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The Shewings of Julian of Norwich, Part 3

THE SHEWINGS OF JULIAN OF NORWICH: FOOTNOTES

2 Off, Of.

3 pretious . . . thornys, precious crowning with thorns.

5 sheweings, revelations.

6 onyd, joined, made one; discolloureing, discoloring.

7 deareworthy, precious, excellent.

11 fend, fiend.

12 worshippfull, honorable; blissed, blessed.

13 wele, well-being, joy; wo, woe.

14 sekirness, sureness, certainty.

15 be, by; irkehede, irritation.

16 ghostly, spiritual; arn, are; also sekirly, as securely.

17 cruelle, cruel.

18 likeing, pleasure, gratification; of the herde, because of the hard.

19 rewfull, rueful; will, desires.

20 solacid and myrthid, comforted and made happy; whan, when; fullhede, fulfillment, fullness.

21-22 His blissefull . . . enjoyand, His blessed heart, joyful even as it is cloven in two.

22-23 hey . . . moder, high spiritual vision of His precious mother.

25 gret nobleth of all things makyng, great nobility of all things in their creation; man makeyng, man's making, i.e., the human constitution.

26 pretious asseth, precious satisfaction (see note); man, man's.

28 be, by.

30 feith and trowthe, faith and truth; wete His privityes, know His secrets.

31 longyth, belongs, is appropriate for.

32 ground, foundation; beseekeing, beseeching.

33 sekir, sure; large, generous.

34 likyth Him, are pleasing to Him.

37 mede, mead, reward.

38 wonyth, dwells.

39 reuland and geveand, ruling and giving.

40 saveand and keepeand, saving and keeping.

41 cowde no letter, knew no letters, could not read; or, possibly, did not know Latin.

43 mende of, attention to, understanding, realization.

43-44 sekenesse, sickness.

45 methought, it seemed to me; sume feleing in, some feeling of.

46 be, by.

50 seene, saw; peynes, pains.

51 ner, nor.

52 fro, from.

53 trew minde in, true understanding of.

54-55 sekenesse so herde as to deth, a deathly sickness.

55 underfongyn, receive.

56 weneing, supposing.

57 seyen, saw; eardtly, earthly.

58 ghostly, spiritual.

59 fends, fiends.

61 lyven, live; worshippe, honor.

64 wotith, know.

68 very, true, genuine.

70 fro, from.

72 yers, years.

74 wened not a levyd, believed I would not live; langorid, languished.

75 wened, thought, supposed.

76 youngith, youth.

77 sweeme, a pity, regret.

77-78 me lekid to levin for, it gave me pleasure to live for.

78 ne, nor; aferd, afraid.

81 methought, it seemed to me; in reward of, in comparison with.

84 feleing, feeling.

85 God will, God's will, i.e., at God's disposal; durid, endured.

86 dede fro, dead from; middis, middle; stered, prompted, took a notion.

87 underlenand, leaning with support from beneath.

89 by than, by the time that.

89-90 I had sett my eyen, my eyes were fixed in the death stare.

90 sett, placed.

91 browte, brought; Louke, look

92 Methought, It seemed to me; eyen, eyes; sett, fixed.

93 Hevyn, Heaven.

94 dede, did.

95 duren to loke, be able to look; forth than, straight ahead rather than.

96 derke, dark.

97 wiste, knew.

98 mekil, much.

99 fends, fiends; party, part.

100 onethys, scarcely; ony feleing, any feeling; onde, breath.

100-01 went sothly, truly thought.

101 passid, died.

102 hele, well.

103 party, part; aforn, before.

104 privy, mysterious; kinde, nature.

105 levyn, live.

106 lever a be, rather have been.

109 minde, understanding, realization.

110 longeing, longing (possibly belonging).

111 kinde, natural, kindly.

112 would beene a dedely man, was willing to be a mortal person

114 rede blode trekelyn, red blood trickling.

115 freisly, afresh; ryth, right; that, when.

116 thornys, thorns.

118 ony mene, any intermediary.

119 herte, heart.

124 appereith, appears.

124-25 Benedicite, Domine, Blessed be Thou, Lord.

125 meneing, intention.

126 astonyed, astonished.

127 reverend and dredfull, revered and awe inspiring; homley, intimate, familiar (see note); synfull creture liveing, sinful creature living.

129 of fends or I dyed, by fiends before I died.

131 enow, enough; ya, yeah, indeed; leving, living; ageyn, against.

133 understondyng, mind.

134 waxen, grown.

135 wan, when.

136 party, part.

141 sothly, truly; mare, more.

144 homely, intimate.

146 wrappeth . . . becloseth us, winds about us, embraces us, and entirely encloses us.

149 hesil nutt, hazel nut.

151 lesten, last.

154 the being, existence.

157-58 substantially onyd, integrally joined.

158 ne very, nor true.

160 littlehede, smallness.

160-61 to nowtyn . . . made, value as nothing everything created.

161 howe, have (see note); unmade, without creator.

162 herete, heart; sekyn, seek.

164-65 Him liketh, it pleases Him.

166 nowted, stripped.

167 Whan, When.

169 sily, innocent, simple.

170 kinde yernings, natural yearning.

172 enow, enough.

175 arn, are.

180 lerne, teach; clevyn, cleave.

181 mende, mind.

182 menys, means, intermediaries.

183 sothly, truly.

184 clevyn, cleave.

185 menys, means, intermediaries.

187 hole, whole.

187-88 failith right nowte, nothing at all fails.

190 deareworthy, precious, excellent.

192 moder love, mother's love.

193 bare, bore.

198 wole, well (intensive); fele, many.

199 mene, means; kinde, nature; toke, took.

200 menys, means, helps; aforn, before; cum, come.

204-05 quickyth, gives life to.

206 nerest . . . grace, nearest in nature and most ready in grace.

208 beclosyd, enclosed; dispite of, contempt for.

209 longyth in kinde, belongs in nature.

211 bonys, bones.

212 herte, heart; bouke, trunk; arn, are.

213 ya, indeed; wasten and weren, waste and wear.

214 hole, whole.

216 herete, heart.

217 spedyth, prospers.

219 wetyn, know; mekyl, greatly

222 onenestimable, inestimable.

226 blyn, cease.

231 lest, least; his, its (the soul's).

233 his even Cristen, the soul's fellow Christians.

234 to lerne us, to teach us.

236 hey, high.

239 in reward of, in comparison with.

242 lesting, lasting.

242-43 bledeing of the hede, bleeding of the head.

243 blode, blood.

244 semand . . . veynis, seeming as if it had come out of the veins.

245 browne rede, deep (shining) red

248 plenteoushede, plenitude.

249 dropys, drops; evys, eaves; showre of reyne, shower of rain.

250 bodily witte, natural intelligence.

250-51 roundhede, roundness;

251 heryng, herring.

254 dropys of evese, drops from eaves.

255 hidouse, hideous.

257 curtes, courteous.

258 likeing, happiness, pleasure.

259 opyn, open.

261 glad cheere, both prive and partie, cheerful expression, both in private and in public.

266 manys, man's.

270-72 And . . . may, And our Lord wills this, that we desire and have faith, rejoice and take pleasure, comfort and console ourselves as we may.

276 weten, know.

277 govyn, given.

277-78 govyn of, given by.

278 mede, mead, reward.

282 goven, given.

285 be than, until.

287 Benedicite, Domine, Blessed be Thou, Lord.

288 toknys, tokens, signs.

290 bene, be.

292 wete, know.

294 seith, sees.

295 semith, seems.

300 stinted, stopped.

302 ell, else.

303 mekil sterid, much stirred; even Cristen, fellow Christians.

304 they, them.

306 domys day, judgment day; went a deid, expected to have died.

307 deith, dies; demyd, judged.

308 thei lovid, they loved.

308-09 make hem to have mende, make them realize.

310 went have, thought to have; mervil, strange.

310-11 sweeme . . . should leven, partly a pity, for I thought this vision was shown in order to benefit the living.

312 even Cristen, fellow Christians; lernyd, taught, instructed.

314 levyn, believe (see note).

315 curtes, courteous.

316 wolde shewyn, would show.

317-18 on to you all, to you, one and all.

320 hem, those.

321 wote, know.

323 sekir, sure.

326 onehede, unity

328 on . . . sight, one (whole) in my sight; hat, has.

334 hem, those; save, saved, i.e., achieve salvation.

335 leve, believe; levith, believes.

339 diligens, diligence.

342 hopinly, openly.

343 wolde, wish to.

346 henge, hung.

348 sollowing, soiling (see note); langoryng, languishing, lingering; mo, more.

350 ere, ear; overrede, overun.

351 tuther, other; therewhiles, meanwhile.

352 swemely, sorrowfully, fearfully.

355 sowte, sought.

356 sekyn, seek.

356-57 And . . . Him, If we see anything of Him.

357 sterid, stirred, prompted; sekyn, seek.

358 sowte, sought.

361 see ground, bottom of the sea.

362 dalis . . . wrekke, green dales, seeming as if it were grown over with moss, with wrak.

367 levyn, believe; thowe that us thinkeith, although we think.

369 abedyn, abided, waited for; trosted, trusted.

370 low, humble; sprets, spirits.

371 travel, travail; mornand, dredfull, mourning, fearful.

374 dede hame, skin, slough; mortal covering (fig., flesh).

378 reulihede and lenehede, piteousness and thinness.

379 stondyng, understanding that.

385 be synne, through sin.

386 And that made, And He who made.

388 overpassing, transcendence.

390 geynmakyng, remaking.

391 dedely, mortal.

393-94 dede hame, skin, slough, mortal covering (fig., flesh).

395 owen to trowen, ought to believe.

396 travel, travail.

399 chere, expression.

400 rewfull and dedely, rueful and like death.

401 lernyng, teaching.

402 ful mekyl, very much; sekyn, seek.

404 sekyng, seeking.

407 travel, travail.

408 God wille, God's will.

409-10 have him, conduct itself.

415 mown, may; on, one.

416-17 The sekyng . . . Church, The seeking is common; that is available in the discretion and teaching of Holy Church which every soul may have, and ought to have, by God's grace.

419 slauth, sloth; throw, through.

420 onskilful, senseless, unreasonable; veyne, vain.

421 gruching, grudging; ageyns, against.

422 thred, third.

425 swith sodeyn, very sudden; trowid, believed; hend, courteous.

426 mot, may.

427 poynte, point.

428 with avisement, thoughtfully, with full clarity.

431 be happe, ne be aventure, by chance nor by accident.

435 unwetyng, unknowing.

436 ben happis and aventures, are chances and accidents.

438 me behovith nedes to grant, I must concede.

441 sekir, certain.

442 dede, deed.

443 wold, would; wold shewen, would show.

448 ben al, is all; feilith nougte, nothing fails.

454 demyng, judgment.

459 heiest, highest.

463 or, before.

472 me behovyd nedis to assenten, I must necessarily assent.

473-74 seming of the scorgyng, seaming, furrowing, of the scourging (see note).

477 should a, should have.

478 migt, might; avisement, clarity.

479 sigt, sight.

480 al on blode and a passid over aboute, bloody all over and have passed entirely over it.

484 licur, liquor.

486 it is our kinde, it is of the same nature as our own.

489 braste her bands, burst their bonds.

490 longyd, belonged; curte, courte.

495 it nedith, it is needed.

498 er, before.

499 conable, suitable.

500 migte, might.

501 formys, forms.

502 menening, referring to.

506 ascappyn, escape; worshipply be, honorably by.

507 attemyd, esteemed.

508 mech, much.

510 migte, might; tokyn, taken.

511 wreth, wrath.

515 onmigte, powerlessness.

516 sigte, sight; I lauhyd migtily, I laughed mightily; lauhyn, laugh.

517 likeing, pleasure.

518-19 lauhyn, lawhyn, laugh.

522 sothfastnes, truth.

524 sadhede, sober mood; game, joy.

525 arneste, earnest, seriousness.

526 arneste, earnestly.

529 done, do.

530 dampnid, damned.

531 hose, whose.

532 invye, envy.

537 clepid, called.

540 to solacyn, to make comfortable.

544 thanke, thanks.

553 reme, realm.

554 leking, pleasing; underfongyn, received; rigte, right.

557 hem, those; her yongith, their youth.

559 on day, one day's.

561 lever, readier, more inclined.

562 soveren gostly lekyng, sovereign spiritual delight.

565 lestenid, lasted.

566 irkenes of, irriation with.

567 onethis, scarcely; leve, live.

570 mycti, mighty.

571 desesid me, made me uneasy.

573 dyvers, different.

577 spedeful, efficacious.

580 manys, man's.

582 soden, sudden.

585 passand, passing.

590 sithen, after.

591 langoring, languishing.

591-92 dede . . . browne blew, deathly to blue, and after a duller blue.

594-95 tho . . . clange, those that before were fresh, red, and pleasant in my eyes. This was a grievous change to see, this deep dying, and also the nose shriveled.

596 lifely, life-like.

598 Rode, Cross; harre, keen, fierce.

600 migte, might.

602 Blodeleshede, Bloodlessness.

607 party after party, step by step; dryande, drying.

609 pynyng, torture, suffering.

610 than I seid, when I said.

612 clongen, withered; peteuous, pitiable.

613 deyand, dying.

616 threst, thirst.

619 bonys, bones.

620 wryngyng of the naylys, twisting, drilling in, of the nails; weyte, weight.

623 wrangyng, twisting.

624 bakyn, baked.

625 clyngand, clinging; deyand, dying.

626-31 And . . . moysture, And in the beginning, while the flesh was still fresh and bleeding, the constant piercing of the thorns made the wounds wide. And furthermore, I saw that the sweet skin and the tender flesh, with the hair and the blood, were raised and loosened out from the bone with the thorns, where it [the skin] was pierced through in many pieces; [it was] like a cloth that is sagging, as if it would very soon have fallen off because of its heaviness and looseness, while it had natural moisture.
634 pety, pity.

635 ben, be.

636 dreyen, dry; stynte, diminish, stop; weyte, weight.

637 abute, about.

638 tother, other.

639 cloderyd, clotted.

640 smal, thin; ronkyllid, wrinkled.

641 a tannyd . . . akynned, a tanned color like a dry board when it is scorched

643 dryengs, dryings.

644 eyr, air.

645 askyd licour, needed moisture.

646 mynystid, ministered.

648 clyngand, withering up.

650 clyngyng dryand, withering drying.

651 peynd, made to suffer, tortured; thingke, think.

653 wiste, knew.

654 onys, once; mynde, realization

657-59 Than . . . praydd it, Then I thought, I knew very little what payne it was that I was asking for, and like a wretch I repented, thinking if I had known what it would be, I would have been loath to have prayed for it.

661 despeyr, despair.

667 onyd, joined.

667-68 mekylhede, greatness.

668 continyyd, continued.

669 fulsomely, abundantly; fully.

671 panys, pains.

676 onyng, empathy, union.

679 faledyn, failed; hyr, their.

680 thir, their; ther, their

681-82 than . . . faylon with Hym, then because of their nature they necessarily failed with Him; penys, pains.

684 feyling, failing.

685 privy kepyng, mysterious care.

686 on, one.

687 paynym, pagan.

689 ell, else.

690 auter, altar.

694 nawted, made nothing, a cipher.

696 wold a lokyd, would have looked; weste, knew.

698 uggyng, horror.

699 profir, proposition.

700 feyth, faith.

701 desesyd me, made me uneasy.

704 lever a ben, rather have been; domys day, judgment day

707 lerid, taught.

709 chase, chose.

710 hat be, has been.

711 done so, do so; chesyn, choose.

712 repentid me, repentid, changed my mind; wiste, known.

713 me had be loth, I should have been loath.

714 grutching and daming, grudging and curse.

715 wilful choys, deliberate choice.

716 tho be, those are.

721 chase, chose.

722 soverayn, sovereign; hede, heed.

723 onyd into, made one with.

727 langring, languishing.

729 allonly, only.

732 shamly, dispitous, shameful, pitiless.

734 sean, seen.

736 heyte and noblyth, height and nobility.

738 lothhede, loathing.

740 mannys, man's.

741 manys, man's.

747 ches, chose; desyr, desire.

748 wel payeyng, much satisfaction.

750 passyng, transcendent.

756 wet, expected to; ryth, right.

757 be semyng, by appearances.

759 chere, countenance, expression.

761 agreefe, sorrow.

762 menyng, intention, disposition, understanding.

769-70 should us agrevyn, would make us sad.

771-72 desese and travel, distress and labor.

772 frelete askyth, frailty requires.

777 payd, pleased, satisfied.

778 gramercy, thank you.

779 payde, pleased.

780-81 I myht suffre, I might suffer.

781 lifte, lifted.

782 gretly mervelyd, made to marvel greatly.

788 mede, reward.

788-89 Fader . . . mede, Father might have given Him no reward.

792 beyeng, buying (fig., redemption).

793 corone, crown.

799 diligens, diligence.

800 sotly, truly.

801 coude, could.

803 al thynkyth Him, He considers all; in reward of, considering.

804 sesin, cease.

808 creature, human.

823 plesance, pleasure.

824 lykyng, enjoyment.

826 thred, third.

827 curtes, courteous.

830 semys of the scorgyng, weals from the scourging (see note 473-74).

831 that, that which.

833 Goddys, God's.

839 upriste on Esterne morow, resurrection on Easter morning.

841 wil, desires.

845 wroute, wrought.

849 enow, enough.

850 ell, else.

851 mend, mind; gevere, giver.

853 solacyn, give solace to, please.

856 solacid, satisfied.

861 bawte, bought (fig., redeemed).

886 ryte, right.

888 wold se, would wish to see.

899 lerid . . . hirr, taught to long to see her.

903 gramercy, thank you.

904 wend a seen hir, expected to have seen her.

912 gove, given.

914 tymys, times.

931 letted, hindered.

934 forseyng, foreseeing; lettid, prevented.

935 a be, have been; steryng, agitation.

938 behovabil, necessary; fits in (see note 936).

942 in party nowtid, partly despised.

946 wern, were.

949 afferd, afraid.

960 sythen, since.

972 reuth, ruth, pity; ech, each.

974 lakid, blamed; rapyd, abused.

975 lettyn, prevent, lessen.

976 heynen, raise.

977 tobreke, utterly shatter.

982 nowting, humiliation.

989-90 gruching and dispeir, grudging and despair.

992 childer, children.

993 swemly, sadly.

996 esyd, eased.

1000 asyeth, reparation.

1001 manys, man's.

1003 sythe, since.

1007 hopyn, open; lite, luminous, without burden.

1009 councellid, counseled.

1011 onjoyeth, takes pleasure.

1014 sperid, barred, closed.

1022 owen, ought.

1035 threst, thirst.

1040 hole, whole.

1042 amenst, as concerns (see note).

1044 heyned ne lownyd, raised nor lowered.

1047 anemst, concerning.

1055 onpassible, impassible.

1056 threst, thirst.

1058 cum, come.

1064-65 thow . . . properties, And [this is true] even though longing and pity are two separate qualities.

1068 secyn, cease.

1071 On, one.

1073 On, one; wetyn, understand.

1079 loke, look; morning, mourning.

1085 trostily, trustfully.

1092 pesid, made peaceful.

1100 peynt, point.

1102 herth, earth.

1103 ethen, heathen.

1106 And stondyng, And this being so.

1108 That, What.

1110 stedfasty, steadfastly.

1111 sadly levyn, firmly believe.

1118 to maken prefe, to try to prove out, to test; longyth, belongs.

1122 coude, knew, could learn.

1134 deden Hym to ded, put Him to death.

1136 lered, taught.

1137 hopyng, hoping.

1144 besyn us, busy ourselves.

1146 to, two; privityes, secrets, mysteries.

1153-55 For al . . . Holy Church, For all that is helpful to us to know and understand, our Lord will [make it His] will most courteously to show us what it is [what these things are] by and through all the preaching and teaching of Holy Church.

1163 ageyn, against; thred, third.

1170 freindful mene, friendly intermediary.

1180 peynte, point.

1181 rythful, righteous.

1192 seith, sees; sowlys, souls.

1197 secyn, cease.

1206 dredful, reverent.

1211 His holy, His saints.

1217 trostily, with trust, confidence.

1221 hat to, has for.

1224 leven, believe.

1225 owe we, we ought.

1234 her, here.

1238 clepyth us, calls out to us; Entend, Attend, Listen.

1249 fele, many, several.

1250 heygh, high.

1253 myschevis, troubles, evils; to meken us, to make us meek.

1263 entendyn, attend, pay attention.

1267 concyvid a softe drede, conceived a quiet fear.

1274 Ryth, Just; bestly, bestial.

1276 yll, evil.

1277 that that Hym lykyt, that which pleases Him.

1283 goven, given.

1290 lift, lifted.

1299 hende neybor, courteous, affable neighbor.

