és mar tribulada d'ondes e de vents, qui no ha port ni ribatge. Pereix l'amic en la mar, e en son perill pereixen sos turments e neixen sos complimens.
— Digues, foll: què és amor? Respòs: — Amor és concordança de tesòrica e de pràctica a una fi, a la qual se mou lo compliment de la volentat de l'amic, per ço que faca a les gents honrar e servir son amat. E és qüestió si la fi se cové pus fortment ab la volentat de l'amic qui desija ésser ab son amat.
Demanaren a l'amic qui era son amat. Respòs que ço qui el faïa amar, desirar, llanguir, sospirar, plorar, escarnir, morir.
Demanaren a l'amat qui era son amic. Respòs que aquell qui per honrar e lloar sos honraments no dubtava nulles coses, e qui a totes coses renunciava per obeir sos manaments e sos consells.
— Digues, foll: ¿qual feix es pus feixuc e pus greu: o treballs per amor, o treballs per desamor? Respòs que ho demanàs als hòmens qui fan penitència per amor de son amat o per temor dels turments infernals.
Adormí's l'amic e morí amor, cor no hac de què visquès. Despertà's l'amic e reviscolà amor en los pensaments que l'amic tramès a son amat.
Deïa l'amic que ciència infusa venia de volentat, devoció, oració, e ciència adquisita venia d'estudi, enteniment. E per açò és qüestió qual ciència és pus tost en l'amic, ni qual li és pus agradable, ni qual es major en l'amic.
— Digues, foll: d'on has tes necessitats? Respòs: — De pensaments, e de desirar, adorar, treballar, perseverança. — E d'on has totes aquestes coses? Respòs: — D'amor. —E d'on has amor? — De mon amat. — E d'on has ton amat? —De si mateix tan solament.
— Digues, foll: vols ésser franc de totes coses? Respòs que hoc, exeptat son amat. — Vols ésser catiu? Respòs que: — Hoc de sospirs, e pensaments, treballs, e perills e exils, plors, a servir mon amat, al qual son creat per lloar ses valors.
Turmentava amor l'amic per lo qual turment plorava e planvia l'amic. Cridava'l son amat que s'acostàs a ell per ço que sanàs. On pus l'amic a son amat s'acostava, pus fortment amor lo turmentava, cor mes d'amor sentia. E cor més de plaers sentia en més amava, pus fortment l'amat de sos llanguiments lo sanava.
Malalta era amor. Metjava-la l'amic ab paciència, perseverança, obediència, esperança guaria l'amor. Emmalaltia l'amic; sanava-lo l'amat donant-li remembrament de ses virtuts e de sos honraments.
— Digues, foll: què és solitudo? Respòs: — Solaç e companyia d'amic e amat. — E què és solaç e companyia? Respòs que solitudo estant en coratge d'amic qui no membra mas tan solament son amat.
Qüestió lo feta a l'amic: — ¿On és major perill: en sostenir treballs per amor, o benanances? Acordà's l'amic ab son amat, e dix que perills per malanances són per impaciència, e perills per benanances són per desconeixença.
Solvé l'amat amor, e llicencià les gents que en prenguessen a tota llur volentat; e a penes atrobà amor qui la metés en son coratge. E per açò plorà l'amic e hac tristícia de la deshonor que amor pren sajús enfre nós, per falses amadors e per hòmens desconeixents.
Aucí amor en lo coratge de son vertader amic totes coses, per ço que hi pogués viure e caber; e hagra mort l'amic si no hagués membrança de son amat.
Havia en l'amic dos pensaments: la un cogitava tots jorns en l'essència e en les virtuts de son amat; e l'altre cogitava en les obres de son amat. E per açò era qüestió qual pensament era pus llugorós, pus agradable a l'amat e a l'amic.
Morí l'amic per força de gran amor. Soterrà'l en sa terra l'amat, en la qual fo l'amic ressucitat. E és qüestió l'amic de qual reebé major do.
En la presó de l'amat eren malanances, perills, llanguiments, deshonors, estranyedats, per ço que no embargassen son amic a lloar sos honraments e a enamorar los hómens qui l'han en menyspreament.
Estava l'amic un dia denant molts hòmens que son amat havia en est món massa honrats, per ço cor lo deshonraven en llurs pensaments. Aquells menyspreaven son amat e escarnien sos servidors. Plorà l'amic, tira sos cabells, bate sa cara e rompé sos vestiments; e cridà altament: — ¿Fo anc fet tan gran falliments com menysprear mon amat?
— Digues, foll: vols morir? Respòs que: — Hoc, en los delits d'aquest món e en los pensaments dels maleïts qui obliden e deshonren mon amat; en los quals pensaments no vull ésser entès ni volgut, pus que no hi és mon amat.
— Si tu, foll, dius veritat, seràs per les gents ferit, e escarnit, reprès, turmentat e mort. Respòs: — Segons aitals paraules, se segueix que si deïa falsies, los lloat, amat, servit, hontal per les gents, e defès dels amadors de mon amat.
Falses lloadors blasmaven un dia l'amic en presència de son amat. Havia l'amic paciència, e l'amat justícia, saviea, poder. E l'amic amà més ésser blasmat e reprès, que ésser negú dels falses blasmadors.
Sembrava l'amat diverses sements en lo cor de son amic, d'on naixia, e fullava, e floria e granava un fruit tan solament. E és qüestió si d'aquell fruit poden néixer diverses sements.
Sobre amor està molt altament l'amat, e dejús amor està molt baixament l'amic. E amor, qui està en lo mig, davalla l'amat a l'amic, e puja l'amic a l'amat. E del davallament e pujament, viu e pren començament l'amor per la qual llangueix l'amic e és servit l'amat.
A la dreta part d'amor està l'amat, e l'amic està a la sinestra; e per açò sens que l'amic no pas per amor, no pot pervenir a son amat.
E denant amor està l'amat e detràs l'amat està l'amic. E per açò l'amic no pot pervenir a amor tro que ha passats sos pensaments e sos desirers per l'amat.
Fa l'amat a son amic tres semblants a si mateix amats, en honraments, e valors. E enamora's l'amic de tots tres egualment, jatsia que l'amor sia una tan solament, a significança de la unitat, una en tres amats essencialment.
Vestí's l'amat del drap en era vestit son amic, per ço que los son companyó en glòria eternalment. E per açò l'amic desirà tots jorns vermells vestiments, per ço que el drap sia mills semblant als vestiments de son amat.
— Digues, foll: què faïa ton amat ans que el món fos? Respòs: — Covenia's a ésser per diverses proprietats eternals, personals, infinides, on son amic e amat.
Plorava e havia tristícia l'amic com veïa a los infeels innorantment perdre son amat; e alegrava's en la justícia de son amat, qui turmentava aquells qui el coneixien e li eren desobedients. E per açò fo-li feta qüestió qual era major: o sa tristícia, o sa alegrança, ni si havia major benanança com veia honrar son amat, o major malanança com lo vela deshonrar.
Esguardava l'amic son amat en la major diferència e concordança de virtuts, e en la major contrarietat de virtuts e de vicis, e en ésser perfecció, qui es covenen pus fortment sens defalliment e no ésser, que ab defalliment e ab no ésser.
Los secrets de son amat veia l'amic, per diversitat, concordança, qui li revelaven pluralitat, unitat en son amat, per major conveniment d'essència sens contrarietat.
Digueren a l'amic que si corrupció, qui és contra ésser en ço qui és contra generació, qui és contra no ésser, era eternalment corrompent corromput, impossible cosa seria que no ésser ni fi se concordàs ab la corrupció ni el corromput. On, per estes paraules, l'amic viu en son amat generació eternal.
Si los falsetat ço per què l'amic pot mes amar son amat, fóra veritat ço per què l'amic no pot tant amar son amat: e si açò los enaixí, seguira's que defalliment los de major e de veritat en l'amat, e hagra en l'amat concordança de falsetat e menor.
Lloava l'amic son amat, e deia que si son amat ha major possibilitat a perfecció e major impossibilitat a imperfecció, cové que son amat sia simple, pura, actualitat en essència e en operació. On, dementre que l'amic enaixí lloava son amat, li era revelada la trinitat de son amat.
Veïa l'amic en nombre d'un e de tres major concordança que en altre nombre, per ço cor tota forma corporal venia de no ésser a ésser per lo nombre damunt dit. E per açò l'amic esguardava la unitat e la trinitat de son amat per la major concordança de nombre.
L'amic lloava lo poder, e el saber e el voler de son amat, qui havien creades totes coses, enfora pecat; lo qual pecat no fóra sens lo poder, e el saber e el voler de son amat; al qual pecat no son ocasió lo poder, ni el saber ni el voler de son amat.
Lloava e amava l'amic son amat com l'havia creat e li havia donades totes coses; e lloava'l e amava'l com li plac pendre sa semblanza e sa natura. E d'açò cové ésser feta qüestió qual llaor e amor deu haver major perfecció.
Temptà amor l'amic de saviesa, e féu-li qüestió si l'amat l'amava mes en pendre sa natura o en recrear-lo. E l'amic lo embarbesclat, tro que respòs que la recreació se convenc a esquivar malanança, e l'encarnació a donar benanança. E de la responsió lo feta altra qüestió: qual lo major amor.
Anava l'amic demanar almoina per les portes, per ço que remembràs l'amor de son amat a sos servidors, e per ço que usas d'humilitat, pobretat, paciència, qui son coses agradables a son amat.
Dernanaren perdó a l'amic per amor de son amat; e l'amic no tan solament perdonà ans los donà si mateix e sos béns.
Ab llàgremes de sos ulls recomptava l'amic la passió e la dolor que son amat sostenc per sa amor; e ab tristícia, pensaments, escrivia les paraules que deïa; e ab misericòrdia, esperança, se conhortava.
L'amat e amor vengren veer l'amic qui dormia. L'amat cridà a son amic, e amor lo despertà. E l'amic obeí a amor, e respòs a son amat.
Nodria l'amat son amic a amar; e amor ensenyava-li a perillar, e paciència l'adoctrinava con sostengués treballs per l'amor d'aquell a qui s'és donat per servidor.
Demanava l'amat a les gents si havien vist son amic, e ells demanaren-li les calitats de son amic; e l'amat dix que son amic era ardit, temerós, ric e pobre, alegre, trist, consirós, e llanguia tots jorns per sa amor.
E demanaren a l'amic si volia vendre son desirer; e ell respòs que venut l'havia a son amat per un tal diner que tot lo món ne poria ésser comprat.
— Preïca, foll, e digues paraules de ton amat. Plora, dejuna! Renuncia al món l'amic, e anà cercar son amat ab amor, e lloava—lo en aquells llocs on era deshonrat.
Bastia e obrava l'amic una bella ciutat on estegués son amat. Ab amor, pensaments, plants, plors e llanguiments l'obrava; e ab plaers, esperança, devoció, l'ornava; e ab fe, justícia, prudència, fortitudo, temprança, la guarnia.
Bevia l'amic amor en la font de son amat, en la qual l'amat llavà los peus a son amic, qui moltes vegades ha oblidats, menyspreats, sos honraments; per què lo món és en defalliment.
— Digues, foll: què és pecat? Respòs: — Entenció girada e enversada contra la final entenció e raó per què mon amat ha creades totes coses.
Veïa l'amic que el món és creat, com sia cosa que eternitat se covenga mills ab son amat, qui és essència infinida en granea e en tota perfecció, que ab lo món, qui ha cantitat finida. E, per amo en la justícia de son amat vela l'amic que l'eternitat de son amat cové ésser davant a temps e a quantitat finida.
Escusava l'amic son amat a aquells qui deien que el món és eternal, dient que son amat no hagra justícia perteta si no retés a cascuna ànima son cors; a lo qual no fóra bastant lloc ni matèria ordial; ni el món no fóra ordenat a una fi tan solament si los eternal; e si no ho fos, defallira en son amat perfecció de volentat, saviea.
— Digues, foll: ¿en què has coneixença que la fe catòlica sia vera, e la creença dels jueus e dels sarraïns sien en falsetat e error? Respòs: — En les deu condicions del Llibre del gentil e dels tres savis.
— Digues, foll: en què comença saviea? Respòs: En fe e en devoció, qui son escala on puja l'enteniment entendre los secrets de mon amat. — E fe e devoció, ¿d'on han començament? Respòs: — De mon amat, qui inlumena fe e escalfa devoció.
Demanaren a l'amic qual cosa era major: o possibilitat, o impossibilitat. Repòs que possibilitat era major en creatura, e impossibilitat en son amat; con sia cosa que possibilitat e potència se concorden, e impossibilitat e actualitat.
— Digues, foll: ¿qual cosa és major: o diferència, o concordança? Respòs que, fora son amat, diferència era major en pluralitat, e concordança en unitat, mas en son amat eren eguals en diferència e unitat.
