The Fire of Love and the Mending of Life

   * INTRODUCTION
        o Abbreviations
             + METHOD AND AIM OF THIS MODERNIZATION
             + SOURCES
             + TREATMENT OF WORDS
             + BIOGRAPHICAL
        o A TRANSLATION OF THE LEGENDA IN THE OFFICE PREPARED FOR THE
          BLESSED HERMIT RICHARD
        o PROLOGUE OF RICHARD MISYN
        o BOOK I
             + CHAPTER I
             + CHAPTER II
             + CHAPTER III
             + CHAPTER IV
             + CHAPTER V
             + CHAPTER VI
             + CHAPTER VII
             + CHAPTER VIII
             + CHAPTER IX
             + CHAPTER X
             + CHAPTER XI
             + CHAPTER XII
             + CHAPTER XIII
             + CHAPTER XIV
             + CHAPTER XV
             + CHAPTER XVI
             + CHAPTER XVII
             + CHAPTER XVIII
             + CHAPTER XIX
             + CHAPTER XX
             + CHAPTER XXI
             + CHAPTER XXII
             + CHAPTER XXIII
             + CHAPTER XXIV
             + CHAPTER XXV
             + CHAPTER XXVI
             + CHAPTER XXVII
             + CHAPTER XXVIII
             + CHAPTER XXIX
             + CHAPTER XXX
        o BOOK II
             + CHAPTER I
             + CHAPTER II
             + CHAPTER III
             + CHAPTER IV
             + CHAPTER V
             + CHAPTER VI
             + CHAPTER VII
             + CHAPTER VIII
             + CHAPTER IX
             + CHAPTER X
             + CHAPTER XI
             + CHAPTER XII
        o THE MENDING OF LIFE
             + CHAPTER I
             + CHAPTER II
             + CHAPTER III
             + CHAPTER IV
             + CHAPTER V
             + CHAPTER VI
             + CHAPTER VII
             + CHAPTER VIII
             + CHAPTER IX
             + CHAPTER X
             + CHAPTER XI
             + CHAPTER XII
             + NOTES
             + BIBLIOGRAPHY

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This book is in the public domain

                              THE FIRE OF LOVE

                          OR MELODY OF LOVE AND THE

                             MENDING OF LIFE OR

                             THE RULE OF LIVING



                              BY: RICHARD ROLLE



                    Translated by Richard Misyn from the

                 "Incendium Amoris" and the "De Emendatione

                 Vitae" of Richard Rolle, hermit of Hampole


                             METHUEN & CO. LTD.

                            36 ESSEX STREET W.C.

                                   LONDON

                               Second Edition


                      First Published.....April 2, 1914

                          Second Edition..... 1920



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                                INTRODUCTION