1310 chousyn, chosen.

1311-13 al forbetyth . . . Helle, beats down man and woman and makes them irritated with themselves, so much that sometimes, in their own view, they think themselves worthy of nothing but to sink into Hell.

1317 ymage, image.

1318 domysman, judge.

1330 menys, means, ways.

1332 helyd, healed.

1338 mede, reward; underfongyn, receive.

1340 dispeir, despair.

1342 beand and werkand, existing and working.

1345 fel and fers, evil and fierce; and so mech . . . the more, and in as much as our need is [great] the more [He defends us].

1347 severayn, sovereign.

1348 privily, inwardly.

1353 consciens, conscience.

1355 frendful, friendly.

1365 leven, live.

1370 chargyn, charge, set down.

1374 the lother . . . synne, the more loath he is to sin.

1378 to haten, to be hated.

1380 And we gevyn, If we give.

1383 lawis, laws; tawth, taught.

1384 ageyn, in opposition to.

1392 Lordis, Lord's.

1398 besekyng, prayer, beseeching; sythen, after.

1405 for an impossible, as an impossibility, a logical absurdity.

1417 tresour, treasury; His holy, His saints.

1422 inderly, earnestly.

1439 felyth, feels.

1440 grece, grace.

1457 taryen and peyn, delay and trouble.

1458 leve, believe.

1460 trosten, trust.

1467 mytys, powers.

1468 will, desires.

1468-69 our stede . . . wonynge, our standing place and our dwelling.

1472 agen byeing, redemption.

1476 deds, deeds.

1477 dede, deed.

1482 dette, debt.

1486 other, either.

1494 diligens, diligence.

1499 onyth, binds, unites; thow, though.

1501 will, desires.

1502 ablith, makes able, fits the individual for.

1504 steryth, prompts, stirs.

1507 And thou besekyst, And you beseech.

1513 eur, your (see note).

1519 steryth, inspires.

1522 ablyng, fitting.

1524 buxum, obedient.

1526 nedys wherfore we prayen, that we need to pray.

1527 seying, seeing.

1529 fulsome, abundant; mytys, powers.

1530 continuate, continual.

1533 hey, high, great; wonyng, dwelling place.

1535 continuat, continual.

1540 fulsomely, completely, to the full; seand, seeing.

1541 feland, feeling; heryng, hearing.

1542 swelowyng, swallowing.

1544 leven, live; dedly, mortal.

1555 commend, coming.

1556-57 soverain, severeyn, sovereyn, sovereign.

1558 made, created, i.e., not self-generated.

1561 in reward of, in comparison with.

1562 onethys, scarcely; owte, anything; clertye, clarity.

1565-66 hoole and save, whole and safe.

1568 medyllid, mixed.

1578 cowd nowte, could not; dome, judgment.

1582 cowth, could.

1585 levyn, leave (see note).

1587 longyth . . . knoyn it, pertains to me to know it truly.

1604 encrecin and wexen be forthing, increase and grow with the helping.

1613-14 And . . . me, And this way of looking at things stayed with me.

1616 encrese and resyn, increase and rise.

1637 yeele me, yield myself.

1638 owyth, ought to do.

1639 longen, pertain; On, One.

1648 no, not.

1649 sumdel, something.

1651-52 frelte and overcummyng, frailty and defeats.

1652 onmyte and onwise, powerless and foolish.

1654 sey, saw.

1655 mischevous, ill.

1660 morning, mourning.

1673 contrarioust, contrariness, perversity.

1674 rote, root.

1675 traveylid, belabored.

1677 wonnyng, dwelling.

1679 buxum, obedient.

1681 sow, saw.

1682 all, else; frowardness and a contrarioste, perversity and an opposition.

1685 contrariuste, contrariness.

1688 cowth, could.

1691 turnyng . . . good, turning everything to good for us.

1696 of us, away from us.

1697 cessyth, ceases.

1699 propirte, quality.

1720 seyth, sees.

1728 a touch, a bit; stede, standing place.

1732 wretches, times of wretchedness.

1733-34 buxumhede, obedience.

1734 stede, place.

1745 domys, judgments; pessible, at peace.

1779 awer, trouble (see note).

1781 eryn, err.

1785 makyn . . . it, make me courageous enough to ask this.

1792 Ho, Who.

1793 sen, see.

1794 mystily, obscurely, as if through a mist; symbolically (see note).

1795 botryn, both.

1804 rynnith, runs.

1805 slade, valley.

1813 brosyng, bruising.

1816 stonyed, stunned, astonished; mend, mind; luf, love.

1820 lang, long.

1830 nobleth, nobility, honor.

1834 skyl, reasonable.

1835 reward . . . drede, compensate him for this attack and for his fear.

1837 hole, wholeness, health; And ell, Or else.

1850 aret, attributed.

1852 mystye, symbolic, obscure (see note to line 1794).

1855 sumdele, somewhat.

1860 depart, separate.

1861 owe, ought.

1862 trostyn, trust.

1865 monethis, months.

1866 hede, heed.

1868 mysty and indifferent, unclear and irrelevant; assend, assented.

1872 sate, sat; tho, the.

1875 havyng, behavior.

1876 onlothfulhede, alacrity, good will.

1882 stonyed, stunned, stricken.

1884 lettid, hindered.

1895 syde, long, ample.

1896 sad, dignified.

1897 fulsomely featours, full, regular features.

1899 hey ward, high refuge.

1901 on to, in two.

1902 medlur, mixture.

1907 lofly, lovely.

1915 is this to menyn, means this; cyte, city, site.

1918 adyten him, prepare for him, assign to him.

1919 abeydand, waiting for; medlid, mingled.

1922 eyen, eyes.

1932 fornempts, right before; asyd, aside; lift, left.

1933 kirtle, coat, tunic; sengil, single; died with swete, stained with sweat.

1934 streyte fittyng, skimpy, close.

1935 weryd up, worn out.

1949 mete, food.

1953 myte . . . don, might be that the servant should do.

1955 delvyn and dykyn, digging and ditching; swinkin, working; swetyn, sweating.

1959-60 dygte this mete, prepared this food.

1967 dygte, prepared.

1973 rythful, fittingly; nerehede, closeness.

1980 slade, valley.

1994 anempts, pertains to.

1996 Hym, Himself.

2000 steytehede, skimpiness.

2001 waring, wearing; defaceing of swete, disfigurement of the sweat; travel, labor.

2022 privities, secrets.

2030 sore, physical pain.

2030-31 also swithe, at once.

2031 stod dredfully, stood in awe.

2032 even ryth, on the righthand of God.

2035 woon, achieved, won.

2039 sweppys, blows; scorgis, whippings.

2041 hedepanne, skull.

2048 rote, rout, i.e., throng, company of souls.

2052 streyte, scanty.

2054 wyde and syde, ample and long; than was than, than was then.

2056 medlur, mixture.

2059 sete, seat, site.

2060 unornely, without ornament, plainly.

2063 tho, the.

2071 cety, city.

2072 adyte, assigned.

2079-80 medlur bothen, mixture both.

2081 mischefe, harm, damage; deyand, dying.

2085 onethys, scarcely.

2090 medle, mixture.

2092 ilke, same.

2096 falyn, fall.

2099 grutchin ther agen, complain against it.

2100 duryin, endure.

2101 medlur, mixed state.

2103 us updrawand, drawing us up.

2106 wonand, dwelling; yemand, guiding, caring for.

2121 in our Lord menyng, in our Lord's view.

2124 be, by.

2127 gon, go.

2128-29 on syd . . . feblehede, one side falling too low, inclining to despair, nor on the other hand being too reckless, as if we did not care at all, but nakedly knowing our fragility.

2132 For otherwise . . . man, For the vision of God differs from the vision of man, and the vision of man, from the vision of God.

2146 asseth, atonement.

2163 awer, concern (see note 1779).

2174 ageyn byeng, redemption.

2191 slyppe, slime; medlid and gaderid, mingled and gathered.

2205 sotil, subtle.

2210 departing, division, separation.

2211 hesy, easy; trowen, believe.

2214 owe, ought.

2234 command, coming.

2239 berith, carries.

2248 feithyn, believe.

2251 we . . . sensual, we are made a physical, living being; as swithe, just as quickly.

2252 cure, care.

2256 abylith, enables.

2258 sensualite, concrete and bodily existence (see note 2250-51).

2259 cite, city.

2260 se, see, official domain.

2282 sotil, subtle.

2284 for the mene profir, on the basis of the intermediary's suggestion.

2287 ridier to us, more easy for us.

2291 of fulhede, for complete [understanding].

2293-94 Whither and, Whether if.

2296 mene, the medium.

2299 rotid, rooted.

2300 comenyng and daliance, mutuality and communion, i.e., familiar conversation.

2303 clepid, called, designated.

2304 cyte, city.

2313-15 For . . . substance, For until our soul has its full power, we cannot be entirely holy, and that is [can happen then] because our psycho-physical being by the power of Christ's passion is [then] brought up to the substance.

2318 heyhede, elevation; kindhede, natural placement. See note 2318.

2320 incres, increase.

2329 connyng of, knowledge of.

2331-33 For. . . spirite, For in our first creation, God gave us fully all we need [in this life], and also greater goods such as we may receive only in our spirit.

2335 There, Where.

2344 diverssetis, diversity.

2351 adyte, assigned.

2366 renued, renewed.

2380 lerand His loris, learning His lore.

2386 at onys, at once.

2404 yeldyng, repayment, harvest.

2419 kepid ondepartid, kept together.

2424 thred, third.

2429 perfitt, perfect.

2472 impropried to, embodied in.

2477 forthspreadyng, amplification.

2488 rayhid Him and dyte Him, arrayed and prepared Himself.

2495 throwes, times, torments.

2497 makyn aseth to, fully satisfy.

2522 bristinid, broken, beaten severely.

2538 bend payd, be satisfied (or, yield, pleased).

2539 And, If.

2551 assay, trial.

2572 al swithe, at once.

2578-79 blissid comon, blessed community.

2587 not . . . Child, nothing to do at all but see about the salvation of her child. .

2592 dispits, humiliations.

2606 rialtie, royalty.

2628 sothly, truly.

2630 shynand, shining.

2632 mone, lament.

2643 fordreth, fosters, helps.

2663 beyng, being, existence.

2678 semyt, seems.

2682 oggley, ugly; bolned quave of styngand myre, swollen heaving of stinking mire.

2685 bolnehede, swelling.

2687 belevith, stays, is left.

2690 severen, sovereign, the greatest possible.

2691 behest, promise.

2692 behoting, promise.

2705 behests, promises.

2712 trosty, in trust, without doubt.

2718 had . . . lovid of God, possessed infinitely by those whom God loves.

2719 mon, may.

2742 ich, each.

2748 lestid folowand, were going on consecutively; or, were perpetually in my mind.

2749 langiren, languish.

2752 hevyed, heaved, tossed.

2754 ferid, fared.

2755 leuhe . . . inderly, laughed loud and heartily.

2756 blode fast, bled profusely.

2758 recleshede, recklessness.

2760 shrevyn, absolved, shriven.

2761 levyn, believe.

2763 fole, fool.

2768 gan to slepyn, went to sleep.

2772 steknes, speckles, stitches (see note).

2773 rode, red; evisid, clipped.

2774 thounys, temples;shrewd, wicked.

2797 gemeth, guides.

2814 makar, maker.

2815 cite, city.

2831 leve, believe.

2845-46 And . . . more, And soon after all was closed, and I saw no more.

2850 parlement, debate.

2853 bidding of beds, praying of beads, i.e., saying the rosary.

2863 soverain, sovereign, the best possible.

2874 byddand, commanding.

2889-90 festyn it feyfully, fasten it faithfully.

2896 persivyn, understand.

2906 utter, outer.

2908 cheres, countenances.

2915 beer, endure.

2919 medlarid the thord, mingles the third.

2928 cleerty, clarity; feland, feeling.

2931 medled with ony, mixed with any.

2944 al He halsith us, He embraces us entirely.

2954 myrkehede, darkness.

2977 rith, exactly.

2978 sumdele, something.

2980-81 on . . . hevily, one is impatience or sloth, for we endure our trouble and pains heavily.

2999 astynten, stop.

3015 afray, sudden attack.

3031 thei arn rotid, they are rooted.

3045 moder barme, mother's bosom.

3050 medlid, mixed.

3059 us feile, we fail in.

3065 neden, are needed.

3066 threist, thirst.

3067 His holy, His saints.

3068 lively, living.

3087 tremelyn and quakyn, tremble and quake.

3089 tremeland and quakand, trembling and quaking.

3107 travellyn, work.

3128 behotist, promised.

3130 slauth, sloth; lesyng, losing.

3143 brynnyt, burns.

3146 flen, flee.

3148 neyghen, draw near to.

3148-49 shrewid peyne, wicked, i.e., severe pain.

3162-63 Accuse . . . demandand that, Do not accuse yourself too much, deciding that.

3171 gaf, gave.

3232 alsa, also.

3241 recles, careless.

3247 beseyn us, busy ourselves.

3249 swemefully, piteously.

3250 hath hast, has haste (i.e., is eager to).

3274 swemefully, sorrowfully.

3280 leve . . . Him, fail to keep Him in mind.

3282 swemely and monyng, sorrowful and lamenting.

3296 reynand, reigning.

3299 wonnyth, dwells.

3310 mede, reward.

3318 the agens, you against.

3321 customably, customarily, habitually.

3323 clevand, cleaving; seand, seeing.

3324 wittand, knowing.

3332 lyt, light.

3361 clerte, clarity.

3367 sperid, closed off; suich, such.

3389 beforn that, before.

3399-3400 merkness, darkness.

3424 heretique, heretic.

THE SHEWINGS OF JULIAN OF NORWICH: NOTES

Abbreviations:

C&W        A Book of Showings to the Anchoress Julian of Norwich, ed. Edmund Colledge and James Walsh. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1978. [Includes both short and long versions.]

S1        London. British Library MS Sloane 2499. [Base text for this edition of the longer version.]

S2        London. British Library MS Sloane 3705.

P        Paris. Bibliothèque Nationale MS Fonds anglais 40. [Base text for the longer version in C&W.]

A        London. British Library MS Additional 37790. [Base text for the short version in C&W.]


Chapter I

The shorter version gives no preliminary summary. If not editorial, this outline supports other evidence that Julian not only added to her book but also reconsidered it as a whole. Internal references directing readers to past or future passages (e.g., in chapters 17 and 56) also indicate that she reviewed the whole work as a whole. The shorter version lacks such referrals.

4 the Trinite. S1 thee.

11 pretious. S1 barely legible. P precious.

16 also. S1 aso. P also.

26-27 and of the pretious asseth that He hath made for man synne. Asseth, "satisfaction," "compensation," or "amends," is both a legal and an ecclesiastical term. John A. Alford includes it in his Piers Plowman: A Glossary of Legal Diction (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer/Boydell & Brewer, 1988), pp. 10-11, directing readers to English Wycliffite Sermons, ed. Anne Hudson (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983), 1, 497-99, for an entire sermon on the place of asseth in the economy of salvation. Mona Logarbo in "Salvation Theology in Julian of Norwich: Sin, Forgiveness, and Redemption in the Revelations," Thought 61 (1986), 374, points to derivation from OF assez which had its roots in Latin ad satis; she defines asseth in Julian as "that which makes sufficient"; what is sufficient for Julian, Logarbo indicates, is Christ's achieved filling in of the breach between God and humanity caused by the "great harm" of Adam's sin.

29 make wele. S1 make wle.

38 wonyth. S1 marginal gloss: dwelleth.


Chapter II

Eight chapter headings refer to Julian in the third person, those for chapters 2, 8, 9, 50, 51, 66, 69, and 81. All headings may be editorial, and those for chapters 9 and 81 almost certainly are, referring, as they do, to "the mekenes of this woman" and "this blissid woman."

42 the eighth day of May. P gives May 13 as the date.

44-45 three wounds. The shorter text adds a reference to Saint Cecelia: "For the thirde, I harde a man telle of halye kyrke of the storye of Saynte Cecylle. In the whilke schewynge I undyrstode that sche hadde thre woundys with a swerde in the nekke, with the whilke sche pynede to the dede. By the styrrynge of this I conseyvede a myghty desyre, prayande oure lorde god that he wolde grawnte me thre woundys . . ." [For the third, I heard a man tell of holy church's story of Saint Cecelia, from which account I understood that she had three wounds with a sword in her neck, with which she suffered till death. By this inspiration I conceived a mighty desire, praying our Lord God that He would grant me three wounds] (fol. 97v). This single mention of a normal and specific mode of receiving information is of hearing, not reading. Riehle believes that the request for three wounds and for physical illness owes something to women mystics on the continent whose writings may have reached England; the parallels he gives are approximate (pp. 28-30).

50 and suffer with Him. The shorter version adds, "not withstandynge that I leevyd sadlye alle the peynes of cryste as halye kyrke schewys & techys, & also the payntyngys of crucyfexes that er made be the grace of god aftere the techynge of haly kyrke to the lyknes of crystes passyoun, als farfurthe as manys witte maye reche" [notwithstanding that I firmly believed all the pains of Christ just as holy church shows and teaches, and also the paintings of crucifixes that are made to the likeness of Christ's passion, as far as man's intelligence may reach, by the grace of God, and after the teaching of holy church] (fol. 97r). Commentators cite this passage as evidence that religious art affects the images of the showings. For the possibility that "payntyngys" may be a neo-Platonic term, see C&W, I, 202, and the article cited there by G. V. Smithers, "Two Typological Terms in the Ancrene Riwle," Medium Aevum 34 (1965), 126-28.
   Julian's desire to be in effect a fellow witness of the Crucifixion would not be unusual in the affective piety of the fourteenth century. Richard Rolle, the earlier fourteenth-century mystic, wrote a "Meditations on the Passion" in which the speaker attempts to view the events of Christ's last hours from arrest to entombment as if they were unfolding before his eyes in sequence (English Writings of Richard Rolle, ed. Hope Emily Allen [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1931], pp. 17-36). The popular pseudo-Bonaventuran Meditationes vitae Christi (13th century) initiated and sustained many similar devotions. See Jantzen for a sketch of precedents and the role of monastic reading technique as an influence upon the development of such devotion (pp. 56-58). What is unusual about Julian's petition is the form its granting took. For the theme of Christ's suffering as it figures in the writings of female mystics in particular, see Petroff, pp. 9-16. For the distinctive caste of Julian's treatment of this theme, see Bhattacharji, pp. 85-88.

64 seying. S2; S1 sey. P's syntax is too different to furnish the word.

69 willfull longing to God. In medieval psychology the will was the faculty which could choose and love. Will and willful are specific, weighted words in Julian, usually carrying the sense of a sustained intentionality, a fully conscious choosing. See lines 85, 167-68, 225-28, and 2710-12 as typical examples. Though the request for a critical illness to death is the one that startles, to a great extent this third part of her third request, the desired willful longing to God, constitutes the core subject of the Shewings which also illustrates it. Longing may mean either yearning or belonging, and Julian's use frequently captures both definitions.


Chapter III

77 sweeme. S1 marginal gloss: regret.

89 My curate was sent for. A is more circumstantial: "thay that were with me sente for the persoun, my curette, to be atte myne endynge [the parson, my curate, to be at my end]. He come, and a childe with hym, and brought a crosse & be thanne I hadde sette myne eyenn [eyes], and myght nought speke. The persone sette the crosse before my face, and sayde: 'Dowghtter, I have brought the [thee] the ymage of thy sauioure"' (fol. 98r).

99 After this the other party of my body began to dyen. A reports, "Myne handdys felle downe on aythere syde, and also for vnpowere my heede satylde downe" [went limp] (fol. 98r).

100 onethys. S1 marginal gloss: scarcely.

onde. S1 marginal gloss: winde.

106 lever. S1 marginal gloss: rather.


Chapter IV

126-27 that He that is so reverend and dredfull will be so homley. Homeliness is a favorite item in Julian's vocabulary. Along with courteous, it describes God's personal, loving attitude toward the individual soul. English mystics may also use homely in passages on intimate communion of the soul with the divine. The author of The Cloud of Unknowing writes that some aspirants do not reach "ravisching" - mystic union - "with-outyn moche & longe goostly excersise," but that others "ben so sotyl [subtle] in grace & in spirit, & so homely with God in this grace of contemplacion, that thei mowe [may] have it [i.e., God's presence] when thei wolen [wish to]" (ed. Phyllis Hodgson, EETS o.s. 218, 1944; rev. 1973 [London: Oxford University Press, 1981], p. 126). Compare The Book of Margery Kempe, ed. Meech and Allen, p. 90. According to Riehle, homeliness translates familiaritas, which Gregory the Great (c. 540-604) introduced into theological language to describe the mystical union of the soul and God (pp. 97-99). S1 here glosses homely in the margin as familiar. Julian sometimes uses the word in its specialized sense, sometimes colloquially.