— Digues, amador: què és valor? Respós que lo contrari de la valor d'aquest món, la qual és desirada per los falses amadors vanaglorioses, qui volen valer havents desvalor o per ésser perseguidors de valor.
— Digues, foll: has vist home qui sia orat? Respòs que ell havia vist un bisbe qui havia a sa taula molts anaps e moltes escudelles e talladors d'argent, e havia en sa cambra moltes vestedures e gran llit, e en ses caixes molts diners; e a la porta de son palau havia pocs pobres.
— Foll: saps què és viltat? Respòs: — Vils pensaments. -— E què és lleialtat? — Temor de mon amat, nada de caritat e de vergonya, qui tem blasme de les gents. — E què és honrament? Respós: — Cogitar mon amat, e desirar e lloar sos honraments.
Los treballs e les tribulacions que l'amic sostenia per amor, l'alteraren e l'enclinaren a impaciència; e représ-lo l'amat ab sos honraments e ab sos prometiments, dient que poc sabia d'amor qui s'alterava per maltrets ni per benanança. Hac l'amic contrició e plors, e pregà son amat que li retés amors.
— Fol, digues: què és amor? Respòs que amor és aquella cosa qui los francs met en servitud e a los serfs dóna llibertat. E és qüestió a qual és pus prop amor: o a llibertat, o a servitud.
Cridava l'amat son amic, e ell li responia dient: ¿Què et plau, amat que est ulls de mos ulls, e pensament de mos pensaments, e compliment de mos compliments, e amor de mes amors, e encara començament de mos començaments?
Amat —deïa l'amic—: a tu vaig e en tu vaig, car m'apelles. Contemplar vaig contemplació, ab contemplació de ta contemplació. En ta virtut so, e ab ta virtut venc, d'on prenc vertut. Salut-te ab ta salutació, qui és ma salutació en ta salutació, de la qual esper salutació perdurable en benedicció de ta henedicció, en la qual beneït son en ma benedicció.
— Alt est, amat, en tes altees, a les quals exalces ma volentat, exalçada en ton exalçament ab ta altea, qui exalça en mon remembrament mon enteniment, exalçat en ton exalçament, per conèixer tos honraments e per ço que la volentat n'haja exalçat enamorament e la memoria n'haja alta remembrança.
— Glòria est, amat, de ma glòria; e ab ta glòria e en ta glòria,—dónes glòria a ma glòria, qui ha glòria de ta glòria. Per la qual tua glòria me son glòria, egualment, los treballs e los llanguiments qui em vénen per honrar ta glòria ab los plaers e els pensaments qui em vénen de ta glòria.
— Amat: en lo carçre d'amor me tens enamorat ab tes amors, qui m'han enamorat de tes amors, per tes amors e en tes amors. Cor àls no est mas amors, en les quals me las estar sol e ab companyia de tes amors e de tos honraments. Car tu est sol en mi sol, qui son solitari ab mos pensaments, con la solitat tua, sola en honors, m'haja sola a lloar e honrar ses valors, sens temor dels desconeixents qui no t'han sol en llurs amors.
— Solaç est, amat, de solaç; per què en tu assolaç mos pensaments ab ton solaç, qui és solaç e confort de mos llanguiments e de mes tribulacions, qui son tribulades en ton solaç con no assolaces los innorants ab ton solaç e com los coneixents de ton solaç no enamores pus fortment a honrar tos honraments.
Clamava's l'amic, a son senyor, de son amat, e a son amat de son senyor. Deien lo senyor e l'amat: — ¿Qui fa en nos departiment, qui som una cosa tan solament? Responia l'amic e deïa que pietat de senyor e tribulació per amat.
Perillava l'amic en lo gran pèlag d'amor, e conflava's en son amat, qui li acorria ab tribulacions, pensaments, llàgremes e plors, sospirs e llanguiments, per ço cor lo pèlag era d'amors, e d'honrar ses honors.
Alegrava's l'amic cor era son amat, cor per son ésser es tot altre ésser esdevengut, e sostentat, e obligat, e sotsmès a honrar, servir, l'ésser de son amat, qui per null ésser no pot ésser delit, ni encolpat, ni minvat ni crescut.
— Amat: en la tua granea las grans mos desirers, e mos pensaments, e mos treballs; cor tant és gran, que tota res és gran que de tu ha membrança, e enteniment e plaer; e ta granea fa poques totes coses qui son contra tos honraments, manaments.
— Eternalment comença, e ha començat e començarà mon amat; e eternalment no comença ni ha començat ni començarà. E aquests començaments no són contradicció en mon amat, per ço cor és eternal, e ha en si unitat e trinitat.
— Lo meu amat és un, e en sa unitat s'uneixen en una volentat mos pensaments e mes amors; e la unitat de mon amat abasta a totes unitats e a totes pluralitats; e la pluralitat qui és en mon amat abasta a totes unitats e pluralitats.
— Sobirà bé és lo bé de mon amat, qui és bé de mon bé; cor és bé mon amat sens altre bé, cor si no ho los, mon bé fóra d'altre he sobirà. E cor no ho és, sia doncs tot lo meu bé despès en esta vida, a honrar lo sobirà bé, cor enaixí cové.
— Sí tu, amat, saps mi pecador, si et las tu piadòs e perdonador. E cor ço que saps en tu és mellor que mi, doncs jo sé en tu perdó e amor, pus que tu las saber a mi contrició, e dolor, e desirer de pendre mort per lloar ta valor.
— Lo teu poder, amat, me pot salvar per benignitat, pietat e perdó, e pot-me damnar per justícia e per colpes de mes falliments. Complesca ton poder ton voler en mi; cor tot és compliment, sia que em dons salvació o damnament.
Amat: veritat visita la contrició de mon cor, e puja aigua a mos ulls coro ma volentat l'ama; e cor la tua veritat és sobiranà, puja veritat sajús ma volentat, a honrar tos honraments, e davalla-la a desamar mos defalliments.
— Anc ver no lo ço en què mon amat no lo, e fals és ço en què mon amat no és, e fals serà ço en què mon amat no serà. E, per açò de necessitat es que sia veritat tot quant serà, ni lo, ni és, si mon amat hi és; e per açò fals és qui és en ver on mon amat no és, sens que no se'n segueix contradicció.
Creà l'amat e destruí l'amic. Jutjà l'amat, plorà l'amic. Recrea l'amat, glòria a l'amic. Fení l'amat sa operació, e romàs l'amic eternalment en companyia de son amat.
Per les carreres de vegetació, e de sentiment, e d'imaginació, e d'enteniment, volentat, anava l'amic cercar son amat; e en aquelles carreres havia l'amic perills e llanguiments per son amat, per ço que exalçàs son enteniment e sa volentat a son amat, qui vol que els seus amadors l'entenen e l'amen altament.
Mou-se l'amic a ésser per l'acabament de son amat, e mou-se a no ésser per son defalliment. E per açò és qüestió qual dels dos moviments han major apoderament en l'amic naturalment.
— Posat m'has, amat, enfre mon mal e ton bé. A la tua part sia pietat, misericòrdia, paciència, humilitat e perdó, ajuda e restaurament; a la mia part sia contrició, perseverança, membrança, ab sospirs, llàgremes e plors, de la tua santa passió.
— Amat qui em las amar: si no m'ajudes, per què em volguist crear? ¿Ni per què per mi portest tantes llangors, ni sostenguist tan greu passió? Pus tant m'has ajudat a exalçar, ajuda'm, amat, a davallar, a membrar, aïrar, mes colpes e mos defalliments, per ço que mills mos pensaments pusquen pujar a desirar, honrar, lloar tes valors.
— Mon voler has fet franc a amar tos honraments, e a menysprear tes valors, per ço que pusques a mon voler muntiplicar tes amors.
— En aquesta llibertat has, amat, perillada ma volentat. Amat: en aquest perill deus remembrar ton amic, qui de sa volentat franca trau servitud a lloar tes honors e a muntiplicar en son cors llanguiments e plors.
— Amat: anc de tu en ton amic no venc colpa ni falliment, ni en ton amic compliment sens ton do e perdó. E doncs, pus l'amic t'ha en aital possessió, no l'hages en oblit en ses tribulacions ni en son perillament.
— Amat, qui en un nom est nomenat hom e Déu! En aquell nom, Jesucrist, te vol ma volentat home e Déu; e si tu, amat, has tant honrat ton amic sens sos mérits, en nomenar e voler ton nom, ¿per què no honres tants hòmens innorables qui cientalment no són estats tan colpables al ten nom, Jesucrist, con és estat lo teu amic?
Plorava l'amic, e deïa a son amat aquestes paraules: — Amat: no fuist anc avar ni cóbeu al teu amic en donar ésser, ni en recrear-lo, ni en donar-li moltes creatures a son servii. Doncs, ¿d'on vendria, amat, que tu, qui est sobirana llibertat, fosses avar a ton amic, de plors, pensaments, llanguiments, saviea e amors, a honrar tes honors? E per açò, amat, lo teu amic te demana vida llonga, per tal que pusca reebre de tu molts dels dons damunt dits.
— Amat: si tu ajudes als hòmens justs, de llurs mortais enemics, ajuda a muntiplicar mos pensaments en desirar tes honors; e si tu ajudes als hòmens injusts, com recobren justícia, ajuda al ten amic com faga de sa volentat sacrifica a ta llaor, e de son cors, a testimoni d'amor per vía de martire.
— No ha mon amat diferència en humilitat, humil, humiliat, cor tot es humilitat en pura actualitat. E per açò l'amic reprèn ergull, qui vol pujar a son amat aquells qui en est món la humilitat de mon amat ha tant honrats, e ergull los ha vestits d'hipocresia, vanaglòria, vanitats.
Humilitat ha humiliat l'amat a l'amic, per contrición e sí es féu per devoció. E és qüestió en qual d'ambdues l'amat los pus fortment humillat a l'amic.
Hac l'amat, per sa perfecció, misericòrdia, de son amic, e sí hac per les necessitats de son amic. E lo qüestió per qual de les dues raons l'amat perdona pus fortment les colpes de son amic.
— Pregaven nostra Dona e los àngels e els sants de glòria mon amat; e coro remembré l'error en què el món és per desconeixença, membré gran la justícia de mon amat, e gran la desconeixença de sos enemics.
Pujava l'amic los poders de sa ànima, per escala d'humanitat, gloriejar la divina natura; e per la divinas natura davallava los poders de sa ànima per gloriejar en la humana natura de son amat.
On pus estretes son les vies on l'amic va a son amat, pus amples son les amors; e on pus estretes son les amors, pus amples son les vies. E per açò, en totes maneres ha l'amic per son amat amors e treballs, e llanguiments e plaers e consolacions.
Ixen amors d'amors, e pensaments de llanguiments, e plors de llanguiments; e entren amors en amors, e pensaments en plors, e llanguiments en sospirs. E l'amat esguarda's son amic, qui ha per sa amor totes aquestes tribulacions.
Tranuitaven e faïen romeries e pelegrinacions los desirers e els remembraments de l'amic en les noblees de son amat, e aportaven a l'amic faiçons, e omplien son enteniment de resplendor, per la qual la volentat muntiplicava ses amors.
L'amic, ab sa imaginación pintava e formava les faiçons de son amat en les coses corporals, e ab son enteniment les polia en les coses esperituals, e ab volentat les adorava en totes creatures.
Comprà l'amic un dia de plors per altre dia de pensaments, e vené un dia d'amors per altre de tribulacions; e muntiplicaren ses amors e sos pensaments.
Era l'amic en terra estranya, e oblidà son amat, e enyorá's de son senyor e sa muller e sos infants, e de sos amics. Mas retornà remembrar son amat, per ço que los consolat e que la sua estranyedat no li donàs enyorament ni marriment.
Oïa l'amic paraules de son amat, en les quals lo veia son enteniment, per ço cor la volentat havia plaer d'aquell oïment; e lo remembrament membrava les virtuts de son amat, e los seus prometiments.
Oïa blasmar l'amic son amat, en lo qual blasme veïa l'enteniment la justícia e la paciència de son amat, cor la justícia punia los blasmadors, e la paciència los esperava a contrición penediment. E per açò és qüestió en qual dels dos l'amic creïa pus fortment.
Malalt fo l'amic, e féu testament ab consell de son amat. Colpes e torts lleixà a penediment, penitència; e delits temporals lleixà a menyspreament; a sos ulls lleixà plors, e a son cor sospirs e amors; e a son enteniment lleixà les faiçons de son amat; e a son remembrament la passió que sostenc per sa amor son amat; e a son negoci lleixà l'endrecament dels infeels, qui innorantment van a perdiment.
Odorà l'amic flors, e remembrà pudors en ric avar, e en luxuriós, e en desconeixent ergullós. Gustà l'amic dolcors, e entés amargors en les possessions temporals, e en l'entrament e iximent d'aquest món. Sentí l'amic plaers temporals, e l'enteniment entès lo breu traspassament d'aquest món e los perdurables turments als quals són ocasió los delits qui a aquest món són agradables.