                       THE MYSTICISM OF RICHARD ROLLE

BY EVELYN UNDERHILL

     The four great English mystics of the fourteenth century - Richard
Rolle, Walter Hilton, Julian of Norwich and the anonymous author of "The
Cloud of Unknowing"--though in doctrine as in time they are closely related
to one another, yet exhibit in their surviving works strongly marked and
deeply interesting diversities of temperament.[1] Rolle, the romantic and
impassioned hermit; his great successor, that nameless contemplative, acute
psychologist, and humorous critic of manners, who wrote "The Cloud of
Unknowing" and its companion works; Hilton, the gentle and spiritual Canon
of Throgmorton; and Julian, the exquisitely human yet profoundly meditative
anchoress, whose "Revelations of Divine Love" are perhaps the finest flower
of English religious literature--these form a singularly picturesque group
in the history of European mysticism.
     Richard Rolle of Hampole, the first of them in time, and often called
with justice "The father of English Mysticism," is in some aspects the most
interesting and individual of the four. Possessed of great literary power,
and the author of numerous poems and prose treatises, his strong influence
may be felt in all the mystical and ascetic writers who succeeded him; and
some knowledge of his works is essential to a proper understanding of the
currents of religious thought in this country during the two centuries which
preceded the Reformation. Sometimes known as the "English Bonaventura," he
might have been named with far greater exactitude the "English Francis": for
his life and temperament--though we dare not claim for him the unmatched
gaiety, sweetness, and spiritual beauty of his Italian predecessor--yet
present many parallels with those of the "little poor man" of Assisi. Both
Francesco Bernadone and Richard Rolle were born romantics. Each represents
the revolt of the unsatisfied heart and intuitive mind of the natural mystic
from the comfortable, the prudent, and the commonplace: its tendency to seek
in the spiritual world the ultimate beauty and the ultimate love. Both saw
in poverty, simplicity, self-stripping, the only real freedom; in "carnal
use and wont" the only real servitude. Moreover, both were natural artists,
who found in music and poetry the fittest means of expression for their
impassioned and all-dominating love of God. Francis held that the servants
of the Lord were nothing else than His minstrels. He taught his friars to
imitate the humility and gladness of that holy little bird the lark; and
when sweet melody of spirit boiled up within him, would sing troubadour-like
in French to the Lord Jesus Christ. For Rolle,too, the glad and eager life
of birds was a school of Christian virtue. At the beginning of his
conversion, he took as his model the nightingale, which to some and melody
all night is given, that she may please him to whom she is joined. For him
the life of contemplation was essentially a musical state, and song, rightly
understood, embraced every aspect of the soul's communion with Reality.
Sudden outbursts of lyrical speech and direct appeals to musical imagery
abound in his writings, as in those of no other mystic; and perhaps
constitute their outstanding literary characteristic.
     Further, both these impassioned minnesingers of the Holy Ghost made the
transition from the comfortable life of normal men to the ardors and
deprivations of the mystic way at the same age, and with the same startling
and dramatic thoroughness. They share the same horror of property and
possessions, "the I, the me, the mine." In each, personal religion finds its
focus in an intense and beautiful devotion to the Name of Jesus. Francis was
"drunken with the love and compassion of Christ." "The mind of Jesu" was to
Rolle "as melody of music at a feast." For each, love, joy, and humility
govern the attitude of the self to God. Each, too, adopted substantially the
same career: that of a roving lay-missionary, going, as Rolle tells us in
"The Fire of Love," from place to place, dependent upon charity for food and
lodging, and trying in the teeth of all obstacles to win other men to a
clearer view of Divine Reality a life surrendered to the will of God. Each
knew the support of a woman's friendship and sympathy. What St. Clare was to
St. Francis, that Margaret Kirkby the recluse of Anderby was to Rolle.
Seeking only spiritual things,both these mystics have yet left their mark
upon the history of literature. Rolle was a prolific writer in Latin and
Middle English, in prose and in verse, and his vernacular works occupy an
important place in the evolution of English as a literary tongue: whilst the
Canticles of St. Francis are amongst the earliest of Italian poems.
     True, Francis had the gayer, sunnier and more social nature. Once the
first, essential act of renunciation was accomplished, he quickly gathered
about him a group of disciples and lived in their company by choice. Rolle,
temperamentally more intense and ascetic, loved solitude; and only in the
lonely hermitage "from worldly business in mind and body departed," does he
seem to have achieved that detachment and singleness of mind through which
he entered into the fullness of his spiritual heritage. To him Divine Love
was "as it were a shameful lover, that his leman before men embraces not":
but "in the wilderness more clearly they meet," where "true lovers accord,
and merry solace of lovely touching is, unable to be told." Yet the enormous
influence which he exercised upon the religious life of the fourteenth
century, the definitely missionary character of many of his writings, is a
sufficient answer to those who would condemn him on these grounds as a
"selfish recluse." Francis upon La Verna, Rolle in his hermit's cell, were
caught up to the ultimate encounter of love: but each felt that such
heavenly communion was no end in itself, that it entailed obligations
towards the race. For both, contemplation and action, love and work, went
ever hand in hand. "Love," says Rolle, "cannot be lazy": and his life is
there to endorse the truth of those golden words. True contemplatives, he
says again--and we cannot doubt that he here describes the ideal at which he
aimed--are like the topaz "in which two colours are," one "pure as gold" and
"t'other clear as heaven when it is bright." "To gold they are like a
passing heat of charity, and to heaven for clearness of heavenly
conversation": exhibiting, in fact, that balanced character of active love
to man and fruitive love to God--the double movement of the perfect
soul--which is the peculiar hallmark of true Christian mysticism.
     As with St. Francis, so with Rolle, the craving for reality, the
passionate longing for fullness of life, did not at first turn to the
religious channel. The life of chivalry, the troubadour-spirit, first
attracted Francis; the life of intellect first attracted Rolle. Already
noticed as a boy of unusual ability, he had been sent to Oxford by the help
of the Archdeacon of Durham. But the achievement of manhood found him
unsatisfied. He was already conscious of some instinct within him which
demanded as its objective a deeper Reality: of a spiritual vocation which
theological study alone could never fulfill. At the critcital age of
eighteen, when the genius for God so often asserts itself, St. Francis
definitely abjured all that he had seemed to love, and embraced Poverty with
a dramatic thoroughness; abandoning home, family, prospects, and stripping
off his very clothes in the public square of Assisi. At the same age Richard
Rolle, sacrificing his scholastic career--and the high literary merit of his
writings shows us what that career might have been--suddenly returned from
Oxford to the North, his soul "lifted from low things," his mind set on fire
with love for the austere and solitary life of contemplation. There, with
that impulse towards concrete heroic sacrifice, decisive symbolic action,
which so often appears in the childhood and youth of the mystical saints, he
begged from his sister two gowns, one white, one grey, together with his
father's old rainhood; retired into the forest; and with these manufactured
as best he might a hermit's dress in which to "flee from the world." His
family thought him mad; the inevitable conclusion of the domest mind in all
ages, when confronted with the violent other-worldliness of the emerging
mystical consciousness. But Rolle knew already that he obeyed a primal
necessity of his nature: that singular living, solitude, some escape from
the torrent of use and wont, was imperative for him if he were to fulfill
his destiny and order his disordered loves. "No marvel if I fled that that
me confused...well I knew of Whom I look." The way in which he realized this
need may seem to us, like the self-stripping of St Francis, crude and naive:
yet as an index of character, an augury of future greatness, it must surely
take precedence of that milder and more prudent change of heart which
involves no bodily discomforts. There is in both these stories the same
engaging mixture of singleminded response to an interior vocation, boyish
romanticism, and personal courage. Francis and Richard ran away to God, as
other lads have run away to sea: sure that their only happiness lay in total
self-giving to the one great adventure of life.
     It was primarily the life of solitude which Rolle needed and sought,
that his latent powers might have room to grow. "Great liking I had in
wilderness to sit, that I far from noise sweetlier might sing, and with
quickness of heart likingest praising I might feel; the which doubtless of
His gift I have taken, Whom above all thing wonderfully I have loved." Yet
the first result of his quest of loneliness was the discovery of a friend.
Going one evening to a church--probably that of Topcliffe near Thirsk--and
sitting down in the seat of Lady Dalton, he was recognized by her sons, who
had been his fellow-students at Oxford: with the immediate result that their
father, Sir John Dalton, impressed by his saintly enthusiasm, gave him a
hermit's cell and dress, and provided for his daily needs, in order that he
might devote himself without hindrance to the contemplative life.
     Rolle has described in "The Fire of Love"--which is, with the possible
exception of the Melum, the most autobiographical of his writings--something
at least of the interior stages through which he now passed, in the course
of the purification and enlightenment of his soul. One of the most
subjective of the mystics, he is intensely interested in his own spiritual
adventures; and a strong personal element may be detected even in his most
didactic works. As with all who deliberately give themselves to the
spiritual life, his first period of growth was predominantly ascetic. With
his fellow mystics he underwent the trials and disciplines of the "purgative
way": and for this, complete separation from the world was essential. "The
process truly if I will show, solitary life behooves me preach." The essence
of this purification, as he describes it in the "Mending of Life," lies not
so much in the endurance of bodily austerities--as in "Contrition of
thought, and pulling out of desires that belong not to loving or worship of
God":--self-simplification in fact. The object of such a process is always
the same: the purging of the will, and unification of the whole life about
the higher centres of humility and love; the cutting out, as St. Catherine
of Siena has it, of "the rooting of self-love with the knife of
self-hatred." In the old old language of Christian mysticism, Rolle speaks
of the action of Divine Love as a refiner's fire, "fiery making our souls,
and purging them from all degrees of sin, making them light and burning." We
gather from various references in the Incendium that the trials of this
purgation included in his own case not only interior contrition for past sin
and bodily penance. It also involved the contempt, if not the actual
persecution of other men, and the inimical attitude with "with wordys of
bakbytings" of old friends, who viewed his eccentric conduct with a natural
and prudent disgust: a form of suffering, intensely painful to his sensitive
nature, which he recognizes as specially valuable in its power of killing
self-esteem, and encouraging the mystical type of character, governed by
true mortification and total dependence on God. "This have I known, that the
more men have tried with words of backbiting against me, so muckle the more
in ghostly profit I have grown."...."After the tempest, God sheds in
brightness of holy desires."
     The period of pain and struggle--the difficult remaking of
character--lasted from his conversion for about two years and eight months.
It was brought to an end, as with so many of the greater mystics, by an
abrupt shifting of consciousness to levels of peace and joy: a sudden and
overwhelming revelation of Spiritual Reality--"the opening of the heavenly
door, that Thy face showed." Rolle than passed to that affirmative state of
high illumination and adoring love which he extols in the "Fire": the state
which includes the three degrees, or spiritual moods of Color, Dulcor,
Canor--"Heat, Sweetness and Song." At the end of a year, "the door biding
open," he experienced the first of these special graces: the Heat of Love
Everlasting, or "Fire" which gave its name to the Incendium Amoris. "I sat
forsooth in a chapel and whilst with sweetness of prayer or meditation
muckle I was delighted, suddenly in me I felt a merry heat and unknown."
     Now, when we ask ourselves what Rolle really meant by this image of
heat or fire, we stand at the beginning of a long quest. This is one of
those phrases, half metaphors, yet metaphors so apt that we might also call
them descriptions of experience, which are natural to mystical literature.
Immemorially old, yet eternally fresh, they appear again and again; nor need
we always attribute such reappearances to conscious borrowing. The fire of
love is a term which goes back at least to the fourth century of our era; it
is used by St. Macarius of Egypt to describe the action of the Divine Energy
upon the soul which it is leading to perfection. Its literary origins are of
course scriptural--the fusion of the Johannine "God is love" with the fire
imagery of the Hebrew prophets. "Behold! the Lord will come with fire!" "His
word was in my heart as a burning fire." "He is like a refiner's fire."
     But, examining the passages in which Rolle speaks of that "Heat" which
the "Fire of Love" induced in his purified and heavenward turning heart, we
see that this denotes a sensual as well as a spiritual experience. Those
interior states or moods to which, by the natural method of comparison that
governs all descriptive speech, the self gives such sense-names as these of
"Heat, Sweetness, and Song," react in many mystics upon the bodily state.
Psycho-sensorial parallelisms are set up. The well-known phenomenon of
stigmatization, occurring in certain hypersensitive temperaments as the
result of deep meditation upon the Passion of Christ, is perhaps the best
clue by which we can come to understand how such a term as "the fire of
love" has attained a double significance for mystical psychology. It is
first a poetic metaphor of singular aptness; describing a spiritual state
which is, as Rolle says himself in "The Form of Perfect Living," "So burning
and gladdening, that he or she who is in this degree can as well feel the
fire of love burning in their soul as thou canst feel thy finger burn if
thou puttest it in the fire." Secondly, it represents, or may represent in
certain temperaments, an induced sense-automatism, which may vary from the
slightest of suggestions to an intense hallucination: as the equivalent
automatic process which issues in "visions" or "voices" may vary from that
"sense of a presence" or consciousness of a message received, which is the
purest form in which our surface consciousness objectivizes communion with
God, to the vivid picture seen, the voice clearly heard, by many visionaries
and auditives.
     The "first state" of burning love to which Rolle attained when his
purification was at an end, does seem to have produced in him such a
psycho-physical hallucination. He makes it plain in the prologue of the
Incendium that he felt, in a physical sense, the spiritual fire, truly, not
imaginingly; as St. Teresa--to take a well-known historical example--felt
the transverberation of the seraph's spear which pierced her heart. This
form of automatism, though not perhaps very common, is well known in the
history of religious experience; and many ascetic writers discuss it. Thus
in that classic of spiritual common sense, "The Cloud of Unknowing," we find
amongst the many delusions which may beset "young presumptuous
contemplatives," "Many quaint heats and burnings in their bodily
breasts"--which may sometimes indeed be the work of good angels (i.e., the
physical reflection of true spiritual ardour) yet should ever be had
suspect, as possible devices of the devil. Again, Walter Hilton includes in
his list of mystical automatisms, and views with the same suspicion,
"sensible heat, as it were fire, glowing and warming the breast." In the
seventeenth century Augustine Baker, in his authoritative work on the prayer
of contemplation mentions "warmth about the heart" as one of the "sensible
graces," or physical sensations of religious origin, known to those who
aspire to union with God. In our own day, the Carmelite nun Soeur Therese de
I'Enfant-Jesus describes an experience in which she "felt herself suddenly
pierced by a dart of fire." "I cannot," she says, "explain this transport,
nor can any comparison express the intensity of this flame. It seemed to me
that an invisible force immersed me completely in fire." Allowing for the
strong probability that the form of Soeur Therese's transport was influenced
by her knowledge of the life of her great namesake, we have no grounds for
doubting the honesty of her report; the fact that she felt in a literal
sense, though in a way hard for less ardent temperaments to understand, the
burning of the divine fire. Her simple account--glossing, as it were, the
declarations of the historian and the psychologist--surely gives us a hint
as to the way in which we ought to read the statements of other mystics,
concerning their knowledge of the "fire of love."
     Rolle's second stage, to which he gives the name of "sweetness", is
easier of comprehension than the first. It represents the natural movement
of consciousness from passion to peace, from initiation to possession, as
the contemplative learns to live and move in this new atmosphere of Reality:
the exquisite joy which characterizes one phase of the soul's communion with
God. He calls it a "heavenly savour"; a "sweet mystery"; a "marvellous
honey." "With great labor it is got; but with joy untold it is possessed."
It is of such sweetness that the author of "The Cloud of Unknowing"--that
stern critic of all those so called mystical experiences which come in by
the windows of the wits--writes in terms which almost seem to be inspired by
a personal experience.
     "Sometimes He will inflame the body of devout servants of His here in
this life: not once or twice, but peradventure right oft and as Him liketh,
with full wonderful sweetness and comforts. Of the which, some be not coming
from without into the body by the windows of our wits, but from within;
rising and springing of abundance of ghostly gladness, and of true devotion
in the spirit. Such a comfort and such a sweetness shall not be had suspect:
and shortly to say, I trow that he that feeleth it may not have it suspect."
     That intimate and joyful apprehension of the supersensuous which Rolle
calls "sweetness" is not rigidly separated either from the burning ardour
which preceded it, or the "third" state of exultant harmony, of adoring
contemplation--prayer pouring itself forth in wild yet measured
loveliness--which he calls "song"; and which is the most characteristic form
of his communion with the Divine Love. All three, in fact, as we see in the
beautiful eighth chapter of "The Form of Perfect Living," are fluctuating
expressions of the "Third Degree of Love, highest and most wondrous to win."
They co-exist in the soul which has attained to it: now one and now the
other taking command. "The soul that is in the third degree is all burning
fire, and like the nightingale that loves song and melody, and fails for
great love: so that the soul is only comforted in praising and loving
God...and this manner of song have none unless they be in the third degree
of love: to the which degree it is impossible to come, but in a great
multitude of love."
     This true lover, he says again in the Incendium, "has sweetness, heat
and ghostly song, of which before I have oft touched, and by this he serves
God, and Him loving without parting to Him draws...Sometime certain more he
feels of heat and sweetness, and with difficulty he sings, sometime truly
with great sweetness and busyness he is ravished, when heat is felt the
less; oft also into ghostly song with great mirth he flees and passes, and
also he knows the heat and sweetness of love with him are. Nevertheless heat
is never without sweetness, although sometime it be without ghostly song."
     Rolle's own first experience of this state of song, like the oncoming
of the "Fire," seems to have had a marked psycholsensorial character. His
passion of love and praise translated itself into the "Song of Angels"; and
the celestial melody was first heard by him with the outward as well as with
the inward ear. "In the night before supper, as I mine Salves I sung, as it
were the noise of readers or rather singers about me I beheld. Whilst also
praying to heaven with all desire I took heed, on what manner I wot not
suddenly in me noise of song I felt; and likingest heavenly melody I took,
with me dwelling in mind."
     We gather from the writings of other mystics of the medieval period
that such an experience was a well understood accompaniment of the
contemplative life. Like the "burning of the fire" it was one amongst those
"sensible comforts"--or, as we should now say, automatisms--which were never
accepted at their face value as certain marks of divine favour, but were
studied and analyzed with the robust common sense that characterizes true
spirituality. Walter Hilton, in a tract on the "Song of Angels" which is
certainly inspired by, and was long attributed to Rolle himself, says of it:
"When the soul is lifted and ravished out of the sensuality, and out of mind
of any earthly things, then in great fervour of love and light (if our Lord
vouchsafe) the soul may hear and feel heavenly sound, made by the presence
of angels in loving of God...Methinketh that there may no soul feel verily
angel's song nor heavenly sound, but he be in perfect charity; though all
that are in perfect charity have not felt it, but only that soul that is so
purified in the fire of love that all earthly savour is brent out of it, and
all mean letting between the soul and the cleanness of angels is broken and
put away from it. Then soothly may he sing a new song, and soothly he may
hear a blest heavenly sound, and angel's song without deceit or feigning."
     Such "Song"--where it really represents the soul's consciousness of
supernal harmonies, and is not merely the hallucination of one who "by
indiscreet travailing turneth the brains in his head" so that "for
feebleness of the brain, him thinketh that he heareth wonderful sounds and
songs"--does for the temperament which inclines to translate its intuitions
into music, that which the experience of vision does for those whose
apprehensions of reality more easily crystallize into a pictorial form. One
seems to see, another seems to hear, that Perfect Beauty which is the source
and inspiration of all our fragmentary arts. For Rolle, by nature a poet and
a musician, the language of music possessed a special attraction and
appropriateness: and not only its language but its practice too. Like
Francis of Assisi, Catherine of Genoa, Teresa, Rose of Lima, and many other
saints, he was driven to lyrical and musical expression by his own rapture
of love and joy. "Oh Good Jesu! my heart Thou hast bound in thought of Thy
Name, and now I cannot but sing it."
     All mystics are potential poets. Rolle was an actual poet too. Hence by
the Canor, which was the third form by which his rapture of love was
expressed, we must understand not only the "Celestial Melody" in which he
participated in ecstatic moments, not only those exultant moods of "great
plenty of inward joy" when the spiritual song "swelled to his mouth" and he
sang his prayers "with a ghostly symphony," as St. Catherine of Genoa "sang
all day for joy"; but also the genuine poetic inspiration to which his
writings give ample testimony. All these are varying expressions of one life
and one love: for the great mystic, living in contact with Eternity, is
seldom careful to note the exact boundary which marks off "inward" from
"outward" or earth from heave. To Rolle, contemplation was the song of the
soul: song was contemplation expressed. Some, he observes in "The Mending of
Life," think that contemplation is the knowledge of deep mysteries: others
that it is the state of total concentration on spiritual things: others
again that it is an elevation of mind which makes the self dead to all
fleshy desires. All these no doubt are true in their measure: but "to me it
seems that contemplation is joyful song of God's love." It is love and joy
"with great voice out-breaking" as the ascending spirit stretches towards
the Only Fair. Rolle's mysticism is fundamentally of the "outgoing" type. He
seldom uses the language of introversion, or speaks of God as found within
the heart; but pictures the soul's quest of Reality as a journey, a flight
from self, an encounter "in the wilderness" with Love. "Love truly suffers
not a loving soul to bide in itself, but ravishes it out to the lover, that
the soul is more there where it loves, than where the body is that lives and
feels it." When the Canor seizes him, his spirit seems to rush forth on the
wings of its own music, that "music that to me is come by burning love, in
which I sing before Jesu": for indeed his "song", whether silent melody or
articulate, is love in action; the glad and humble passion of adoration
taking poetic form.
     We see then at last that Heat, Sweetness, and Song are each and all
names for, and psycho-physical expressions of, one thing--that
many-coloured, many-graded miracle of Love which is the substance of all
mysticism, and alone has power to catch man into the divine atmosphere,
initiate him into the friendship of God. "O dear Charity...Thou enterest
boldly the bedchamber of the King Everlasting: thou only art not ashamed
Christ to take. He it is that thou hast sought and loved. Christ is thine:
hold Him, for He may not but take thee, to whom thou only desirest to obey."
     Here we find, fused together, the highest flights of mystical passion
for the Ineffable God, and the intense devotion to the Person of Christ: the
special quality which marked all that was best in English religion of the
medieval period. In such passages--and his works abound in them--Rolle sets
the pattern to which all the great English mystics who followed him
conformed. Were we asked, indeed, to state their peculiar characteristic, I
think that we must find it here: in the combination of loftiest
transcendentalism with the loving and intimate worship of the Holy Name.
Thus it is that they solve the eternal mystic paradox of an unconditioned
yet a personal God. "The Scale of Perfection," "The Cloud of Unknowing,"
"The Revelations of Divine Love," all turn on this point: and those who
discount their strongly Christian and personal quality, gravely
misunderstand the nature of the vision by which their writers were inspired.
     Of the two works of Richard Rolle which Miss Comper here presents in a
modernized form, "The Fire of Love" represents his subjective manner--"The
Mending of Life" an attempt towards the orderly presentation of his ascetic
doctrine. The whole system of his teaching, in so far as a system was
possible to so poetic and "inspired" a temperament, aims at the induction of
other men to that state in which they can fulfill the supreme vocation of
humanity: take part in "angels" song," the music of adoration which all
created spirits sing to God. He knows that the "ghostly song" of highest
contemplation is a special gift, a grace shed into the soul, and does not
hesitate to proclaim his own peculiar possession of it: yet he is sure that
the heavenly melodies may be evoked, in a certain measure, in all who are
surrendered to divine love. The method by which he would educate the soul to
the point at which it can participate in the life of Reality, is that method
of asceticism--profound contrition, mortification and prayer--which he has
followed himself: here conforming to the doctrine of the three great masters
of the spiritual life whose writings had influenced him most, St. Bernard,
Richard of St. Victor, and St. Bonaventura. Though he often seems in his
more didactic works to echo the teaching of these doctors, and in some
passages repeats their very words--as for instance in his description of the
Three Degrees of Love, and in his doctrine of Ecstasy--yet all that he says
has been actualized by him in his own personal experience. His most
"dogmatic" utterances burn with passion: he uses the maps of his great
predecessors because he has tested them and found them true. It is commonly
said that the Incendium Amoris--that most personal and unconventional of
works--is an imitation of St. Bonaventura's Stimulus Amoris. Apart from the
fact that the Stimulus Amoris is no longer accepted as an authentic work of
St. Bonaventura, but was probably composed by James of Milan, the two
books--as any may see who take the trouble to compare them--have hardly a
character in common. True, both are largely concerned with the Love of God;
but so are all the works of Christian mysticism. The subjective element
which occupies so large a place in the Incendium is wholly absent from the
Stimulus. There we find no autobiography, rather an orderly didactic
treatise, miles asunder from the Yorkshire hermit's fervid rhapsodies. The
Incendium is not an artificial composition, but a work of original genius.
It is the rhapsody and confession of a "God-intoxicated" poet, who longed to
tell his love, yet knew that all his powers of expression could not
communicate one little point of the vision and the ecstasy to which he had
been raised: "Would God of that melody a man I might find author, the which
though not in word, yet in writing my joy he should sing."
     Passionate feeling taking artistic form: this perhaps is the ruling
character of all Rolle's mystical writings. He has been accused of laying
undue emphasis upon emotional experience. Yet a stern system of ethics--as
we may see from his life as well as from his works--underlies this exultant
participation in the music of the spheres. Though some may be repelled by
his love of that solitude in which heart speaks to heart, or amused by his
quaint praise of the virtues of "sitting"--the attitude which he found most
conductive to contemplation--surely none can fail to be impressed by the
heroic self-denials, the devoted missionary labours, which ran side by side
with this intense interior life. His love was essentially dynamic; it
invaded and transmuted all departments of his nature, and impelled him as
well to acts of service as to songs of joy. He was no spiritual egotist, no
mere seeker for transcendental satisfaction; but one of those for whom the
divine goodness and beauty are coupled together in insoluble union, even as
"the souls of the lover and the loved."
     NOTE: My quotations from "The Fire of Love" and "The Mending of Life"
are made direct from Richard Misyn's fifteenth century English translation,
as printed by the Early English Text Society: save only for modernization of
the spelling. They may not therefore agree in all particulars with Miss
Comper's version. I have used Miss Geraldine Hodgson's edition of "The Form
of Perfect Living" (1910); my own of "The Cloud of Unknowing" (1912), and
the text of "The Sone of Angels" which is printed from Pepwell by Mr. Edmund
Gardner in "The Cell of Self-knowledge" (New Medieval Library, 1910).