129 or. S1 marginal gloss: before.

139 hir maker. S1 his. S2 agrees with P's her.

143 manhood. P; S1 omits.


Chapter V

145 for us. P to our helpe.

146-47 wrappeth us . . . tender love. S1 is intermittently blotched by ink that has soaked through from the other side of the page. P expands the clause: wrappeth us and wyndeth us, halseth us and all becloseth us, hangeth about us for tender love.

151 lesten. S1 marginal gloss: last.

152 it might suddenly have fallen to nowte for littil. The short text continues, "In this blyssede revelacion god schewyd me thre noughtes of whilke noughttes [showed me three naughts, of which naughts] this is the fyrste that was schewyd me. Of this nedes ilke [each] man and woman to hafe knawynge that desyres to lyeve contemplatyfelye [live as a contemplative], that hym lyke to nought alle thynge that es made for to hafe the love of god that es unmade" (fol. 99v). This passage implies that Julian may have written the short text with contemplatives in mind as her primary audience. The other "naughts" are probably sin and the devil (C&W, I, 215).

161 howe. P have. S1 marginal gloss: know. It is tempting to follow the marginal gloss and to emend howe to knowe, so that the sense would be more parallel with the have knoweing in line 160. As is, for to love and howe God that is unmade seems to mean "in order to love and have (possess, obtain) God who is without creator."

175-76 touchen the will. S1 marginal gloss: agreeing to his will.

Chapter VI

207 oure God. P; S1 omits.

207-08 that hath us all in Himselfe beclosyd. P adds: "A man goyth vppe ryght and the soule of his body is sparyde [closed], as a purse fulle feyer. And whan it is tyme of his nescessery, it is openyde and sparyde ayen [again] fulle honestly. And that it is he that doyth this it is schewed ther wher he seyth, he comyth downe to vs to the lowest parte of oure nede" (fol. 12r). C&W offers the translation "cooked, digested food" for soule from OE sufol (II, 306). A. M. Allchin comments, "Julian is so integrated in herself, so penetrated throughout her being by this conviction of the all-encompassing goodness of God, that she can speak quite simply of the processes of the digestion and evacuation of food as ways in which God serves us. There are few spiritual writers who have spoken so directly and so naturally on this subject" (pp. 37-38).

209 simplest office that to. to P; S1 do.

212 bouke. S1 marginal gloss: Bulke.

216 herete. S1 marginal gloss: heart.

226 blyn. S1 marginal gloss: cease, leave fr.

233 even Cristen. S1 marginal gloss: Xstian neighbour.


Chapter VII

235 the hey. S1 they hey.

241-51 In all the tyme . . . spreadeing on the forehead. In the course of an argument that cultural representations may be constitutive of the mystic's experience, Laurie A. Finke writes that this passage hints of an intense meditation upon a visual image (for instance, in a book of hours) in which particular details "lose their relationship to the whole composition and begin to remind her of other inanimate objects. As she traces the brushstrokes, following the change in color from brownish red to bright red, finally vanishing from the canvas, other images - pellets, raindrops, herring's scales - suggest themselves to her, transforming the suffering into an artistic vision, a representation that seems self-conscious in its artifice" (Feminist Theory, Women's Writing [Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992], p. 97). Without taking anything from the absorbed intensity that Finke observes, the possibility also exists that this is simply another example of Julian's free use of everyday surroundings. Campbell has noted that fish, especially herring, may have formed a major source of wealth for Norwich as early as the eleventh century. A charter of between 1114 and 1160 records a render of at least 2,000 herring owed by a house in the city, and herring pies were among the renders which Norwich owed to the Crown in the thirteenth century (p. 7). My own sense of the passage is that this is an effort to communicate, to get the vision down exactly as remembered.

244 semand. S1 marginal gloss: seeming.

252 mynde. P; S1 omits.

258-59 He shewid this opyn example. Nuth regards this as an intimation of the lord and servant parable of chapter 51, pointing out that, like that parable, this and other passages that feature a lord or king in relation to a servant or subject appear only in the long text (p. 31).

266 hart. P; S1 partially illegible.


Chapter VIII

290 that ever was, is, and ever shal bene. This is the first of Julian's several echoes of the doxology: "Glory be to the Father, to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit who was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end." Among many instances, see lines 815-16 and 836-37. This is the only familiar liturgical formula that Julian resorts to continually. She would have heard it at mass. J. P. H. Clark notes Julian's attribution of might, wisdom, and love to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit respectively as the common appropriation based on Augustine and developed by the scholastics ("Fiducia," p. 225).

303 sterid. S1 marginal gloss: stirr'd.

306 domys day. Two doomsdays await the soul; Julian refers to the individual judgment of the soul at the individual's moment of dying; at the apocalyptic doomsday at the end of time, souls and bodies will be reunited for a final, confirming, general judgment.

310 mervil. S1 marginal gloss: strange.

314 levyn. S1 marginal gloss: leave of. The word may be glossed either believe or leave. In the first case, Julian says that since God intends the revelation not for herself alone but also for all her even Christians, they should believe it. In the second case, she urges that Christians use her report of her beholding merely as a crutch, discarding it for beholding God Himself. See also notes to lines 1585 and 2876.


Chapter IX

328-32 And God hat made al . . . and God is in al. In A this passages continues into Julian's apology (or apologia) for addressing fellow Christians as a teacher even though she is a woman (fols. 100v-101r), given below, Appendix A.

330-32 For in mankynd . . . and God is in al. This is Julian's first statement of an inclusiveness that binds God and human souls, creator, creatures, and creation, in an interpenetrating reality.

335 But in al thing I leve as Holy Church levith, preachith, and teachith. This is the first of Julian's affirmations of accordance with the Church's teaching.

leve. S1 gloss: beleeve.


Chapter X

348 sollowing. A reads sowlynge (fol. 101v), which C&W gives as "to soil," derived from OF suill(i)er, soill(i)er. For Biblical background, see C&W II, 324.

351 it vanyssched. P; S1 omits.

355 For I saw Him and sowte Hym. S1: For I saw him sowte; marginal gloss: sowght. P: And thus I saw him and sought him.

363-65 Than I understode . . . harme. S1 marginal gloss: NB. This nota bene annotation is comparable to marginal hands in earlier medieval manuscripts, which call the user's attention to passages some reader favored.

364 is with. P; S1 illegible.

366-67 will that. P; S1 illegible.

370 sprets. S1 marginal gloss: spirits.

375 the holy vernacle of Rome. According to the legend of the vernicle, St. Veronica's kerchief became impressed with an exact image of the face of the suffering Christ when she compassionately wiped His face as He carried the cross to Calvary. Preserved at St. Peter's in Rome, the cloth became an object of pilgrimage. C&W discusses Julian's use of the vernicle, gives an account the devotion's currency in fourteenth-century England, and provides a bibliography (I, 53-55).

395 owen to trowen. S1 marginal gloss: We ought to believe.

400 rewfull. P; S1 reuly.

403 this wrought. P: this is wrought.

404 fyndyng is. S1 reads fyndyng is is.

425 full. S1 marginal gloss: very.


Chapter XI

440-41 For He is . . . no synne. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

467 meneing. S1 marginal gloss: speaking.

Chapter XII

With dazzling rapidity, Julian moves in this chapter from the specific showing of the scourging to the cosmic theaters of God's redemptive blood, earth, heaven, and hell. The shift is also one from literal to typological to anagogical levels of allegory, as the transitions from blood to water, to generic liquid, and back to blood whip to a rhetorical peroration. But all this is guided by a specific, self-reflexive note on her associative process, "And than cam to my minde" (481).

473-74 seming of the scorgyng. The seming or furrowing is from gashes; Glasscoe's glossary gives weals. "Appearance" is surely one translation of seming, but derivation from seam, a furrow, groove, or gash from a long, incised wound is equally a possibility. Either makes sense. The MED cites Julian in giving "gash" for seam.

479 if it had be so in kind and in substance. Elizabeth N. Evasdaughter calls attention to the hypothetical phrasing; Julian noticed an "edge" between her visions and the ordinary perceived world and did not require that what was seen in them correspond to what would have been seen in non-visionary circumstances (p. 204).

480 it should have made the bed al on blode and a passid over aboute. Maria R. Lichtmann points to the "charged," "taboo" aspect of this profuse bleeding, an outpouring made even more taboo, she observes, when comparing its overflowing of boundaries to the necessity for containment of fluidity stressed in Talmudic texts (pp. 15, 18, note 11). Lichtmann's basic argument is that unlike those spiritual writers who wish to escape the prison of body, Julian regards the body as the locus of spiritual enlightenment, developing both an epistemology, the body as a vehicle for knowing God, and a theology of the body (p. 17). Elizabeth Robertson comments on this passage and compares Julian's "extraordinary and idiosyncratically female uses of blood imagery" with Richard Rolle's meditation upon Christ's blood (pp. 154-56).

483 hys. P; S1 is. to wassch us. P; S1 illegible.


Chapter XIII encres. S1 marginal gloss: encrease.

505-06 all sent of salvation. Marion Glasscoe comments that sent is used in a "common medieval context of divine dispensation and refers to those ordained by God to salvation" ("Visions and Revisions," 112).

510-11 But in God may be no wreth, as to my syte. Perhaps an implied contrast to the devil's malicious attitude, this comment can only be inferentially linked with what goes before; the theme will be taken up more fully in chapter 48.

518 seen. P; S1 ben.

522 sothfastnes. S1 marginal gloss: veracity, constancy.

524 game. P; S1 same.


Chapter XIV servants. S2; S1 servats.

546 that him. S1 that him hym.

554 underfongyn. S1 marginal gloss: received.

561 the lever he is to serve Him . . . his life. Here and in similar passages, the Paris manuscript gives she as the pronoun for the soul to S1's he or it. Perhaps because of Latin anima, the medieval pronoun for the soul is frequently feminine. The phrase the dayes of his is lightly crossed through in S1.


Chapter XV

564 was in al peace. S1 reads was was.

567 onethis. S1 marginal gloss: scarcely.

574-76 I migte have seid with Seynt Paul . . . I perish. See Romans 8:35: "Who then shall separate us from the love of Christ?"; Matt. 8:25: "And they came to him and awakened him, saying: Lord, save us, we perish"; and Matt. 14:30: "he was afraid: and when he began to sink, he cried out, saying: Lord, save me." The passages from Matthew are conflated. Julian's references to the Bible are not so direct or so pervasive as those of most Middle English mystics; one gets the impression that Hilton would have no text without the Bible. Colledge and Walsh, whose appendices include a thorough one on Julian's Biblical allusions, regard her independence as a clue that she made her own translations from the Vulgate. Though she might have used a Wycliffite translation, her wording is not close to the only ones known to have been in circulation in her time. Other possibilities are a Wycliffite Bible unknown to us or an Anglo-French translation. They conclude that her own translating is most probable. ("Editing Julian of Norwich's Revelations," pp. 408-11). See also Pelphrey's appendix in Love Was His Meaning on the influence of Scripture, pp. 331-49. The evidence is also consistent with Biblical familiarity through hearing and quotation from memory.

587 folow. P; S1 illegible.


Chapter XVI

594-95 swemful. S1 marginal gloss: strange gastly.

597 same. P; S1 eche. Eche makes sense, but Julian elsewhere indicates that she is aware that Christ, in fact, died but once. See A, fol. 103v.

597-99 For that same tyme . . . sigte. S1 marginal gloss: NB. This is the only physical manifestion of the showings given a nota bene. Although cold is frequently a feature of representations of the Crucifixion in the thirteenth through the fifteenth centuries, the notice of a harsh wind is rare, if not unique, among them.

598 wonder. P; S1 wond.

606 and peynfully dreyden up all the lively spirits of Crists fleshe. Vincent J. DiMarco's note to Chaucer's Knight's Tale A.2743-56 is helpful: "According to the physiology developed from Galen, there were three kinds of virtues (otherwise called spirits) that operate most of the body's vital processes: the natural, situated in the liver; the vital, localized chiefly in the heart; and the animal, operating through the brain" (The Riverside Chaucer, ed. Larry D. Benson [Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 1987], p. 839.) For passages where Chaucer chooses spirit rather than virtue, see The Knight's Tale A.1369 and The Book of the Duchess 489. Among Chaucerian cases, these are the most obviously physiological, Julian's context here. DiMarco notes Bartholomaeus Anglicus as a contemporary source. See On the Properties of Things: John Trevisa's Translation of Bartholomaeus Anglicus De Proprietatibus Rerum, ed. M. C. Seymour and others, 3 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975), 1, 103-08 (Book 3, chapters 14-16). Bartholomaeus credits Constantinus Africanus (d. 1097) as his authority; Chaucer readers will recall that as well as Galen, the second century Greek ("Galyen" A.431), "Constantyn" is among the numerous authorities known to the doctour of physik (A.433). Though her lively spirits seems to translate the vertues vitales standing in the Trevisa Bartholomaeus, it is doubtful if the work could have been known to Julian. Trevisa was a contemporary of Julian's, finishing his translation in 1398-99. But though there were numerous Latin manuscripts of Bartholomaeus available in the fourteenth century, the new English remained scarce, apparently until a printing in 1495 by Wynkyn De Worde. On the whole matter of physiological spirits, see also Walter Clyde Curry, Chaucer and the Mediaeval Sciences, 2nd rev. ed (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1960), pp. 140-45 and 203-06.


Chapter XVII S1 misnumbers as 18.

624 heire. S1 marginal gloss: haire.

629 thorow. P; S1 thowe.

645 askyd. P; S1 asky.

651 thingke P; S1 thynyn.

652 for it may not be told. The short text is more expansive here, including that Julian's mother and others were at her bedside: "Swilke paynes I sawe that alle es to litelle that y can telle or saye, for itt maye nought be tolde, botte ylke saule aftere the sayinge of saynte Pawle schulde feele in hym that in criste Jhesu. This schewynge of criste paynes fillyd me fulle of paynes, For I wate weele he suffrede nought botte anes botte as he walde schewe yt me and fylle me with mynde as I hadde desyrede before. My modere that stode emangys othere and behelde me lyftyd uppe hir hande before me face to lokke mynn eyenn for sche wenyd I had bene dede or els I hadde dyede and this encrysyd mekille my sorowe, for nought withstandynge alle my paynes, I wolde nought hafe beenn lettyd for loove that I hadde in hym" [I saw such pains that all I can tell or say is too little, for they may not be told; but each soul, after the saying of Saint Paul, should feel in him what Jesus Christ felt. This showing of the pains of Christ filled me full of pain, for I know well He suffered but once; but He wished to show this to me and fill me with full knowledge, as I had desired before. My mother, who stood among others and beheld me, lifted up her hand before my face to close my eyes, for she thought I was dead, or else had just died. And this increased my sorrow much, for notwithstanding all my pains, I did not want to be stopped (from seeing the showing) because of the love I had in Him.] (fol. 103v).

661 is. P; S1 omits.

663 sothfastly. S1 marginal gloss: assuredly.

664 so. P; S1 illegible.


Chapter XVIII with. S2; S1 omits.

687 Sain Dionyse of France. Tradition had gathered about the mid-third century career of Saint Dionysius or Denis of France, apostle and martyr in Gaul, the lives of two other figures, the Dionysius of Acts 17 converted by St. Paul (Dionysius the Areopagite) and the late fifth- or early sixth- century author of mystical tracts, pseudo-Dionysius, who assigned his work to the apostolic contemporary. Julian gives to her figure the inscription "To the unknown God" which Paul finds at Athens and claims as a reference to Christ. The Cloud of Unknowing author translated writings of pseudo-Dionysius. Although not all are persuaded, it has been suggested that familiarity with pseudo-Dionysius marks Julian's thought (Reynolds, "Some Literary," pp. 23-24). Classified as possibly pseudo-Dionysian are the seeing of God in a point (427-28); the statement that all kinds flow out of God (2600-04); and the special use of touch (e.g., 1237, 2317, and 3346).

689-90 kynde. auter. S1 marginal glosses: nature. Alter.

Chapter XX

727-33 And thus saw I . . . dethe. A usual reading of this passage would regard it as a trope. Denise Levertov's "On a Theme from Julian's Chapter XX" enforces the difficult, literal reading. See Breathing the Water (New York: New Directions, 1984), pp. 68-69.

740 mannys. P; S1 manny.


Chapter XXI Crosse. S1 capitalizes Cross throughout this chapter.

756 wet. Perhaps P's wende is preferable.


Chapter XXII The ninth Revelation is of the. The, of S2; S1 he, o.

785 bodyly. S1 dodyly. P bodely.

787 mede. S1 marginal gloss: reward.

792 beyeng. S1 marginal gloss: buying.

798 never. S1 neve. P nevyr.


Chapter XXIII

843 lykyng. S1 marginal gloss: liking.

847 And. P; S1 Ad.


Chapter XXIV two. S2; S1 tw.

871 that is to mene. S1 marginal gloss: conceive.

878 have. P; S1 hay.


Chapter XXV

915 conceyvyd. P; S1 grevid.


Chapter XXVI

917 Lorde. P; S1 Lodd. And after this. The short version reads: "And eftyr this oure lorde schewyd hym to me mare gloryfyed as to my syght than I sawe hym before, and in this was I lerede that ilke saule contemplatyfe to whilke es gyffenn to luke and seke god schalle se hire and passe vnto god by contemplacioun" [And after this our Lord showed Himself to me more glorified in my sight than I had seen Him before, and in this I was taught that to each contemplative soul to whom it is given to look and seek God shall see her and pass to God by contemplation] (fol. 106r). In the short text there is no chapter division at this point; C&W refers hire to Mary above, citing a belief that one's last days may be graced by a vision of Mary occurring in a prayer frequently inscribed in French books of hours (I, 243). Though the pronoun in this passage is probably not evidence of the fact, elsewhere Julian clearly advances feminine aspects of divinity.

918-19 I was lernyd that our soule shal never have rest til it comith to Hym. As a number of commentators have observed, the language recalls St. Augustine's fecisti nos ad te et inquietum est cor nostrum, donec requiescat in te [you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you (Confessions, 1.1)]. Reynolds places Augustine as second only to the Vulgate Bible as an influence upon Julian ("Some Literary," p. 22).


Chapter XXVII

Chapter 27 is headed as 28 in S1. This chapter begins the discussion of sin that is quoted in T. S. Eliot's "Little Gidding." According to Loretta Lucido Johnson's work in progress, Eliot became acquainted with Julian when as an undergraduate he read W. R. Inge's Studies of English Mystics (1906). At that time he also read Evelyn Underhill's Mysticism (1911) and took notes upon it (Helen Gardner, The Composition of Four Quartets [New York: Oxford University Press, 1978], p. 69, note 82). Eliot later met Underhill and also May Sinclair, whose Defence of Idealism: Some Questions and Conclusions (New York: Macmillan, 1917) refers to Julian several times. (See esp. pp. 240-89.) Eliot reviewed some of Sinclair's work, and they met socially, according to Johnson's dissertation, T. S. Eliot's "Criterion," 1922-1939, Columbia University, 1980, pp. 13-15. Underhill was also a contributor to Criterion. Julian's writing therefore reached deeply into Eliot's past when he retrieved it in the early forties for three passages in "Little Gidding" (lines 166-68, 196-99, and 255-56). The quotations from Julian are a revision; early drafts show in their place a readaptation of the familiar Eucharistic prayer "Anima Christi." When he substituted Julian's "Sin is behovely" he needed to identify the lines (and also one from The Cloud of Unknowing) for his correspondent, friend, and consultant, John Hayward. Gardner's book includes an excerpt from the Hayward correspondence in which Eliot says that he read "Juliana" in the Cressy edition in a reprint published "where, do you think? Why, in St. Louis, Mo." (p. 7l). For details on the revision see Gardner, pp. 69-71 and pp. 201-24. Susan McCaslin reviews Eliot's choice of Julian with the further suggestion that in selecting Julian for a representation of the English mystical life, he has retrieved a writer whose experience and movements of thought between concrete and abstract parallel his own imaginative movements in their dealings with time's relation to eternity ("Vision and Revision in Four Quartets: T. S. Eliot and Julian of Norwich," Mystics Quarterly 12 [1986], 172).

936 without reason and discretion. A adds, ". . . of fulle grete pryde. & neverthelesse Jhesu in this visioun enfourmede me of alle that me neded. I saye nought that me nedes na mare techynge, for oure lorde with the schewynge of this hase lefte me to haly kyrke [holy church], and I am hungery and thyrstye and nedy and synfulle and freele, & wilfully submyttes me to the techynge of haly kyrke with alle myne even crystenn in to the ende of my lyfe. He aunswerde be this worde, and sayde: "Synne is behovelye . . ." (fol. 106r). Watkin glosses behovely, usually translated necessary, "has its part in the Divine economy of good" (p. 22). Sheila Upjohn translates, "Sin is behovely - it had to be -" in In Love Enclosed: More Daily Readings with Julian of Norwich, ed. Robert Llewelyn (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1985), p. 29. I owe my acquaintance with Upjohn's clear translations from Julian to Rose Ronan Halpern and Mary Daley Ronan.