Hac l'amic fam, set, calor e fred, pobretat, nuedat, olalaltia, tribulación e fóra finit si no hagués membrança de son amat, qui el sanà ab esperança remembrament, e ab lo renunciament d'aquest món, e ab lo menyspreament del blasme de la gent.
Enfre treball e plaer era lo llit de l'amic: ab plaer s'adormia, e ab treball se despertava. E és qüestió a quals d'aquests dos és pus prop lo llit de l'amic.
En ira s'adormí l'amic, cor temia lo blasme de la gent; e despertà's en paciència, com remembrà llaors de son amat. E és qüestió l'amic de qui hac major vergonya: o de son amat, o de les gents.
Cogità l'amic en la mort. e hac paor tro que remembrà la ciutat de son amat, de la qual, mort e amor són portals e entrament.
Clamavàs l'amic a son amat de temptacions qui li venien tots jorns treballar sos pensaments. E l'amat li respòs dient que temptacions són ocasió com hom recorra ab remembrament remembrar Déu e amar sos honrats capteniments.
Perdé l'amic una joia que molt amava; e fóra's desconsolat, tro que son amat li féu qüestió qual cosa li era pus profitable: o la joia que havia, o la paciència que hae en les obres de son amat.
Dormia l'amic considerant en los treballs e els empatxaments los quals ha en servir son amat, e hac paor que ses obres no perissen per aquells empatxaments. Mas l'amat li tramès consciència qui el despertà en sos mèrits e en los poders de son amat.
Havia l'amic a anar llongues carreres, e dures e aspres; e era temps que anàs per aquelles e que portàs lo gran feix que amor fa portar a sos amadors. E per açò l'amic alleujà sa ànima dels pensaments e els plaers temporals, per ço que el cors pogués portar lo càrrec pus lleugerament, e l'ànima anàs per aquelles carreres en companyia ab son amat.
Denant l'amic deïen un jorn mal de son amat, sens que l'amic no hi respòs ni escusà son amat. E és qüestió qual es pus encolpat: o els hòmens qui blasmaven l'amat, o l'amic qui callava e no escusava son amat.
Contemplant l'amic son amat, s'assubtilava en son enteniment, e enamorava's en sa volentat. E és qüestió per qual dels dos assubtilava pus fortment sa remembrança a remembrar son amat.
Ab frevor e temor anava l'amic en son viatge honrar son amat: frevor lo portava, temor lo conservava. Dementre que l'amic enaixí anava, atrobà sospirs e plors qui li aportaven saluts de son ainat. E és qüestió per qual de tots quatre lo mills assolaçat l'amic en son amat.
Esguardava l'amic si mateix per ço que los mirall on veés son amat, e esguardava son amat per ço que li los mirall on hagués coneixença de si mateix. E és qüestió a qual dels dos miralls era son enteniment pus acostat.
Teologia e Filosofia, Medicina e Dret encontraren l'amic qui els demanà de noves si havien vist son amat. Teologia plorava, Filosofia dubtava, Medicina e Dret s'alegraven. E és qüestió què signifiquen cascú dels quatre significats a l'amic qui va cercar son amat.
Angoixós e plorós anava l'amic encercar son amat per vies sensuals e per carreres entel·lectuais. E és qüestió en qual dels dos camins entra primerament dementre cercava son amat, ni en qual l'amat se mostrá a l'amic pus declaradament.
El dia del judici dirà l'amat que hom tris a una part ço que en aquest món li ha donat, e a altra part sia triat ço que hom ha donat al món, per ço que sia vist com coralment és estat amat, ni qual deis dos dons és pus noble e de major cantitat,
Amava la volentat de l'amic si mateixa, e l'enteniment demanà-li si era pus semblant a son amat en amar si mateixa o en amar son amat, com sia cosa que son amat sia pus amant si mateix que nulla altra cosa. E per açò és qüestió segons qual responsió la volentat poe respondre a l'enteniment pus vertaderament.
— Digues, foll: ¿qual és la major e la pus noble amor que sia en creatura? Respòs: — Aquella qui és una ab lo creador — Per què? — Per ço cor lo creador no ha en què pusca fer pus noble creatura.
Estava l'amic un dia en oració, e sentí que sos ulls no ploraven; e per ço que pogués plorar tramès sa cogitació cogitar en diners, fembres, fills, viandes, vanaglòria; e atrobà en son enteniment que mes gents han a servidors cascunes de les coses damunt dites, que no ha son amat. E per açò foren sos ulls en plors, e sa ànima en tristícia e en dolor.
Anava l'amic consirós en son amat, e atrobà en la via grans gents e grans companyes qui li demanaven de noves; e l'amic, per ço cor atrobava plaer en son amat, no respòs a ço que li demanaven, e dix que per ço que no es llunyàs de son amat no volia respondre a llurs paraules.
Era l'amic dintre e defora cobert d'amor, e anava cercar son amat. Deïa-li amor: on vas, amador? Respòs: — Vaig a mon amat per ço que tu sies major.
— Digues, foll: què és religió? Respòs: — Nedeetat de pensa, e desirar morir per honrar mon amat, e renunciar al món per ço que no haja embargament a contemplar-lo e a dir veritat de sos honraments.
— Digues, foll: ¿què són treballs, piants, sospirs, piors, tribulacions, perills, en amic? Respòs: — Plaer d'amat. — Per què? — Per ço que en sia més amat, e l'amic més guaardonat.
Demanaren a l'amic amor en qual era major: o en l'amic qui vivia, o en l'amic qui moria. Respòs que en l'amic qui moria. — Per què? — Per ço cor no pot ésser major en amic qui mor per amor, e pot-ho ésser en amic qui viu per amor.
Encontraren-se dos amics; la un mostrava son amat, e l'altre l'entenia. E era qüestió qual d'ambdós era pus prop a son amat. E per la solució l'amic havia coneixença de la demostració de trinitat.
— Digues, foll: per què parles tan subtilment? Respòs: — Per ço que sia ocasió a exalçar enteniment a les noblees de mon amat, e perquè per més hòmens sia honrat, amat e servit.
Embriagava's l'amic de vi, qui membrava, entenia e amava l'amat. Aquell vi amarava l'amat ab sos plors e ab les llàgremes de son amic.
Amor escalfava e afiamava l'amic en membrança de son amat; e l'amat lo refredava ab llàgremes e plors, e ab oblidament dels delits d'aquest món, e ab renunciament dels vans honraments. E creixien les amors com l'amic membrava per qui sostenia llangors, tribulacions, ni los hómens mundans per qui sostenien treballs, persecucions.
— Digues, foll: què és aquest món? Respòs: — Presó dels amadors, servidors, de mon amat — E qui els met en presó? Respòs: Consciència, amor, temor, renunciament, contrició, companyia d'àvol gent; e és treball sens guardó, on és puniment.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Phil.2.7-Phil.2.8 — but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness, and appearing as a human being. Phil.2.8 — And he humbled himself, becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
- ↩Rom.5.15-Rom.5.20 — But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died through the trespass of the one man, how much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many. Rom.5.16 — And the gift is not like what came through the one who sinned. For the judgment following one trespass led to condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses led to justification. Rom.5.17 — For if by the trespass of the one man death reigned through the one, how much more will those who receive the overflow of grace and the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ. Rom.5.18 — So then, just as through one trespass there was condemnation for all people, so also through one act of righteousness there was justification leading to life for all people. Rom.5.19 — For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous. Rom.5.20 — The law came in alongside so that the trespass might increase; but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more.
- ↩Song.3.1-Song.3.3 — On my bed, night after night, I sought the one my soul loves; I sought him, but I did not find him. Song.3.2 — I will rise now and go about the city, through the streets and through the squares; I will seek the one my soul loves. I sought him, but I did not find him. Song.3.3 — The watchmen who go about the city found me. "Have you seen the one my soul loves?"
- ↩Song.8.6 — Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm; for love is strong as death, passion is fierce as Sheol. Its flashes are flashes of fire, a flame of Yah.
- ↩Song.5.9 — What is your beloved more than another beloved, O fairest among women? What is your beloved more than another beloved, that you thus adjure us?
- ↩1Cor.15.28;Eph.4.6;Col.3.11 — When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to the one who subjected all things to him, so that God may be all in all. Eph.4.6 — one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all Col.3.11 — where there is no Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free—but Christ is all and in all.
- ↩Luke.14.26;Matt.10.37 — If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters — yes, even his own life — he cannot be my disciple. Matt.10.37 — Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.
- ↩Deut.6.5-Deut.6.7 — And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. Deut.6.6 — And these words that I am commanding you today shall be on your heart. Deut.6.7 — Teach them diligently to your children, and speak of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk along the road, and when you lie down, and when you rise up.
- ↩John.12.32 — And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.
- ↩Ps.126.5-Ps.126.6 — Those who sow in tears shall reap in joy. Ps.126.6 — Though one goes forth weeping, carrying the bag of seed, he will surely come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.
- ↩Song.3.1-Song.3.3 — On my bed, night after night, I sought the one my soul loves; I sought him, but I did not find him. Song.3.2 — I will rise now and go about the city, through the streets and through the squares; I will seek the one my soul loves. I sought him, but I did not find him. Song.3.3 — The watchmen who go about the city found me. "Have you seen the one my soul loves?"
- ↩John.1.5 — And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.
- ↩Phil.2.7 — but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness, and appearing as a human being.
- ↩Prov.1.7;Ps.27.1;Isa.8.12-Isa.8.13 — The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction. Ps.27.1 — Of David. The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life; whom shall I dread? Isa.8.12 — Do not call a conspiracy everything this people calls a conspiracy, and do not fear what they fear, and do not be terrified. Isa.8.13 — But the LORD of hosts, him you shall regard as holy; let him be your fear, and let him be your dread.
- ↩Ps.63.6;Ps.119.148 — Like fat and rich fare my soul is satisfied, and with lips of joyful singing I praise you. Ps.119.148 — My eyes anticipate the night watches, that I may meditate on your word.
- ↩Phil.2.6-Phil.2.8;John.3.13;John.6.38 — who, existing in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to exploit, Phil.2.7 — but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness, and appearing as a human being. Phil.2.8 — And he humbled himself, becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. John.3.13 — And no one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven—the Son of Man. John.6.38 — For I have come down from heaven not to do my own will, but to do the will of him who sent me.
- ↩Matt.6.19-Matt.6.20 — Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. Matt.6.20 — But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal.
- ↩John.1.10-John.1.11 — He was in the world, and the world came into being through him, yet the world did not know him. John.1.11 — He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.
- ↩Matt.7.13-Matt.7.14 — Enter through the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the road is broad that leads to destruction, and many are those who enter through it. Matt.7.14 — Because the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it.
- ↩Deut.32.18;Ps.106.21 — You ignored the Rock who gave you birth, and forgot the God who delivered you. Ps.106.21 — They forgot God their Savior, who had done great things in Egypt.
- ↩Exod.32.32-Exod.32.33;Phil.4.3;Rev.3.5 — But now, if you will forgive their sin—and if not, please blot me out of your book that you have written. Exod.32.33 — And the LORD said to Moses, "Whoever has sinned against me, I will blot out of my book." Phil.4.3 — Yes, I ask you also, true companion, help these women, for they labored with me in the gospel together with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers, whose names are in the book of life. Rev.3.5 — The one who conquers will thus be clothed in white garments, and I will not erase his name from the book of life. I will confess his name before my Father and before his angels.
- ↩John.15.18-John.15.20 — If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. John.15.19 — If you were of the world, the world would love its own. But because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. John.15.20 — Remember the word that I spoke to you: 'A servant is not greater than his master.' If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours.
- ↩John.15.19 — If you were of the world, the world would love its own. But because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.
- ↩Isa.63.1-Isa.63.2 — Who is this coming from Edom, in crimsoned garments from Bozrah? This one, majestic in his apparel, marching in the greatness of his strength? I, speaking in righteousness, mighty to save. Isa.63.2 — Why is your apparel red, and your garments like one who treads the winepress?
- ↩John.17.5 — And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory I had with you before the world existed.
- ↩Song.5.1 — I have come into my garden, my sister, my bride; I have gathered my myrrh with my spice; I have eaten my honeycomb with my honey; I have drunk my wine with my milk. Eat, friends; drink, and be drunk with love.
Notes
- 1 ↩Medieval Catalan cabal is capital/stock/substance; rendered as 'treasure' for the Beloved held as each lover's store of wealth. Alternatives: portion, capital, substance.
- 2 ↩Ni continues the Lover's chained questions (not a simple negation). natura de pujar keeps the scholastic sense of a change of nature, not mere physical motion.
- 3 ↩més que can mean more numerous than or greater than; the plain sense is outnumbering/exceeding the guilty, not moral superiority alone.
