Flax

Fossanova, 1274¹

In the gardens, companions hearken to your voice:
cause me to hear it: the science of God and the blessed.

After a long time, and with the admixture of many errors
my head is filled with dew, the slenderest knowledge

that may be gotten of the highest
things. I have compared thee, O my love.

What He is not is clearer to us than what He is.

As the sun is said to enter a house
as its rays reach the house,

he shall lie all night between my breasts.

All our knowledge originates from
this mortal life, by certain images—

Behold, he stands behind our wall, he looks
forth at the windows, showing himself through
the lattice.

A stone is not in the soul, but its image.
In the clefts of the rock let me see your face.

Shadows, pictures, and dreams are said
to be false, yet I sat down under his shadow

and his fruit was sweet to my taste.
The bread foreshadowed the flesh: wine, blood

His head is black as a raven. His eyes the eyes of doves
Oil means grace; salt, knowledge; incense, prayer.

Honey and milk are under your tongue. They are God Himself
or refer to God as their beginning and end.

For a body is that which has the three dimensions.

For love is a binding force, it aggregates
another to ourselves.

For love is a certain harmony of the appetite;
for love is strong as death.

My beloved said: Rise up, my love, my lovely,
come away. Say paradise reached to the moon.

Let us get up early to see
whether the tender grape appears,

whether it is united to a body
by means of another body, whether

the appetite is a special power,
whether “gift” is a personal name.

The last end is called happiness, as the reaching
of the end is called the end.

Open to me, my love, my undefiled—
My hands drip myrrh on the handles of the lock.