950-51 But I saw not synne, for I beleve it hath no manner of substance ne no party of being. That evil is a privation of good, a nothingness, rather than a part of creation was a common philosophical proposition which could have come to Julian from several sources, among them St. Augustine (see Confessions 3.7 and 7.12-16) or Boethius (Consolation 4.2); Colledge and Walsh have proposed that Julian just may have read Chaucer's translation of Boethius ("Editing Julian of Norwich's Revelations," p. 422).

Substance is technical and philosophical here, referring to the core reality of any manifestation, material or spiritual. Substance is the inner actuality independent of external changes. Later, Julian will assert that our natural substance is always kept safe in God (1565-66 and 1597-98), and even that there is no difference between God and our substance (2221), quickly re-stating: "God is God, and our substance is a creture in God" (2222-23). The "fullest substance" is the "blissid soule of Criste" (2203). Earlier uses of the word informed by this meaning occur at lines 157-58, "substantially onyd," and line 668, "a substance of kynd love."

960 sythen. P; S1 seith.


Chapter XXVIII

974 lakid. S1 marginal gloss: not liked of, from the dutch word lackon, to dispraise, to blame, being the opposit to the D. word prijsen, to praise.


Chapter XXIX

994 menyng. S1 marginal gloss: thought.

1000 asyeth. S1 marginal gloss: satisfaction.


Chapter XXX

1008 mankynde. P; S1 mankyd.

1009 councellid. S1 counellid. P counceylyd.

1015 privy councell. The OED gives Barbour's Bruce, 1375, as its first instance of privy council to designate a group of private counsellors to the sovereign. Julian's quick troping of a political term new in the vernacular indicates an absorbing mind, or it may merely signal that she knew Latin. James F. Baldwin's The King's Council in England during the Middle Ages (1913; rpt. Gloucester, Mass.: Peter Smith, 1965) notes that the terms secretum consilium and privatum consilium appear in official records from the first quarter of the century; French equivalents such as le privé counseil also became current at this time. The term did not refer to the more powerful ancestor of the present British institution, but simply to a royal council secretly summoned (p. 105). Julian's diction is politically allusive. In this passage, it is an added force that "ryal lordship" referred to real and great, not titular, power in the daily world. The positioning of lord and servant in chapter 51 speaks to daily power relations with which Julian would expect any conceivable audience to identify. Even a term like courtesy, so frequent in her Shewings, was tinged by the existence of courts which functioned as real centers of power, sources of support, and cultural models.


Chapter XXXI

1033 shalle. P; S1 sha.

1040 fully. P; S1 filly.

1042 amenst. Probably for anemst, "concerning," as in line 1047 and after. S1 reads amenst the God the godhede. S1 marginal gloss: as concerning, or w[i]th respect unto.


Chapter XXXII

1077 dedes. S1 dedse. P dedys.

1078 harmes. P; S1 harmy.

1094-96 This is the grete dede . . . wele. S1 marginal gloss: NB. Several commentators have speculated that the great deed planned from time's beginning to be known only at time's end is universal salvation. Although she concludes that "Julian does not, strictly speaking, teach a doctrine of universal salvation," Joan Nuth assembles anew the evidence for such a possibility (pp. 162-69).

1099 growndid. S1 gowndid. P groundyd.


Chapter XXXIII

1118 prefe. P; S1 privy.

that. S1 reads that that, reiterating the word at the end of the MS line with an abbreviation at the head of the next line. The scribe does the same thing with the that in line 1123.

1123 that. S1 reads that that.

1133 But I saw not so propirly specyfyed the Jewes. Julian discriminates between what her visions tell her and what she understands to be the church's teaching. She does not contradict the second, but her showings simply do not include cursed Jews; and she says they do not. The devil is within her imaging of the spiritual world, but damned souls are not. She gives no evidence that she participated in the anti-Semitism of her time and place. The first legend of Jewish ritual child murder comes from Norwich, that of St. William, d. 1144. "The mutiliated body of this twelve-year-old boy was found in a wood outside Norwich; five years later it was alleged that he was a victim of ritual murder by Jews. The authorities seem not to have credited the story; but the common people did, and William was venerated locally as a martyr" (Donald Attwater, The Penguin Dictionary of Saints [Harmondsworth, Eng.: Penguin Books, 1965], p. 342). Chaucer readers will recall "yonge Hugh of Lyncoln" (d. 1255) "slayn also / With cursed Jewes," whom the Prioress apostrophizes as she closes a similar, later story (VII.684-85). England had expelled its Jews in 1290. There had been a Jewish community in Norwich from about 1144; Jews gave the city its "only early physicians" (Walter Rye, Some Historical Essays Chiefly Relating to Norfolk, Part II [Norwich: H.W. Hunt, 1926], p. 136). They did not have an easy time there. See V.D. Lipman, The Jews of Medieval Norwich (London: Jewish Historical Society, 1967) for an account of the community. The story of William and accounts of other episodes of Christian conflicts with the Jewish community during the some hundred and fifty years of its existence are given on pp. 49-64.

1135 dampnyd. P; S1 dampny.


Chapter XLV


Chapter XXXIV

1153 we may. P; S1 me way.

1158-59 He is the techyng, He is the techer, He is the leryd. For a survey of Christ as teacher in Julian and a compressed account of the background tradition see Sister Ritamary Bradley, "Christ, the Teacher."

1161 seke. P; S1 seky.

Chapter XXXV

1166 Hys. P; S1 hss.

1167 a certeyn creature that I lovid. The short text does not give the information that the person in whom Julian takes an interest had begun in "good lyvyng," but does indicate that this beloved soul was a woman: "And when God alle myghttye hadde schewed me plentyuouslye and fully of his goodnesse, I desyred of a certayne persoun that I lovyd howe it schulde be with hire. And in this desyre I lettyd [hampered] myselfe, for I was noght taught in this tyme" (fol. 108r). It has been proposed that the person may have been a child, Emma, the daughter of Sir Miles Stapleton, whose house was visible from the cell window of Saint Julian's church, according to Robert Flood. Lady Emma Stapleton later was a recluse at White Friars Priory (1421-42). Flood imagines the circumstances of Julian's concern for this neighbor child, who would have traveled the road past the cell on her way to another of the Stapleton residences: "Doubtless she had many conversations with the lady through her window . . ." (p. 39). Of course any such identification is speculative. Flood's small book (see Introduction, p. 9, note 12), is an attractive, affectionate effort to propose for Julian's words literal details of the precise local world of their utterance as well as a report of the church structure, which Flood studied before the bombing of 1942.

1178 Hymselfe. S1 hymsef.

1188 by. P; S1 omits.

1189 onto. S1 reads onto to.

1191 Hymselfe. S1 hymsef.

werks. S1 weks. P workes.

1192 soule that seith. that. P; S1 the.

1198-1200 And by His sufferaunce we fallyn. . . . And be mercy and grace we arn reysid. Pelphrey writes that Julian uses neither of the chief versions of progress in spiritual life offered in medieval mystical theology, ascent (as in the image of Hilton's scale) or the triadic stages of purgation, illumination, and union with God. She does not speak about ascent or about distinctions in spirituality, but offers the image of falling and rising with the falls also benefitting the soul. A theology of falling and rising is developed through chapters 47-49 and 61-85 (Love Was His Meaning, pp. 199-204). For summing statements, see lines 2080-81, 3138-42, and 3333-35.

1199 sufferaunce. P; S1 suffranc.


Chapter XXXVI known. S2. S1 kowen.

1204 Hymselfe. S1 hymsef.

1209 shalle. P; S1 sha.

1216 He. P; S1 omits.

1229 shalle. P; S1 sha.

1233-34 matter of mekenes . . . matter to enjoyen in me. In their translation of the long text, Colledge and Walsh indicate that Julian uses matter in its philosophical sense as the primary stuff of creation "to which form is to be given" (Julian of Norwich: Showings, p. 239, note 163). Panichelli refers matter in this passage to the antecedent sin, and sets this dialectically against the view that sin has no "manner substance ne no party of being" which Julian has advanced in chapter 27 (pp. 304-05; p. 310).

1238-39 Lete be al thi love . . . thi salvation. Margaret Gascoigne, member of the seventeenth-century Benedictine community which almost certainly is responsible for the writing of S1 and P, quotes these lines and identifies them as being by "a deere childe of thine . . . Julian the Ankress" (see Introduction above, pp. 15-16). She follows the P reading, "Lett me aloone, my derwurdy chylde" (fol. 65v). C&W suggest that the P reading can be understood as "Do not seek to hinder me," with precedent for the phrase in Exodus 32:9-10 (II, 439). The S1 reading may be understood as "Allow all your love to come into its full existence," or as "Let alone - have done with - lesser attachments and loves." The second possibility would reinforce the folly of "beholdying of the reprovyd," which is the immediate context of this divine locution.

1240 Lordys. P; S1 Lods.

1245 we. P; S1 omits.

1259 for sorrow. for. P; S1 omits.


Chapter XXXVII

1264 that. S1 tha.

1273-74 For in every soule that shal be savid is a godly wil that never assentid to synne ne never shal. The statement has been called heretical (e.g., Hudleston, pp. xxiii-iv, and Wolters, pp. 37-38). See Hanshell's essay for a review of the question, and Clark, "Fiducia," for precedents in Cassian and William of St. Thierry (p. 218). See also Judith Lang, "'The Godly Wylle' in Julian of Norwich," The Downside Review, 102 (1984), 163-74; del Mastro (1988), pp. 84-93; Gilchrist, pp. 77-88; and C&W I, 254, note 9, and II, 443, note 15.

1278-79 as wele. as. P; S1 a.


Chapter XXXVIII

1287-88 the goodnes of God suffrith never that soul to synne that shal come there. P reads: that soule to synne fynally that shalle come ther. Without fynally, Julian appears to be stating that God does not permit a Christian to sin at all. Pelphrey, opposing a suggestion that fynally may have been a scribal insertion, observes that without this, the sentence contradicts what Julian says elsewhere, that she has been given to understand that she and her even-Christians will sin (Love Was His Meaning, pp. 275-76).

1288 but which synne shal be rewardid . . . made knowen. Charles Cummings comments upon Julian's insights as analogous to Christ's appearance to Thomas, with wounds in hands and side, the risen Christ standing in continuity with the historical Jesus. Julian's insight amounts to a "safeguard of individual identity. The continuity of the individual person is preserved, with his or her unique identity shaped through life by failures as well as triumphs. . . . The total reality of sinful as well as virtuous deeds remains a fact of personal history and world history. It is the same, historical, sinful, forgiven person who is predestined, called, justified and glorified" ("Wounded in Glory," Mystics Quarterly 10 [1984], 74-75).

1293 Thomas of Inde. S2. A agrees. Variations in S1 and in P offer different examples of how manuscript variations may occur. S1 reads those of Inde, a contraction of Thomas in the copy text evidently responsible for this Mandevillian aura. The Paris manuscript gives Thomas and Jude. Here the scribe evidently transcribes the i/j and the minims of u/n from copy, perhaps accurately, but less probably, as j and n. So far as we know, Jude's life was blameless; the doubter's journey to India long formed a part of his tradition. Saint John of Beverley's story is told in Bede. Julian clearly relishes the heavenly fame of her neighbor and the immortal survival of his local identity. There are fewer local persons in the longer text - her mother and the child accompanying her curate disappear. The designation of the beloved of chapter 35 has been changed from "person" to "creature." But although Saint Cecilia is excised, the long text includes more anecdotal material drawn from church or Biblical legend, the stories of "Sain Dionyse of France," Pilate, the vernicle, and this neighboring saint.

1296 party. P; S1 illegible.


Chapter XXXIX

1311 and noyith him in his owne syte. The temperate noyith may indicate, as suggested in C&W, that the S1 scribe mistook a noght in the exemplar; the A reading in the corresponding passage is noghtes (I, 256 and II, 449). The P reading is purgyth. There is, however, something psychologically appropriate about noyith. Further, the Middle English shades into stronger meanings than does our annoy, including impair, damage, and distress.

1315 tunyd. P has a more probable turned, but a musical metaphor is not impossible.

1318 undertakyth. P; S1 underforgyth. S1 marginal gloss: undergoeth.

1322 wil be cast in. P reads we be cast in, which may be preferable. The wil of S1, however, is a more powerful corrective to the popular impression that Julian is unrealistically optimistic.

Chapter XL we. S2; S1 omits.

1355 He. P offers it, making the soul the one who has been in pain and prison.

1358 onyd. P; S1 onye.

1379-80 For a kynde soule hath non helle but synne. P adds, "For alle is good but syn and nought is yvell but synne." The short text includes this statement and continues, "Synne es nowthere deed no lykynge, botte when a saule cheses wilfully synne, that is payne, as fore his god, atte the ende he hase ryght nought" [Sin is neither deed nor inclination, but when a soul chooses sin wilfully, that is payne, and as to his good (or, before his God), at the end he has absolutely nothing] (fol. 109r).

1382 wyllyng. P; S1 willy.

1387 evyn. P; S1 evn.

1388 hate. P; S1 hatenly.

1390 God. P; S1 omits.


Chapter XLI

1391 After this, our Lord shewid for prayers. The short text differs in many details in the discussion of prayer, including reference to the common daily prayers said by lay people: "and in this we say Pater noster, Ave, and Crede with devocioun as god wille gyffe it" (fol. 109v). With the bidding of beads mentioned in the long text's account of the apparition of the fiend (chapter 69) and a reserved attitude toward "menes" (chapter 6), these constitute Julian's reflections on ordinary prayer. Molinari discusses Julian's teachings on contemplative prayer (Love Was His Meaning, pp. 73-139). Pelphrey's dis- cussion of Julian's theology of prayer (pp. 214-54) supplements Molinari.

1397 shewed. P; S1 swewid.

1404 And in the sixth reason. The seeming skip from one to six may be partly explained as follows: The first reason, stated comprehensively, is that the Lord is "ground of thi besekyng," which also serves as a heading for a subset, the four clauses that follow, which are reasons 2, 3, 4, and 5, respectively. The interrogative, "How shuld it than be?" with its implied answer, is the sixth reason and the conclusion of the reasoning process. Julian's designation of the first reason as "And thou besekyst it" remains a problem.

1413 onyd. P; S1 ony.

1425 febelnes. P; S1 febihede. Perhaps febilhede would be preferable.

1431 discrecion. P; S1 illegible.

1432 fifteenth Revelation. P; S1 fifth.

1433 aforn. S1 for aforn.

1434 Thankyng is a new, inward knowing. Thankyng. P; S1 thakyng. See Father John-Julian, OJN, "Thankyng in Julian," Mystics Quarterly, 15 (1989), 70-74, for the view that the etymological link that thank shares with think (OE thencan) informs this passage and others (e.g., line 1012) where Julian speaks of thanking. Using P's true for new, and amending lovely to lowley, he translates thankyng in this passage as "a steadfast, inner awareness with great veneration and humble awe, which turns us with all our strength towards the deeds to which our good Lord guides us" (72). The link with think seems especially valuable as an example of Julian's way with words, although the P reading and the emendation conventionalize the more spiky, difficult, and rewarding, S1 reading thakyng (throbbing, beating).


Chapter XLII

1475 to. P; S1 omits.

1477 the dede that is now in doyng. This on-going deed is not the eschatological deed that is to make all things well ultimately (chapter 30). See Hanshell, pp. 80-81, and Pelphrey, Love Was His Meaning, pp. 295-305.

1486 other. S1 has a squiggle over the o which might suggest owther or nother. S2 reads either.

Chapter XLIII

1513 Hymselfe. P; S1 hymsefe. eur. P gives oure, S2 our. The scribe of S has written eur above a canceled but still legible the. Eur, an infrequent form of eower, is the indefinite your, equivalent to one's. Pronoun shifts are common in Middle English. Compare the movement from first to third to a second person thyselfe in lines 408-11 above, and, more jarringly, the my of line 3110 below.

1513-16 But whan . . .syte. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

1516 unperceyvable. P; S1 onperciable.

1541 fulsomly. P; S1 fusumly.

1545 strengthyth. P; S1 stengtneth.

1565 kynde substance. See note 950-51.

1569 is herd. is. P; S1 omits.

1583 Hymselfe. S1 hymseff.

1585 I myte in no way levyn the lower dome. Levyn could mean either "believe" or "leave" and make satisfactory sense, but to translate "leave" sharpens Julian's sense of dilemma, evident also in her acceptance of damnation as a doctrine and her vision's resistance to offering "sight" of this idea. "Believe" is attractive in that it would confirm Julian's loyalty, after a single backsliding (see chapter 66) to her vision's authority, but such a translation would tendentiously contradict other affirmations, such as those in lines 334-38 and 1611-17, of adherence to church teaching. On the two "domes" of God and of the church, see Pelphrey, Love Was His Meaning, pp. 295-99. For a succinct outline of Julian's apparent divergences from "popular under-standing" of the Church's teaching, see M. L. del Mastro (1988).

1596 kyndly. P; S1 kyndy.

1597 kindly substance. See note 950-51.


Chapter XLVI

1599-1600 But our passand life . . . what ourself is. The place of the concept of self in the Shewings is discussed by Ritamary Bradley, "Perception of Self in Julian of Norwich's Showings," The Downside Review 104 (1986), 227-39.

1604 forthing. S1 foething. P fortheryng.

1615 liken. S1 marginal gloss: loven.

1616 encrese. P; S1 encrecy.

1621 I saw sothfastly that our Lord was never wroth. Robert Llewelyn discusses as basic to Julian's theology the passages in which she says she sees no wrath in God ("Woman of Consolation and Strength," Julian: Woman of Our Day, ed. Llewelyn, pp. 121-39).

1625-26 God is the goodnes . . . goodnes. S1 marginal gloss: NB.


Chapter XLVII

1649-50 But how I understode . . . grace. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

1676 is. P; S1 omits.


Chapter XLVIII

1681 wrath. P; S1 illegible.

1681-82 For I sow no wrath . . . love. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

1692-94 Mercy . . . lif. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

1699 moderhode. P; S1 moderid.

1714-15 And whan I saw all this . . . wasten our wreth. S1 marginal gloss: NB.


Chapter XLIX

1734-35 For I saw . . . God. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

1737 agaynst. P; S1 ageys.

1749 oureselfe. P; S1 ourseffe.

1757 cum. S1 cun; P come.


Chapter L

1767 knowyng. P; S1 kowyng.

1779 awer. The definitions given here, trouble, and at 2163, concern, are contextual. Awer may come from awerden (OE) which means to harm or destroy. The MED yields awer-mod, "a disposition to do harm, ill-will," citing Ormulum, line 4720 (c. 1200). Perhaps in the late fourteenth century, a local variant meant being troubled oneself rather than troubling others. S2, which modernizes words from S1 a number of times, lets awer stand in both passages. P gives feer.


Chapter LI

This chapter is the longest and most significant addition to the long text, its parable of the lord and the servant Julian's most searching consideration of sin and evil. With its explication, the parable adds one-seventh to the length of the text. Most writers on Julian conclude that the reason for its omission from the shorter text resides in her need to ponder the "mysty" example. The unfolding of the vision in her understanding took "nere twenty yeres." Readers may see in the "example" and in Julian's analysis a compact, striking fable of theodicy, but Julian refers it only to sin. Julian gives her own vision a full four-level allegoresis with typological, tropological, and anagogical levels as well as the literal one. See Patricia Mary Vinje on Julian as an allegorical writer. For a discussion of the status of the parable as a showing and its links to Julian's themes, see Glasscoe, "Means of Showing," pp. 167-75. Sister Anna Maria Reynolds (1984), pp. 118-25, discusses the chapter as a "concise and accurate" summary of salvation history.

1794 full mystily. Late Middle English blends OE mist and ME mystike to give mystily, "conveyed darkly and symbolically, after the manner of Scriptural parables" (C&W II, 513).

1796 syght. P; S1 sgte.

1810 that. P; S1 the.

1829-30 a ledying . . . enjoyen. P's reading is easier to follow: "a ledyng of my understandyng in to the lorde, in restoryng whych I saw hym hyely enjoy. . . ."

1835 reward. P; S1 illegible.

mayme. P; S1 maine.

1866ff. It longyth to the. . . . Julian outlines a method and proceeds to analyze the showing in accordance with it, much as a Jungian-trained psychologist would lead a client to "work" a dream. R. H. Thouless in The Lady Julian: A Psychological Study (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, and New York: Macmillan, 1924), pp. 81-84, was, so far as I know, the first to notice the resemblance to clinical dream analysis. Nuth finds a basis for Julian's method in the monastic practice of lectio divina, meditating upon details of a reading (p. 36).