- 4 ↩Catalan 'compliment d'amor' can mean fulfillment, completion, or perfection of love; rendered as 'fullness of love' to keep the causal force of 'Sens… no… ni…'.
- 5 ↩Elliptical answer to 'de què era la diferència': the difference between the Beloved's absence and presence is cast as paired opposites (ignorance/forgetfulness vs. knowledge/remembrance), not as four coordinate items of equal status.
- 6 ↩Old Catalan 'per ço cor' carries causal force ('because' / 'for this reason that'); rendered as the natural question tag 'is that why' to keep the Beloved's testing tone without archaic 'wherefore'.
- 7 ↩'treballs' is labors/toils of love (hardships), not mere employment; 'plaers' is delights/pleasures. 'no en faç diferència' = I draw no line between them / treat them alike.
- 8 ↩Old Catalan 'Hoc' is the affirmative particle 'yes'; 'ab que' is rendered as the condition 'so long as' / 'provided that'.
- 9 ↩Old Catalan pervenga (subjunctive of pervenir) is 3rd-person in form; rendered as the Friend's purpose of reaching the Beloved. Alternate readings: 'so that he may be reached' or 'so that [my love/word] may come to him.'
- 10 ↩Catalan honraments is the plural of honor/tribute of honor; the English keeps Llull’s cognate wordplay honrar / honraments as ‘honor the honors.’
- 11 ↩Catalan 'amors' is plural; rendered as 'love' for natural modern English while keeping the instrumental sense of 'per amors' (by/through love). 'treballs' here means trials/hardships, not employment.
- 12 ↩Old Catalan llangors names the lovesick languishing of mystical desire (not generic suffering); grats are love’s pleasures/favors. Rendered as languors and delights to keep the paired bitter–sweet of love’s trial.
- 13 ↩desamor rendered as 'lovelessness' (the privation/opposite of love in Llull's lover–Beloved vocabulary), not mere dislike.
- 14 ↩Medieval Catalan «qüestió lo enfre» is rendered as a dispute arising between two faculties; «amic/amat» kept as Lover/Beloved per Llull's pairing. «puja l'aigua als ull» is the image of tears welling up (literally: the water rises to the eye).
- 15 ↩sobredoblement: adverb of excess beyond mere doubling; rendered 'more than double' rather than a stiffer calque such as 'with over-doubling'.
- 16 ↩Source has bare 'paciència' (no ab/de), unlike the other instrument phrases; rendered as means ('with patience') parallel to merit, love, humility, and truth, with the Beloved as agent throughout. An alternate surface reading personifies Patience as the subject that lays him down.
- 17 ↩From metjar (to doctor/treat medically); rendered 'treated him' rather than the more archaic 'medicated him'.
- 18 ↩Catalan 'cor' here is causal ('for'/'because'), not 'heart' (cor as organ/interior). Rendered as 'for'.
- 19 ↩'se representa a mos ulls' rendered as 'is set before my eyes' to keep the sense of the Beloved made present/visible in the song, without over-psychologizing.
- 20 ↩Source "ni son amat no los absent a son remembrament" is slightly awkward in the clitic sequence (los); rendered as the clear intended sense that the beloved not be absent from the lover's remembrance.
- 21 ↩Medieval Catalan gonella is a long outer tunic/gown. Rendered here as 'tunic' to keep the concrete clothing image of the Beloved dying clothed in the lover (a common Incarnation/kenosis figure in this work); 'garment' or 'robe' would also be faithful.
- 22 ↩Source reading atrop taken as medieval Catalan atroba/troba ('finds'); if the witness is corrupt, sense still coheres as the Lover obtaining pleasure and recovery in deepest languor.
- 23 ↩Source surface is «cor»; read here as the medieval Catalan conjunction «car» (‘because/for’), the reading that fits the grammar (singular «té» with subject «la mia boca»). Less likely as «heart», which would require an awkward coordination with «boca».
- 24 ↩Catalan piadós can mean merciful/compassionate or pious; rendered as merciful given the Beloved's stance toward the Lover (alongside true, generous, just).
- 25 ↩Catalan compliment means the full measure or completion of what was lacking (here, true devotion/service), not social flattery; rendered as 'fullness'.
- 26 ↩sobiran bé: rendered as "sovereign Good" for Llull's divine summum bonum; capital G marks the Beloved as God, not a generic good.
- 27 ↩Old Catalan ivaçosa (swift, sudden, impetuous). Rendered 'swifter' to keep the storm comparison concrete; 'more sudden' or 'more impetuous' are also faithful.
- 28 ↩Medieval Catalan coratge often means heart/spirit rather than modern 'courage'; here the seat of love in the lover.
- 29 ↩Old Catalan 'Per ço cor' = 'because / for the reason that.' The answer identifies the Beloved with glory itself, not merely as one who possesses glory.
- 30 ↩Elliptical 'Ni per què' continues the questioning series ('And [they asked] why…'). 'Saviea' is Old Catalan for saviesa, 'wisdom.'
- 31 ↩'Amable' here means worthy of love / lovable, not merely pleasant; the answer again equates the Beloved with the attribute itself (amor).
- 32 ↩Source reading 'dient quan lo aquella hora que son amat lo absent a sos ulls mentals' looks incomplete or corrupt (missing copula/punctuation; 'quan lo aquella' is awkward). Rendered as their counter-question about the hour of mental absence, which best fits the lover's reply in s3.
- 33 ↩Catalan pietat can mean piety or pity/compassion; rendered as piety among the Beloved's moral attributes (parallel to gràcia, justícia, misericòrdia, liberalitat).
- 34 ↩Medieval Catalan consirers means deep, often anxious ponderings or cares; rendered here as cares to keep Llull’s interior, burdened-thought sense without sounding clinical.
- 35 ↩Satisfaction is kept in the penitential sense (with conscience, contrition, and devotion), not as mere contentment.
- 36 ↩Catalan pietat can mean piety or compassion/pity; rendered as compassion to match the receptive virtues with which the Beloved receives the knock.
- 37 ↩portes deïtat e humanitat: read as the doors of divinity and of humanity (Christ's two natures / the double way into the Beloved), not as personified gatekeepers.
- 38 ↩Propietat here is particular possession/ownership, not modern legal 'property' alone; paired with comunitat (what is held in common), it names the private and the shared that blend into friendship.
- 39 ↩Medieval Catalan soliditat is taken as solitude (solitud), not modern 'solidity'; the rest of the sentence (tot sol, companyia de son amat) confirms that sense.
- 40 ↩Old Catalan 'sol fo com los hac vists e oïts' marks the moment company with men begins solitude: only then is he alone, because their presence breaks his prior companionship with the Beloved.
- 41 ↩Catalan 'dubtà … que … no … fallís' can carry either a true negation or a Romance-style pleonastic 'no' after verbs of doubt/fear. Rendered as a real doubt about non-failure (i.e. uncertainty that the beloved would come through). If the 'no' is taken as purely expletive, the sense is 'feared that the beloved would fail him.'
- 42 ↩'Desenamorà' is transitive: the beloved ceases to love / casts the lover out of love. Rendered as the beloved's withdrawal of love, which the next sentence treats as the occasion for the lover's contrition.
- 43 ↩'Caritat' is kept as 'charity' (paired with 'esperança'/hope as a theological virtue), while the closing 'amor' is rendered 'love,' preserving Llull's shift from the virtue to the restored bond.
- 44 ↩Source 'en mestres' is read as Old Catalan for 'en [què] mostre' ('by which I show'); the Beloved speaks of displaying His honors through the Lover's love as seal and imprint.
- 45 ↩muntiplicament is a historical spelling of multiplicament (increase/multiplying); sustentació que em fa de mos turments rendered as the support he gives me under/through my torments (sustenance amid suffering, not mere endurance).
- 46 ↩Medieval Catalan cor here is taken as car/because (standard Llull orthography), opening a causal clause that continues into the next sentence (en tu e per tu e ab tu). Less likely as cor=heart ("heart in you"), which would leave the following triad less tightly bound.
- 47 ↩engan = deceit/betrayal; falliment = failure/default. Rendered as "deceived you or failed you" to keep both moral breach and shortcoming without archaic diction.
- 48 ↩Source ends in truncated 'senv'; read as Old Catalan 'seny' (sense, wits, judgment).
- 49 ↩Pronouns: 'son amat havia pres son voler' = the beloved took the lover's will; 'ell li havia donat son enteniment' = the lover had given the beloved his understanding—so only memory remained for recalling the beloved.
- 50 ↩Source surface is 'a mar' (to/at sea) as subject of 'embargat' (hinder/seize). A near-homograph reading 'amar' (to love) is also possible in medieval Catalan transmission ('so that loving in the abyss of this world would not hinder them'); rendered from the supplied normalized text as sea + abyss.
- 51 ↩The second 'e' before 'ab tribulacions' is read as 'also/even' (contemplation not only in sweetness, but also amid trials), which matches the contrast with 'ab dolçor e plaer'.
- 52 ↩Catalan llanguiment: the lover’s love-sick languor or weary longing, not mere physical fatigue.
- 53 ↩Catalan maestre can mean master or teacher; 'master' keeps the medieval instructional force of the dialogue.
- 54 ↩significances: the symbolic meanings or signs by which created things point to the Beloved.
- 55 ↩Medieval Catalan interrogative 'ni' coordinates the two objects of the question (movement and scent); rendered as natural English 'and', not exclusive 'nor'.
- 56 ↩'malanança' is Old Catalan for misfortune/adversity; rendered as 'hardship' to pair naturally with 'sufre' (suffering) without archaic diction.
- 57 ↩Catalan esmortí's (esmortir-se): fainted / was overcome / grew faint. Rendered as 'fainted' for the physical-spiritual swoon typical of this register; 'was overcome' is also possible.
- 58 ↩Amats read as 2pl imperative of amar ('Love'), with per ço que introducing purpose and a honrar as purpose infinitive; less likely as vocative 'Beloved ones'.
- 59 ↩desamor rendered as unlove to keep Llull's antonym pair with amor; 'ceasing to love' or 'lovelessness' are also possible but blur the technical contrast.
- 60 ↩Old Catalan benanança / malanança pair the lover's prosperity and adversity (good estate and ill estate); rendered as good fortune and misfortune to keep the antithesis plain without archaic diction.
- 61 ↩benauirança read as medieval Catalan benaurança (beatitude/blessedness), not the neighboring benanança (good fortune); eternal scope supports blessedness.
- 62 ↩Paradoxical Llullian definition: benanança (blessedness) is identified with malanança (misfortune/adversity) borne for love. 'malanança' kept as 'misfortune' to preserve the pair with section 66; 'sostenguda per amor' = endured/borne for love.
- 63 ↩Old Catalan 'haja e sia tot mi' is elliptical; rendered as mutual total possession (I have you wholly / you are wholly mine), which the beloved's reply immediately tests.
- 64 ↩'e jo tu tot' is elliptic; the second clause supplies the understood verb of having/possessing from 'Hages-me tot'.
- 65 ↩'tal tot' keeps the beloved as totality itself; 'abundar a ésser' rendered as overflowing sufficiency, not mere numerical plenty.
- 66 ↩Source has 'infinita, eternitat' with a comma; read as the pair 'infinite eternity' parallel to the other lesser/greater contrasts (menor/major, defalliment/compliment).
- 67 ↩caritat rendered as 'charity' because it stands in a virtue series with humility, patience, and hope; 'love' remains an allowed alternate.
- 68 ↩Source muntiplicaments is the medieval form of multiplications/increases (multiplicaments); rendered as multiplications to keep the sense that trials enlarge love rather than merely accompany it.
- 69 ↩Rare Old Catalan; rendered as 'tangled up in' (entangled/snared). 'consirós' as 'lost in thought' (pensive, full of care).
- 70 ↩Rendered as 'likeness' (mental image/resemblance of the joys and pains), not as mere visual similarity.
- 71 ↩Old Catalan for felicities/blessings; rendered 'joys' to pair naturally with 'pains' (dolors) while keeping the contrast.
- 72 ↩Source sentence is only a dialogue dash and period (—.), with no Catalan words. Rendered as an empty speech turn rather than inventing a reply.
- 73 ↩Old Catalan cor here is the causal connective ('for/because'), not 'heart'; son cor remains 'his heart'. cogitar rendered as 'think' (ponder/meditate), the ordinary medieval sense.
- 74 ↩Catalan 'compliment' rendered as 'fullness' (fulfillment/completion of love), not English 'compliment'. 'Departiment' is the love's refusal to split secrecy from revelation when love is whole.
- 75 ↩Catalan afaiçonaments is the forms/adornments Love shapes or fashions; rendered as fashionings to keep the shaping sense rather than mere decorative finery.
- 76 ↩Subject of m'enriquí / poblà / abundà is implied amor from the question; rendered as 'it' to keep that force without adding an explicit noun the Catalan leaves unstated in the answer.