                                Abbreviations

A. Ms. Add. 37790 Brit. Mus.

Bg. La Bigne's Maxima Bibliotecha Patrum.

C. Corpus Christi Coll. MS. 236 Oxford.

D. Douce MS. 322 Bod.

E.E.T.S. Early English Text Society.

L. MS. Dd. 5.64 Camb.

M.E. Middle English.

O.E.D. Oxford English Dictionary.

Sp. Speculum Spiritualium.


                              EDITOR'S PREFACE


     Of mysticism, as of all the greatest things in life, the characteristic
notes are sincerity and simplicity. Its nature and birth are better felt by
the heart than uttered by the tongue. Therefore the increasing interest in
mysticism, evidenced by the multiplication of books, essays, criticism, and
correspondence on the subject, is rather to be dreaded than welcomed by the
mystic. For mysticism like love is shy as the wild bird. Criticism destroys
it; discussion frightens it away. Doubtless it can live in the heart of
every man; only that heart must be pure, and free from anxiety and worldly
love; since to the Christian mysticism is nothing else that that love which
is the sole definition of God that man can comprehend.
     He that has found the secret of this love, which possesses alike the
world of nature and of man, has found the secret of the mystic. For it is
not a respecter of persons, nor reserved for the few. The old woman sitting
over her peat fire, the shepherd upon the lonely hills, the workman breaking
stones by the roadside, even the "great divine lapped in infinite questions"
or the anchoress in her cell; all indeed who are "more busy to know God than
many things," have glimpses of this secret. And it was for those who would
rather know God's love than know about it that this book was written so long
ago.
     For six centuries the dust of oblivion has hidden Richard Rolle from
our knowledge. True, his name was known as the author of a long Northern
poem called the Prick of Conscience, but it has lately been proved that,
whatever else he may have written, this most certainly he did not write.[2]
Of him and of the other English mystics of his time, we knew but little. As
we may have stood by and watched a statue, modeled by some sculptor dead
these many hundred years, being slowly and carefully unearthed in a villa
garden near Rome, so now we look on with interest as scholars, mostly of
other nations than our own, are laboriously restoring to us the mystical
writings of these Englishmen, long ago dead, and now for the most part
nameless.
     Yet Richard Rolle, the first of these great mystics, had revealed
himself to us in his writings. Race counts for much in character, and in
reading his books we can never forget that he comes of the sturdy stock of
Yorkshiremen. Honest, somewhat blunt and plainspoken, especially in regard
to women, and full of common sense, it is the more remarkable that he should
in so many ways recall to us the sweet singer of Assisi. And yet, as Miss
Underhill has shown us, he joins hands across the century with the poet of
love and poverty who preached to the birds under the ilex-tree at the
Carceri; while from another point of view he has kinship with the monk of
Windesheim, the words of whose Ecclesiastical Music are constantly recalled
to our minds by this other Melody of Love. As we read it we find that the
problems which confronted Richard in his hermit's cell at Hampole are the
same as confront the thoughtful man today. He is distressed by the
friendlessness, rather than the poverty, of the poor; the oppression and
worldliness of the rich; the wrong and selfish acquisition of land; the
utter destructiveness of sin; the hypocrisy and backbiting of those who
"fill the kirks." Then, as now, men desired to escape from the transient to
the eternal; from the overwhelming power of the material to the spiritual;
from the turmoil and confusion of strange ideas and social upheaval and
crying injustice, to the rest and peace to be found in humility and
brotherly love. As in the old emblem of the two crossed pieces of wood
bearing the wayfarer safely over the stormy sea, the love of God laid
athwart the love of man bears the soul safely over the waves of this life.
     And this love is the sum and substance of Rolle's mysticism. We find in
his writings few definitions or classifications, which are so frequent in
many mystical works; for it was as impossible for him as for Saint
Francis--who in his life was the greatest exponent of mysticism that the
world has ever seen--to lay down rules regarding love. The love of child and
parent, of young man and maid, with all the deeds of heroism and sacrifice
which such love has engendered, are but as pale symbols of the love which
has given birth to the ancient literature of mysticism. This love is as a
fire or a raging flame. "It verily inflames the mind," says Richard; "Love
sets my heart on fire," sings Francis.
     To most this love comes only as the reward of long search and striving.
It is a quest on which a man may start out in company, but he must end
alone--with God: and in proportion as we attain to it we find the solution
of many problems, the secret of life, and the key to the "mysteries of the
Kingdom."


                    METHOD AND AIM OF THIS MODERNIZATION

     This book is not meant for the scholar. For him Rolle's own versions
are accessible in numerous MSS.; and Misyn's Middle English translation has
been printed by the Early English Text Society.[3] But there are many who
find in Misyn's curious spellings and constructions a serious obstacle to
the sense, and it is for such that this edition has been prepared. My aim
has been to make Rolle's meaning clear to the modern reader with as little
alteration of Misyn's text as possible. I have modernized the spelling, have
simplified long and involved constructions, and have tried to elucidate the
meaning by careful punctuation. But I have dealt very sparingly with the
vocabulary, keeping as many of the old words as seemed likely to be
understood, and especially those which still linger in Scottish dialect, as
being a reminder to the reader of the Northern origin of the book. Where the
text appears to be corrupt and emendation has been necessary, I have used
for this purpose, for The Fire of Love the Cambridge MS. Dd. 5.64 (which I
call L), and for The Mending of Life the printed editions; comparing them
with the MSS. referred to in the notes at the end of this book, where I have
given the Latin and Middle English originals. A short passage[4] has been
omitted as unsuited for modern readers; and, on the other hand, where
obvious omissions occur in Misyn's text, they have been supplied from the
MSS. mentioned. When I have altered an obsolete word I give such, the first
time it occurs, in a foot note. Any words of difficult meaning will be found
in the Glossary, and I have in this case also added a footnote on their
first occurrence in the text. Other points I have gone more fully into under
the section Treatment of Words.
     It has been, and very probably may again be contended, that a better
result would have been obtained by translating straight from the original.
This would in many ways have been easier, but the insuperable objection to
such a course lies in the fact that the Latin MSS. of these works of Rolle
have not yet been collated; and no satisfactory translation can be made
until we have discovered which is Rolle's autograph. Moreover there is a
certain charm in this early translation of Misyn's which no modern one,
however excellent, could reproduce. Rolle died in 1349, but the Office for
his canonization was not prepared until 1381, and still later the Miracula
were collected. His memory must have remained fresh in men's minds; indeed
this is born out by the fact that so many extant copies of his works date
from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The influence of his spirit was
still a living one; and this translation has embodied and preserved for us
the simple faith and enthusiastic love of the generation for which it was
written. Read and meditated upon by English men and women of long ago
although it has been lost to sight nearly five hundred years it deals with a
theme that is ever fresh. It will be an interesting experiment to see
whether it can yet appeal to us--whether a genuine English book of piety can
hold its own with those of other nations.
     In my modernization I am aware that I have laid myself open to
criticism in many directions. I have not striven after consistency, but have
tried solely to retain as far as possible the simplicity and charm of the
original translation. Misyn has been called a slavish translator; certainly
he has not avoided the faults of his master. Repetitions, especially of
words and phrases, are even more constant in this version than in the
original, while some of the forms and spelling he employs make the
modernizer's task by no means an easy one. Dr. Horstman, in his interesting
preface to the collection of the English writings of Richard Rolle, after
laying stress upon his originality and lyric gift, thus sums up his defects:
"His defects lie on the side of method and discrimination; he is weak in
argumentation, in developing and arranging his ideas. His sense of beauty is
natural rather than acquired, and his mind is too restless to perfect his
writings properly. His form is not sufficiently refined, and full of
irregularities; his taste not unquestionable; his style frequently
difficult, rambling, full of veiled allusions--much depends on the
punctuation to make it intelligible; his Latin incorrect and not at all
classic--...But all this cannot detract from his great qualities as a
writer, the originality and depth of his thought, the truth and tenderness
of his feeling, the vigour and eloquence of his prose, the grace and beauty
of his verse; and everywhere we detect the marks of a great personality, a
personality at once powerful, tender and strange, the like of which was
perhaps never seen again."[5]
     This criticism is perhaps a little severe for a part of Rolle's charm
lies in his restlessness of thought. His mind moved rapidly, and he loved to
play with a word. His writings are full of antitheses and balance and
rhythm--in this respect anticipating Lily[6] --which Misyn's translation
well reproduces. If to us his repetitions appear wearisome and monotonous,
we must at least remember that they were written not to be read as a
continuous whole, but aloud, in chapter or refectory; for one copy had
probably to do service for the community.
     I have therefore aimed at reproducing Misyn's translation with all its
irregularities, only endeavouring to make his meaning clear. My method of
doing so will be more fully explained in the following section.


                                   SOURCES

     The Fire of Love and The Mending of Life were first printed by the
Early English Text Society, in 1896 from the Corpus Christi College MS. 236,
at Oxford. At that time it was the only MS. known of Misyn's translation,
but four years ago, at Lord Amherst's sale, the British Museum bought an
English MS. of the fifteenth century, known as Add. MS. 37790, containing
several very important mystical treatises,[7] and among them these two
translations by Misyn. This I have collated with the Corpus MS. (which I
call C), and have noted any important differences in the text as they occur.
They are very few and are mostly confined to spelling; the Amherst MS.
showing the influence of a Southern scribe. From the doubling of vowels and
consonants in such words as bee, wee, off, nott, for, etc., and the writing
of th for p, one would infer that the Amherst is probably of rather later
date than the Corpus MS. In this latter The Fire of Love precedes The
Mending of Life, although the explicits give 1434 as the date of the
translation of The Mending of Life, and 1435 for The Fire of Love; but in
the Amherst MS. they are given in their correct chronological order. I have,
however, kept to the order of the Corpus MS., since The Fire of Love is by
far the longer and more important of the two works.
     The editor of the Corpus MS. for the Early English Text Society draws
attention to the fact that the explicit to the second book of The Fire of
Love contains the statement that it was translated by Richard Misyn, with
the addition of these words, "per dictum fratrem Richardum Misyn scriptum et
correctum."[8] This was by some too easily considered a proof that we have
here Misyn's autograph; but judging from the wrong chronological order Mr.
Harvey concludes that this is not the case. It is therefore worth noting
that the explicit in the Amherst MS. is word for word the same as in the
Corpus MS., which fact, added to the probability of its later date, makes it
unlikely that here either we have Misyn's autograph. It is more probable
that both were copies of the autograph--the Corpus being the work of a more
Northern scribe than the Amherst--and that neither copist exercised
sufficient discretion to omit Misyn's personal note.
     At present the question of the Rolle canon is most confused and
uncertain. Scholars[9] are working at it, and it is to be hoped the
autograph of both Rolle and Misyn will soon be discovered. In the meantime
the only possible course open to me was to choose the best available Latin
MS. with which to compare Misyn's translation whenever difficulties arose.
For the Incendium I have taken a Cambridge MS. (Dd. 5.64, referred to as L).
For the De Emendatione it has been less simple, because several printed
versions exist of this work, all differing considerably. Misyn sometimes
seems to follow one and sometimes another, showing clearly that he is
translating from neither of these versions; and in the MSS. to which I have
had access the variants are as numerous. For this reason I have been very
chary of suggesting any emendations in my version of this work. Obvious
omissions I have supplied from another early translation in the Bodleian
(Douce MS. 322, which I call D). It seems to be of much the same date as
Misyn's, if anything rather later. It is not Northern, and is on the whole a
freer translation and has more attempt after style; whereas Misyn's
rendering is rather bald, being often very little more than a gloss on the
Latin. I have, however, followed Misyn, since we owe to him the longer and
more important work of Rolle which this volume contains.[10]
     I owe some apology to the reader for the notes, which may seem too
numerous for a popular edition; but the difficulties and obscurities in the
text have called for emendations and explanations which have necessitated
rather full notes. I have been careful to place these at the end, so that
they who use this book as it was intended by the author to be used need not
be distracted by them.
     The portrait of Rolle in the frontispiece is taken from a Cotton MS.
(Faust. B. VI. 2.) in the British Museum of a Northern poem called the
Desert of Religion. The authorship of this poem is unknown, although it has
usually been ascribed to Walter Hilton. It describes the trees which grow in
the wilderness, or desert, of religion. These symbolical trees are drawn on
the first side of each page; the reverse side is divided into two columns,
the one containing the poem itself, while on the other some saint of the
desert is depicted.
     On the first side of the page containing this picture of Richard the
Hermit there is a rude drawing of a tree, with six leaves on either side,
representing the twelve abuses that grow among religions. They are as
follows:

     A prelate negligent: A disciple inobediente.
     A youngman idill: Ane alde mane obstinate.
     A mownke cowrtioure: A mounke pletoure.
     Ane habite preciouse: Mete daintinouse.
     New tithandes in clostere: Strivynge in pe chapitour.
     Dissolucioun in pe qwere: Irreverence aboute pe auter.