1868-69 seeing. P; S1 omits.

1884 blyndyd. P; S1 blindhed.

1890 knowyng. P; S1 kowyng.

1893 bryngen. S1 brynen. P bryng.

1896 The color of his cloth was blew as asure. In the ante-reliquary chapel of Norwich Cathedral, the vaulting has at its crown a small medallion with a figure of Christ in a blue mantle. The painting scheme is put at 1325 by E. W. Tristram in English Wall Painting of the Fourteenth Century (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1955), p. 230. Blues were, of course, particularly clear and brilliant in the illuminated manuscripts of the period. Later, Julian sees Christ himself in a medley of colors, and notes that they are more glorious than the robe of the lord as God the Father (2054-57). Pelphrey finds the image of Christ's new, multi-colored garment reminiscent of the emerald rainbow surrounding the throne of Christ in Revelations 4:3 and the garment of the Son of Man in Revelations 1:13 (p. 197).

1905 the Fadir. the P; S1 omits.

1913 Notwithstonding I saw. S1 here has ne saw. P, more comprehensibly, omits ne.

1925 al. S1 a; P all.

1937 lord. P; S1 Lodd.

1938-39 And inward . . . to hym. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

1946 that is to sey. that. P; S1 tha.

1950 a man. S1 reads a a man.

1965 groundyd. P; S1 grounld.

1984 understode. S1 undestode; P understonde.

1985 that. P; S1 tha.

1986 Lord. S1 Lod. P Lorde.

1999 The which kirtle. P reads wyth, white. now. P reads noght, possibly correct. However, the now compresses the human and divine identities of God's Son, looking forward to His ascension, and anticipating the nows of lines 2058-59.

2003 I stond before The in Adams kirtle. For background on this figure, see Grayson.

2012 shall. P; S1 sha.

2021 Lordis. S1 Lodis. P Lordys.

2029 wombe. P; S1 wonbe.

2032 even. S1 eve. P evyn.

2041 pecys. P; S1 pets.

2045 mankynd. S1 mankyd. P mankynde.

2052 streyte. P; S1 steyte.


Chapter LII mother. S2; S1 bother. perfectly as in heaven. S2; S1 omits.

2074-75 God enjoyeth that He is our moder. This theme, anticipated in line 1699, is here introduced almost casually, embedded in other relationships of the soul to God which are traditional analogies of varying currency which in Julian seem to stand half-way between figurative and literal. The theme will close in chapter 83 when in a Trinitarian sentence Julian refers to the light, "our Moder, Criste" (3355-56). Intensive treatment of the motherhood of Christ comes in chapters 57-63. For discussion of doctrinal, devotional, and rhetorical aspects of the motherhood of Christ in the tradition that preceded her and in The Shewings, see Heimmel, Brrresen, Bynum, Cabassut, McLaughlin, McNamer, Molinari (esp. pp. 169-86), Pelphrey (esp. pp. 84-89), and Bradley, "The Motherhood Theme."

2080-81 We have in us . . . deyand. See note 1198-1200.

2122-24 But we may wele be grace kepe us from the synnes which will ledyn us to endles paynes . . . and eschewen venial. The distinction is between mortal and venial sin, mortal sins being so grave in nature and undertaken so deliberately and whole-heartedly, that one suffices to damn an uncontrite soul. Venial sins are less critical deviations, almost inescapable ones, from love of God and neighbor.

2123 paynes. S1 payes. P payne.

2139 never. S1 neve.

2145 two. P; S1 tw.

2146 asseth. S1 marginal gloss: propitiation.


Chapter LIII ruthfulhede. In view of lines 2170 and 2173 the word should perhaps be rythfulhede. S2 reads ruthfulnes, however.

2162-67 And in this that I have now seyd . . . in the syte of God. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

2163 grete. P; S1 gre.

2166 evermore. S1 evemore. P evyr more.

2169 Lord. S1 Lod. P Lorde.

2177-88 For I saw . . . knitt to God. For the biblical basis, see especially Eph. 1:3-10 and Col. 1:12-20.

2181-84 The Mid-Person . . . without begynnyng. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

2187 the myte of. Repeated in S1.

2202 ever. S1 eve; P evyr. mankynd. S1 makynd. P mankynde.

2205 which knott is sotil. It is possible, if no more than that, that Julian contributed to Donne's "the subtle knot which makes us man" ("The Ecstasy"). Julian's work was saved and copied in circles which would have been congenial to his recusant ancestors.

that it is onyd. P; S1 that is onyd.

2207-08 that al the soules . . . in this holyhede. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

Chapter LIV For the use of substance in this chapter, see note 950-51.

2210 departing. S1 marginal gloss: difference.

2211-14 For it is full hesy. . . savid be Crist. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

2217-18 And hey understonding . . . our soule. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

2221-23 And I saw no difference . . . creture in God. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

2225-26 The hey goodnes. . . and He in us. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

2230-31 our sensual soule. See note 2250-51.

2232-34 For it is not ell . . . which we se not. S1 marginal gloss: NB Fides quid.


Chapter LV

2241 His Fader. his. P; S1 ha.

2247-48 And notwithstanding . . . than in erth. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

2250-51 And what tyme that our soule is inspirid into our body. "Julian distinguishes between 'the substance' of the soul grounded and dwelling in God and 'the sensuality' of the soul in which God dwells. The sensuality is the soul as informing the body, its life principle and the subject of our psycho-physical experience. It begins to exist 'what time our soul is inspired in our body"' (Watkin, p. 17). For a recent comment on "sensualyte" in Julian, see Lichtmann. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

2251 as. P; S1 aso.

2260 in which se. Julian is referring to the center of authority in a bishop's jurisdiction. She uses various figures of location - home, city, seat, see - to denote God's abiding presence in the human soul.

2276 never. S1 neve. P nevyr.

2284 I myte not, for the mene profir. A friendly voice had proposed to Julian who is gazing upon the image of Christ crucified that she look up to "His Fader," a suggestion which she declines (lines 696-706).


Chapter LVI

2287-90 And thuss I saw . . . to whom it is onyd. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

2294-97 God is nerer . . . shall never departyn. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

2298-99 For our soule sittith in God in very rest . . . endles love. S1 marginal gloss: NB. The seated soul is at rest, as Julian says not only of the human soul seated in Christ but also of the soul of Christ reciprocally seated in the human soul (lines 2298-2306). The theme of the soul as Christ's seat reappears: "And this was a singlar joy and bliss to me, that I saw Him sitten" (lines 2825-26). See also lines 2375-77 and 2791-97. Riehle discusses the popularity of the image of God sitting in the soul in medieval mysticism and most particularly among English writers, where allegorical interpretations of the Song of Songs 2:3 informed the theme as did emphasis on the help a seated position gives for full meditative concentration (pp. 132-36). James Walsh in "God's Homely Loving: St. John and Julian of Norwich on the Divine Indwelling," The Month, n.s. 19 (1958), 164-72, discusses the Johannine basis of Julian's passage. See also J. P. H. Clark, "Nature, Grace and the Trinity in Julian of Norwich," The Downside Review, 100 (1982), 203-20. The key Biblical passage is John 15:4. Julian, of course, is aware that souls are not literally seated, and takes care to make that unmistakable when she says of the Father as lord and the Son as servant, "But it is not ment that the Son syttith on the ryte hond, syde be syde, as on man sittith be another in this lif, for ther is no such syttyng, as to my syte, in the Trinite" (lines 2066-68).

2302-04 And anempts our substaunce and sensualite . . . God. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

2303 substaunce. P; S1 substane.

2307-09 And I saw . . . our own soule. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

2315 substance. P; S1 substane.

2316-17 I had in partie touching. C&W: "The word is technical, belonging to the vocabulary of the spiritual senses, and frequently employed by Julian to convey that she is being directly affected and moved by the Holy Spirit to experience the reality of God, in a way which is above intellectual comprehension, but which accompanies and supports some form of inner seeing" (II, 573-74, note to 38). For other examples see lines 1237 and, especially, 3346. See note 687 above for the possible influence of pseudo-Dionysius.

2318 heyhede. Thus S1, with the marginal gloss: kindhede. P reads kyndnesse which seems more likely in view of the reliance upon the idea of "kindhede" in this passage. S2 confirms S1's heyhede, and the gloss kindhede. "Substantial heyhede" and "substantial kindhede" are informed here by the philosophical sense of substance. See note 950-51.

2320-22 For in kind . . . fulfilling. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

2330 werkynges. P; S1 wekyng.

Chapter LVII substance. S2; S1 subsance. In chapters LVII-LXIII the scribe of S1 fre-quently (but not always) capitalizes the words Moder and Moderhede. The visual effect in reading the manuscript is quite striking in that the masculine pronouns for God are not capitalized. Some of the effect is muted in the present edition in that I have followed the policy of the Middle English Texts Series and thus capitalized personal pronouns and titles for God. But I have followed the manuscript's capitalization of Moder and Moderhede in these chapters, given the possibility that the practice might reflect scribal intention or, perhaps, even Julian's authority.

2334-35 And anempts our substance . . . worship. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

2335 I. P; S1 omits.

2341 godhede. S1 marginal gloss: goodnes.

2347 in. P; S1 is.

2374 never. S1 neve. P nevyr.

2380 kepyng. P; S1 kepid.

2381 substance. S1 substane. P substaunce.


Chapter LVIII

2387 Hymself. S1 hymseffe.

2400 kyndly. S1 kindy. P kyndely.

2404 yeldyng. P; S1 reldyng.

2424 thred. S1 tred. P thurde.

2430 gevyng. P; S1 vefyng.

2430-32 And our substance . . . al goodnes. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

2433 is hole. S reads is is hole.

2436 wretchidnes. S1 wretchidns. P wrechydnesse.


Chapter LIX

2439-41 which manner of bliss we myte never had ne known . . . wherby we have this bliss. This is Julian's version of the fortunate fall.

2462 wyllyth. P; S1 omits.

2475 taken. P takyng. The reference is to the Incarnation. See lines 2470-71.


Chapter LX

2488 rayhid. For arrayed, the S2 reading; P has arayed.

2491 but. P; S1 omits.

2497 aseth. S1 marginal gloss: satisfaction.

2511 tenth. S1, S2, and P read ninth. However, the quotation following is from the tenth showing. See chapter 24.

2522-23 she suffrid that it be bristinid in brekyng downe of vices. This is as close as Julian comes to using motherhood to figure a God who judges and disciplines as well as creates and loves. Others had occasionally developed the image severely. The thirteenth-century mystic Gertrude of Helfta sees God as a mother who loves but also tests, to the point of frightening the strayed child back into her arms by wearing terrifying masks (Bynum, pp. 189-90). In fact the word bristinid is very strong, appearing chiefly in violent contexts. See MED s.v.

2527-28 our dett that we owen, be Gods biddyng. The transfer of the fourth commandment's obligation from human to divine parent accords with the longer version's deletion of reference to Julian's own mother.


Chapter LXI

2533 kyndelyth. P; S1 kydelyth.

2538 to bend payd with Him. Thus S1; P has a less resonant be for bend.

2539 And we fallen, hastily He reysith us. See note 1198-1200.

2540 strenthyd. P; S1 stengtid.

2544-47 And than wene we . . . ourselfe. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

2555-57 For therby . . . not profitt us. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

2558 syth. S1 marginal gloss: afterwards.

2560 never. S1 neve. P nevyr.

2570 myselfe. S1 reads myselfe my.

2572 al swithe. S1 marginal gloss: immediately or all on a sudden.

2573-74 For if He sen . . . for love. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

2583 foode of mercy. P offers flode for foode.

2588 to don it. it. P; S1 us.

Chapter LXII

2593 myght. P; S1 my.

2600 that is to sey. S1 that it is to sey.

2605-07 For of all kyndes . . . worshipp. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

2616 begynnyng. S1 begynnig; P begynyng.


Chapter LXIII

2619 bryngen. S1 byngen. P bryng.

2629 sothly. S1 sothy; P trewly.

2631 techyth. P; S1 tehith.

2635 never. S1 neve. P nevyr.

2643 fordreth. P; S1 foethes.

2649 other. P; S1 othe.

2658-60 Thus I understode . . . be grace. S1 marginal gloss: NB.


Chapter LXIV God wil we take. we take S2; S1 omits we.

2682 a bolned quave of styngand myre. The S1 marginal gloss gives "puffed up" for bolned and "a quaggmire," for quave. P's "a swylge stynkyng myrre" helps with "styngand."

2684 swyft. P; S1 swifie.

2687 I. P; S1 omits.

2691 yf. S1's reading. S2 joins P in reading that. That does accord with a security which Julian seems to feel throughout.

2703 over. P reads evyr.


Chapter LXV

2710-12 And thus I understode . . . that grace. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

2716-17 This reverens . . . is knitt. S1 marginal gloss: Timor domini quid.

2725 himselfe. S1 himseffe. P them selfe.

2728-30 For it is His will . . . lovith. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

2729-30 he shall not dredyn but Him that he lovith. P gives the reading she here. See note 561 above.

2734 if we knowen. S1 omits we; P includes it.

2735 great. P; S1 gre.

2740 the morne. S1 reads the the morne.

2742 none of the day overpassid. Since none could here mean noon or nones, the hour of the office nones (from L nona, nine, the ninth hour of the day reckoned from sunrise), that is, about 3 p.m., it is difficult to fix the time exactly. P reads or paste for overpassid. Julian uses both clock time and canonical hours in fixing times. (See lines 2865-66.) The hour of mid-day appears as an ordinary sense of the word by the fourteenth century. Marion Glasscoe in "Time of Passion: Latent Relationships between Liturgy and Meditation in Two Middle English Mystics" (Langland, the Mystics and the Medieval English Religious Tradition: Essays in Honour of S. S. Hussey, ed. Helen Phillips [Cambridge: D. S. Brewer/Boydell & Brewer, 1990]), pp. 154-58, argues that the showings assume sharper definition when related to the liturgy of the hours. The showings began, as Julian writes at the close of chapter 65, at about 4 a.m., the hour of Lauds.

Chapter LXVI

2750 fulfillid. S1 fufillid. P fulfyllyd.

2753 peynes. S1 peyes. P paynes.

2759 that sawe. P; S1 than saw I.

2767 I lay still. I P; S1 omits.

2772 blak spots therin like blak steknes. P: blacke spottes . . . lyke frakylles. S 2: frecknes. Steknes is difficult; Glasscoe's glossary gives "speckles." The word may be from sticchen, "to stitch," or "to stick" (i.e., to fasten). ME stiche "stitch" is from OE stice, equivalent to Old Frisian steke. The OED gives steke as a Scottish or Northern form for stitch, but with examples from 1520. Contemporary personifications of pestilence sometimes were pictured with spots like small, vertical stitches or gashes; more rarely a fiend would be thus dappled, or even a suffering Christ. Judging from accounts of symptoms, the plague itself could be the source of the detail in this, Julian's only non-waking vision. For bubonic plague, the initial symptom was a blackish postule, followed by a subcutaneous hemorrhaging making the blotches purple. With fatal septiacaemic plague, a rash came within hours, and the larger "buboes" that Boccaccio describes in The Decameron, perhaps the best-known of medieval descriptions of plague symptoms, did not have time to form. Julian would have been six or seven when the Plague arrived in Norwich in January of 1349. It lasted till spring of 1350. Morbidity was extraordinary. Half of the beneficed clergy and variously one-third to fifty per cent of the secular population are estimated to have perished. See Robert S. Gottfried, The Black Death: Natural and Human Disaster in Medieval Europe (New York: Free Press/Macmillan, 1983) p. 8, pp. 65-66.

2784 I askid hem that wer with me if thei felt ony stynke. James T. McIlwain conjectures that the foul smell, not perceptible to others, may have come from infected mucus membranes. He discusses the physical symptoms that Julian reports and offers possible diagnoses. For the period, Julian's account of symptoms is unusally rich, he says ("The 'Bodelye syeknes' of Julian of Norwich," Journal of Medieval History 10 [1984], 171).


Chapter LXVII

2791-92 And than our Lord . . . herte. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

2816 than. P; S1 that.

2819 than. P; S1 that.


Chapter LXIX S1 omits numbering this chapter. S2 gives the number.

2851 soft. S1 foft. P is onomatopoeic: "softe whystryn."

2856 that had. S1 reads that had that had.

2866 prime day. Soon after sunrise, indicated by the liturgical hour. Matins and lauds, prime, tierce, sext, nones, vespers, and compline were scheduled times for common daily prayer in monastic houses. Most religious and, in the fourteenth century and usually in abbreviated forms, some devout lay people, said the hours.

2869 For therwith is the fend overcome, as our Lord Jesus Criste seid aforn. In the short version an apostrophe to sin follows, "A, wriched synne, whate ert thou?" (fol. 113r). See Appendix A. For a cogent explanation of why Julian would omit this passage, stylistically a tour de force, see C&W, I, 271.


Chapter LXX

2876 and therefore I leve it. Leve is neatly ambiguous, both "believe" and "leave" making sense. Piquantly ambiguous leaves occur also at lines 314 and 1585.

2878-80 Thus I am bounden . . . I had ravid. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

2886 thereupon. P; S1 therupo.

2893 blindhede. S1 blinhede. P blyndnesse.


Chapter LXXI glad. S2; S1 gad.

2904-05 For He havith us . . . His mede. S1 marginal gloss: NB. He P; S1 be.

2912 nede. P; S1 omits.

2915 beer. P; S1 barer.

2917 agaynst. P; S1 ageys.

2922 alle manner. P; S1 alivaner.


Chapter LXXII

2925 withouten end. S1 withoutend end.

2926 never. S1 neve.

2931 medled. S1 blotched, perhaps medlid. P meddlyd.

2936-38 And thus we arn ded . . . never fro us. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

2949 And in this I saw matter of myrth . . . monyng. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

2950 sekirness. S1 sekirne. P feythfulnes.

2957-58 This weping meneth not al . . . understondyng. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

2961 stynten of. S1 stynt n of. Perhaps the reading should be stynt ne of, thus creating a neither-nor syntax.

2963 thynke. S1 thyke. P thyngk.

2964 in. S1 in in.

2967-68 I it am . . . that is all. S1 marginal gloss: NB.


Chapter LXXIII sekenes. S2; S1 sekernes.

2976-78 For the bodily sygte, I have seid . . . sumdele. Of the nearly identical passage in the short text, Lynn Staley Johnson argues that Julian here conjures up a scribe whose activity verifies Julian's account of her visions (p. 830). Johnson believes, however, that the force of the scribal scene is mitigated in the long text because Julian has assumed a more authoritative persona in no need of an exterior scribal validation and because in the long text the position of the passage is further from the conclusion.

2978 never. S1 neve. P nevyr.

2980-87 That on is onpatience or slaith . . . most enclinand to these. As Julian will state again (lines 3127-32), she regards sloth as a particular obstacle in a religious vocation. By Julian's time, analysis of this capital sin had a long history. What she calls "onpatience," a restlessness exacerbated by enclosure, as much as laziness or bearing "trevell . . . hevily," remained in the continuum commentators discuss. Sloth (acedia) as a deterrent in the life of anchoritic withdrawal is discussed in the milieu of the Lower Egyptian hermits of the fourth century. On the somnolence side, Clay (Hermits and Anchorites, p. 101) calls attention to the Hortus Deliciarum of Herrad, twelfth-century abbess of Landsberg, where in one illumination various climbers lose their footing from a ladder of virtues, beguiled by characteristic distractions, the knight by a horse, the anchorite ("inclusus") by a bed. The illumination is reproduced in the edition of Aristide D. Caratzas with notes and commentary by A. Straub and G. Keller (New York: Caratzas Bros., 1977), Plate LVI, p. 197. For other references in Julian see lines 418-20 and the self-criticism of lines 2665-67. The early appearance of the sin in hermitic texts is set forth by Siegfried Wenzel, The Sin of Sloth: Acedia in Medieval Thought and Literature (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1960), pp. 2-18; see also p. 211, note 87.

S1 marginal gloss: NB.

2981 peynes. S1 peyes; P payne.

2989 Lord. S1 Lod. P Lorde.

2992 peynes. S1 peyes; P paynes.

2992-93 And the cause . . . onknoweing of love. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

2997-99 For som of us leven . . . we astynten. S1 marginal gloss: NB. S1 reads we s astynten.

3006-07 And this drede . . . waykenes. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

3008 another. P; S1 anothe.


Chapter LXXIV

3027-28 For it may never . . . goodnes. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

3043 asunder. S1 asuder. P onsonder. The discussion of dread closes the short text: "Therefore it is goddes wille and oure spede that we knawe thamm thus ysundure; for god wille ever that we be sekere in luffe, & peessabille & ristefulle as he is to us, and ryght so of the same condicioun as he is to us, so wille he that we be to oure selfe and to oure even christenn. Amen. Explicit Juliane de Norwych" (fol. 115r).