- 77 ↩faiçons can mean forms, features, or bearing; honraments = honors/marks of honor; valors = worth/merits/virtues. Rendered as features / honors / worth to keep the triad concrete without over-specifying.
- 78 ↩caritat rendered as charity (theological virtue), not generic love, because it is paired with esperança as virtue-names; faith is not in the source and is not supplied.
- 79 ↩Surface form deshonras is taken as deshonrat ('is dishonored'); common medieval/print variant.
- 80 ↩Comma-linked pair rendered as love and hope held in mutual agreement, not as three separate items.
- 81 ↩Catalan 'no ha ab què faça vers ell injúria ni falliment' is dense: either the Beloved has no means/cause to wrong or fail the Lover, or he has nothing that would constitute injury or failure toward him. Rendered as fidelity/innocence of the Beloved; 'falliment' kept as fail (breach of love), not mere error.
- 82 ↩Catalan influència here carries the medieval sense of a divine outflow or influx of attributes, not modern social 'influence' alone; rendered as 'influence' to stay close to the source surface.
- 83 ↩Medieval Catalan 'nulla mort' rendered as 'any death' (death of whatever kind); less likely is a strict negative 'no death'.
- 84 ↩'Per ço cor' taken as the medieval causal formula 'because'; 'vivia' is imperfect and can be first or third person—first person fits the dying man's reply to a second-person question.
- 85 ↩Catalan contrasts the noun amor (love as state/power) with the infinitive amar (the act of loving). The parallel is kept rather than paraphrased as 'to love'.
- 86 ↩llanguiments: the aching, lovesick pining of the spiritual Lover (not mere fatigue). Rendered 'languishings' to keep the Llullian technical sense visible beside treballs ('labors').
- 87 ↩Source ends with 'reme¡'; read as medieval Catalan 'remei' (remedy).
- 88 ↩esmortiment can mean swoon, fainting, or a deathlike dying-away; 'swoon' keeps the mystical collapse without medicalizing it.
- 89 ↩faiçons may mean features, form, or ways; rendered as 'features' for the beloved's remembered appearance.
- 90 ↩Old Catalan avidava (from avidar): rendered as hungered for / made eager with longing; the love both intensifies desire and mortifies the lover.
- 91 ↩innoráncia is medieval spelling of ignorància; intel·ligència rendered as understanding to pair with enteniment in s1 (faculty psychology of the soul).
- 92 ↩"vergonya sens pecat" rendered as "shame without sin": shame that is not grounded in actual wrongdoing—here, embarrassment at weeping for the Beloved. "defalliment d'amor" is the interior lack or failing of love, not a mere mood.
- 93 ↩Catalan amors is plural; faiçons = features/form/appearance; capteniments = manners, bearing, ways of conducting oneself.
- 94 ↩Old Catalan 'De què est?' is literally 'Of what are you?'; rendered here as substance/nature rather than social rank.
- 95 ↩hostal: literally inn/lodging; rendered as 'dwelling' for the mystical sense of where the Lover abides.
- 96 ↩Medieval Catalan 'l'amie' is taken as a form of 'l'amic' (the Lover), not a separate feminine speaker; the book’s fixed pair is amic/amat (Lover/Beloved).
- 97 ↩Medieval Catalan intuminar is taken as illuminate/light up (cf. il·luminar). llangors is kept as languors: the aching longings of love, not mere tiredness.
- 98 ↩gamfanó is a gonfalon or battle-standard; rendered as banner for natural modern English while keeping the heraldic image.
- 99 ↩faïa continues the banner-bearing of the Beloved from s1; the subject is the Beloved, not the Lover.
- 100 ↩Per ço cor uses medieval Catalan cor (= car, 'because'). Rendered as Because to keep causal force.
- 101 ↩son esclau ('his slave') is kept literal: either the Lover as the Beloved's slave, or the crucified one in servant form; later stages may disambiguate.
- 102 ↩Catalan «en perdó» means both free of charge (hospitality fee remitted) and in forgiveness/pardon; the lodging-for-free sense is the surface hospitality image, while forgiveness carries the spiritual force of the moral metaphor.
- 103 ↩Medieval Catalan llarguea can mean liberality/generosity or abundance/plenty; rendered as abundance for the worldly-gift cluster with peace and honor.
- 104 ↩Llull’s triad of soul-powers: memory, understanding, and will. faiçons = forms/features/ways of the Beloved; per object = as the will’s object.
- 105 ↩Catalan desamar is the privative of amar (to love): not merely indifference, but active unloving/ceasing to love. Source uses asyndeton (oblidar, desamar) without e, parallel in sense to entendre e amar in s2.
- 106 ↩Old Catalan benanança can mean blessedness, happiness, or well-being; rendered as blessedness to match the virtue-list register and the following section's benauirança.
- 107 ↩acabaments rendered as 'perfection(s)'; in Llull it can also mean fulfillments, consummations, or completed excellences.
- 108 ↩Source has 'en cuidava atrobar'; most plausible sense is relative 'on cuidava' (where he hoped/thought to find). 'cuidava' rendered as hoped/intended rather than merely thought.
- 109 ↩'traspassaments' taken as trials/afflictions the lover must pass through, not moral trespasses; 'remembrament' as intentional recollection directed toward the beloved.
- 110 ↩Catalan 'amant' can mean lover or the one loved; here rendered as Beloved (l'amat of the work's pair), matching the Lover's search and the hermit's reply about love's prison.
- 111 ↩passió is paired with acció: not erotic ardor, but passion as being acted upon—undergoing love's suffering opposite the Beloved's active love. llanguiment keeps the medieval sense of love-sickness / languishing.
- 112 ↩Sos turments most naturally refers to the Lover's own torments (he offers two thoughts hoping to ease them); the ironic turn is that more loving thoughts multiply his pain rather than lighten it.
- 113 ↩embarbesclat: medieval Catalan for struck dumb / tongue-tied / bewildered; rendered as 'left tongue-tied' for the Lover's overwhelmed silence before the Beloved.
- 114 ↩Catalan ocasió can mean opportunity, occasion, or the opportune spiritual condition; rendered as opportunity to keep the modern-readable register while preserving the lover’s definition-list of where each good is found.
- 115 ↩vergonya covers both shame and modesty/sense of honor; rendered as shame in the older moral sense of a proper blush at what is base, parallel to the other ascetic pairings.
- 116 ↩llanguiments: love-longings / pining / languishings of desire; rendered as 'longings' for modern readability while keeping the lover's love-sickness sense.
- 117 ↩«promet dons e guardons mon amat» taken as genitive of the Beloved (promise the Beloved's gifts and rewards), not as a second vocative; only «saviea» is clearly vocative at the end.
- 118 ↩Llull leaves unresolved whether the pillow of tears shares the fabric of pleasures (sheets) or of languishings (coverlet)—a deliberate moral riddle about the mixed texture of love's joy and pain.
- 119 ↩Old Catalan 'innorar' read as 'ignorar' (to ignore); 'pus que' rendered as causal 'since'.
- 120 ↩Catalan escusàs can mean excuse, vindicate, or defend against blame; rendered as defend him to match the public-witness sense (praising where it is dangerous).
- 121 ↩Old Catalan bastàs with d'amor may mean equip/furnish with love (preferred here) or that love would suffice him; the following reply about the Incarnation and Passion supports the equipping/supply sense.
- 122 ↩penjat (hung) is the Passion image of crucifixion; rendered hung to die without importing a full crucifixion paraphrase beyond what the Catalan states.
- 123 ↩caritat rendered as charity (theological virtue) alongside devotion and patience; love remains the default elsewhere for amor.
- 124 ↩Catalan 'en les circumstàncies de son remembrament' is rendered as 'in the act of that remembrance' (the conditions under which true remembrance occurs). A more literal 'in the circumstances of his remembrance' is also possible.
- 125 ↩Medieval Catalan preïcar is read as predicar, 'to preach/proclaim'; not pregar, 'to pray'.
- 126 ↩"a significar ses nobilitats a son amic" read as the Beloved helping by revealing His own noble qualities to the Lover (divine self-disclosure that arms the Lover for combat). "ajudàs … a significar" can also be heard as "helped him to make known," but the Beloved as subject and "ses nobilitats" as the Beloved's excellences favor the revelation reading.
- 127 ↩Medieval Catalan 'sobrecogitacions' (sobre + cogitacions) is rendered as 'overthinking': excessive, crowding reflection that drains the lover even as he delights in the Beloved.
- 128 ↩Catalan 'per son amat' can mean either agency ('by his beloved') or behalf ('on behalf of / for his beloved'); the rendering takes the common messenger-on-behalf-of sense. 'començaments' is the rudiments/first principles, not mere chronological beginnings.
- 129 ↩passió hagués: medieval Catalan 'haver passió de' here means to feel compassion for / share in the suffering of the friend's trials, not 'passion' as desire; rendered as 'have compassion'.
- 130 ↩natura e proprietat: scholastic pair for what a thing is by nature and what properly belongs to it; kept as 'nature and property' rather than paraphrased as 'essence' alone.
- 131 ↩Old Catalan 'tro que' with 'Tant' carries result force: so much… that / until. 'nodrir … a' rendered as 'train … to' (also 'nourish/foster toward'). 'honraments' kept as 'honors' (the Beloved's glories / the honors due Him).
- 132 ↩galiador: deceitful man / deceiver / trickster; rendered as 'deceitful man' to keep the medieval polemic plain without modernizing the charge.
- 133 ↩lletres: correspondence/epistles; the critique is that Christians fail to put Christ's name first at the head of letters, unlike the Saracen custom with Muhammad's name.
- 134 ↩"los uns secrets d'amors revelen los altres" can be read as mutual disclosure among love's secrets (one sign of love makes another known) or as secrets that reveal fellow lovers; the English keeps the reciprocal force of the Catalan.
- 135 ↩llanguiments: lovesick weakness/exhaustion from longing; rendered 'languishings' to keep the plural interior afflictions of the Lover without modern therapeutic paraphrase.
- 136 ↩Catalan 'es depenyen folls' can be read as 'spend themselves like fools' or 'make fools of themselves by spending'; both yield the same contrast with being a fool for love. 'preu de les gents' is social esteem/regard, not a monetary price.
- 137 ↩Old Catalan sobrecogitaments: excessive or anxious thoughts (overthinking, brooding, troubled cogitation). Rendered here as 'anxious overthinking' to keep Llull's interior, mental force without archaic diction.
- 138 ↩Neighboring sections use 'és qüestió' / 'E és qüestió'. Here the witness has 'E lo qüestió'; sense is still the stock Llullian open question, so rendered as 'And the question is'.
- 139 ↩Catalan pietat may mean pity/compassion or piety; rendered as compassion to pair with misericòrdia (mercy) as a divine attribute. estant en volentat essencialment, sens negú camiament names the Beloved's unchanging essential will.
- 140 ↩Catalan aïrar can mean to hate or to grow angry/enraged; rendered as hating to keep the clear opposite of amar (to love). volentat is medieval for voluntat (will).
- 141 ↩per ço cor = because; per tal que = so that. The fool's hatred is ordered toward love — a Llullian paradox, not hatred for its own sake.
- 142 ↩Source surface 'Repòs' is read as 'Respòs' (he answered), matching the dialogue pattern of AmicAmat.1.2.167.s2 and ordinary Old Catalan usage; 'repòs' (rest) does not fit the exchange.
- 143 ↩Old Catalan 'cor' here is causal ('because'), not 'heart'; parallel to 'per ço cor' in AmicAmat.1.2.167.s2.
- 144 ↩Medieval Catalan desmerxar = disguise / make oneself unrecognizable (not moral demerit). nos los pres is read as no·ls lo pres: so that they would not seize him.
- 145 ↩plants = plaints/laments; llanguiments = love-languors / pining; magres faiçons e groga color = gaunt features and yellow/sallow complexion of lovesickness.
- 146 ↩Catalan 'per ço que no fugís a son amat' is rendered literally as purpose-clause 'so that he would not flee to his Beloved' (not 'from'). The prison-of-love paradox may invite the opposite reading; review if a 'flee from' sense is preferred from broader Amic e Amat usage.
- 147 ↩'Morira's' is read as counterfactual/imminent death ('would have died'), set against 'mas'. 'Estament' is rendered 'state' (condition/standing of the Beloved), not social 'estate'.
- 148 ↩Medieval surface conec is taken as narrative past of conèixer (knew/recognized), parallel to encontrà and plorà; not first-person present 'I know'.
- 149 ↩per ço cor rendered as causal 'because' (Old Catalan cor ≈ car/que). ans que = before; pus que = since/given that.
- 150 ↩remembrament / enteniment / volentat rendered as the Augustinian triad memory, understanding, and will.
