Verba qualiter creator proponit sponse tres benignas questiones: primam de mariti seruitute et dominio uxoris, secundam de viri labore et de uxoris consumacione, terciam de contemptu domini et de serui honore.
The Vanity of Worldly Pride
The Lord challenges the soul to recognize the absurdity of prioritizing worldly status over the simplicity of Christ.
I am your Creator and Lord. Tell me the three things I'm asking of you. How can a house stand when the wife is dressed like a lady and her husband like a servant? Is that right? Then she answered within her own conscience: "No, Lord, it isn't right." And the Lord said, "I am the Lord of all and the King of the angels." I clothed my servant—that is, my humanity—for no other purpose than for utility and necessity. For I sought nothing in the world but only simple food and clothing. Yet you, who are my bride, want to be like a lady, to have riches and honors, and to walk about in style. What good is all of that, really? Everything is certainly vanity, and everything will be left behind. After all, a human being wasn't created for such excess, but for the necessities of nature. Pride, however, invented this excess—which is now held and loved as if it were law.
The Wasted Labor of the Soul
The Lord laments that the soul often squanders the fruits of His passion through a life of luxury and lack of virtue.
Second, tell me: is it right for a husband to work from morning until evening, only for his wife to waste everything he’s gathered in a single hour? Then she replied, "That isn't right; a wife is bound to live and act according to her husband's will." And the Lord said: "I have acted like a man who works from morning until evening." From my youth until my passion, I labored, showing the way to heaven by preaching and by fulfilling in deed what I preached. My wife—that is, the soul, who ought to be like a wife to me—wastes all my labor when she lives in luxury, so that everything I have done is of no use to her, and I find in her no virtue in which I can take delight.
The Inversion of Honor
The Lord condemns the world's tendency to honor the servant while despising the Master, calling the soul to true obedience.
Third, tell me: in any house where the master is treated with contempt and the servant is honored, isn't that improper and an abomination? And she replied, "It's true." And the Lord said, "I am the Lord of all." The world is my house, and by right, man should be my servant. But I, the Lord, am now despised in the world, while man is honored. Therefore you, whom I have chosen, take care to do my will, because everything in the world is nothing but sea foam and a vain vision!"
Read the original Latin
"Ego sum creator tuus et dominus. Dic michi tria, que quero a te!
Quomodo stat illa domus, ubi uxor vestitur sicut domina et maritus eius quasi seruus? Numquid decet sic?"
Tunc illa respondit intus in consciencia sua: "Non, Domine, decet sic."
Et Dominus: "Ego sum dominus omnium et rex angelorum. Ego vestiui seruum meum, idest humanitatem meam, non nisi ad utilitatem et necessitatem.
Nichil enim quesiui in mundo nisi solummodo tenuem victum et vestitum. Tu autem, que es sponsa mea, tu vis esse sicut domina, habere diuicias et honores et honorifice incedere.
Ad quid enim valent omnia ista? Certe omnia vana sunt et omnia relinquentur. Homo quippe non creatus fuit ad tantam superfluitatem sed ad necessitatem nature.
Hanc autem superfluitatem inuenit superbia, que nunc habetur et diligitur pro lege.
Secundo dic michi, numquid decens est, ut vir laboret de mane usque ad vesperam et uxor in una hora consumat omnia, que congregata sunt?"
Tunc illa respondit: "Non decet sic, sed iuxta voluntatem viri viuere et facere tenetur uxor."
Et Dominus: "Ego feci sicut vir, qui a mane usque ad vesperam laborat. Ego enim a iuuentute mea usque ad passionem laboraui, ostendens viam eundi ad celum predicando et opere complendo predicata.
Hunc omnem laborem meum uxor, idest anima, que deberet esse mea quasi uxor, tunc consumit, quando luxuriose viuit, ut nichil ei prosint, que ego feci, nec inuenio in ea aliquid virtutis, in qua possim cum ea delectari.
Tercio dic michi, in quacumque domo dominus contempnitur et seruus honoratur, numquid non indecens et abhominabile est?"
Et illa: "Vere, sic est." Et Dominus: "Ego sum dominus omnium. Domus mea mundus est et homo seruus meus de iure esse deberet. Sed ego, Dominus, nunc in mundo contempnor et homo honoratur. Ideo tu, quam elegi, cura facere voluntatem meam, quia omnia, que in mundo sunt, non sunt nisi quedam spuma maris et quedam visio vana!"
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