3044-49 That drede . . . good, and true. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

3055-56 Desir we . . mytyly. S1 marginal gloss: NB.


Chapter LXXV and littlenes. S2; S1 lulshed; and omitted.

3064-65 I shall seyen, neden. P I shall say nede. C&W emend to I shall say (vs) nede, noting that the opening sentences of this chapter are much corrupted (p. 678).

3066-69 For the threist of God . . . longith. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

3067 drawyn. P; S1 anwin.

3083-84 And evermore . . . suffrid. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

3096 in. P; S1 omits.

Chapter LXXVI S1 gives only the number, not its customary abbreviation for chapter.

3106-08 And therefore it is Goddis will . . . risen redily. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

3110-11 to my mynde. P reads to mynde.

3110-12 The soule . . . agayne it. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

3112 agayne. P; S1 ageys.

3116 I. P; S1 omits.

3121 This blissid freind is Jhesus. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

3130-32 namely in slauth . . . goodness. See note 2980-87. S1 marginal gloss: NB.


Chapter LXXVII specially. S2; S1 speially.

3137-38 Our good Lord shewid the enmite . . . of his parte. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

3143 he hath. P; S1 omits he.

3148-50 I know wele . . . tendirly. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

3159-61 For whan we have mend . . . that seen it. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

3161 this. P; S1 omits.

3164-65 tho thou do. thou P; S1 omits thou.

3170-72 Our wey and our Hevyn . . . Hevyn. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

3171 He gaf understonding. S1 reads he he.

3175-76 For our curtes Lord . . . desiren. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

3180-81 And to be like our Lord . . . bliss. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

3182 is. P; S1 omits.


Chapter LXXVIII

3184 of His. P; S1 is of His.

3190 hem. S1 him; P them.

3200-03 And be this meke knowing . . . one us to Him. S1 marginal gloss: NB.


Chapter LXXIX

3245 kepith. S1 repith (?), though, if so, the e is oddly formed.

P kepyth. S2 has clepyth, which could be the preferred reading.

3247 not that we beseyn. S1 is partially illegible. P reads nott that we besy, which makes better sense.

3249 alufe. P reads aloone.

3253 shewyng. P; S1 sweing.


Chapter LXXX

3266 in the last end. This, the only apocalyptic touch in The Shewings, may indicate that Julian considers her own time the final stage of secular history before the general judgment. Belief that the last end was imminent was common in the fourteenth century.

in. P; S1 omits.

3267 wonnyth. S1 wonnyh; P dwellyth.

3270 it. P; S1 omits.

3271-72 I leve and understonde . . . not shewid me. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

3276-77 And all swich . . . it is Christ in us. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

3286-89 But thow . . . in His syte. S1 marginal gloss: NB.


Chapter LXXXI

3298-3301 Mervelous and solemne . . . fallings. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

3302 is. P; S1 omits.

3302-03 For it is the most . . . penance. S1 marginal gloss: NB.

3306-09 For His love . . . as to my syte. S1 marginal gloss: NB.


Chapter LXXXII blame. S2; S1 blom. And so we. S1 reads we we.

3324 the. S1 reads the the.

3334 in falling and in ryseing. See note to lines 1198-1200.

3335 ever. S1 eve. P evyr.

3344 be. P; S1 omits.

3345 ende. P; S1 illegible.


Chapter LXXXIII clarity. S2; S1 illegible.

3348 I it am. P; S1 omits.

3349 propertees. P; S1 illegible.


Chapter LXXXIV nedefull. S2 gives medefull, an attractive reading.

3368 with. P; S1 wth.

3369 the of. of P; S1 soft.


Chapter LXXXV He never. S2; S1 he neve.

3388 P's reading also has appeal: with one voyce.

3402-03 And fifteen yer after and more I was answerid in gostly understonding. Colledge and Walsh believe this indicates that Julian began working on the long account about 1388. They further posit two editions by Julian of the long text because Chapter l's summary of the fourteenth showing does not mention the lord and servant allegory of chapter 51, and this is the only summary without reference to the revelation's visions or locutions (I, 25). Full understanding of the lord and servant showing comes in the five years between the fifteen years mentioned here and the twenty years, short of three months, mentioned in chapter 51. Perhaps discovery of another manuscript of Julian will confirm this, as the appearance of the short version corroborated Blomefield.


Chapter LXXXVI This heading has been taken as evidence that the short text is the earlier version of the Shewings. It is possible that the statement is an editor's summary of the chapter's first sentence, which could point to the future rather than to the work itself in any form.

3413 The Paris manuscript closes here with the rubric: Deo gracias. Explicit liber revelacionum Julyane anatorite Norwyche cuius anime propicietur deus. [Thanks be to God. This ends the book of revelations to Julian, anchorite of Norwich, for whose soul God be prayed.]

3417 S2 inserts: "Here end the sublime and wonderful revelations of the unutterable love of God in Jesus Christ, vouchsafed to a dear lover of his and in her to all his dear friends and lovers, whose hearts, like hers, do flame in the love of our dearest Jesu." P and the short version lack the warning following, one that is probably not authorial. Although in part conventional, such caveats can be intimidating and sometimes were meant to be. The Cloud of Unknowing opens with a very strong prohibition: "I charge thee & I beseche thee, with as moche power & vertewe as the bonde of charite is sufficient to suffre, what-so-ever thou be that this book schalt have in possession, outher [either] bi propirte outher by keping, by bering as messenger or elles bi borowing, that in as moche as in thee is by wille & avisement, neither thou rede it, ne write it, ne speke it, ne yit suffre it be red, wretyn, or spokyn, of any or to any, bot yif it be of soche one or to soche one that hath (bi thi supposing) in a trewe wille & by an hole entent, purposed him to be a parfite folower of Criste, not only in actyve levyng, bot in the sovereinnest pointe of contemplatife leving . . ." The author goes on to insist that the book must be read "al over." As for "Fleschely janglers, opyn preisers & blamers of hem-self or of any other, tithing tellers, rouners & tutilers of tales, & alle maner of pinchers" (tellers of tidings, whisperers and tale bearers, and all kinds of fault finders), he does not care if they never see the book. "For myn entent was never to write soche thing unto hem [them]. & therfore I wolde that thei medel not ther-with, neither thei ne any of thees corious lettred or lewed [learned or unlearned] men. Ye, though al that thei be ful good men of active levyng yit this mater acordeth nothing to hem" (ed. Hodgson, pp. 1-3).

3418 them. S2; S1 then.
 
   
   
   
   
   
   
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   LIV
 
We ought to enjoye that God wonyth in our soule and our soule in God, so that atwix
God and our soule is nothing, but as it were al God; and how feith is ground of al ver-
tue in our soule be the Holy Gost. Fifty-fourth chapter.

 
   And for the grete endless love that God hath to al mankynde, He makith no
departing in love betwix the blissid soule of Crist and the lest soule that shal be
savid. For it is full hesy to leven and to trowen that the wonyng of the blissid
soule of Criste is full hey in the glorious Godhede; and sothly, as I understond
in our Lord menyng, wher the blissid soule of Crist is, ther is the substans of al
the soules that shal be savid be Crist. Heyly owe we to enjoyen that God wonyth
in our soule, and mekil more heyly owe enjoyen that our soule wonyth in God.
Our soule is made to be Gods wonyng place, and the wonyng place of the soule
is God, which is onmade. And hey understonding it is inwardly to sen and to
knowen that God, which is our maker, wonyth in our soule. And an heyer
understondyng it is inwardly to sen and to knowen our soule, that is made, wonyth
in Gods substance, of which substance, God, we arn that we arn.
   And I saw no difference atwix God and our substance, but as it were al God; and
yet myn understondyng toke that our substance is in God; that is to sey, that God
is God, and our substance is a creture in God. For the almyty truth of the Trinite
is our fader, for He made us and kepith us in Him. And the depe wisdam of the
Trinite is our moder in whom we arn al beclosid. The hey goodnes of the Trinite
is our lord, and in Him we arn beclosid, and He in us. We arn beclosid in the
Fadir, and we arn beclosid in the Son, and we arn beclosid in the Holy Gost;
and the Fader is beclosid in us, and the Son is beclosid in us, and the Holy Gost
is beclosid in us - Almytyhede, Alwisdam, Al goodnes: on God, on Lord.
   And our feith is a vertue that comith of our kynd substance into our sensual
soule be the Holy Gost in which all our vertuys comith to us, for without that
no man may receive vertue. For it is not ell but a rythe understondyng with trew
beleve and sekir troste of our beyng that we arn in God, and God in us, which
we se not. And this vertue, with al other that God hat ordeynid to us command
therin, werkith in us grete things. For Crists mercifull werking is in us, and we
graciosly accordand to Him throw the gefts and the vertues of the Holy Gost.
This werkyng makith that we arn Crists children and Cristen in liveing.
 
   LV
 
Christ is our wey, ledand and presenting us to the Fader; and forwith as the soule is
infusid in the body, mercy and grace werkyn. And how the Second Person toke our
sensualite to deliver us from duble deth. Fifty-fifth chapter.

 
   And thus Criste is our wey, us sekirly ledand in His lawes, and Criste in His
body mytyly berith us up into Hevyn. For I saw that Crist, us al havand in Him
that shal be savid be Him, worshipfully presentith His Fader in Hevyn with us;
which present ful thankfully His Fader receivith and curtesly gevith it to His
Son Jesus Criste, which geft and werkyng is joye to the Fader and bliss to the
Son and likyng to the Holy Gost. And of althyng that to us longith, it is most
likyng to our Lord that we enjoyen in this joy which is in the blisfull Trinite of
our salvation. And this was sen in the ninth shewing, wher it spekith more of
this matter.
   And notwithstanding al our feling, wo or wele, God will we understond and
feithyn that we arn more verily in Hevyn than in erth. Our feith cummith of the
kynd love of our soule, and of the cler lyte of our reson, and of the stedfast mend
which we have of God in our first makyng. And what tyme that our soule is
inspirid into our body, in which we arn made sensual, as swithe mercy and
grace begynyth to werkyng, haveing of us cure and keping with pite and love; in
which werkyng the Holy Gost formyth in our feith hope that we shal cum agen
up aboven to our substance, into the vertue of Criste, incresid and fulfillid throw
the Holy Ghost. Thus I understond that the sensualite is groundid in kind, in
mercy, and in grace, which ground abylith us to receive gefts that leden us to
endles life. For I saw full sekirly that our substance is in God. And also I saw
that in our sensualite, God is; for the selfe poynte that our soule is mad sensual,
in the selfe poynt is the cite of God, ordeynid to Him from withouten begynnyng,
in which se He commith and never shall remove it. For God is never out of the
soule in which He wonen blisfully without end. And this was sen in the six-
teenth shewing wher it seith, the place that Jesus takith in our soule, He shal
never remov it. And all the gefts that God may geve to cretures, He hath geven
to His Son, Jesus, for us, which gefts he, wonand in us, hath beclosid in Him into
the time that we be waxen and growne - our soule with our body, and our body
with our soule, neyther of hem takeing help of other, till we be browte up into
stature as kynd werkyth. And than in the ground of kind, with werkyng of mercy,
the Holy Gost graciously inspirith into us gifts ledand to endless life.
   And thus was my understondyng led of God to sen in Him and to understonden,
to weten and to knowen, that our soule is made trinite - like to the onmade
blisfull Trinite, knowen and lovid fro without begynnyng, and in the makyng
unyd to the Maker, as it is afornseid. This syte was full swete and mervelous to
beholden, pesible and restfull, sekir and delectabil. And for the worshipfull
onyng that was thus made of God betwix the soule and body, it behovith needs
to ben that mankynd shal be restorid from duble deth, which restoring might
never be into the time that the Second Person in the Trinite had takyn the lower
party of mankynde to whom the heyest was onyd in the first makyng. And these
two partes were in Criste, the heyer and the lower, which is but on soule. The
heyer part was on in peace with God in full joy and bliss. The lower partie, which
is sensualite, suffrid for the salvation of mankynd. And these two partes were
seene and felt in the eighth shewing in which my body was fulfillid of feling and
mynd of Crists passion and His deth. And ferthermore, with this was a sotil
feling and privy inward syte of the hey parte that I was shewed in the same
tyme, wher I myte not, for the mene profir, lokyn up onto Hevyn, and that was
for that mytye beholdyng of the inward lif, which inward lif is that hey sub-
stance, that pretious soule, which is endlesly enjoyand in the Godhede.
LVI
 
It is esier to know God than our soule, for God is to us nerer than that, and therfore
if we will have knowing of it, we must seke into God; and He will we desir to have knowl-
edge of kynde, mercy, and grace. Fifty-sixth chapter.

 
   And thuss I saw full sekirly that it is ridier to us to cum to the knowyng of
God than to knowen our owne soule, for our soule is so deepe groundid in God
and so endlesly tresurid that we may not cum to the knowing therof till we have
first knowing of God which is the maker to whom it is onyd. But notwithstondyng,
I saw that we have of fulhede to desiren wisely and treuly to knowen our owne
soule, wherby we are lernid to sekyn it wher it is, and that is in God. And thus
be gracious ledyng of the Holy Gost, we should knowen hem both in on. Whither
and we be sterid to knowen God or our soule, they arn both good and trew. God
is nerer to us than our owen soule, for He is ground in whom our soule stond-
ith, and He is mene that kepith the substance and the sensualite to God so that
thai shall never departyn.
   For our soule sittith in God in very rest, and our soule stondith in God in
very strength, and our soule is kindly rotid in God in endles love. And therfore
if we wil have knowlidge of our soule and comenyng and daliance therwith, it
behovith to sekyn into our Lord God in whom it is inclosid. And of this inclos
I saw and understode more in the sixteenth shewing, as I shall sey. And anempts
our substaunce and sensualite, it may rytely be clepid our soule, and that is be
the onyng that it hath in God. The worshipfull cyte that our Lord Jesus sittith
in, it is our sensualite, in which He is inclosid; and our kindly substance is
beclosid in Jesus with the blissid soule of Criste sitting in rest in the Godhede.
   And I saw full sekirly that it behovith neds to be that we shuld ben in longyng
and in penance into the time that we be led so depe into God that we verily and
trewly knowen our own soule. And sothly I saw that into this hey depenes, our
good Lord Himselfe ledith us in the same love that He made us, and in the
same love that He bowte us be mercy and grace throw vertue of His blissid
passion. And notwithstondyng al this, we may never come to full knowyng of
God till we know first clerely our owne soule. For into the tyme that it is in the
full myts we may not be al ful holy, and that is that our sensualite be the vertue
of Crists passion be browte up to the substance, with al the profitts of our trib-
ulation that our Lord shall make us to gettyn be mercy and grace. I had in partie
touching; and it is grounded in kynde. That is to sey, our reson is groundid in
God which is substantial heyhede. Of this substantial kindhede mercy and grace
springith and spredith into us, werking al things in fulfilling of our joy. These arn
our grounds in which we have our incres and our fulfilling. For in kind we have
our life and our beyng; and in mercy and grace we have our incres and our ful-
filling. These be three propertes in on goodnes, and wher on werkith, all werkyn
in the things which be now longyng to us. God will we onderstond, desirand of al
our hert and al our strength to have knowing of hem more and mor into the time
that we ben fulfillid. For fully to knowen hem and clerely to sen hem is not ell
but endless joy and bliss that we shall have in Hevyn, which God will they ben
begun here in knowing of His love. For only be our reson we may not profit-
teyn, but if we have verily therwith mynd and love; ne only in our kindly ground
that we have in God we may not be savid, but if we have connyng of the same
ground, mercy, and grace. For of these three werkynges altogeder we receive all
our goodnes, of the which the first arn goods of kynd. For in our first makyng
God gaf us as ful goods and also greter godes as we myte receivin only in our
spirite. But His forseing purpos in His endles wisdam wold that we wern duble.
 
LVII
 
In our substance we aren full; in our sensualite we faylyn, which God will restore be
mercy and grace. And how our kinde which is the heyer part is knitt to God in the
makyng, and God, Jesus, is knitt to our kind in the lower part in our flesh takyng. And
of feith spryngyn other vertues; and Mary is our Moder. Fifty-seventh chapter.

 
   And anempts our substance, He made us nobil and so rich that evermore we
werkyn His will and His worship. There I say "we," it menith man that shall be
savid. For sothly I saw that we arn that He lovith and don that He lekyth lest-
ingly withouten ony stynting. And of the gret riches and of the hey noble, ver-
tues be mesur come to our soule what tyme it is knitt to our body, in which
knitting we arn made sensual. And thus in our substance we arn full and in our
sensualite we faylyn, which faylyng God will restore and fulfill be werkyng mercy
and grace plenteously flowand into us of His owne kynd godhede. And thus His
kinde godhede makith that mercy and grace werkyn in us, and the kind godhede
that we have of Him abilith us to receive the werking of mercy and grace.
   I saw that our kind is in God hole, in which He makyth diverssetis flowand out
of Him to werkyn His will, whom kind kepith, and mercy and grace restorith
and fulfillith. And of these non shall perishen. For our kind which is the heyer
part is knitt to God in the makyng, and God is knitt to our kinde, which is the
lower partie in our flesh takyng, and thus in Crist our two kinds are onyd. For
the Trinite is comprehendid in Criste in whome our heyer partie is groundid and
rotid; and our lower partie, the Second Person hath taken, which kynd first to
Him was adyte. For I saw full sekirly that all the workes that God hath done, or
ever shall, wer ful knowen to Him and afornseen from without begynning. And
for love He made mankynd, and for the same love Himself wold be man.
   The next good that we receive is our feith, in which our profittyng begynnyth;
and it commith of the hey riches of our kinde substance into our sensual soule.
And it is groundid in us, and we in that, throw the kynde goodness of God be
the werking of mercy and grace; and therof commen al other goods be which we
arn led and savid. For the commandements of God commen therein, in which
we owe to have two manner of understondyng, which are His bidding, to love
them and to kepyn. That other is that we owe to knowen His forbyddings, to
haten and to refusen. For in these two is all our werkyn comprehendid. Also in
our feith commen the seven sacraments, ech folowing other in order as God
hath ordeyned hem to us, and al manner of vertues. For the same vertues that
we have receivid of our substance, gevyn to us in kinde be the goodness of God,
the same vertues be the werkyng of mercy arn geven to us in grace throw the
Holy Gost renued, which vertues and gyfts are tresurd to us in Jesus Christ. For
in that ilk tyme that God knitted Him to our body in the Maydens womb, He
toke our sensual soule; in which takyng, He us al haveyng beclosid in Him, He
onyd it to our substance, in which onyng He was perfect man. For Criste, havyng
knitt in Him ilk man that shall be savid, is perfit man.
   Thus our Lady is our Moder in whome we are all beclosid and of hir borne in
Christe, for she that is moder of our Savior, is moder of all that shall be savid
in our Savior. And our Savior is our very moder in whom we be endlesly borne
and never shall come out of Him. Plenteously and fully and swetely was this
shewid. And it is spoken of in the first wher he seith we arn all in Him beclosid
and He is beclosid in us, and that is spoken of in the sixteenth shewing wher it
seith He sittith in our soule. For it is His likeyng to reygne in our understonding
blisfully, and sitten in our soule restfully, and to wonen in our soule endlesly, us
al werkeng into Hym, in which werkyng He will we ben His helpers, gevyng to
Him al our entendyng, lerand His loris, kepyng His lawes, desirand that al be
done that He doith, truely trosting in Hym. For sothly I saw that our substance
is in God.
 
LVIII
 
God was never displesid with His chosin wif; and of three properties in the Trinite,
faderhede, Moderhede, and lordhede; and how our substance is in every person, but
our sensualite is in Criste alone. Fifty-eighth chapter.