- 151 ↩Source is elliptical after que (verb of knowing implied from s2) and on lo multiplicament encontinent que lo present...; sense taken as: knowledge multiplies in those powers as soon as the Beloved is present to the bodily eyes.
- 152 ↩Repòs is taken as the noun 'rest/repose' naming love (elliptical reply after demanà). A Respòs ('he answered') reading is also possible in this dialogue frame; if adopted, render: 'He answered that it is the presence of the Beloved's features and words in the lover's sighing heart, and languishing from desire and tears in the Lover's heart.'
- 153 ↩bulliment: boiling/seething upheaval (from bullir); kept as 'seething' to preserve the physical heat of Llull's image. final volentat: ultimate/end-directed will, not merely 'last intention'.
- 154 ↩ço què és mort can be read as 'that which is death' or 'what death is'; both support the mystical identification of love with dying-to-self begun in s2. Rendered as 'that which is death' to keep the appositive force.
- 155 ↩pagat l'havia: the Beloved's 'payment' is paradoxical—being made to love his beauty (faiçons) and receiving llanguiments (love's pangs/languors). Rendered as paid to keep the reward language of s1.
- 156 ↩Source has «per qo que» near the end; read as Old Catalan «per ço que» (“so that”), matching the earlier purpose clause in the same sentence.
- 157 ↩Catalan departiment is the separation/parting of soul and body (death). Rendered as 'parting' to keep Llull's formal, deliberate diction without archaism.
- 158 ↩Catalan 'He amat' can mean either possession ('I have a Beloved') or perfect tense ('I have loved'). Parallel structure with s4 (listing spiritual goods in place of worldly wealth) favors the possessive reading; amat is Llull's term for the divine Beloved.
- 159 ↩Catalan 'llanguiments' are the love-sick languors of the mystic path (paired elsewhere with 'treballs'); rendered here as 'languishings' to keep that sense without flattening into generic suffering.
- 160 ↩Source reading «aquel¡» treated as corrupt for «aquell» (parallel with the following «aquell»).
- 161 ↩'a escusar havia son amat' assigns the duty of defense/excuse to the Beloved (falsely blamed by others), not to the Friend himself; the Friend forgoes self-justification.
- 162 ↩Old Catalan 'cor' here is the causal conjunction ('because'), not 'heart'; 'per ço cor' = 'for this reason, because'. 'benauirança' rendered as 'blessedness' (beatitude/bliss).
- 163 ↩acabaments rendered as 'perfections' (Llull's sense of completed excellences/attributes), not mere 'endings' or 'accomplishments'.
- 164 ↩Source unit is only the numeral '185.', almost certainly an editorial/section number mis-segmented as a sentence, not prose to translate.
- 165 ↩piaents e benanances: 'pleasing' and 'blessings/felicities'; benanances kept as 'blessing' rather than vague 'happiness' to preserve the spiritual weight of the contrast.
- 166 ↩Source reads «coro podien»; taken as medieval Catalan «cor no podien» (cor = because; no = not), which yields the only coherent sense with plural «podien» governing «sos treballs». If «coro» is only a corrupt «cor» without negation, the sense would reverse.
- 167 ↩Catalan nobleses: the beloved's noble qualities/perfections; rendered excellences to keep the contemplative force without archaic 'nobilities'.
- 168 ↩Llull’s paradox: the Beloved’s pietat (pity/compassion) is shown in making the Lover love and in the pains of longing themselves—not in sparing him those pains.
- 169 ↩Old Catalan «los llevat» is slightly compressed; the rendering takes understanding as raised higher and lifted toward understanding the beloved, with the will parallel toward loving him. «Per ço que» is purposive throughout (temptation’s providential end).
- 170 ↩Source has «lo l'amic en tristícia…» with no clear finite verb. Rendered as «the lover was in…» (era/fon/estava), the sense required by the parallel «en tristícia e en dolor, e en glòria e en benanança».
- 171 ↩Old Catalan dubtava que + subjunctive (membràs / airàs) marks anxious doubt of sufficiency: desire so strong he feared memory could not hold the Beloved's praises; hatred so strong he feared he could not hate the dishonors enough.
- 172 ↩embarbesclat (Old Catalan) suggests being caught up or tangled, as in a thicket; rendered here as entangled, matching enfre amor e temor (between love and fear).
- 173 ↩llanguiments: the lover's pining, languor, and love-suffering; rendered as 'longing' for modern readability while keeping the painful yearning force.
- 174 ↩Source reads 'amal'; treated as 'amat' (Beloved), the standard form elsewhere in the work.
- 175 ↩'passió' rendered as 'torment' (medieval sense of suffering inflicted on the lover), not modern emotional 'passion'.
- 176 ↩creença rendered as 'belief' (trusting acceptance of what is said); could also be read as 'faith' in a more theological register. enfre = between.
- 177 ↩Catalan desamor rendered as lovelessness (want/absence of love), the polar opposite of amor in Llull's moral metaphor. coratge rendered as heart (interior disposition), not modern courage.
- 178 ↩per ço cor = causal 'because' / 'for this reason, that' (not 'heart'); cor here is the causal conjunction, distinct from coratge in the same sentence.
- 179 ↩llarguea: rendered as 'generosity' (largesse/open-handedness of the Beloved), not physical length.
- 180 ↩Old Catalan 'cor' here is causal ('car'/'because'), not 'heart'; 'Per ço cor' = 'because'. 'Honraments' kept as 'honors' (acts of honor/veneration due the Beloved).
- 181 ↩Catalan «amar e tembre justícia» holds love and fear of justice together; the reply refuses ranking mercy over justice and bars any stronger willing toward anything above the beloved's justice.
- 182 ↩Old Catalan colpes here is the moral sense faults/sins (paired with mèrits), not physical blows.
- 183 ↩benanança is blessedness/bliss; the source locates that increased blessedness in the will of the Beloved (l'amat), not the lover.
- 184 ↩torts = wrongs/offenses; kept as 'wrongs' to stay distinct from colpes ('faults') in the same moral field.
- 185 ↩Opening phrase is elliptical Old Catalan. Rendered as existential cosmic image ('there was an eclipse in the sky'); 'lo' may historically point to the sun/light, but the moral force is the darkened heaven paired with darkness on earth.
- 186 ↩Catalan 'a la mort' rendered as 'at death' (the hour of death); it can also be heard as 'unto death' / readiness for dying combat.
- 187 ↩sobremembrar: medieval Catalan for excessive or overwhelming remembrance of the Beloved; rendered as over-remembering to keep the intensifying prefix.
- 188 ↩Address continues the apostrophe to 'devoció' (devotion) begun in s3; 'serets' is second-person plural/formal future addressed to devotion personified.
- 189 ↩Old Catalan embarbesclat: stunned, dazed, speechless with confusion; rendered 'stunned.' coratge here is spirit/inner fortitude (not mere modern 'courage').
- 190 ↩Catalan actualitat carries scholastic force (actuality / actus), not mere 'present-day relevance'; essència is kept as essence. Amic/amat are rendered as lover/Beloved, the work's standing personae.
- 191 ↩Old Catalan Cor here is the causal particle ('for'/'because'), not 'heart' (cor); the predicate és lo viatge requires that reading.
- 192 ↩feix rendered as 'burden' (load/weight of the quest); ivaçosament as 'swiftly' (promptly, with lively haste).
- 193 ↩Catalan a son amat moure sa volentat is read as the lover moving his own will toward the Beloved (dative complement). sos sotsmeses / sos honraments are taken as the Beloved's subjects and honors in the work's courtly metaphor; both possessives could be argued otherwise.
- 194 ↩Old Catalan faiçons can mean ways, features, manners, or qualities; rendered as ways to keep both manner of being and divine attributes in view. entendre a amar is read as understanding ordered toward loving, not as two unrelated acts.
- 195 ↩Old Catalan hoc is an affirmative yes. defalliment de nulles coses is a medieval negative construction meaning lack of anything / any deficiency. lloadors = those who praise; ses valors = his worth, excellences, or virtues (kept as worth).
- 196 ↩vergues d'amor: rods/switches of love—disciplinary blows that drive the Lover to love the Cross (l'arbre), the tree from which those rods were taken and on which the Beloved died.
- 197 ↩Normalized reading treats source 'go' as 'ço' in 'en go que' and 'per go que' (en ço que / per ço que: 'in that' / 'so that'), the expected medieval Catalan forms; raw 'go' is almost certainly a transcription error.
- 198 ↩'engan' rendered as 'deception' (disappointment in the intended return of love); it can also mean fraud/deceit more sharply, but the sense here is the Beloved's frustrated purpose in creating man.
- 199 ↩'per què home tant tu en oblit' is elliptical; rendered as 'why does man forget you so completely' (put you so far into oblivion).
- 200 ↩Catalan on ('where') is used three times as a paradoxical play on place: traspassat on (gone beyond every 'where'), lla on (there where), and no pot atènyer on (one cannot reach/attain 'where'). English keeps the wordplay rather than flattening it to 'place' alone. cor is causal 'because', not 'heart'.
- 201 ↩en era is read as on era ('where was'), which fits the following on and the whole section's place paradox. remembrament is interior remembrance/recollection of the beloved, not mere mental recall.
- 202 ↩honraments: rendered as 'honors' (dignities/marks of honor by which the Beloved purchases the lover); not modern ceremonial honors alone.
- 203 ↩Ell in ço que ell volia refers to the Beloved (master), not the slave; English capitalizes He for clarity of reference.
- 204 ↩As in s2, ell targets the Beloved; English uses He for the same referent.
- 205 ↩Has gens de volentat?: gens de marks 'any at all'; volentat is will/willfulness, not mere preference.
- 206 ↩sostmès (also sotsmès in s1): subject/submitted; kept as 'subject' to preserve the juridical-spiritual subordination sense.
- 207 ↩«no havia ab què hagués paciència» is the Lover's paradox: because all things please him as the Beloved's will, he has no occasion that would call for patience. «senyoria en sa volentat» means lordship/mastery over his will (not a social title).
- 208 ↩Normalized source has des¡rava (corrupt); translated as desirava ‘desired’, the only plausible medieval Catalan reading in this clause.
- 209 ↩llanguiment rendered as languor (love-weariness/fainting), not mere physical illness; fits the trial-and-reward judgment of the Beloved.
- 210 ↩honraments: honors/dignities of the Beloved; kept as 'honors' rather than 'glory' to stay close to the Catalan surface.
- 211 ↩Final clause 'per ço que los per ell amat e servit' is elliptical: past participles suggest a passive purpose ('so that he would be loved and served by them'). 'los' most naturally points back to the lover's faculties (will, and by context understanding and memory from the previous section); 'per ell' can mean 'through him' or 'for his sake'.
- 212 ↩"delits" rendered as "erased" (names struck from the book of the damned). "eternas benedicció" / "eternal maledicció" kept as eternal blessing / eternal damnation to preserve Llull's two-book contrast.
- 213 ↩Rendered as 'more of his honors' (object of muntiplicàs). Old Catalan pus de can also mean 'more than'; the sentence then would read as a comparative surplus beyond the beloved's honors, which is less natural here.
- 214 ↩Medieval Catalan capteniment: manner, bearing, way of conducting oneself. Rendered 'ways' for plain modern English; 'conduct' or 'manners' are also faithful.
- 215 ↩Catalan remembraments can mean remembrances, recollections, or acts of mindful memory; rendered as remembrances to keep the medieval devotional sense without sounding clinical.
- 216 ↩Medieval Catalan 'feniren e deliren': 'fenir' = to end/perish; 'delir' = to rave/go mad. Rendered as 'failed and raved' to keep both the collapse and the delirium of the pleasures once severed from love's torments.
- 217 ↩Source surface reads «l'amicfa»; taken as the intended «l'amic fa» (the lover has/does toward his beloved), a common word-join in the witness.
- 218 ↩Assoliava's (imperfect of assoliar-se): habitual seclusion/withdrawal into solitude, not mere loneliness. cors = body (distinct from cor, heart).
- 219 ↩Medieval Catalan compliment(s) here means fulfillment/completion of desire, not modern polite compliments; rendered as 'fulfillments'.
- 220 ↩tesòrica/pràctica: rendered as theory/practice (scholastic pair). concordança kept as concordance (Llullian technical term for agreement/harmony). compliment de la volentat: fulfillment of the will (not modern 'compliment'). amic/amat: lover/beloved throughout this work.
- 221 ↩se cové: accords/is fitting with; pus fortment: more strongly/more firmly. la fi continues the end named in s2.
- 222 ↩escarnir is active in form ('to mock/scorn'); in this chain of love's afflictions it is rendered experientially as 'be mocked,' matching languish/sigh/weep/die rather than the lover mocking others.
- 223 ↩Catalan 'pus tost' means 'sooner / more quickly'; rendered as 'sooner' to keep the temporal sense of how readily each kind of knowledge is present in the lover.
- 224 ↩Medieval Catalan 'hoc' = 'yes'; 'exeptat' is a historical spelling of 'exceptat' (except).