     In the picture the hermit is represented seated on the grass in a white
habit, with the sacred monogram in gold on his breast, and holding a book in
his left hand. On either side is a stiffly drawn tree. Above, resting on
clouds, are three angels bearing a scroll with the words: Sanctus, sanctus,
sanctus; Dominus Deus Sabaoth; pleni sunt celi et terra gloria tua. Round
the picture the following verse is written:

          A solitari here: hermite life i lede,
For ihesu loue so dere: all flescli lufe i flede;
Pat gaslt comforthe clere; pat in my breast brede,
Might me a thowsande geere: in heuenly strengthe haue stedd

     There is no evidence that this picture is a genuine portrait. It
recalls some early portraits of Saint Francis. The hair is light in colour,
and cut evenly round the head, and the beard divided into two small points.
The saint's face is not emaciated, but of a clear complexion with a touch of
red upon the cheeks. Both the other manuscripts of The Desert of Religion
contain pictures of Richard Hermit, but since none are known to be
authentic, I have chosen this which seems the most interesting.


                             TREATMENT OF WORDS

     Personally I should have preferred to retain all the words which Misyn
employs, in the hope that some would find their way back into our too much
latinized English; but I feared to our weary the patience of the reader. The
following is a list of those which I have altered in the text, with their
nearest modern equivalents.

     addling to earning
     aseth satisfaction
     bolnes puffs up
     chinche miser
     fagiar, faged flatterer, flattered
     fliting reproof
     forthink repent
     foyd pledge
     groching grumbling
     groundly from the root
     inhiry inward or inner
     lat behave
     large generous
     leman beloved
     loving, lufing praise
     menged, melled mingled
     ugg abhor
     undirlowt overcome
     unneth scarcely
     sam together
     scrithe glide
     sparples scatter
     tityst soonest
     wode, wodeness mad, madness
     well to wither

     I have kept words which are of common occurrence in the Bible and
Prayer Book, and those still in use in Scotland. There are, however, some
words which remain in modern English but which have altered or restricted
their meaning. Such are very apt to mislead the modern reader. I have,
therefore, treated them freely, retaining them when in a modern sense or
when their meaning is quite apparent, but changing them if the meaning is at
all ambiguous. I append here a full list of these, to avoid the
multiplication of footnotes.
     Misyn often uses "withouten" for "without," for the sake of rhythm, and
in this I have followed him; nor have I taken upon myself to suppress his
constant repetition of "truly," "forsooth," "doubtless," "certain,"
"sickerly." Sometimes these translate the Latin vero, valde, certe, etc.,
but more often than not stand for an ordinary conjunction, such as enim,
namque, autem. O.E.D. against a word in the footnote signifies that the
actual word or phrase found in Misyn is quoted in the Oxford English
Dictionary.
     Where the meaning is obscure I have altered:

     against to towards
     avoid make void
     barely utterly
     beholding contemplating, or considering
     busily continually
     charge care, consider
     cherish allure
     deadly, deadliness mortal, mortality
     drawn to cleave (L. adhaerere)
     emonge in the meantime
     herefore hence
     honily honeyed, honey-sweet
     ill evil
     kind nature, essence
     lasts perseveres
     liking delight, pleasure
     lovely lovable
     longs languishes
     lust pleasure
     manner measure
     mind memory
     namely especially
     plainly entirely, altogether
     rots, unable to rot corrupts, incorruptible
     softly little by little, slowly
     soundly with sweet sound, songful
     stands continues
     swells inflates
     show declare
     taken received
     taught imbued
     thinking meditating, or meditation
     use enjoy, exercise
     wanting lacking
     wherefore whence
     withhold hold to, retain
     worship honour
     wretchedness wickedness


                                BIOGRAPHICAL

                              (i) RICHARD ROLLE

     It is interesting to remember that B. Richard H. of Hampole was among
the names included in the prospectus which Newman drew up for The Lives of
the English Saints. He tells us in a note to the Apologia, that "He has
included in the series a few eminent or holy persons, who, though not in the
Sacred Catalogue, are recommended to our religious memory by their fame,
learning, or the benefits they have conferred on posterity." Unfortunately
Rolle shared the fate of the hundred and eighty-three whose lives were never
written.
     Various short biographies of Richard Rolle have appeared recently
appended to editions of his works, the most complete of which are those of
Dr. Horstman and the Rev. H. R. Bramley. These are drawn from the Legenda or
Lections, given in the special Office, which the nuns of Hampole prepared in
the hope of his canonization. This did not take place because of the
unsettled state of the church, due to the rise of Lollardry, although, from
the note prefixed to it, the Office seems to have been used privately. The
Miracula were included in it, and were arranged to be read as Lections
during the octave of the Feast.
     Since the Legenda are the source of our knowledge of Rolle's life, and
are largely drawn from his own writings, and more especially from the
Incendium Amoris, it has seemed well to give them in full. I have translated
them from the collation of the three MSS. published by the Surtees Society.
They form the nine lections, to be read at Matins on the Feast Day of the
saint.
     The nuns, to whom Richard ministered and with whom he died, belonged to
a well-known Cistercian House at Hampole.[11] Nothing now remains of the
convent, but the Rev. R. H. Benson gives the following interesting
description of the place. "Hampole is still a tiny hamlet, about seven miles
distant from Doncaster. There has never been a parish church there, and in
Richard's time the spiritual needs of the people would no doubt be met by
the convent chapel. Of the nunnery there are now no certain traces, except
where a few mounds in the meadows by the stream below the hamlet mark its
foundations, and beyond a few of its stones built into the school house. The
few grey stone houses nestle together on the steep slope in a shallow nook
in the hill, round an open space where the old village spring still runs.
There is no trace of Richard's cell; but, in spit of the railway line in the
valley, the place has a curious detached air, lying, as it does, a complete
and self-contained whole, below the Doncaster road, fringed and shadowed by
trees, and bordered with low-lying meadows rich, in early summer, with
daisies and buttercups, and dotted with numerous may trees; the farthest
horizon from the hamlet is not more than a mile or two away."


                                RICHARD MISYN

     The only fact we are certain of in regard to Richard Misyn is that he
was the translator of the two treatises of Rolle which this volume contains.
In the explicit to Book II of The Fire of Love we are told that he was then
Prior of Lincoln and belonged to the Order of the Carmelites, `per fratrem
Ricardum Misyn, sacre theologie bachalaureum, tunc Priorem Lyncolniensem,
ordinis carmelitarum'; but in the previous explicit to Book I he is
mentioned only as a hermit belonging to the order, `per fratrem Ricardum
Misyn heremitam and ordinis carmelitarum Ac sacre theologie bachalaureum.'
     Rolle had died eighty-six years before, in 1349, but two of his
miracles are dated and are as late as 1381 and 1383, so there is little
reason to doubt that his name was very familiar to this other Richard, who
also styled himself a hermit, and who, as far as we can gather, was of the
same country.
     There are scanty records of a Richard Mysyn, a Carmelite and Suffragan,
who is thought to be identical with Bishop Mesin or Musin of Dromore; for at
that time to have a see in Ireland did not necessarily mean to reside there.
This Frater Ric. Mysyn, Suffragenus, ordinis Fratrum Carmelitarium, is put
first in the Register of the Corpus Christi Guild of York, under the date
1461-1462, and was admitted to the Guild by Dom. J. Burton, Rector of the
Church of S. Martin in the Mickelgate, York. Bishop Musun's name also occurs
in the legend round the famous cup preserved in the vestry of York Minister,
and known as the Scrope Indulgence Cup. This inscription runs: `Recharde
arche beschope Scrope grantes on to all tho that drinkis of this cope xl
dayis to pardun. Robert Gubsun. Beschope Musin grantes in same forme afore
saide xl dayis to pardun. Robert Strensall.'
     In the Carmelite records preserved in a manuscript in the British
Museum, the death is noted of a Richard Mesin, Bishop of Dromore, under the
year 1462, who was buried with the other Fathers of the order in their
monastery at York, i.e., in the same year as Richard Mysyn was admitted a
member of the Corpus Christi Guild. But at present it must remain a matter
merely of conjecture if these references relate to the Richard Misyn to whom
we owe our translation.
     It now only remains for me to thank all those who have helped me by
their kind advice and interest. I should like here to record my especial
gratitude to Miss Evelyn Underhill, who read a part of my MS., and to whose
kindly aid and suggestions I am much indebted; to Father Cuthbert, O.S.F.C.,
who helped me over many difficulties in the Latin text; to Father Congreve,
S.S.J.E., for his unfailing sympathy and help; and to Miss Corrie Prior who
read the proofs with me. I also owe a very especial debt of gratitude to
Professor H. J. C. Grierson, not only for his kindness in overlooking my
preface, but also because anything I may have learnt of the beauty and
inspiration of literature is due to his teaching. And there are many others
I am not allowed to name, but for whose assistance I am none the less
grateful.
     By a curious coincidence I find that I am writing the last words of my
preface on the eve of the day set apart in the English Martyrology for the
commemoration of Blessed Richard, Confessor and Eremite. May we not take it
for a sign that he is still present with us in spirit, and as desirous of
helping us today by his spiritual books and treatises, and--may we not
add--by his prayers, as when he ministered to the nuns at Hampole, or
repaired to his cell to sing psalms and hymns in honour of God.[12]


     [13]

 A TRANSLATION OF THE LEGENDA IN THE OFFICE PREPARED FOR THE BLESSED HERMIT
                                  RICHARD

]

The office of Saint Richard, hermit, after he shall be canonized by the
Church, because in the meantime it is not allowed to sing the canonical
hours for him in public, nor to solemnize his feast. Nevertheless, having
evidence of the extreme sanctity of his life, we may venerate him and in our
private devotions seeks his intercessions, and commend ourselves to his
prayers.


                                 Lection I.

     The saint of God, the hermit Richard, was born in the village of
Thornton, near Pickering, in the diocese of York, and in due time, by the
efforts of his parents, he was sent to be educated. When he was of adult age
Master Thomas Neville, at one time Archdeacon of Durham, honourable
maintained him in the University of Oxford, where he made great progress in
study. He desired rather to be more fully and perfectly instructed in the
theological doctrine of Holy Scripture than in physics or the study of
secular knowledge. At length, in his nineteenth year, considering that the
time of mortal life is uncertain and its end greatly to be dreaded
(especially by those who either give themselves to fleshly lusts or only
labour that they may acquire riches, and who, for these things, devote
themselves to guile and deceit, yet they deceive themselves most of all), by
God's inspiration he took thought betimes for himself, being mindful of his
latter end, lest he should be caught in the snares of sinners.
     Hence, after he had returned from Oxford to his father's house, he said
one day to his sister, who loved him with tender affection: `My beloved
sister, thou hast two tunics which I greatly covert, one white and the other
grey. Therefore I ask thee if thou wilt kindly give them to me, and bring
them me tomorrow to the wood near by, together with my father's rain hood.'
She agreed willingly, and the next day, according to her promise, carried
them to the said wood, being quite ignorant of what was in her brother's
mind. And when he had received them he straightway cut off the sleeves from
the grey tunic and the buttons from the white, and as best he could he
fitted the sleeves to the white tunic, so that they might in some manner be
suited to his purpose. Then he took off his own clothes with which he was
clad and put on his sister's white tunic next his skin, but the grey, with
the sleeves cut out, he put on over it, and put his arms through the holes
which had been cut; and he covered his head with the rain hood aforesaid, so
that thus in some measure, as far as was then in his power, he might present
a certain likeness to a hermit. But when his sister saw this she was
astounded and cried: `My brother is mad! My brother is mad!' Whereupon he
drove her from him with threats, and fled himself at once without delay,
lest he should be seized by his friends and acquaintances.