 
   God, the blisful Trinite which is everlestand beyng, ryte as He is endless from
without begynning, ryte so it was in His purpose endles to maken mankynd, which
fair kynd first was adyte to His owen Son, the Second Person. And whan He
wold, be full accord of all the Trinite, He made us all at onys; and in our mak-
yng He knitt us and onyd us to Hymself, be which onyng we arn kept as clene
and as noble as we were made. Be the vertue of the ilke pretious onyng we
loven our Maker and liken Him, praysen Him and thankyng Him and endlesly
enjoyen in Him. And this is the werke which is wrought continuly in every soule
that shal be save, which is the godly will afornsaid. And thus in our makeyng
God almigty is our kindely fader, and God alwisdam is our kindly Moder, with
the love and the goodnes of the Holy Gost, which is al one God, on Lord. And
in the knittyng and in the onyng He is our very trewe spouse, and we His lovid
wif and His fair maiden with which wif He is never displesid. For He seith, I
love the, and thou lovist me, and our love shal never be departid on to.
   I beheld the werking of all the blissid Trinite, in which beholdyng I saw and
understode these three properties: the properte of the faderhede, the properte
of the moderhede, and the properte of the lordhede in one God. In our Fader
Almyty we have our keping and our bliss as anemts our kyndly substance, which
is to us be our makyng without begynnyng. And in the Second Person, in witt
and wisdam, we have our keping as anempts our sensualite, our restoryng, and
our savyng. For He is our Moder, brother, and savior. And in our good Lord
the Holy Gost we have our rewarding and our yeldyng for our lifyng and our
travel; and endless overpassing all that we desiren, in His mervelous curtesy, of
His hey plentiuous grace. For al our life is in thre. In the first we have our
beyng, and in the second we have our encresyng, and in the thrid we hav our
fulfilling. The first is kinde, the second is mercy, the thred is grace. For the
first, I saw and understod that the hey myte of the Trinite is our fader, and the
depe wisdam of the Trinite is our Moder, and the grete love of the Trinite is
our Lord; and al this have we in kynd and in our substantial makyng.
   And ferthermore I saw that the Second Person, which is our Moder substan-
tial, that same derworthy person is become our Moder sensual. For we arn
duble of Gods makyng, that is to say, substantiall and sensual. Our substance is
the heyer parte, which we have in our fader God Almyty. And the Second Person
of the Trinite is our Moder in kynde in our substantiall makeyng, in whome we
arn groundid and rotid, and He is our Moder in mercy in our sensualite, takyng
flesh. And thus our Moder is to us dyvers manner werkyng, in whom our parties
are kepid ondepartid. For in our Moder Criste we profitten and encresin, and in
mercy He reformith us and restorith; and, be the vertue of His passion and His
deth and uprisyng, onyth us to our substance. Thus werkith our Moder in mercy
to all His children which arn to Him buxum and obedient.
   And grace werkyth with mercy, and namely in two propertes, as it was shewid,
which werkyng longyth to the thred person, the Holy Gost. He werkith rewardyng
and gefyng. Rewardyng is large gevyng of trewth that the Lord doth to hym that
hath travellid; and gevyng is a curtes workyng which He doith, frely of grace
fulfill, and overpassand al that is deservid of cretures. Thus in our fader God
almyty we have our beyng; and in our Moder of mercy we have our reformyng
and restoryng in whome our partes are onyd and all made perfitt man; and be
yeldyng and gevyng in grace of the Holy Gost, we arn fulfillid. And our sub-
stance is our fader, God Almyty, and our substance is our Moder, God alwis-
damm, and our substance is in our Lord the Holy Gost, God al goodnes. For
our substance is hole in ilke person of the Trinite which is on God. And our
sensualite is only in the second person, Crist Jesu in whom is the Fader and the
Holy Gost; and in Him and be Him we arn mytyly taken out of Helle and out of
the wretchidnes in erth and worshipfully browte up into Hevyn, and blisfully
onyd to our substance, incresid in riches and noblith be al the vertue of Criste,
and be the grace and werkyng of the Holy Gost.
 
LIX
 
Wickednes is turnyd to bliss be mercy and grace in the chosyn, for the properte of God
is to do good ageyn ille be Jesus our Moder in kynd grace; and the heyest soule in ver-
tue is mekest, of which ground we have other vertues. Fifty-ninth chapter.

 
   And all this bliss we have be mercy and grace, which manner of bliss we myte
never had ne knowen, but if that propertes of goodness which is God had ben
contraried, wherby we have this bliss. For wickednes hath ben suffrid to rysen
contrarye to the goodnes, and the goodnes of mercy and grace contraried ageyn
the wickidnes, and turnyd al to goodness and to worship to al these that shal be
savid. For it is the properte in God which doith good agen evil. Thus, Jesus
Criste, that doith good agen evill, is our very Moder. We have our beyng of Him
wher the ground of moderhed begynnyth, with al the swete kepyng of love that
endlessly folowith.
As veryly as God is our fader, as verily God is our Moder; and that shewid He
in all, and namely in these swete words where He seith, I it am. That is to seyen,
I it am, the myte and the goodnes of the faderhed. I it am, the wisdam of the
Moderhede. I it am, the lyte and the grace that is al blissid love. I it am, the
Trinite; I it am, the Unite. I am the sovereyne goodness of all manner of thyngs. I
am that makyth the to loven. I am that makyth the to longen. I it am, the endles
fulfilling of al trew desires.
For then the soule is heyest, noblist, and worthyest
when it is lowest, mekest, and myldhest; and of this substantial ground, we have
al our vertues and our sensualite be geft of kynd and be helpyng and spedyng of
mercy and grace, without the which we may not profitten. Our hey fader, God
Almyty, which is beyng, He knew us and lovid us fro aforn any tyme; of which
knoweing, in His mervelous depe charite be the forseing endless councel of all the
blissid Trinite, He wold that the Second Person shuld becom our Moder, our
brother, and our savior. Wherof it folowith that as verily as God is our fader, as
verily God is our Moder. Our fader wyllyth, our Moder werkyth, our good Lord
the Holy Gost confirmith. And therfore it longyth to us to loven our God in
whom we have our being, Him reverently thankyng and praiseyng of our makyng,
mytily prayeing to our Moder of mercy and pite, and to our Lord the Holy Gost
of helpe and grace.
   For in these three is all our life - kynde, mercy, and grace; whereof we have
mekehede, myldhede, patiens, and pite, and hatyng of synne and wickidnes, for
it longith properly to vertues to haten synne and wickidness. And thus is Jesus our
very Moder in kynde, of our first makyng; and He is our very Moder in grace, be
takyng of our kynde made. All the fair werkyng and all the swete kindly office
of dereworthy moderhede is impropried to the Second Person, for in Him we
have this godly will hole and save without ende, both in kinde and in grace, of
His owne proper goodnes. I understode three manner of beholdyng of Moder-
hede in God. The first is groundid of our kinde makeying. The second is taken
of our kinde, and there begynnyth the Moderhede of grace. The thrid is Moder-
hede of werkyng, and therin is a forthspreadyng, be the same grace, of length,
and bredth, and of heyth, and of depenes withouten end - and al His own luf.
 
LX
 
How we be bowte ageyn and forthspred be mercy and grace of our swete, kynde, and
ever lovyng Moder Jesus; and of the propertes of Moderhede. But Jesus is our very
Moder, not fedyng us with mylke but with Himselfe, opening His syde onto us and chal-
engyng al our love. Sixtieth chapter.

 
   But now behovyth to sey a litil mor of this forthspredyng, as I understond in
the menyng of our Lord, how that we be bowte agen be the Moderhede of mer-
cy and grace into our kyndly stede, wher that we were made be the Moderhede
of kynd love; which kynd love, it never levyth us. Our kynd Moder, our gracious
Moder - for He wold al holy become our Moder in al thyng - He toke the
ground of His werke full low and ful myldely in the maydens womb. And that He
shewid in the first where he browte that meke mayde aforn the eye of myn
understondyng in the simple statur as she was whan she conceivid.
   That is to sey, our hey God is sovereyn wisdom of all. In this low place, He
rayhid Him and dyte Him ful redy in our pore flesh, Himselfe to don the service
and the office of Moderhede in all thyng. The Moders service is nerest, redyest,
and sekirest, for it is most of trueth. This office ne myte ne couthe ne never
non don to the full but He alone. We wetyn that all our Moders beryng is us to
peyne and to deyeng. And what is that but our very Moder Jesus? He, al love,
beryth us to joye and to endles lyving. Blissid mot He be. Thus He susteynith us
within Himselfe in love and traveled into the full tyme that He wold suffre the
sharpist throwes and the grevousest peynes that ever were or ever shall be, and
dyed at the last. And whan He had don, and so born us to bliss, yet myte not al
this makyn aseth to His mervelous love, and that shewid He in these hey over-
passing wordes of love: If I myte suffre more, I wold suffre more. He myte no
more dyen, but He wold not stynten of werkyng. Wherfore than Him behovyth
to fedyn us, for the dereworthy love of moderhede hath made Him dettor to us.
The Moder may geven hir child soken her mylke, but our pretious Moder Jesus,
He may fedyn us with Himselfe, and doith full curtesly and full tenderly with
the blissid sacrament that is pretious fode of very lif.
   And with al the swete sacraments He susteynith us ful mercifully and graciously.
And so ment He in this blissid word wher that He seid, I it am that Holy Church
prechith the and techith the. That is to sey, all the helth and lif of sacraments, al
the vertue and grace of my word, all that godness that is ordeynid in Holy
Church for the, I it am. The moder may leyn the child tenderly to her brest, but
our tender Moder Jesus, He may homely leden us into His blissid brest be His
swete open syde and shewyn therin party of the Godhede and the joyes of
Hevyn with gostly sekirnes of endless bliss. And that He shewid in the tenth,
gevyng the same understondyng in this swete word wher He seith, Lo, how I
lovid the, beholdand into His syde, enjoyand.
   This fair, lovely word Modir, it is so swete and so kynd of the self that it may
ne verily be seid of none but of Him and to hir that is very Moder of Hym and
of all. To the properte of Moderhede longyth kinde love, wisdam, and knowing,
and it is good; for thow it be so that our bodily forthbrynging be but litil, low,
and simple in regard of our gostly forthbringing, yet it is He that doth it in the
creatures be whom that it is done. The kynde, Loveand Moder that wote and know-
ith the nede of hir child, she kepith it ful tenderly as the kind and condition of
moderhede will. And as it wexith in age, she chongith hir werking but not hir
love. And whan it is waxen of more age, she suffrid that it be bristinid in brekyng
downe of vices to makyn the child to receivyn virtues and graces. This werkyng
with al that be fair and good, our Lord doith it in hem be whom it is done. Thus
He is our Moder in kynde be the werkyng of grace in the lower parte for love of
the heyer parte, and He will that we know it. For He will have al our love
festynyd to Him. And in this I saw that all our dett that we owen, be Gods
biddyng, be faderhede and Moderhede, for Gods faderhede and Moderhede is
fulfillid in trew lovyng of God, which blissid love Christ werkyth in us; and this
was shewid in all, and namly in the hey plentiuous words wher He seith, I it am
that thou lovest.
 
LXI
 
Jesus usith more tenderness in our gostly bringing forth; thow He suffrith us to fallyn
in knowing of our wretchidness, He hastily resysith us, not brekyng His love for our
trespass, for He may not suffre His Child to perish. For He will that we have the prop-
erte of a Child fleing to Him alway in our necessite. Sixty-first chapter.

 
   And in our gostly forthbringyng, He usith mor tenderness of keping without
ony likenes, be as mech as our soule is of more price in His syte. He kyndelyth
our understondyng, He directith our weys, He esith our consciens, He comfortith
our soule, He lightith our herte, and gevith us in parte knowyng and lovyng in
His blisful Godhede, with gracious mynd in His swete Manhede and His blissid
passion, with curtes mervelyng in His hey, overpassyng goodnes, and makith us
to loven al that He loveth for His love, and to bend payd with Him and all His
werkes. And we fallen, hastily He reysith us be His lovely clepyng and gracious
touchyng; and whan we be thus strenthyd be His swete werkyng, than we wilfully
chesyn Him, be His swete grace, to be His servants and His lovers lestingly
without end.
And after this He suffrith sum of us to fallen more hard and more grevously
than ever we diden afore, as us thynkyth. And than wene we, that be not al wyse,
that al wer nowte that we have begun; but it is no so. For it nedith us to fallen,
and it nedith us to sen it, for if we felle nowte, we should not knowen how febil
and how wretchid we arn of ourselfe. Ne also we shuld not fulsomely so knowen
the mervelous love of our maker. For we shal sen verily in Hevyn withouten end
that we have grevously synned in this life, and notwithstondyng this, we shal sen
that we were never hurt in His love, ne were never the less of price in His syte.
And be the assay of this fallyng we shall have an hey, mervelous knoweing of
love in God without end. For herd and mervelous is that love which may nowte,
ne will not, be brokin for trespas. And this is one understonding of profite.
Another is the lownes and mekenes that we shal gettyn be the syte of our fal-
lyng. For therby we shal heyly ben raysid in Hevyn, to which reysing we might
never a come withoute that mekeness; and therfore it nedyth us to sen it, and if
we sen it not, thow we fellyn, it shuld not profitt us. And commenly, first we
fallen, and syth we sen it, and both of the mercy of God. The Moder may suffre
the child to fallen sumtyme, and be disesid in dyvers manners for the owen profitt,
but she may never suffre that ony maner of peril cum to the child, for love. And
thow our erthly moder may suffre hir Child to perishen, our hevynly Moder,
Jesus, may not suffre us that arn His children to perishen. For He is almyty, all
wisdom, and al love, and so is non but He. Blissid mot He ben.
   But oftentymes whan our fallyn and our wretchidnes is shewid us, we arn so
sore adred and so gretly ashamid of ourselfe, that onethys we wettyn where that
we may holden us. But than will not our curtes Moder that we fle awey, for Him
wer nothing lother. But He will than that we usen the condition of a child, for
whan it is disesid or dred, it rennith hastely to the Moder for helpe with al the
myte. So wil He that we don as a meke child, seyand thus: "My kind Moder, my
gracious Moder, my dereworthy Moder, have mercy on me. I have made myselfe
foul and onlike to the, and I ne may ne can amenden it but with prive helpe and
grace." And if we fele us not than esyd al swithe, be we sekir that He usith the
condition of a wise moder. For if He sen that it be more profitt to us to morne
and to wepen, He suffrith it, with ruth and pite, into the best tyme, for love. And
He will than that we usen the propertie of a child that evermor kindly trosteth
to the love of the Moder in wele and in wo.
   And He will that we taken us mytyly to the feith of Holy Church, and fyndyn
there our dereworthy Moder in solace of trew understonding with al the blissid
common. For on singler person may oftentymes be broken, as it semyth to selfe,
but the hole body of Holy Church was never broken, ne never shall, withouten
end. And therfore a sekir thing it is, a good and a gracious, to willen mekely
and mytyly ben susteynd and onyd to our Moder, Holy Church, that is Crist
Jesus. For the foode of mercy that is His dereworthy blood and pretious water
is plentious to make us faire and clene. The blissid wound of our Savior ben open
and enjoyen to helyn us. The swete gracious hands of our Moder be redy and
diligently aboute us. For He in al this werkyng usith the office of a kinde nurse,
and hath not all to don but to entendyn abouten the salvation of hir Child. It is
His office to saven us. It is His worship to don it, and it is His will we knowen
it, for He will we loven Him swetely and trosten in Him mekely and mytyly. And
this shewid He in these gracious words: I kepe the ful sekirly.
 
LXII
 
The love of God suffrith never His chosen to lose tyme, for all their troble is turnyd
into endless joye; and how we arn al bownden to God for kindness and for grace. For
every kind is in man, and us nedyth not to seke out to know sondry kindes, but to Holy
Church. Sixty-second chapter.

 
   For in that tyme He shewid our frelte and our fallyngs, our brekyngs and our
nowtyngs, our dispits and our outcastings, and all our wo so ferforth as
methowte it myght fallen in this life. And therwith He shewid His blissid myte,
His blissid wisdam, His blissid love, that He kepyth us in this tyme as tenderly
and as swetely to His worship and as sekirly to our salvation, as He doith whan
we are in most solace and comfort. And therto He resysith us gostly and heyly
in Hevyn, and turnith it al to His worship and to our joye withoute end. For
His love suffrith us never to lose tyme. And all this is of the kind goodnes of
God be the werkyng of grace.
   God is kynde in His being; that is to sey, that goodnes that is kind, it is God.
He is the ground, He is the substance, He is the same thing that is kindhede;
and He is very fader and very Moder of kinde; and all kindes that He hath made
to flowen out of Him to werkyn His will, it shall be restorid and browte ageyn
into Him be the salvation of man throw the werking of grace.
   For of all kyndes that He hath set in dyvers creatures be parte, in man is all
the hole - in fulhede and in vertue, in fairhede and in goodhede, in rialtie and
nobley, in al manner of solemnite of pretioushede and worshipp. Here may we
sen that we arn al bound to God for kinde, and we arn al bound to God for
grace. Here may we sen us nedith not gretly to seken fer out to knowen sundry
kindes, but to Holy Church, into our Moder brest, that is to sey, into our owen
soule wher our Lord wonnyth; and ther shall we fynde all; now, in feith and in
understondyng, and after, verily in Himselfe, clerely, in bliss. But no man ne
woman take this singler to himselfe, for it is not so; it is general. For it is our
pretious Criste, and to Him was this fair kind dyte for the worship and noblyth
of mannys makyng and for the joye and the bliss of mannys salvation ryte as He
saw, wiste, and knew from without begynnyng
 
LXIII
 
Synne is more peynfull than Hell, and vile, and hurting kinde; but grace savith kinde
and destroyith synne. The children of Jesus be not yet all borne, which pass not the
stature of childhood livying in febilnes till thei come to Hevyn wher joys arn ever new
begynnand without end. Sixty-third chapter.

 
   Here may we sen that we have verily of kinde to haten synne, and we have
verily of grace to haten synne. For kinde is al good and faire in the selfe; and
grace was sent out to saven kind and destroyen synne, and bryngen ageyn fair
kinde to the blissid poynt fro whens it came, that is God, with mor noble and
worshipp be the vertuous werkeyng of grace. For it shal be sen afor God of al
His holy in joye without end that kind hath ben assayed in the fire of tribula-
tion, and therin founden no lak, no defaut. Thus is kind and grace of one
accord, for grace is God, as kind is God. He is two in manner werkyng, and one
in love, and neyther of hem werkyth without other, non be departid.
   And whan we be mercy of God and with His helpe accorden us to kynde and
grace, we shall seen verily that synne is very viler and peynfuller than Helle;
without likenes, for it is contrarious to our fair kinde. For as sothly as synne is
onclene, as sothly is it onkinde, and thus an horrible thing to sen to the lovid
soule that wold be al faire and shynand in the syte of God, as kinde and grace
techyth. But be we not adred of this, but inasmuch as drede may spede us; but
mekely make we our mone to our dereworthy Moder, and He shal al besprinkle
us in His precious blode, and make our soule ful soft and ful myld, and hele us
ful faire be proces of tyme, ryte as it is most worship to Him and joy to us with-
out end. And of this swete, fair werkyng He shall never cesyn ne stintin till all
His derworthy children be born and forth browte, and that shewid He wher He
shewid understonding of gostly threst, that is, the lovelongyng that shal lestin
till domys day.
   Thus in very Moder Jesus our life is groundid in the forseing wisdam of Himselfe
from without begynnyng, with the hey myte of the Fader and the hey, sovereyn
goodnes of the Holy Gost. And in the takyng of our kinde, He quicknid us; in
his blissid deying upon the Cross, He bare us to endless life; and fro that time and
now, and ever shall onto domysday, He fedith us and fordreth us, and ryte as
that hey sovereign kindness of Moderhede and as kindly nede of childhede askith.
Faire and swete is our hevenly Moder in the syte of our soule; precious and
lovely arn the gracious children in the syte of our hevinly moder, with myldhede
and mekeness and all the fair vertues that long to children in kynde. For kindly
the Child dispeirith not of the Moder love; kindly the Child presumith not of
the selfe; kindly the Child lovith the Moder, and ilke on of the other. These arn
the fair vertues, with all other that ben like, wherwith our hevenly Moder is
servid and plesyd.
   And I understode non heyer stature in this life than childhode in febilness
and fayleing of myte and of witte into the tyme that our gracious Moder hath
browte us up to our Faders bliss. And than shall it verily be made knowen to us
His menyng in these swete words wher He seith, Al shall be wele, and thou shalt
sen thyselfe that al maner thyng shal ben wele. And than shall the bliss of our
Moder in Criste be new to begynnen in the joyes of our God, which new begyn-
nyng shal lesten without end, new begynnand. Thus I understode that al His
blissid children which ben comen out of Him be kinde shall be bowte ageyn into
Him be grace.
 
LXIV
 
The fifteenth Revelation is as it shewid etc. The absense of God in this lif is our ful
gret peyne, besyde other travel, but we shal sodenly be taken fro all peyne, having
Jesus to our Moder; and our patient abyding is gretly plesyng to God. And God wil we
take our disese lightly, for love, thinkand us alwey at the poynte to be delivirid. Sixty-
fourth chapter.