- 225 ↩'Hoc de…' is elliptical after the prior question: captive of sighs, thoughts, etc. 'valors' = divine excellences/worth, not commercial value.
- 226 ↩Catalan llanguiments: lovesick weaknesses / languors of longing; rendered as languishings to keep the physical-spiritual ache without medicalizing it.
- 227 ↩Catalan 'metjava' is medical: to treat/medicate. 'ab paciència, perseverança, obediència, esperança' read as the four remedies with which the lover treats sick love; 'guaria' taken with the same subject (the lover). An alternate parse makes hope alone the healer ('hope healed love').
- 228 ↩'ses virtuts e ... sos honraments' most naturally refer to the beloved's virtues and honors (the healing gift of remembrance), not the lover's. 'honraments' rendered as 'honors' (praise, dignities).
- 229 ↩coratge in Old Catalan here means the inner heart/spirit, not modern 'courage'.
- 230 ↩benanances: prosperity / good fortune / ease; paired with treballs (hardships, labors) as the opposite pole of spiritual risk.
- 231 ↩desconeixença: failure to recognize/acknowledge (often of the Giver of goods); rendered as ingratitude, which fits Llull’s pairing with prosperity and with desconeixents in neighboring sections. malanances answers the prior treballs as adversity/misfortune.
- 232 ↩desconeixents: failure to know/acknowledge (cf. desconeixença in AmicAmat.1.2.249); rendered as 'don't recognize it' rather than bare 'ungrateful,' to keep the cognitive sense of not knowing love's worth.
- 233 ↩llugorós (from llum/light): rendered 'luminous' for radiant brightness of mind; 'brighter' or 'more radiant' would also fit.
- 234 ↩sa terra may mean the Beloved's own land/ground, or more metaphorically the Beloved's own realm; rendered here as 'his own earth' to keep burial and resurrection imagery concrete.
- 235 ↩de qual reebé major do is elliptical: which of the two (death by love, or resurrection in the Beloved's earth) was the greater gift. Rendered with that force kept open rather than forced into a fuller paraphrase.
- 236 ↩falliments (plural) with tan gran (singular): rendered as 'so great a wrong' for the intended sense of a single supreme offense; could also be 'fault' or 'failure'.
- 237 ↩Catalan Hoc is the affirmative yes answering vols morir. The prepositional en marks the domains in which the lover consents to die: worldly pleasures and the thoughts of the damned.
- 238 ↩Old Catalan 'hontal' read as 'honored' (honored/honored-one; cf. honrat). 'los' before the participle series is elliptical in the source; the sense is passive on the speaker (I would be praised...), not active praise of others.
- 239 ↩Medieval Catalan saviea = saviesa, 'wisdom'; not a corruption.
- 240 ↩Catalan 'amic' / 'amat' are rendered as Lover / Beloved, the standard English pair for Llull's work. 'Sens que l'amic no pas' takes the medieval Romance expletive 'no' after 'sens que' (without/unless): 'unless the Lover passes through love,' not a double negation.
- 241 ↩Catalan 'passats ... per l'amat' is spatial-mystical: given the arrangement in s1 (Beloved between Lover and Love), the Lover must route thoughts and desires through the Beloved to arrive at love.
- 242 ↩Medieval Catalan 'los son companyó' can be read as mutual companionship ('they are companions') or as the Beloved becoming companion to the Lover; the mutual reading fits the shared garment and eternal glory.
- 243 ↩Old Catalan 'mills' = better/more (modern 'millor'); rendered as 'more closely' for natural English while keeping the comparative force.
- 244 ↩Covenia's a ésser: rendered as fitness/propriety of the Beloved's pre-creational being through divine properties; 'personals' keeps the Trinitarian/personal-property sense, not casual personality.
- 245 ↩Normalized 'vela' in 'com lo vela deshonrar' treated as 'veia' ('saw'), parallel to 'com veia honrar' earlier in the sentence.
- 246 ↩Catalan «ésser perfecció» is rendered as “the perfection of being” (perfect/complete being). «qui es covenen» is taken as a relative clause over the preceding modes of contemplation (difference/concordance of virtues, contrariety of virtues and vices, perfection of being), asserting they fit together more firmly free of defect and non-being than under defect and non-being.
- 247 ↩Dense Lullian metaphysics of generation/corruption: relative clauses nest corruption (against being) against generation (against non-being). 'corrompent corromput' is rendered as both agent and patient of corruption ('both corrupting and corrupted'). 'no ésser ni fi… ni el corromput' is taken as non-being and end agreeing with corruption or the corrupted—the impossible consequence of assuming eternal corruption.
- 248 ↩Medieval Catalan 'viu' can mean 'saw' (preterite of veure) or 'lives' (present of viure). Rendered as 'saw' from the demonstrative force of 'per estes paraules' and the surrounding vision language (cf. previous section 'veia').
- 249 ↩Source thrice uses 'los' where the conditional sense almost certainly wants the imperfect subjunctive of ésser ('fos'/'fóra'): Si fos falsetat…; si açò fos enaixí…; defalliment fos de major…. Translated on that reading.
- 250 ↩Llull’s pair major/menor (the greater / the lesser) and concordança are kept close to the source’s technical metaphysical diction rather than paraphrased into looser modern synonyms.
- 251 ↩Catalan 'simple, pura, actualitat' is the scholastic claim that the Beloved is pure act (actus purus): simple and pure actuality, not three separate attributes.
- 252 ↩Catalan ocasió here means the occasion or causal opportunity for sin, not divine authorship of evil: God's power, knowledge, and will are the conditions under which free creatures can sin, but they do not occasion sin.
- 253 ↩pendre sa semblanza e sa natura: the Beloved's free will to assume the lover's likeness and nature — the Incarnation.
- 254 ↩recrear-lo: re-creation of the creature (grace restoring the person), not leisure; paired later with encarnació.
- 255 ↩embarbesclat: left stammering/confounded/tongue-tied by the question; rendered as 'confounded' for natural modern cadence.
- 256 ↩se convenc a: fitting/proper to / ordered toward; malanança ~ misfortune/ill estate, benanança ~ blessedness/well-being (Llullian antithesis).
- 257 ↩lo feta: elliptical for a question put to him (li fo feta / se li féu); subject remains Love from s1.
- 258 ↩Source opens with 'Dernanaren', almost certainly a corrupt form of Catalan 'Demanaren' (they asked/requested); translated in that sense.
- 259 ↩Catalan desirer is rendered as desire (the lover's desiring faculty/will). Less likely as a personal noun 'desirer'; the sale-to-the-Beloved metaphor favors the abstract sense.
- 260 ↩Catalan mixes historic present (Renuncia), preterite (anà), and imperfect (lloava); rendered as a continuous past narrative for natural modern English while preserving the three coordinated actions.
- 261 ↩Catalan 'sos honraments' most naturally means the Beloved's honors (the worship and reverence due him) that the Lover has neglected; less likely, honors granted to the Lover. Rendered as 'his honors' to keep the possessive as in the source.
- 262 ↩Catalan 'entenció' is kept as 'intention' in both places to preserve the parallel between the disordered human intent and the Creator's final end; 'final entenció' also carries the scholastic sense of final cause / ultimate purpose.
- 263 ↩Source 'per amo' is read as 'per amor' (out of / through love), a common medieval Catalan form; if a different reading is intended, sense shifts slightly.
- 264 ↩'vela' taken as present of velar (keeps watch / is vigilant), fitting Llull's contemplative diction; not as a variant of veïa (saw).
- 265 ↩Source shows several medieval/orthographic forms: hagra (hauria), perteta (perfecta), saviea (saviesa), and matèria ordial (primordial/original matter). Rendered by intended sense.
- 266 ↩The clause «si los eternal» is compressed/awkward in the witness; taken as «if it [the world] were eternal» (si fos eternal), which matches the section’s anti-eternity argument.
- 267 ↩Llibre del gentil e dels tres savis is Ramon Llull’s own apologetic dialogue; “ten conditions” points to its criteria for judging which faith is true.
- 268 ↩escala: Llull’s ladder image for spiritual ascent; enteniment is the intellective faculty, rendered here as “understanding.”
- 269 ↩inlumena: medieval spelling of il·lumina; rendered “illumines.” escalfa: literally “heats”; “warms” keeps the affective force for devotion.
- 270 ↩Source surface is «Repòs»; neighboring sections use «Respòs» ('he answered'). Translated as the dialogue formula 'He answered'.
- 271 ↩«potència» / «actualitat» are scholastic pairings (potency/potential and actuality/act). Kept as technical terms rather than flattened to 'power' and 'what is real'.
- 272 ↩Old Catalan eren eguals en diferència e unitat can be read as (1) difference and concordance were equal with respect to difference and unity, or (2) difference and unity themselves were equal in the Beloved. Rendering keeps the source pairing; Llull’s Art often treats divine difference (of persons) and unity (of essence) as coequal.
- 273 ↩Catalan valor / valer / desvalor is kept as the English worth-field (worth, to count for something, no worth) to preserve Llull’s wordplay; valor here is moral/spiritual excellence, not courage.
- 274 ↩Catalan anaps (cups/goblets), escudelles (bowls), and talladors (trenchers/carving boards) name medieval table service; rendered as cups, bowls, and platters for modern readability while keeping the sense of luxurious tableware.
- 275 ↩Medieval Catalan 'nada' taken as 'born' (from nàixer/nat), yielding 'born of charity and of shame.' If read as 'nothing,' the sense would shift to a contrastive maxim about one who fears public blame. The relative 'qui tem blasme de les gents' is rendered as a contrast with mere social fear, not as part of loyalty itself.
- 276 ↩honraments: honors/dignities of the Beloved (cf. preceding section's honrament as thinking of, desiring, and praising the Beloved's honors); maltrets: rough/ill treatment; benanança: prosperity or good fortune.
- 277 ↩retés amors: restore/return love (or love's favors); plural amors kept as singular English love for natural register, matching the work's lover–Beloved idiom.
- 278 ↩Llull’s recursive polyptoton on contemplar/contemplació is deliberate; English keeps the same nested repetition rather than paraphrasing it away.
- 279 ↩virtut/vertut can mean moral excellence or power/strength; rendered as virtue to keep Llull’s recursive term-play, with power as a live secondary sense.
- 280 ↩salut/salutació plays on greeting, well-being, and salvation; English uses greeting to preserve the recursive surface, while the salvation sense remains live.
- 281 ↩Source henedicció read as benedicció (blessing); likely orthographic/scribal variant of the same word in the polyptoton.
- 282 ↩Llull’s polyptoton on alt/altea/exalçar/exalçament (high / height / raise / raising) is kept as recursive high/raise language rather than flattened to generic “exalt,” so the moral-metaphor chain stays audible. Enamorament is rendered “raised love” (devotional being-in-love), not romantic infatuation.
- 283 ↩llanguiments rendered as 'languishings' for mystical love-weariness/faintness; alternative candidates include 'pangs' or 'afflictions'.
- 284 ↩Old Catalan me las estar read as me deixes estar (‘you leave/allow me to remain’), the usual Llullian sense with sol / companyia.
- 285 ↩Dense wordplay on sol / sola / solitat (alone / solitude) is kept in English rather than flattened; ses valors is referred to the feminine solitat (‘its worth’).
- 286 ↩Solaç / assolaçar: rendered as solace / rest·console to keep Llull’s dense polyptoton on consolation without archaic ‘solace ye’. ‘Per què’ read as resultative ‘that is why’ after the opening identity claim; a rhetorical ‘why’ reading is less natural here.
- 287 ↩"tan solament" rendered as "so entirely" (wholly/only one thing); alternative: "so purely one."
- 288 ↩"pietat" taken as compassion/pity (medieval Catalan sense) rather than modern "piety"; "per amat" as "for/on account of a beloved."
- 289 ↩Source surface conflava's is taken as confiar-se (to confide/entrust oneself); if a different verb is intended, the middle clause would need re-rendering.
- 290 ↩Rendered as “destroyed” (medieval Catalan delit < delir / Lat. delere), fitting the impassibility/immutability series with encolpat, minvat, crescut. Less likely as “delighted” (delit = delight).
- 291 ↩Old Catalan «las grans» is read as a causative with the Beloved as agent («you make… great»), parallel to later «fa poques» («makes small»). An elliptical-copula reading («great are my desires…») is less likely but yields nearly the same sense.
- 292 ↩començaments keeps the plural 'beginnings' of the source, naming the paired affirmations and denials of beginning in s1; trinitat rendered Trinity as the divine triune life implied by Llull's unitat e trinitat.
- 293 ↩Medieval Catalan 'si no ho los' is slightly opaque (likely 'if it were not so' / 'if He were not [good thus]'); rendered from the counterfactual force of the clause, not a secure surface gloss.
- 294 ↩Reading 'he' as the connective 'e' ('and'): my good would be of another, and that other would be supreme.