                                 LECTION II.

     After having thus put on the habit of a hermit and left his parents, he
went to a certain church on the vigil of the Assumption of the most Blessed
Virgin, Mother of God, and therein he set himself to pray, in the place
where the wife of a certain worthy squire, named John de Dalton, was wont to
pray. And when she entered the church to hear vespers, the servants of the
squire's house wished to remove him from their lady's place. But she from
humility would not permit them, lest he should be disturbed in his
devotions. But when vespers were over, the sons of the said squire, who were
scholars and had studied in the University of Oxford, noticed him as he rose
from prayer, and said that he was the son of William Rolle, whom they had
known at Oxford.
     Then, on the day of the aforesaid feast of the Assumption he again
entered the same church; and without bidding from any one, he put on a
surplice and sang matins and the office of mass with the others. And when
the gospel had been read in the mass, having first besought the blessing of
the priest, he went into the preacher's pulpit and gave the people a sermon
of wonderful edification, insomuch that the multitude which heard it was so
moved by his preaching that they could not refrain from tears; and they all
said that they had never before heard a sermon of such virtue and power. And
small wonder, since he was a special instrument of the Holy Spirit, and
spoke with the very breath of Him whose it is, as saith the apostle to the
Romans, to divide to every man severally as He will, and to make
intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.

                                LECTION III.

     Therefore, after mass, the aforesaid squire invited him to dinner, but
when he entered his manor he betook himself to a certain mean and old room;
for he would not enter the hall, but sought rather to fulfill the teaching
of the gospel, which says, `When thou art invited to a wedding, sit down in
the lowest room; that when he that bade thee cometh, he may say unto thee,
Friend, go up higher;' and this too was fulfilled in him. For when the
squire had sought for him diligently, and at last found him in the aforesaid
room, he set him above his own sons at the table. But he kept such perfect
silence at dinner that not a word proceeded from his mouth. And when he had
eaten enough he rose, before the table was removed, and prepared to depart.
But the squire who had invited him said that this was not customary, and so
prevailed upon him to sit down again. When the meal was over he again wished
to depart, but the squire, seeking to have some private talk with him,
detained him until all who were in the room had gone, when he asked him if
he were the son of William Rolle. Then he rather unwillingly and with
reluctance answered: `Perchance I an'; sine he feared that if he were
recognized the plan on which his mind was set would be hindered. For this
squire loved his father as a friend with warm affection. But Richard--newly
made a hermit without his father's knowledge and against his wish--had taken
this estate upon him because he loved God more than his earthly father.

                                 LECTION IV.

     And when the aforesaid squire had examined him in private, and
convinced himself by perfect evidence of the sanctity of his purpose, he, at
his own expense, clad him according to his wish, with clothing suitable for
a hermit; and kept him for a long time in his own house, giving him a place
for his solitary abode and providing him with food and all the necessities
of life. Then he began with all diligence, by day and night, to seek how to
perfect his life, and to take every opportunity he could to advance in
contemplative life and to be fervent in divine love. and to what excellent
perfection he at length attained in this art of fervent love for God he
himself records, not for boastfulness nor to seek vainglory, but rather
after the example of the glorious and humble apostle Paul, who, narrating
his rapture to the third heaven, where he heard secrets which are not lawful
for a man to utter, also avows the greatness of the revelations made to him
by God, and openly exalts his own labours above the labours of all the other
apostles. All which things he wrote in his epistles for the profit and
edification of others, and left them for others to read. So too this holy
hermit, Richard, in chapter one of his first book of The Fire of Love, tells
to what high and sweet delights he attained by contemplation, so that others
may obtain hope of advancing likewise in acts of contemplation and of love
for God, if only watchfully, constantly, and perseveringly they persist in
those works which are ordained for the attainment of this most desirable
state of perfection, and hate and cut off as poison all impediments to
contemplation.

                                 LECTION V.

     For in the aforesaid book he thus speaks: `I marvelled more than I can
say when I first felt my heart grow warm and burn, truly, not in imagination
but as it were with sensible fire. I was indeed amazed at that flame which
burst forth within me; and at this unwonted comfort--because of my
inexperience of this abundance--I have often felt my breast to see if
perchance this heat was due to some outward cause. But when I knew that this
fire of love had blazed forth only from within, and was not of the flesh but
a gift of my Maker, I was full of joy and dissolved in a desire for yet
greater love; and chiefly because of the inflowing of this most sweet
delight and internal sweetness which, with this spiritual burning, bedewed
my mind to the core. For I had not thought before that such sweet heat and
comfort might come to pass in this exile.
     See then by these words how far he had advanced in attaining the most
sweet love of God; but, because there are many steps preparatory to the
kindling of this love--as, for example, those things which diminish and
remove the loves opposed to it--therefore this saint wore down the lusts of
the flesh; to the love of which many are borne off by a mad and bestial
impulse. He spurned the world too with its riches, being content with only
the bare necessaries of life, that he might more freely enjoy the delights
of true love. For these reasons, therefore, he mortified his flesh with many
fasts, with frequent vigils, and repeated sobs and sighings, quitting all
soft bedding, and having a hard bench for a bed, and for a house a small
cell; fixing his mind always on heaven, and desiring to depart and be with
Christ, his most sweet Beloved.

                                 LECTION VI.

     Yet wonderful and beyond measure useful was the work of this saintly
man in holy exhortations, whereby he converted many to God, and in his sweet
writings, both treatises and little books composed for the edification of
his neighbours, which all sound like sweetest music in the hearts of the
devout. And amongst other things it seems worthy of great wonder that once,
when he was seated in his cell (one day, after dinner) the lady of the house
came to him, and many other persons with her, and found him writing very
quickly. And they besought him to leave off writing and speak a word of
edification to them, which he immediately did, exhorting them most
eloquently to virtue and to renounce worldly vanities and stablish the love
of God in their hearts. Yet in no way on account of this did he cease from
writing for two hours without interruption, but continued to write as
quickly as before, which could in no wise have been possible unless the Holy
Spirit had at that time directed both his hand and tongue; especially as the
occupations were discrepant one from another, and the spoken words differed
utterly in meaning from those which he wrote. The saint also was sometimes
so absorbed in spirit while he prayed that once, when his clock with which
he was clad was taken from him, he did not feel it; and when, after
preaching and stitching it, they replaced it on him he did not notice it.


                                LECTION VII.

     But the more laboriously and effectively this blessed hermit, Richard,
studied to acquire perfect holiness of life, so much the more cunningly the
devil--the enemy of the human race--sought to entangle him by deceitful
snares. So, as appears from a writing in the saint's own hand found after
his death in a small volume of his works, the devil, in the form of a
certain woman, tried to subvert him with the cords of illicit desire. Thus
in the aforesaid book he says: `When I had perceived my especial vocation,
and laying aside my worldly dress had determined to serve God rather than
man, it befell that on a certain night in the beginning of my conversion
there appeared to me, while resting on my bed, a very beautiful young woman,
whom I had seen before and who loved me--in honourable love--not a little.
And when I looked on her and was marvelling why she had come to me in
solitude and at night, suddenly, without delay or speech, she placed herself
beside me. When I felt this, fearing lest she should entice me to evil, I
said I would arise and, with the sign of the cross, invoke the blessing of
the Holy Trinity upon us. But she held me so strongly that I could neither
speak nor move my hand. Whereup I perceived that not a woman, but the devil
in the form of a woman, was tempting me. So I turned me to God, and when I
had said in my mind: "O Jesu, how precious is Thy blood!" and made the sign
of the cross on my breast with my finger, which had now begun in some
measure to be capable of movement, behold, suddenly all disappeared, and I
gave thanks to God who had delivered me. From that time therefore I sought
to love Jesus, and the more I advanced in Hi love the sweeter and more
pleasant did the Name of Jesus savour to me; and even to this day it has not
left me. Therefore blessed by the Name of Jesus for ever and ever. Amen.

                                LECTION VIII.

     Also this holy hermit, Richard, out of the abundance of his charity
used to show himself very friendly to recluses and to those who were in need
of spiritual consolation, and who suffered disquiet and vexation in soul or
body through the malignant work of evil spirits. God granted him singular
grace in helping those who were troubled in that way. And thus it once
happened that when a certain lady was drawing nigh to death--in whose manor
Richard had a cell (but a long way off from the family), where he was wont
to live alone, and give himself to contemplation--a great multitude of
horrible demons came to the room where the lady lay. It was little wonder,
therefore, that when she saw them visibly she fell into great fear and
trembling. Her attendants sprinkled holy water in the room and made devout
prayers; nevertheless, the demons departed not, but still continued to vex
her greatly. At length, by the wise and discreet advice of her friends, the
blessed Richard was called to the room, so that, if possible, he might bring
the said lady the aid of comfort and peace. And when he had come to her
consolation, and had admonished her holily, and had urged her to place all
her hope in the superabundant mercy of God and in His overflowing grace, he
then set himself to pray God with a fervent heart that He would take from
her the fearsome sight of the demons. And the Lord heard him instantly, and
at the prayer of His beloved Richard was pleased to put all that terrible
troop to flight. Yet as they fled they left behind them astounding traces of
their passage; for all the bystanders saw that in that rush-strewn floor of
the room where the demons had passed the rushes seemed to be burned and
reduced to black ashes, and in these ashes there were marks impressed like
the hoof prints of oxen.
     But when the demons had lost the prey which they had sought in that
place, they tried to take vengeance on Richard, who had put them to flight.
Accordingly, they went forthwith to his cell and disturbed him so much that
for the time they made the place unfitted for his contemplation. But the
saint of God, being stedfast in his faith, fled repeatedly for refuge to the
sanctuary of prayer, and by his entreaties once more prevailed with the Lord
to put them to flight. And, to the comfort of the aforesaid lady's friends,
he told them that she was saved, and that after quitting this life she would
be a joint-hier in the kingdom of heaven.
     After this the saint of God, Richard, betook himself to other parts,
doubtless through the providence of God so that dwelling in many places he
might benefit many unto salvation, and sometimes also that he might escape
impediment to contemplation, as we read in the book of the Lives of the
Fathers that many of the most holy fathers in the desert used to do. For
frequent change of place does not always come from inconstancy; as in the
accusation of certain who are given to quick and perverse judgment of their
neighbours, but whose crooked interpretations and habits of detraction ought
not to make a sensible person neglect those things which he has found by
experience to be good and conducive to virtue. For in the canon and dec rees
of the Church many causes sometimes are assigned for which change of place
may be made; of which the first is when pressure of persecution makes a
place dangerous; secondly, when some local difficulties exist; and thirdly,
when the saints are harassed by the society of evil men.
     When, therefore, this holy man, for urgent and most practical reasons
had betaken himself to dwell in Richmondshire, it befell the Lady Margaret,
who had once been a recluse at Auderby in the diocese of York, on the very
day of the Lord's Supper was so overcome by a grave attack of illness that
for thirteen days continuously she was utterly deprived of the power of
speech. Moreover, it caused her such pains and prickings in her body that
she could not rest in any position. Now a certain goodman of that town,
knowing that the holy hermit Richard loved her with a perfect affection of
charity--since he was wont to instruct her in the art of loving God, and to
direct her, by his holy teaching, how to order her life--quickly hastened on
horseback to the hermit, who was then living twelve miles from the dwelling
of the recluse, and besought him to come to her with all speed and bring her
consolation in her great need. And when he came to the recluse he found her
unable to speak and troubled with very grievous pains. And as he sat by the
window of her dwelling and they were eating together, it befell at the end
of the meal that the recluse desired to sleep; and so, oppressed by sleep,
she drooped her head at the window where Richard, the saint of God,
reclined; and after she had slept thus for a short time, leaning slightly
upon Richard, suddenly a violent convulsion seized her in her sleep with
fearful vehemence, so that it seems as if she wished to break the window of
her house. And being still in this most terrible convulsion, she awoke from
sleep, and the power of speech being granted her, with great devotion she
burst forth with these words: `Gloria tibi Domine,' and blessed Richard
finished the verse which she had begun, saying: `Qui natus es de Virgine,'
with the rest which follows in the compline hymn. Then he said to her: `Now
thy speech is restored to thee, use it as a woman whose speech is for good.'
     A little while after, when she was again eating at the aforesaid
window, in exactly the same way as before, after dinner she fell asleep, and
leaning upon the saint aforesaid, the same convulsions returned, and she
became, as it were, mad, and was shaken by extraordinary and violent
movements. But when the holy Richard was trying to hold her with his hands,
lest she should rend herself or strive in any way to injure the house, she
suddenly slipped from them, and in her fall was shaken out of sleep and
thoroughly wakened. Then Richard said to her: `Truly I thought that even if
thou hadst been the devil I should still have held thee; nevertheless, I
give thee this word of comfort, that as long as I shall remain in this
mortal life thou shalt never again suffer the torment of this illness.'
     None the less, when the courses of several years had passed, the same
illness--except that she had her tongue free for speech--returned to her.
Therefore the recluse sent for the goodman aforesaid, and asked him to
hasten quickly on horseback to the house of the nuns at Hampole--which place
was far distant from her own dwelling--where the said Richard at that time
led a solitary life, and to see what had befallen him. For she doubted not
that he had passed from this world, because she knew that he was faithful to
his promise; and he had promised her that as long as he lived in the flesh
she should never again suffer such torment. So the said man came to Hampole,
and he learnt that the saint was dead to this world; and after diligently
inquiring the hour of his passing, he found that the aforesaid illness had
returned to the recluse shortly after the hour of Richard's departure. But
afterwards the recluse betook herself to Hampole where the holy body of the
said hermit was given burial; and never afterwards was she afflicted with
the suffering of this horrible illness.

                                 LECTION IX.

     But yet, lest it should lie hidden from men--especially from those who
by devout and diligent study are instant towards the attainment of the
perfect life--how and by what means that blessed zealot of God, the hermit
Richard, reached the stage of perfect love and charity, as far as is allowed
in mortal life, so that all other love became mean and worthless for him and
begat a dreadful horror: be it known, therefore, that he himself, in his
first book concerning the Fire of Love, chapter thirteen, speaks thus: `In
process of time,' he says, `great increase of spiritual joys was given me.
For there passed three years--all but three or four months--from the
beginning of the change of my life and mind to the opening of the heavenly
door, so that, with unveiled face, through the eyes of the heart, the soul
might contemplate the heavenly beings, and see by what way to seek her
Beloved and pant after Him. Then, the door remaining open, nearly a year
passed before the heat of eternal love was verily felt in my heart. I was
sitting, forsooth, in a certain chapel, and, while I was finding great
delight in the sweetness of prayer or meditation, suddenly I felt within me
an unwonted and pleasant heat. And though at first I wavered, doubting for a
long time whence it might be, I became convinced that it was not from the
creature but from the Creator, because I found it grow more warm and
pleasant. But when half a year, three months and some weeks had passed
by--during which that warmth of surpassing sweetness continued with
me--there was borne in on my perception a heavenly spiritual sound, which
pertains to the song of everlasting praise and the sweetness of the
invisible melody. Invisible I call it because it can be neither known nor
heard except by him to whom it is vouchsafed; and he must first be purified
and separated from the world. For while I was sitting in the same chapel,
and chanting psalms at night before supper, as I could, I heard as it were
the tinkling music of stringed instruments, or rather of singers, over my
head. And while my whole heart and all my desires were engrossed in prayer
and heavenly things, suddenly, I know not how, I felt within a symphony of
song, and I overheard a most delightful heavenly harmony, which remained in
my mind. For straightway, while I meditated, my thought was turned into
melody of song, and for meditation I, as it were, sang songs. And that music
voiced itself even in my prayers and psalmody; and by reason of the interior
sweetness which was outpoured upon me, I was impelled to sing what before I
had only said. Not publicly, forsooth, for I did it only before God the
Creator. Those who saw me knew it not, lest if they had known they might
have honoured me above measure; and thus I might have lost part of that most
fair flower, and might have fallen into desolation.
     Meanwhile wonder seized me that I had been chosen for such great joy
while I was in exile, because God had then given me gifts which I knew not
to ask, nor thought that even the most holy could receive such in this life.
Therefore I trow that these are not given for merit, but freely, to
whomsoever Christ will. Nevertheless I think no man shall receive them,
unless he especially love the Name of Jesus and honour it so greatly that he
never lets It from his mind except in sleep. He to whom it is given to do
this may, I think, attain that also.
     Whence, from the beginning of my conversion even to the highest degree
of the love of Christ to which, by the gift of God, I was able to reach--and
in which state I proclaimed the praise of God with joyous songs--I remained
for four years and about three months. For this state, when once the
previous states are conformed to it, remains unto the end; nay, it will be
more perfect after death, because here the joy of love and charity begins
and in the heavenly kingdom shall receive its glorious consummation.'

     The following prayers are from the Mass for the Saint.

                                   SECRET

     O Lord, we beseech thee that these our oblations may, through the holy
intercession of the blessed hermit, Richard, be accepted by Thee; that by
their virtue we may be protected from all dangers, and may be strengthened
in the love of Thy Name ever more and more. Through our Lord.

                                POSTCOMMUNION

     We beseech Thee, Almighty God, that by the prayers of the blessed
hermit, Richard, we, Thy servants, refreshed by the sacrifice of the Body
and Blood of Thy Son Jesu Christ, may ever receive that most precious food
to our salvation; and so be inwardly nourished by the most sweet charity and
peace which that sacrifice represents. Through the same our Lord.
     HERE BEGIN THE MIRACLES OF THE BLESSED HERMIT RICHARD.
     To be read during the Octave of the Feast
     (The following extracts are from the Sunday Lesson.)

                                  LECTiON I

     But after the passing of this saint, Richard, so dearly beloved by God,
God did not desist from showing forth to men his sanctity and glory by
wonderful miracles. For example, in a town near to the dwelling of the nuns
of Hampole there was a certain householder called Roger, who on the night of
the Feast of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, Mother of God, and on the
two following nights, in his dreams saw the blessed hermit Richard come to
him, and he conversed with him about many things. Afterwards, for six nights
together, he appeared to him when he was wide awake, and taught him plainly
about many secret things, and inflamed him with the love of God and with a
spirit of holy devotion. Therefore he made up his mind that he would at once
honour the saint with grateful acts of reverence; and he believed that he
could please him especially by bringing stones, with his own labour and that
of his beasts, to build his tomb in the church of the nuns of Hampole, where
now his body is buried.

                                 LECTION II

     One day, therefore, while he was occupied with the aforesaid work of
piety, and had got ready twelve oxen for drawing, it happened that when he
had reached the gate of the churchyard at Hampole carrying great stones, his
poor beasts by an unhappy accident turned aside from the path, and the cart
collided with the side-post of the gate and cast the said stones with great
force upon Roger himself. Yet he was in no wise hurt by this, nor felt any
shaking or pain of body; and though his foot was very tightly jammed by the
stones, he was able to get it out without injury to foot or leg. And,
indeed, that this miracle should not be forgotten, one of those stones was
set up at the gate of the churchyard, so that those coming that way might
see it; and another is placed on the tomb of the saint.
     Thus, as long as he lived, this saintly man was wholly on fire with
divine love, seeking nothing except that he might please Jesus Christ, his
most sweet Beloved; and any who would offer him faithful service, and by
devout prayers make him his mediator and intercessor with the same Jesus
Christ, has a most powerful argument from this history. And if he be not in
himself an obstacle, he will obtain his wholesome purpose.
      . . . . . . .

                                 LECTION IV

     A certain woman called Joan being vexed with demons lost the use of
speech, and her bodily strength was so reduced and exhausted that every one
that saw her thought she must die. But one day the blessed Virgin Mary,
Mother of God, appeared to her in most beautiful white garments, drawing
near to her and leading the blessed hermit Richard by the hand. And he,
seeing the demons cruelly vexing the woman, placed himself between them and
her and made them depart. Then the blessed Richard put a ring on the woman's
finger as a token of the miracle and his saving help. When he had done this,
at once the woman ceased to feel the vexation of the demons; and recovered
the use of her speech and was healed of all her infirmities.

                        ALL THE MIRACLES OF RICHARD:

     Preserved Roger from accident while engaged in building the saint's
tomb.
     John: wounded by an enemy, is raised from apparent death by prayer and
the placing of money on his body, as an offering to the saint.
     Joan: cured by intervention of B.V.M. and the saint, who places a ring
on her finger.
     Woman: the saint appears to a paralyzed woman and restores her, bidding
her tell her neighbours.
     Thomas: bedridden: hearing in the night a voice bidding him to send a
candle of 1 1/2 lbs. to be burnt before the image of the B.V.M. at Hampole,
Thomas does so by his wife and family; and being alone in the house the
saint appears to him and, asking where the pain is, touches the spot and
heals him.
     Son of Isabella: boy drowned by falling into a well. A passing pilgrim
tells them to visit the hermit's tomb at Hampole. They do so, and pay a
denarius at the tomb and the child is restored to life.
     Hugh: falls into a well; is revived by his mother's vow to offer a
candle of the length of her dead son at the saint's tomb.
     William: bitten by a snake and thought to be dead; but restored by a
vow to make a pilgrimage to the saint's tomb. This miracle is confirmed on
oath.
     John: Crippled in arms and legs: restored by promise of yearly
pilgrimage to the saint's tomb.
     Isabella: deaf for seven years: cured by praying at the saint's tomb.
     Beatrice: dumb for six days: cured by praying at the tomb.
     Julia: demoniac and dumb for twelve days: falls asleep at the saint's
tomb, and Richard and the B.V.M. appear in a vision and tell her to ask the
priest to whom she will confess her sins, and she will be healed in mind and
body. She narrates that the brightness of the vision nearly blinded her.
     John: deaf for ten years; cured by praying at the saint's tomb.
     Woman: also deaf; cured at the saint's tomb.
     Alice: dumb from S. Katherine's Day to Easter: cured by praying at the
saint's tomb.
     John: insane: led to the tomb by his friends and there cured.
     Agnes: insane for three months. Her friends offer to wax candle,
measured to her height, at the saint's tomb, and she is immediately restored
to her senses.
     Isabella: blind of one eye for twenty years: makes a pilgrimage to the
tomb and is cured.
     Agnes: deaf for three years: restored at the tomb.
     Robert: totally blind for three years: hears a voice bidding him go to
the hermit's tomb, and, obeying, is cured.
     Boy of 5: choked by an apple for three days and thought to be dead:
revived by a denarius placed on his head as an offering to the saint.
     Boy of 4: bad ulcer in the child's mouth prevented his feeding. By wise
counsel a denarius is laid upon his head, and the ulcer vanishes and the
child can suck.
     Joan: fell into a mill pool: rescued after an hour, and revived by
prayer and being measured for a candle.
     Woman: deaf for two years: makes a pilgrimage to the saint's tomb and
is cured on the spot.
     John: deaf for a long time: is cured by the merits and prayers of the
saint.
     Woman: her child is still-born and she is thought to be dead: restored
by being measured for a candle to the saint.
     Isabella: the child falls asleep upon a heap of straw and is smothered
by it. When found is thought to be dead, but restored to life on being
measured for a candle.


 THE FIRE OF LOVE OR MELODY OF LOVE, AS TRANSLATED BY RICHARD MISYN IN 1435
 A.D. FROM THE `INCENDIUM AMORIS' BY RICHARD ROLLEE OF HAMPOLE: AND NOW DONE
                             INTO MODERN ENGLISH




                          PROLOGUE OF RICHARD MISYN

     For the honour of our Lord Jesu Christ, at the asking of thy desire,
Sister Margaret, coveting[14] to make satisfaction, and for increase also of
ghostly comfort, to thee and more, that understand not curiosity[15] of
Latin, I, among lettered men simplest and in living unthriftiest, have taken
this work to translate from Latin into English for the edification of many
souls. And since it is so that all good pleasure and ghostly life of man's
soul stands in perfect love, therefore this holy man, Richard Hampole, has
named his book Incendium Amoris, that is to say "The Fire of Love." The
which book I think to change neither in meaning nor substance, but truly to
write it in good exposition after mine understanding.
     Therefore I pray all readers hereof, if your discretion find aught
thankworthy, to God give the praise thereof and to this holy man; and if any
thing be missaid, to my ignorance ascribe it. Nevertheless I make
pretestation to reform, with intent to write or say nothing against the
faith or determination of holy kirk, God being witness.
     Furthermore, sister, have in mind the mortality of this life, and
always in thy hand some holy lesson keep. For if thou keepest holiness thou
shalt not love fleshly sins; and holiness, wherein it stands, I said before,
in perfect love.
     But perfect love, what may that be? Certain, when thy God, as thou
oughtest, for Himself thou lovest; thy friend in God; and thine enemy thou
lovest for God. For neither God without thy neighbour, nor they neighbour
without God, is truly loved. Perfect love therefore stands in love of God
and of thy neighbour; and love of God in keeping of His commandments.
     Keep, therefore, His commandments, and when thou enterest thy prayers
or contemplation, all worldly things altogether forsake; forget the care of
all outward things, and to God only take heed. If thou find any doubts call
to thee sad[16] counsel, for dread thou arrest; especially in such things as
touch the twelve articles of thy faith; also of the Holy Trinity, and divers
others as in this holy book following is wisely written to our learning.