- 295 ↩Old Catalan «si et las tu» + adjective is read as «leave/show yourself as» (deixar-se): make yourself / show yourself merciful and forgiving. «Sí» is taken as conditional «si» («if»), the usual reading in this dialogue form.
- 296 ↩«ço que saps en tu» is rendered as «what you know in yourself» (the Beloved’s own knowledge/perfection), contrasted with the Lover («mellor que mi»). «tu las saber a mi» is taken as «deixar saber» — you let me know / grant me knowledge of contrition, sorrow, and the desire for death.
- 297 ↩Catalan colpes may mean guilt/faults (colpa) or blows/strokes; rendered as “guilt” to parallel justícia and falliments in a damnation clause.
- 298 ↩compliment is fulfillment/accomplishment, not English “compliment”: the Lover consents that God’s will completed in him is already complete good, even if the gift is damnation.
- 299 ↩Read as Old Catalan cor o ma volentat l'ama: 'because my will loves it' (o ≈ ho, neuter object). If coro is a different form, the causal link to the will's love of truth/contrition may need review.
- 300 ↩sajús (ça jús, 'down here/below') is slightly awkward with puja ('rise'). Rendered as truth being raised up within/under the will, in parallel with davalla-la ('bring it down') toward unloving failings.
- 301 ↩Kept as 'unlove' to preserve Llull's technical opposite of amar (love), not mere dislike or generic hatred.
- 302 ↩Old Catalan lo is read as the past of ésser (was), parallel to present és and future serà; many Llull witnesses print fo/fou. The sense is the same either way.
- 303 ↩sens que no se'n segueix contradicció is a medieval Catalan double-negative logical tag. Rendered as otherwise a contradiction follows (necessity of the claim); some readers take it as and no contradiction follows from this.
- 304 ↩qui és en ver: qui may be personal (whoever) or neuter (whatever); en ver is read as as true / held as true, not merely truly.
- 305 ↩Catalan carreres de vegetació, sentiment, imaginació, enteniment, volentat tracks Llull's scholastic ladder of soul-powers (vegetative, sensitive, imaginative, intellective, volitional). 'Vegetative life' and 'sense' keep that technical force without pseudo-archaic jargon.
- 306 ↩Catalan 'acabament' is rendered as 'perfection' (completion/fulfillment of the beloved); 'defalliment' as 'failing' (defect/shortcoming). 'Son defalliment' is taken as the friend's own failing, parallel to 'l'acabament de son amat' (the beloved's perfection), not as a failing in the beloved.
- 307 ↩'Apoderament' rendered as 'hold' (mastery, power, grip over the friend); alternatives: 'power,' 'sway,' 'mastery.'
- 308 ↩Catalan 'pietat' beside 'misericòrdia' is rendered as pity/compassion rather than piety, to keep the divine-side virtues distinct from formal religious devotion.
- 309 ↩'de la tua santa passió' is taken chiefly with 'membrança' (remembrance of your holy passion), with the sighs, tears, and weeping as the manner of that remembrance; the whole of the lover's side may also be read as ordered toward the Passion.
- 310 ↩Old Catalan las is taken as 2sg of lexar/deixar ('you let/allow'); reading: 'who let me love you'.
- 311 ↩Medieval Catalan llangors covers languors, pangs, and afflictions of love/suffering; rendered as 'sufferings' for natural modern English.
- 312 ↩aïrar is taken as 'to hate/be angry at' governing mes colpes e mos defalliments (faults and failings), in the penitential sense of loathing one's sins. The printed comma after aïrar is treated as editorial, not a separate clause break.
- 313 ↩Paired rise/descend movement: prior help to exaltation is answered by a plea for descent into humble self-knowledge of sin, so thought can rise again in praise.
- 314 ↩Old Catalan 'franc' marks free will: free both to love the Beloved's honors and to scorn His excellences. 'a mon voler' is rendered as instrumental/means ('through my will'); it could also be taken as 'according to my will.'
- 315 ↩Catalan «trau servitud» is the free-will paradox of Llull’s lover-mysticism: free will draws/brings forth voluntary bondage. Rendered as “draws servitude” rather than flattened to mere “serves.” «llanguiments» are love’s languors (lovesick aching), not mere fatigue.
- 316 ↩Catalan compliment here means spiritual completion/fulfillment, not English 'compliment'.
- 317 ↩Surface 'innorables' read as innumerables ('countless/innumerable'); 'cientalment' as knowingly/consciously; 'ten nom' as 'that/your name' in apposition with Jesucrist.
- 318 ↩Old Catalan cóbeu is rendered as 'covetous' (alongside avar, 'stingy'); recrear is the divine re-creation/sustenance of the creature, not leisure.
- 319 ↩llanguiments rendered as 'longings' (spiritual languor/yearning); saviea = saviesa, 'wisdom'; tes honors as 'your glory' (the honors due God).
- 320 ↩Old Catalan «com faga de sa volentat sacrifica» read as purpose: that the friend may make a sacrifice of his will to the Beloved’s praise (not that the will already is a sacrifice).
- 321 ↩Medieval Catalan «cor» can mean either «for/because» or «heart». Causal «for» fits the bare formula «cor tot es…»; if «heart» is preferred, read: «for the whole heart is humility in pure actuality.» «Pura actualitat» is scholastic pure actuality (being fully in act), not «current events» or mere immediacy.
- 322 ↩Catalan 'los' may be resumptive of 'ambdues' (the two means: contrition and devotion) or slightly elliptical; rendered as passive comparison of the two causes that humble the Beloved, parallel to the next section's 'which of the two reasons' pattern.
- 323 ↩Source has 'lo qüestió' (masc. article with fem. noun); sense follows the series formula 'és qüestió' / 'la qüestió' as in the neighboring section. 'colpes' = faults/offenses (not physical blows).
- 324 ↩Old Catalan 'coro' read as sequential 'then/thereupon' before 'remembré'; less likely as causal 'for/because,' which would yield a weaker fit with the following recollections.
- 325 ↩Source reads «divinas natura»; translated as «the divine nature» (expected «divina natura»), matching the parallel «divina natura» earlier in the sentence.
- 326 ↩llanguiments rendered as 'longings' (spiritual pining/lovesickness); could also be 'languishings' if a more medieval color is preferred.
- 327 ↩per sa amor can mean 'for the sake of his love' (the lover's) or 'for love of Him' (the Beloved); context favors the lover's trials borne out of love for the Beloved.
- 328 ↩Old Catalan tranuitar: to pass the night awake / keep night vigil (not mere 'travel'). Rendered as 'kept night vigils' for the interior sense of desires and remembrances staying awake in love.
- 329 ↩Catalan faiçons = forms, features, or likenesses (of the Beloved); next section uses the same term for the Beloved's features shaped by imagination.
- 330 ↩Catalan «los consolat» is plural: most naturally the Beloved consoles «them» (the people longed for in s1). An alternate reading takes the lover as subject of consolation; the English keeps the plural object and capitalizes He for the Beloved as the likelier agent.
- 331 ↩Source has asyndetic 'contrición penediment' (likely Castilian-tinged spelling of Catalan contrició); rendered as coordinated 'contrition and repentance'.
- 332 ↩Medieval Catalan colpes can mean blows/wounds or moral faults; paired with torts (wrongs), rendered as faults and wrongs in the will-bequest sense.
- 333 ↩faiçons = forms/features/likeness; rendered as features of the Beloved as the object left to the understanding.
- 334 ↩endrecament = ordering, arranging, reforming/instruction; rendered as setting in order of the unfaithful.
- 335 ↩Catalan desconeixent can mean ungrateful or ignorant/unacknowledging; with ergullós (proud), the moral sense is the proud person who fails to acknowledge God—rendered here as ungrateful proud man.
- 336 ↩entrament e iximent: entrance and exit / coming into and going out of this world—kept as the twin poles of worldly passage (birth/death or arrival/departure).
- 337 ↩Source form olalaltia is almost certainly corrupt for malaltia (illness/sickness); translated on that reading.
- 338 ↩Asyndetic pair without conjunction or article; rendered as two means of healing (hope and remembrance). Alternate construal: 'hopeful remembrance' / 'the hope of remembrance'.
- 339 ↩Catalan 'capteniments' means conduct/ways of behaving; rendered as 'ways' rather than 'manners' to keep the moral-devotional force of 'honrats capteniments'.
- 340 ↩Catalan joia can mean jewel or joy; in this moral-metaphor setting, and with ‘that he loved / that he had,’ jewel is the more natural concrete sense.
- 341 ↩Catalan 'despertà en' can mean 'woke him to/regarding' (awareness) rather than physical awakening alone; rendered as interior rousing to his own merits and the beloved's powers.
- 342 ↩s'assubtilava: medieval Catalan for making the mind more subtle/penetrating through contemplation; rendered as 'refined' rather than literal 'subtilized'.
- 343 ↩dels dos ('of the two') refers to understanding (enteniment) and will (volentat) in the previous sentence; Llull leaves the comparison as an open scholastic-style question.
- 344 ↩Source reads 'ainat'; taken as a variant/corruption of 'amat' (Beloved), which fits the section's lover–Beloved frame and the greetings motif.
- 345 ↩'tots quatre' points back to the four agents named in this section: fervor, fear, sighs, and tears. 'assolaçat' rendered as 'comforted' (solaced).
- 346 ↩Source reads «per ço que los mirall» / «per ço que li los mirall»; sense and Llull’s mirror motif require the emended reading «fos mirall» / «li fos mirall» (“might be a mirror” / “might be a mirror for him”). Translated from that correction.
- 347 ↩Catalan significats may mean either the four personified disciplines as ‘meanings/signs’ or their several significations; rendered as ‘meanings’ to keep the moral-metaphor frame of the chapter.
- 348 ↩Old Catalan ni here coordinates the second half of the double question (which path first / on which the beloved appeared more clearly), not a strict exclusive 'nor'.
- 349 ↩Medieval Catalan 'tris'/'triat' (from triar) means to sort, separate, or set apart; rendered as 'set on one side / set on the other.' 'Coralment' is heart-deep love (from cor), not mere cordiality.
- 350 ↩Source 'poe' is taken as medieval Catalan pot ('can'); if a different verb is intended, the modal force of this sentence would need revision.
- 351 ↩Catalan 'no ha en què pusca fer' is literally 'has nothing in which he could make'; rendered as the means/ground for making a nobler creature — the mystical claim that love united with the Creator is the highest possible creaturely nobility.
- 352 ↩Medieval Catalan «han a servidors cascunes de les coses damunt dites, que no ha son amat» uses the comparative «que no». The sense is that each worldly good listed has more human servants than the Beloved has; an alternative parse would make people the grammatical subject, but the moral force is the same: worldly attachments outnumber devotion to the Beloved.
- 353 ↩Old Catalan cor = car ('because'); rendered as causal 'because,' not as 'heart' (cor).
- 354 ↩Rendered as 'worse afflictions' from Old Catalan piors/peors ('worse things'). If a witness reads plors, 'tears' would be preferred.
- 355 ↩Subject of sia més amat is implicit; rendered as the Beloved from context (Plaer d'amat) and the parallel with l'amic més guaardonat.
- 356 ↩Paradox: love is greater in the dying lover because it has already reached its limit there (it cannot be greater), whereas in the living lover it can still increase. Medieval Catalan cor here is the causal conjunction ('because'), not 'heart'.
- 357 ↩demostració de trinitat: kept as "demonstration of the Trinity" (Llullian proof/showing), not flattened to a generic "insight into" the Trinity.
- 358 ↩Catalan 'noblees' rendered as 'excellences' (divine perfections/high attributes of the Beloved); 'exalçar enteniment a' as raising the intellect toward those perfections, not merely praising them.
- 359 ↩Catalan qui may attach either to l'amic (the Lover) or to vi (the wine). The rendering takes the Lover as antecedent; the next sentence then personifies that same wine as agent.
- 360 ↩amarava is taken as imperfect of amarar, 'to make bitter / steep in bitterness,' not of amar ('to love,' which would be amava). sos plors is read as the wine's personified tears, parallel to the Lover's tears.
- 361 ↩Medieval Catalan ni here is read as a comparative contrast (than / more than), pairing the lover’s growth in love for the Beloved with worldly men’s lesser attachment to those for whom they suffer. If taken as a pure negative (nor), the sense would be that loves grew when the lover remembered the Beloved for whom he suffered, and not worldly men for whom people suffer worldly hardships.
- 362 ↩Catalan 'amadors, servidors, de mon amat' is taken as one coordinated group (lovers and servants of my Beloved); the commas may also invite reading two ranks under the Beloved.
- 363 ↩Old Catalan 'àvol gent' rendered as 'wicked people' (base/evil company). 'Treball sens guardó' is toil/labor without recompense; 'on és puniment' taken as characterizing that prison-world as the place of punishment.
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