                          PROLOGUE OF RICHARD ROLLE

     More have I marvelled than I showed when, forsooth, I first felt my
heart wax warm, truly, and not in imagination, but as if it were burned with
sensible fire. I was forsooth amazed as the burning in my soul burst up, and
of an unwont solace; ofttimes, because of my ignorance of such healthful
abundance, I have groped my breast seeking whether this burning were from
any bodily cause outwardly. But when I knew that it was only kindled
inwardly from a ghostly cause, and that this burning was nought of fleshly
love or concupiscence, in this I conceived it was the gift of my Maker.
Gladly therefore I am molten into the desire of greater delight and ghostly
sweetness; the which, with that ghostly flame, has pithily[17] comforted my
mind.
     First truly before this comfortable heat, and sweetest in all devotion,
was shed in me, I plainly trowed such heat could happen to no man in this
exile: for truly so it enflames the soul as if the element of fire were
burning there. Nevertheless, as some say, there are some, burning in the
love of Christ, because they see them despising this world, and with
busyness given only to the service of God. But as it were if thy finger were
put into the fire it should be clad with sensible burning, so, as
beforesaid, the soul set afire with love, truly feels most very heat; but
sometimes more and more intense, and sometimes less, as the frailty of the
flesh suffers.
     O who is there in mortal body that all this life may suffer this great
heat in its high degree, `or may bear for long its continual existence?
Truly it behoves him fail for sweetness and greatness of desire after so
high an outward love; and no marvel though many, passing out of this world,
full greedily would catch it and yearn after it with full hot desire; so
that unto this honey-sweet flame with wonderful gifts of mind he might yield
his soul, and so be taken, and forthwith enter the companies of them that
sing praises to their Creator withouten end.
     But some things happen contrary to charity; for filth of the flesh
creeps up tempting restful minds; bodily need also and the frail affections
of man, imprinted with the anguish of this wretched exile, sometimes lessen
this heat, and the flame which under a figure I called fire, because it
burns and lightens, they hinger and heavy.[18] And yet truly they take not
fully away that which may not be taken away, for it has umbelapped[19] all
my heart. But this most happy heat, sometimes absent on account of such
things, appears again; and I, as it were abiding grievously cold, think
myself desolate until the time it come again, whiles I have not, as I was
wont, that feeling of ghostly fire which applies itself gladly to all parts
of the body and soul, and in the which they know themselves secure.
     And, moreover, sleep gainstands me as an enemy; for no time heavies me
to lose save that in which, constrained, I yield to sleeping. Waking truly I
am busy to warm my soul, thirled[20] as it were with cold, the which, when
settled in devotion, I know well is set on fire, and with full great desire
is lifted above all earthly things.
     Truly affluence of this everlasting love comes not to me in idleness,
nor might I feel this ghostly heat while I was weary bodily for travel, or
truly unmannerly[21] occupied with worldly mirth, or else given without
measure to disputation; but I have felt myself truly in such things wax
cold, until, putting aback all things in which I might outwardly be
occupied, I have striven to be only in the sight of my Saviour and to dwell
in full inward burning.
     Wherefore I offer this book to be seen: not to philosophers nor wise
men of this world, nor to great divines lapped in infinite questions, but
unto the boisterous[22] and untaught, more busy to learn to love God than to
know many things; for truly not disputing but working is to be known and
loved. For I trow these things here contained may not be understood of these
questionaries; in all science most high in wisdom but in the love of God
most low.
     Therefore to them I have not written, except, all things forgetting and
putting aback that are longing to this world, they love to be given only to
the desires of our Maker. First truly they must flee all earthly dignity,
and hate all pride of knowledge and vainglory, and at the last, conforming
themselves to highest poverty, meditating and praying, they be constantly
given to the love of God.
     Thus no marvel the fire within of unwrought charity shall appear to
them; and dressing their hearts to receive the heat with which all darkness
is consumed, it will lift them up into that most lovely and merry burning,
so that they shall pass temporal things and hold for themselves the seat of
endless rest. The more knowledge they have, truly the more they are able to
love rightly, if they be glad to be despised of others, and gladly despise
themselves.
     And since I here stir all manner of folk to love, and am busy to show
the hottest and supernatural desire of love, this book shall bear the name:
"Burning of Love."



                              THE FIRE OF LOVE

                                   BOOK I

                                  CHAPTER I

OF MAN'S TURNING TO GOD; AND WHAT HELPS AND WHAT LETS HIS TURNING.

     Be it known to all manner of people in this wretched dwelling place of
exile abiding, that no man may be imbued with love of endless life, nor be
anointed with heavenly sweetness, unless he truly be turned to God. It
behoves truly he be turned to Him, and from all earthly things be altogether
turned in mind, before he may be expert in the sweetness of God's love, even
in little things. Soothly by ordinate love is this turning done; so that he
loves that that is worthy to be loved, and loves not that that is not worthy
to be loved; and that he burn more in love of those things that are most
worthy, and less in them that are less worthy.
     Most is God for to be loved: mickle are heavenly things for to be
loved: little, or nought but for need, are earthly things to be loved.
Withouten doubt thus every man is turned to Christ whiles nought is desired
by him but only Christ.
     Truly turning from these goods that in this world deceive their lovers
and defend them nought, stands in want of fleshly desire, and hatred of all
wickedness; so that they savour not earthly things, nor desire to hold to
worldly things beyond their strait need. For they truly that heap riches and
know not for whom they gather, having their solace in them, are not worthy
to be sometimes gladdened in the mirth of heavenly love; although they seem
by devotion, not holy but simulated, to feel in their diseased something of
that felicity which is to come. For truly for their foul presumption they
have fallen from that sweetness with which God's lovers are softened and
made sweet because they have unmannerly loved worldly money. All love truly
that ends not in God is sinful and makes the heavers evil. Wherefore, loving
worldly excellence, they are set on fire with sinful love, and they are
further from heavenly heat than is the space betwixt the highest heaven and
the lowest place of the earth.
     They sicker are made like to that love because they are conformed to
wanton concupiscence; and holding to old manners of wickedness, they love
the vanity of this life before holy love. Wherefore they change the joy of
incorruptible clearness to wantoned beauty that shall not last. This soothly
would they not do unless they were blinded with the fire of froward love,
the which wastes the burgeoning of virtue and nourishes the plants of all
vice. Forsooth many are not set on womanly beauty nor like lechery,
wherefore they trust themselves saved, as it were with sickerness; and
because of chastity only, which they bear outwardly, they ween they surpass
all others as saints. But wickedly they thus suppose and all in vain, when
covetousness, the root of sins, is not drawn out. And truly, as it is
written, nothing is worse than to love money. For whiles the love of
temporal things occupies the heart of any man, it altogether suffers him to
have no devotion. Truly the love of God and of this world may never be
together in one soul, but whichever love is stronger puts out the other that
thus it may openly be known who is this world's lover and who Christ's
follower. (For the heat of love breaks out in works which are seen.)
Certainly as Christ's lovers behave themselves towards the world, and the
flesh, so lovers of the world behave themselves towards God and their own
souls.
     They truly that are chosen, eat and drink but ever with all their mind
to God they take entent, and in all earthly things not lust, but need they
only seek. Of earthly things they speak with anguish and nought but
passingly, nor in them making tarrying; and then in mind they are yet with
God; and the remainder of time they yield to God's service; not standing in
idleness nor running to plays nor wonders--that is the token of the
rejected--but rather behaving themselves honestly, they irk not either to
speak or do or think those things that long to God.
     The rejected truly alway behave themselves idly towards God; they hear
God's word with hardness, they pray without affection, they think of God
without sweetness. They enter the kirk and fill the walls; they knock their
breast and yield sighs, but plainly but feigned, for why they come to the
eyes of men, not to the ears of God. For when they are in kirk in body, in
mind they are distracted to worldly goods, which they have or else desire to
have, wherefore their heart is far from God. They eat and drink not to their
need but to their lust, fur but in lecherous food find they savour or
sweetness. They give moreover bread to the poor, clothing peradventure to
the cold; but whiles their alms is done in deadly sin, or for vainglory, or
sickerly of things untruly gotten, no marvel if they please not our
Gainbuyer,[23] but unto vengeance provoke our Judge.
     Wherefore, as the chosen, whiles they take heed to the world or the
flesh, alway have their mind busily to God; so the rejected, whiles they
seem to do God service are busy with the world, and to those things that
pertain to the world and the flesh they are greatly ravished in busyness of
heart. And as the chosen displease God nought when they relieve their need,
so the rejected please not God in the good deeds they are seen to do; for
their full few good deeds are mingled with many ill deeds.
     The fiend has many also which we trow be good. He has forsooth alms
givers, the chaste, and meek--that is to say sinners calling themselves
so--clad with hair and punished by penance. Truly under weening of health
ofttimes deadly wounds are hid.
     The fiend has also not a few hasty to work and busy to preach; but
doubtless all those want to him that are warmed in charity (and who are
always eager to love God) and slow to all vanity. The wicked truly are alway
greedy after vile delectations, and as dead unto ghostly exercises; or else
cast down with full great feebleness: whose love is ever inordinate; for
they love temporal goods more than eternal, and their bodies more than their
souls.



                                 CHAPTER II

THAT NO MAN MAY SUDDENLY COME TO HIGH DEVOTION, NOR BE WET WITH THE
SWEETNESS OF CONTEMPLATION

     Truly it is shown to lovers that, in the first years of their turning,
no man may attain to high devotion, nor be fully moistened with sweetness of
contemplation. Scarcely truly and seldom, and as it were in the twinkling of
an eye, are they granted to feel somewhat of heavenly things; and profiting
little by little at the last they are made strong in spirit. Then afterward
they have received sadness of manners, and so far as this present
changeableness suffers, have attained to stability of mind; for with great
travails is some perfection gotten, that they may feel some joy in godly
love.
     Nevertheless it is not seen that all, though they be great in virtue,
anon feel verily the actual warmth of uncreate or unwrought charity, nor
melting in the unmeasured flame of love, may sing within themselves the song
of God's praise. This mystery from many truly is hidden, and to a most
special few it is shown; for the higher this degree is, the fewer finders
has it in this world.
     No marvel that we seldom find any saint, nor one so perfect in this
life and rapt with so high love, that in contemplation he might be lift up
to sweetness of melody; that is to say, that he might receive into himself
the heavenly sound shed into him, and as it were with melody he should yield
it again in praise to God, making many notes in ghostly praising; and that
he might feel in himself the heat of God's love. And nevertheless it is
marvellous that any contemplative man should be trowed otherwise; for the
psalmist, transformed into the person of contemplative man, says: `Transibo
in domum Dei in voce exultationis et confessionis,' that is to say: "I shall
go into God's house in the voice of gladness and shrift; which praise is the
sound of him that feasts, that is to say, of him that is glad with heavenly
sweetness.
     The perfect, forsooth, that are taken up into this surpassing plenty of
endless friendship, and imbued with sweetness that shall not waste, live
anew in the clear chalice of full sweet charity; and in the holy counsel of
mirth they draw into their souls happy heat, by the which greatly gladdened,
they have greater comfort of ghostly lectuary than may be trowed. This
refreshment is the height of endless heritage in them who truly love, and to
whom, in this exile forsooth, diseases happen and in the meanwhile it shall
not appear unprofitable to them that they be punished for some years, the
which shall be lift up to sit, without parting, in heavenly seats. Of all
flesh also are they chosen to be most dear in the sight of our Maker, and to
be clearly crowned. As the seraphim in high heaven truly are they burnt, who
sit in solitude of body, yet their minds walk among the angels to Christ
their Beloved, whom they have desired: the which also most sweetly have sung
this prayer of endless love, in Jesu joying.
     O honey sweet heat, than all delight sweeter, than all riches more
delectable.
     O my God! O my Love! into me glide; with Thy charity thirled; with Thy
beauty wounded:
     Slide down and comfort me, heavy; give medicine to me, wretched; show
Thyself to Thy lover.
     Behold in Thee is all my desire, and all my heart seeks.
     After Thee my heart desires; after Thee my flesh thirsts.
     And Thou openest not to me but turnest Thy Face. \
     Thou sparrest Thy door, and hidest Thyself; and at the pains of the
innocent Thou laughest.
     In the meantime nevertheless Thou ravishest Thy lovers from all earthly
things; above all desire of worldly things Thou takest them, and makest them
takers of Thy love and full great workers in loving. Wherefore in ghostly
song, of burning up bursting, to Thee they offer praises, and with sweetness
they feel the dart of love.
     Hail therefore O lovely Everlasting Love, that raisest us from these
low things and presentest us with so frequent ravishings to the sight of
God's Majesty. Come into me, my Beloved! All that I had I gave for Thee, and
that I should have, for Thee I have forsaken, that Thou in my soul mightest
have a mansion for to comfort it. Never forsake Thou him that Thou feelest
so sweetly glow with desire for Thee; so that with most burning desire I
desire, to be ever within Thy halsing.[24] So grant me grace to love Thee,
and in Thee to rest, that in Thy kingdom I may be worthy for to see Thee
withouten end.



                                 CHAPTER III


THAT ILK[25] MAN CHOSEN OF GOD HAS HIS STATE ORDAINED

     Contemplative men that are highly burnt with the love of everlasting
life are forsooth highest in this most lovely burning, and most beloved of
the Lover Everlasting; so that they seldom or never go out to worldly
business, nor yet receive the dignity of prelacy nor honours; but rather,
certainly, withholding themselves within themselves, with joy and in song of
praise they alway in mind ascend to Christ. Truly in this the kirk follows
the hierarchy of angels, in the which the highest angels are not sent
outward, being evermore near to God. They that are high in Christ's love and
contemplation are so busy in the sight of God alone, that they take not
sovereignty among men; but it is kept for others, that are more occupied
with the business of man, and enjoy less of inward delight.
     Therefore irk one chosen has his degree ordained before of God; so that
whiles this one is chosen to prelacy, this other is busy to take heed to God
within, and God within uplifts him thereto, so that he leaves all outward
occupations. Soothly such are most holy and yet of men are held lowest,
because they only dwell in mind for they seldom go outward to do miracles.
     Others truly both submit themselves to God's service and discreetly
govern their subjects.
     Others also that live in fleshly penance, unseen in the sight of men,
are ofttimes in their lives granted or shown tokens; or else after their
death, although they be full sharply punished some while in purgatory.
     Truly all saints have not done miracles, either in their life or after
their death; nor all damned have lacked miracles, either in their life or
after their death. The doom truly of God is privy, lest, by seen tokens of
sinners, evil should be made worse, and they that are good, despising those
things that may be had in common by good and ill, should be more quick in
the love of their Maker.
     Some forsooth have wrought good deeds, but not God's but man's honour
have they sought; and this perishes after their death, only having what they
have desired in this world. Truly ofttimes it happens that the meanly good
and less perfect, have done miracles; also full many of those high in
devotion are placed in heavenly seats, and altogether rest before the
Majesty of God, having their meed among the high companies of heaven. For
the feast of Saint Michael is specially honoured, and yet he is not trowed
of the highest order of angels.
     Some also, turned to God and doing penance, and forsaking worldly
errands, joy in mind if, after death, their name may be honoured among the
living; to the which Christ's true servant should take no heed, as
peradventure he may lost all that he works for.
     Those things truly that are common to good and ill, are not to be
desired by saints; but charity and ghostly virtues should be fastened
without ceasing in their hearts; the which not only keep the soul from filth
of sins, but in the doom shall raise the body also to endless memory.
     All things that are done here soon cease and flee. There truly, either
in honour or confession, they shall last withouten end. The active therefore
and prelates, eminent in cunning and virtue, should set contemplative men
before themselves, and hold them their betters before God; not trowing
themselves worthy to be given to contemplation, unless peradventure God's
grace to that should inspire them.



                                 CHAPTER IV


THE DIFFERENCE BETWIXT GOD'S LOVERS AND THE WORLD'S: AND THEIR MEEDS

     The soul of man feels nothing of the burning of endless love the which
has not first perfectly forsaken all worldly vanity, studying busily to be
given to heavenly things, and to desire God's love without ceasing, and
mannerly to love all creatures to be loved. Truly if all things that we
love, we love for God, rather God in them, than them we love; and so not in
them but in God we delight, whom to enjoy withouten end we shall be glad.
     The wicked truly love this world, setting therein the lust of their
delectation; and those things only that belong to this world's joy,
withouten ceasing they covet. And how may a man do more fondly, more
wretchedly, or damnably than fully to love, for themselves only, transitory
and failing things.
     The Trinite God truly is to be loved for Himself only. Put we therefore
our mind fully into it, and be we busy to bear all our thoughts unto that
end, that withouten end we may be gladdened by it; so that ourselves and all
things that we love, we love for that alone.
     But that sinner lies that says he loves God and yet dreads not to serve
sin. Ilk man truly that loves God is free, nor binds himself to bondage of
sin, but steadfastly continues in the service of righteousness. Whiles we
love earthly things or comfort for themselves, withouten doubt we love not
God, serving Him not forsooth; but if we be delighted in creatures, so that
we set our Maker behind, and care not to follow those things that are
eternal, we shall be deemed as hating God. Full froward truly is it to the
soul, and the token of damnation and of endless death, when a man gives
himself wholly unto this world; and in divers desires and errors of the
flesh, he goes as him lists. Thus no marvel a wretch is destroyed; and,
while he seems to flow in pleasure, he hies to the aylasting penance of
hell.
     Therefore no man should dare presume, nor rise himself up by pride when
he is despised to his reproach, or when insults are cast him; nor defend
himself, nor for ill words give ill again; but all things, praise as well as
reproof, bear evenly. Truly, doing in this wise, we shall withouten end with
Christ be glad, if in this life we love Him without ceasing. Whose love,
rooted in our hearts and made sicker, makes us like unto His likeness; and
other joy, that is to say godly, He puts into us; mirthing our minds wholly
with burning love. His love truly is fire, making our souls fiery and
purging them from all degrees of sin, making them light and burning; which
fire, burning in them that are chosen, ever makes them look up in mind, and
continually to hold to the desire for death.
     Wherefore, whiles we can sin, let us charge ourselves to flee this
world's prosperity, and to bear adversity gladly. Forsooth an evil mind
while it joys is lost, and while it seeks gladness in creatures it, as it
were with a flattering venom, kills the self; whose contagion let us be well
aware to eschew, beholding the ghostly food that is ordained in heaven for
burning lovers.
     And so, Christ granting, be we comforted by sweet songs of charity and
be we delighted in so sweet devotion; while the wicked sleep in horrible
darkness, and full of sins, go down to pains.
     Full great marvel it seems that mortal man may be taken up into such
high love for God that he feels nothing but heavenly solace in his most
privy substance; and so as, in the noise of an organ, he ascends on high to
contemplate high desire. That which is done by others to sorrow then turns
to joy, so that they seem unable to suffer pain in soul; also they can not
be troubled with the dread of death, nor in any way be moved from
restfulness to unease.
     Truly he who is stirred with busy love, and is continually with Jesu in
thought, full soon perceives his own faults, the which correcting,
henceforward he is ware of them; and so he brings righteousness busily to
birth, until he is led to God and may sit with heavenly citizens in
everlasting seats. Therefore he stands clear in conscience and is steadfast
in all good ways the which is never noyed with worldly heaviness nor
gladdened with vainglory.
     Truly those obstinate in unclean works know not the love of Christ, for
they are burned with fleshly likings; and they yield no devotion to God
because of the burden of riches by the which they are thrust to the earth.
They are not, forsooth, ordained to have the delights of paradise, but go on
in their frowardness unto their death; and therefore, worthily, their
heaviness shall not be lesseded, nor shall the sorrow of their damnation be
put aback; because they wilfully walk in lusts and sin, and have frowardly,
for false love, lost the love of the Endless Lover. Wherefore in perpetual
pains they shall plainly repent that they have sinned; and yet they shall
never be cleansed from sin, but be burned endlessly be continued fires
withouten any comforter.



                                  CHAPTER V

WHEREFORE IT IS BETTER TO TAKE ENTENT TO THE LOVE OF GOD THAN TO KNOWLEDGE
OR DISPUTATION

     In all things that we work or think be we more taking heed to the love
of God than to knowledge or disputation. Love truly delights the soul and
makes conscience sweet, drawing it from love of lusty things here beneath,
and from desire of man's own excellence. Knowledge without charity builds
not to endless health but puffs up to most wretched undoing.
     Be our souls therefore strong in the taking of hard labours for God;
and be they wise with heavenly, not worldly, savour. May they desire to be
lightened with endless wisdom, and to be inflamed by that fire with which
some are stirred to love and desire our Maker only, and mightily are made
strong to the despising of all transitory things. Not counting their
greatest solace in these things that abide not, for they here have no
dwelling, but without ceasing they seek the heavenly place not made with
hands, and cry: Mihi vivere Christus est, et mori lucrum. `Christ to me is
life, and great winning to die.'
     He forsooth truly loves God that consents to no wicked likings.
Certainly man is far from Christ's love in as mickle as he delights himself
in worldly things. Wherefore if thou love God thy work shows that; for he is
never proved to love God whiles he is made to consent to wicked desires.
     Therefore to all that are in this exile this I dare show: that all they
that will not love the Maker of all things shall be cast into endless
darkness; and there shall they that would not here be lightened with the
love of their Gainbuyer feel the burning withouten end of the fire of hell.
They shall be sundered from the company of singers, in charity with their
Maker; and busily shall they sorrow cast out from the mirth of those singing
in Jesu, wanting in the clearness and the joy of them that shall be crowned.
For liever had they tarry a little while in worldly softness than suffer
penance that their sins might be cleansed, and they might come full of piety
before the Defender of all good.
     Truly, in this vale of weeping, they have been delighted in the
slippery way and the broad; where is no place of gladness but of labour,
wherefore in torments withouten release they shall sorrow: when the poor,
which were arrayed with virtues, shall be born to everlasting peace and be
made glad in the delight of full truly seeing the Life-giving Godhead. And
in ghostly heat they have happily flourished, although they have taken no
solace in the worthy height of this world, nor have sown pride among foolish
wise men; but they have borne griefs from wicked men, and have excluded
temptations from the soul that they might be holden in peace at the throne
of the Trinity. And they have truly voided old unthriftiness of venomous
life, clearly and most gladly praising ghostly beauty; and plays of
softness, which youth accepts and unwise worldly men desire, they have deems
worthy reproof, thinking with continuance of the song full of charity
ascending to our Maker.
     For which thing the receivers of the joy of love, conceiving heat that
may not be consumed, join together in song of clear chorus; and in lovely
harmony and friendly mirth have they set a heavenly shadow against all heat
of lechery and filth. Wherefore in this burning of sweetest love they are
taken up to the beholding of their Beloved, and by means of this most happy
flame they are flourishing in virtue, and freely enjoy their Maker: and
their mind, changed, now passes into the melody that lasts. And from
henceforth their thoughts become song, and heaviness being cast out, the
hall of their soul is fulfilled with wonderful music, so that it has
entirely lost the former pricking and evermore abides whole in high
sweetness, full marvellously singing in heavenly sweet meditation.
     Furthermore when they go from this hardness and from the diseases that
happen here, then the time comes that they shall be taken, and withouten
doubt be born withouten sorrow to God, and have their seats among the
seraphim; for they are altogether set on fire with the most high fire of
love, burning within their souls. So sweetly and devoutly have they loved
God that whatsoever they have felt in themselves was ghostly heat, heavenly
song and godly sweetness. Herefore it is truly that they die without
heaviness, soothly passing with joy; and are lift up unto so great a degree
in endless worship, and are crowned in the contemplation of the great
plenteousness of their Maker, singing with clearest choirs; the which also
more burningly desire after that Godhead that rules all things.
     And forsooth though now they clearly behold the chere of truth, and are
moistened with the most delectable sweetness of the Godhead, yet no marvel
if after a little while they shall be made more marvellous: when the bodies
of the saints, that are at this time holden in earth, shall be raised from
their graves, and their souls shall be knitted to them in the last
examination. Then forsooth shall they take principality among the peoples,
and the unrighteous shall they deem to be damned; and they shall show that
the meanly good were blessed to come to Blissfulness. The general doom thus
done, soothly they shall be borne into everlasting song, and go up with
Christ to the height of truth, enjoying the Face of God in love withouten
end.
     By this it is shown that everlasting sweetness moistens their minds,
the which binds the bands of true charity, unable to be loosed. Wherefore
let us seek rather that the love of Christ burn within us than that we take
heed to unprofitable disputation. Whiles truly we take heed to unmannerly
seeking, we feel not the sweetness of the eternal savour. Wherefore many now
so mickle savour in the burning of knowledge and not of love, that plainly
they know not what love is, or of what savour; although the labour of all
their study ought to spread unto this end, that they might burn in the love
of God. Alas, for shame! An old wife is more expert in God's love, and less
in worldly pleasure, than the great divine, whose study is vain. For why,
for vanity he studies, that he may appear glorious and so be known, and may
get rents and dignities: the which is worthy to be held a fool, and not
wise.



                                 CHAPTER VI


CONCERNING HERETICS: AND FAITH IN THE TRINITY

     The plenteousness and the whole of holy truth shows itself to them that
seek it; and to the children of unity hidden mysteries are open. Wherefore,
soothly, springs the frowardness of heretics but from an untaught and
inordinate mind, which is blinded by desire of its own excellence? For truly
they cease not to resist God within themselves by vain desires; and it is
also by their earning that with open arguments they gainstand the truth
outwardly.
     When the Christian religion wills to cut away all that is contrary, and
fully accord in unity of love, the manner of heretics and the proud is to
get new opinions, and to make known questions, unwont and from the saying of
holy kirk; and so those thing that true Christian men hold holy they joy to
scatter with their vanities.
     Whose errors casting away we say: Truly the Son of God, even to the
Father, and without beginning, is evermore to be trowed and understood; for
except the Father had begotten Him without beginning, truly the full Godhead
should not have been in Him. Soothly if God had been at sometime the Father
when He had no Son, then no marvel He was less than afterwrd, when He had
gotten a Son; that shall no man of good mind say.
     Therefore God unchangeable begets God unchangeable; and whom He has
begotten from eternity He ceases not this day also to beget. For neither
might the substance of the Son be called at any time unbegotten, nor the
being of the Getter ever be conscious of Himself without any only begotten
Son of Himself. Truly even as the beginning of the Godhead may not be found
of reason or wit because it has not beginning, so the generation of the Son
with the eternal Godhead unchangingly abides.
     When truly the marvel and worship of God almighty shows itself clearly
in infinity, without beginning, to what end shall man's folly raise itself
in striving to make known to the ears of mortal men a sacrament unable to be
spoken? He truly knows God perfectly that feels Him incomprehensible and
unable to be known. Nothing, soothly, is perfectly known unless the cause
thereof, how and in what wise it is, be perfectly known. In this present
life we know in part and we understand in part; in the life to come, truly,
we shall know perfectly and fully, as is lawful or speedful to creatures.
Forsooth he that desires to know of our Everlasting Maker above that that is
profitable, without doubt falls fonder from perfect knowledge of Him.
     Thou askest what God is? I answer shortly to thee: such a one and so
great is He that none other is or ever may be of like kind or so mickle. If
thou wilt know properly to speak what God is, I say thou shalt never find an
answer to this question. I have not known; angels know not; archangels have
not heard. Wherefore how wouldest thou know what is unknown and also
unteachable? Truly God that is almighty may not teach thee what He Himself
is. For if thou knew what God is thou shouldest be as wise as God is: that
neither thou nor any other creature may be.
     Stand therefore in thy degree, and desire not high things. For if thou
desirest to know what God is, thou desirest to be God; the which becomes
thee not. Wot thou well God alone knows Himself, and may know. Truly it is
not of God's unpower that He may not teach thee Himself as He is in Himself,
but for His inestimable worthiness; for such a one as He is, none other may
be. Soothly if He might be truly known, then were He not incomprehensible.
It is enough for thee therefore to know that God is; and it were against
thee if thou would know what God is.
     Also it is to be praised to know God perfectly; that is to say, He
being unable to be fully conceived: knowing Him