 
   Aforn this tyme I had gret longyng and desire of Goddis gifte to be deliverid
of this world and of this lif. For oftentimes I beheld the wo that is here, and the
wele and the bliss that is beyng there. And if ther had ben no peyn in this lif
but the absens of our Lord, methowte it was sumtime mor than I myte baren, and
this made me to morn and besyly to longen. And also of myn owen wretchidnes,
slawth, and wekehede, that me lekid not to leveyn and to travelyn as me fel to
don. And to all this our curtes Lord answerid for comfort and patiens, and said
these words: Sodenly thou shal be taken fro al thy peyne, fro al thi sekeness, fro al
thi disese, and fro al thi wo. And thou shalt commen up aboven, and thou shalt have
me to thi mede. And thou shal be fulfillid of love and of bliss. And thou shal never
have no maner of peyne, no manner of mislekyn, no wanting of will, but ever joye
and bliss withouten ende. What shuld it than agrevyn the to suffre a while sen that
it is my will and my worship?
And in this word, Sodenly thou shal be taken, I saw
that God rewardith man of the patiens that he hath in abyding Gods will and of
his tyme, and that man lengith his patiens over the tyme of his living.
   For onknowing of his tyme of passing, that is a gret profitt. For if a man
knew his time, he shuld not have patience over that tyme. And as God will
while the soule is in the body, it semyt to the selfe that it is ever at the poynt to
be takyn. For al this life and this langor that we have here is but a poynte, and
whan we arn taken sodenly out of peyn into bliss, than peyn shall be nowte.
   And in this tyme I saw a body lyand on the erth, which body shewid hevy and
oggley withoute shappe and forme, as it were a bolned quave of styngand myre; and
sodenly out of this body sprang a ful fair creature, a little childe, ful shapen and
formid, swyft and lively, whiter than lilly, which sharpely glode up on to Hevyn.
And the bolnehede of the body betokenith gret wretchidnes of our dedly flesh,
and the littlehede of the child betokenith the clenes of purity in the soule. And
I thowte: With this body belevith no fairehede of this child, no on this child
dwellith no foulehede of this body. It is ful blisfull, man to be taken fro peyne,
mor than peyne to be taken fro man; for if peyn be taken fro us it may commen
agen. Therfore it is a severen comfort and blissfull beholdyng in a lovand soule
yf we shal be taken fro peyne. For in this behest I saw a mervelous compassion
that our Lord hath in us for our wo and a curtes behoting of clene deliverance.
   For He will that we be comforted in the overpassing, and that He shewid in
these words: And thou shalt come up aboven, and thou shal have me to thi mede,
and thou shall be fullfillid of joye and bliss. It is God will that we setten the
poynte of our thowte in this blisfull beholdyng as often as we may, and as long
tyme kepen us therin with His grace. For this is a blissid contemplation to the
soule that is led of God and full mekil to His worship for the time that it
lestith. And we falyn ageyn to our hevynis and gostly blyndhede, and felyng of
peyens, gostly and bodily, be our frelty, it is God will that we knowen that He
hath not forgetten us, and so menith He in thes words and seith for comfort:
And thou shall never more have peyne, no manner sekenes, no maner mislekyng,
non wanting of will but over joy and bliss withouten ende. What shuld it than
agrevyn the to suffre a while, seing it is my will and my worshippe?
It is God will
we taken His behests and His comfortings as largely and as mytyly as we may
taken hem. And also He will that we taken our abiding and our diseses as lytely
as we may taken hem, and set hem at nowte. For the lyter we taken hem, and
the less price we setten at hem for love, the less peyne shall we have in the
feling of hem, and the more thanke and mede shal we have for hem.
 
LXV
 
He that chesith God for love with reverent mekeness is sekir to be savid, which rever-
ent mekenes seith the Lord mervelous grete and the selfe mervelous litil. And it is God
will we drede nothing but Him, for the power of our enemy is taken in our freinds
hand. And therfore al that God doith shall be gret likyng to us. Sixty-fifth chapter.

 
   And thus I understode that what man or woman wilfully chesith God in this
life for love, he may be sekir that he is lovid without end, which endless love
werkith in him that grace. For He will that we kepe this trosty, that we be all
sekir in hope, in hope of the bliss of Hevyn whil we arn here, as we shall be in
sekirnes whan we arn there. And ever the more likyng and joy that we taken in
this sekirness with reverens and mekenes, the better likyth Him, as it was shewid.
   This reverens that I mene is a holy, curtes drede of our Lord, to which meke-
ness is knitt. And that is, that a creture seith the Lord mervelous grete, and the
selfe mervelous litil. For these vertues arn had endlesly to the lovid of God, and
it mon now ben sen and felt in mesure be the gracious presence of our Lord whan
it is; which presens in althing is most desirid, for it werkith mervelous sekirness
in trew feith and sekir hope be gretness of charite, in drede that is swete and
delectable. It is God will that I se myselfe as mekil bounden to Him in love, as
if He had don for me al that He hath don. And thus should every soule thinkyn
in reward of his lover. That is to seyn, the charite of God makyth in us such a
unite that whan it is trewly seen, no man can parten himselfe fro other. And
thus oweth our soule to thinken that God hath don for him al that He hath
don; and this shewith He to maken us to loven Him and nowte drede but Him.
   For it is His will that we wetyn that al the myte of our enemy is token into our
frends hand, and therfore the soule that wott sekirly this, he shall not dredyn but
Him that he lovith. All our dreds He setteth among passions and bodely sekenes
and imaginations; and therfore thow we be in so mech payne, wo, and disese
that us thinkith we can thynke ryte nowte but that we arn in or that we felyn, as
sone as we may, pass we lytely over and sett we it at nowte. And why? For God
will we knowen; if we knowen Him, and loven Him, and reverently dredyn Him,
we shall have peas and ben in great rest, and it shall be great lykyng to us, all
that He doith. And this shewid our Lord in these words: What shuld it than
agrevyn the to suffre a while, sith it is my will and my worshippe?
   Now have I told you of fifteen Revelations, as God vouchsafe to ministren
hem to mynd, renewid by lyghtings and tuchyngs, I hope of the same spirite that
shewid hem all. Of which fifteen shewings, the first beganne erly on the morne
aboute the howre of fowre, and it lestid, shewing be process ful faire and sekirly
ich folowand other, till it was none of the day overpassid.
 
LXVI
 
The sixteenth Revelation etc. And it is conclusion and confirmation to all fifteen. And
of hir frelty and morning in disese and lyte speking after the gret comfort of Jesus,
seying she had ravid; which, being hir gret sekeness, I suppose was but venial synne.
But yet the Devil after that had gret power to vexin hir ner to deth. Sixty-sixth chapter.

 
   And after this the good Lord shewid the sixteen on the night folowing, as I
shall seyn after; which sixteen was conclusion and confirmation to all fifteen.
But first me behovith to tellen you as anempt my febilnes, wretchidnes, and
blindness. I have seid in the begynnyng, "And in this al my peine was sodenly
taken from me," of which peyne I had no greife ne disese, as long as the fifteen
shewings lestid folowand. And at the end al was close, and I saw no more. And
sone I felt that I shuld liven and langiren, and anon my sekenes cam agen, first
in my hede with a sound and a dynne; and sodenly all my body was fulfillid with
sekeness like as it was aforn, and I was as baren and as drye as I never had com-
fort but litil. And as a wretch I moned and hevyed for felyng of my bodily
peynes and for fayling of comfort, gostly and bodily.
   Than cam a religious person to me and askid me how I ferid. I seyd I had ravid
today, and he leuhe loud and inderly. And I seyd, "The cross that stod afor my
face, methowte it blode fast." And with this word, the person that I spake to
waxid al sad and mervelid, and anon I was sor ashamid and astonyed for my
recleshede. And I thowte, this man takith sadly the lest word that I myte seyen,
that sawe no mor therof; and whan I saw that he toke it sadly and with so gret
reverens, I wepid, ful gretly ashamid, and wold have ben shrevyn. But at that
tyme I cowde tell it no preist. For I thowte, how should a preist levyn me? I leve
not our Lord God. This I levid sothfastly for the tyme that I saw Him, and so
was than my will and my menyng ever for done without end, but as a fole, I let
it passyn fro my mynd. A, lo I, wretch, this was a gret synne, grete onkindness,
that I, for foly of feling of a littil bodily peyne, so onwisely lost for the time the
comfort of all this blissid shewing of our Lord God. Here may you sene what I
am of myselfe, but herein wold our curtes Lord not leve me; and I lay still till
night trosting in His mercy, and than I gan to slepyn.
   And in the slepe at the begynnyng, methowte the fend set him in my throte
puttand forth a visage ful nere my face like a yong man, and it was longe and
wonder lene. I saw never none such. The color was rede like the tilestone whan
it is new brent, with blak spots therin like blak steknes fouler than the tile
stone. His here was rode as rust evisid aforn with syde lokks hongyng on the
thounys. He grynnid on me with a shrewd semelant, shewing white teeth, and so
mekil methowte it the more oggley. Body ne honds had he none shaply, but
with his pawes he held me in the throte and wold have stranglid me, but he
myte not.
   This oggley shewing was made slepyng, and so was non other. And in all this
time I trostid to be savid and kepid be the mercy of God. And our curtes Lord
gave me grace to waken, and onethis had I my lif. The persons that wer with me
beheld me and wet my temples, and my herte began to comforten. And anon a lyte
smoke came in the dore with a grete hete and a foule stinke. I said, "Benedicite
domine, it is al on fire that is here"; and I wened it had ben a bodily fire that
shuld a brent us al to dede. I askid hem that wer with me if thei felt ony stynke.
Thei seyd, nay, thei felt none. I said, "Blissid be God"; for that wist I wele it
was the fend that was comen to tempest me. And anon I toke to that our Lord
had shewid me on the same day with al the feith of Holy Church. For I beheld
it is bothen one, and fled therto as to my comforte. And anone al vanishid away,
and I was browte to gret rest and peas withouten sekenes of body or drede of
conscience.
 
LXVII
 
Of the worshipfull syte of the soule which is so nobly create that it myte no better a be
made, in which the Trinite joyeth everlastingly; and the soule may have rest in nothing
but in God, which sittith therin reuling al things. Sixty-seventh chapter.

 
   And than our Lord opened my gostly eye and shewid me my soule in midds of
my herte. I saw the soule so large as it were an endles world and as it were a
blisfull kyngdom; and be the conditions I saw therin, I understode that it is a
worshipful syte. In the midds of that syte sitts our Lord Jesus, God and man, a
faire person and of large stature, heyest bishopp, solemnest kinge, worshipful-
liest Lord. And I saw Him clad solemnly, and worshiply He sitteth in the soule
even ryte in peace and rest. And the Godhede ruleth and gemeth Hevyn and erth
and all that is - sovereyn myte, sovereyn wisedom, and sovereyn goodnes. The
place that Jesus takith in our soule, He shal never removen it without end, as to
my syte. For in us is His homliest home and His endles wonyng, and in this He
shewid the lekyng that He hath of the makyng of manys soule. For as wele as
the Fader might make a creature and as wele as the Son couth make a creature, so
wele wold the Holy Gost that manys soule were made, and so it was don; and
therfore the blissid Trinite enjoyeth withouten end in the makyng of manys soule.
For He saw fro without begynnyng what shuld liken Him without end.
   Althing that He hath made shewith His Lordship, as understonding was geven at
the same tyme be example of a creature that is to sen gret noblyes and king
domes longand to a Lord. And whan it had sen al the noblyth beneathyn, then,
merveling, it was sterid to seeke aboven to the hey place where the lord wonnyth,
knowing be reason that his dwelling is in the worthyest place. And thus I
understode sothly that our soule may never have rest in things that is beneathin
itselfe; and whan it cometh aboven all creatures into the selfe, yet may it not
abyden in the beholdyng of itselfe, but all the beholding is blisfully sett in God
that is the makar wonand therinn. For in manys soule is his very wonyng. And
the heyest lyte and the brightest shynyng of the cite is the glorious love of our
Lord, as to my syte. And what may maken us more to enjoyen in God than to
sen in Hym that He enjoyeth heghest of al his werkes? For I saw in the same
shewing that if the blisfull Trinite myte have made manys soule ony better, ony
fairer, ony noblyer than it was made, He shuld not have be full plesid with the
makyng of manys soule. And He will that our herts ben mytyly reysid above the
depeness of the erth and al vayne sorows, and enjoyen in Him.
 
LXVIII
 
Of sothfast knowing that it is Jesus that shewid all this, and it was no ravyng; and
how we owen to have sekir troste in all our tribulation that we shall not be overcome. Sixty-
eighth chapter.

 
   This was a delectable syte and a restfull shewyng, that it is so withouten end.
And the beholding of this while we arn here, it is ful plesant to God, and full
gret spede to us. And the soule that thus beholdyth, it makith it like to Him that
is behaldyn and onyth it in rest and peas be His grace. And this was a singlar
joy and bliss to me, that I saw Him sitten. For the sekirnes of sitting shewith
endles dwelling. And He gave me knowing sothfastly that it was He that shewid
me al aforn. And whan I had beholden this with avisement, than shewid our
good Lord words full mekely, withouten voice and withouten openyng of lipps,
ryte as He had done, and said full swetely: Wete it now wele that it was no rave-
ing that thou saw today, but take it and leve it, and kepe the therin and comfort
the therwith and troste thou therto, and thou shalt not be overcome.
These last
words wer seid for leryng of trew sekirness that it is our Lord Jesus that shewid
me all, and ryte as in the first worde that our good Lord shewid, menyng His bliss-
full passion, Herwith is the devill overcome, ryte so He seid in the last word with
full trew sekirness, menand us all, Thou shalt not ben overcommen. And all this
leryng in this trew comfort, it is generall to all myn even Cristen as it is aforn-
seid, and so is Gods will. And these words, Thou shalt not ben overcome, was
seid full sharply, and full mightily, for sekirness and comfort agens all tribula-
tions that may comen.
   He seid not, Thou shalt not be tempestid, thou shalt not be travelled, thou
shalt not be disesid, but He seid, Thou shalt not be overcome. God will that we
taken heede at these words, and that we be ever myty in sekir troste in wele and
wo, for He lovith and lekyth us, and so will he that we love Him and lekin Him,
and mytily trosten in Him, and al shal be wele. And sone after al was close, and
I sow no more.
 
LXIX
 
Of the second long temptation of the devill to despeir; but she mytyly trosted to God
and to the feith of Holy Church, rehersing the passion of Christe be the which she was
deliverid. Sixty-ninth chapter.

 
   After this the fend came agen with his hete and with his stinke and made me
full besy. The stinke was so vile and so peynfull, and also dredfull and travel-
lous. Also I heard a bodily jangeling as it had be of two bodies, and both, to my
thynkyng, janglyd at one time as if they had holden a parlement with a gret
bysynes. And al was soft muttering, as I understode nowte what they seid. And
al this was to stirre me to dispeir, as methowte, semand to me as thei scornyd
bidding of beds, which arn seid boistrosly with mouth, failing devowte entending
and wise diligens the which we owen to God in our prayors. And our Lord God
gave me grace mytyly for to trosten in Him, and to comforten my soule with
bodily spech as I shuld have don to another person that had ben travelled.
Methowte that bysynis myte not be likenyd to no bodily bysynes.
   My bodily eye I sett in the same cross wher I had ben in comfort aforn that
tyme; my tonge with speech of Crists passion, and rehersing the feith of Holy
Church; and myn hert to festen on God with al the trost and the myte. And I
thowte to myselfe, menand: Thou hast now grete bysynes to kepe the in the
feith, for thou shuldst not be taken of thi enemy; woldst thou now for this time
evermore be so bysy to kepe the fro synne, this were a good and a soverain
occupation. For I thowte sothly, were I saf fro synne, I wer full saf fro all the
fends of Helle and enemys of my soule. And thus he occupyed me al that nyte,
and on the morne till it was about prime day. And anon they wer all gone and
all passid, and then left nothing but stinke, and that lestid still awhile. And I
scornyd him, and thus was I deliverd of hem be the vertue of Christ passion.
For therwith is the fend overcome, as our Lord Jesus Criste seid aforn.
 
LXX
 
In all tribulation we owe to be stedfast in the feith trosting mytyly in God. For if our
faith had no enimyte it should deserve no mede; and how all these shewings arn in the
faith. Seventieth chapter.

 
   In all this blissid shewing our good Lord gave understondyng that the syte
shuld passyn, which blissid shewing the feith kepith with His owne good will
and His grace. For He left with me neyther signe nor token wherby I myte
knowen it, but He left with me His owne blissid worde in true understondyng,
byddand me full mytyly that I shuld leven it, and so I do; blissied mot He ben. I
beleve that He is our Savior that shewid it, and that it is the feith that He
shewid; and therfore I leve it, enjoyand, and therto I am bounden be al His own
menyng with the next words that folowen: Kepe the therein, and comfort the
therewith, and trost thou therto. Thus I am bounden to kepen it in my feith. For on
the selfe day that it was shewid, what time that the syte was passid, as a wretch
I forsoke it, and openly I seid that I had ravid.
   Than our Lord Jesus of His mercy wold not letten it perish, but He shewid it
al agen within, in my soule, with mor fulhede with the blissid lyte of His pretious
love, seyand these word full mytyly and full mekely: Witt it now wele, it was no
raving that thou saw this day; as if He had seid, "For the syte was passid fro, thee
lestist it and couthest not kepe it, but witt it now; that is to sey, now that thou
seest it." This was seid not only for the same time, but also to setten thereupon
the ground of my feith, where He seith anon folowing, But take it, leve it, and
kepe the therin, and comfort the therwith, and trost thou therto, and thou shalt not
be overcome.
In these six words that folowen "take it," His menyng is to festyn
it feyfully in our herte, for He will that it dwell with us in feith to our lifes end,
and after in fulhede of joy, willand that we have ever sekir trost in His blisfull
behests knowyng His goodness. For our feith is contried in divers manners be
our owne blindhede and our gostly enemy within and without. And therfore our
pretious lover helpith us with gostly syte and trew teching on sundry manners,
within and without, wereby that we may know Him. And therfore in what man-
ner He techith us, He will we persivyn Him wisely, receivyn Him swetely, and
kepin us in Hym feithfully. For aboven the feith is no goodnes kept in this life,
as to my sight, and beneath the faith is no helpe of soule. But in the feith, there
will the Lord that we kepe us. For we have be His goodnes and His owne werkeing
to kepe us in the feith, and, be His suffrance, be gostly enmyte we are assayed
in the feith and made myty. For if our feith had none enmyte it should deserve
no mede, as to the understondyng that I hav in all our Lords menyng.
 
LXXI
 
Jesus will our soules be in glad cher to Hym, for His cher is to us mery and lovely; and
how He shewith to us three manner cher, of passion, compassion, and blisfull cher.
Seventy-first chapter.

 
   Glad and mery and sweete is the blisfull lovely cher of our Lord to our
souleis. For He havith us ever lifand in lovelongeing, and He will our soule be in
glad chere to Him to gevin Him His mede. And thus I hope with His grace He
hath, and more shall, draw in the utter chere to the inner cher, and maken us
all at one with Him, and ech of us with other in trew lestand joye that is Jhesus.
   I have menyng of three manner of cheres of our Lord. The first is cher of
passion, as He shewid while He was here in this lif, deyand. Thow this beholdyng
be mornyng and swemful, yet it is glad and mery, for He is God. The second
manner of chere is pite and ruth and compassion, and this shewith He to all His
lovers with sekirnes of keping that have nede to His mercy. The third is the
blisfull cher as it shal be without end; and this was oftenest and longest con-
tinuid. And thus in the time of our peyne and our wo He shewith us chere of
His passion and of His cross, helpand us to beer by His owne blissid vertue.
And in the time of our synnyng He shewith to us chere of ruth and pite, mytily
kepand us and defending agaynst all our enemies.
   And these two be the common cher which He shewith to us in this life.
Therewith medlarid the thord, and that is His blisfull chere like in parte as it
shall be in Hevyn. And that is be gracious touchyng and swete lyteyng of the
gostly life wherby that we arn kept in sekir feith, hope, and charite, with contri-
tion and devotion, and also with contemplation and alle manner of true solace
and swete comforts. The blisfull cher of our Lord God werkith it in us be grace.
 
LXXII
 
Synne in the chosen soulis is dedly for a time, but thei be not ded in the syght of God;
and how we have here matter of joy and moneing, and that for our blindhede and weyte
of flesh; and of the most comfortable chere of God; and why these shewings were made.
Seventy-second chapter.

 
   But now behovyth me to tellen in what manner I saw synne dedly in the crea-
tures which shall not dyen for synne, but livyn in the joy of God withouten end.
I saw that two contrareties should never be to God in one stede. The most con-
trious that arn is the heyest bliss and the depest peyne. The heyest bliss that is,
is to have Him in cleerty of endless life, Him verily seand, Him swetely feland,
all perfectly haveand in fulhede of joy. And thus was the blisfull cheere of our
Lord shewid in pite, in which shewing I saw that synne is most contrarie; so
ferforth, that as long as we be medled with ony part of synne, we shall never see
cleerly the blisfull cheere of our Lord. And the horibler and the greivouser that
our synnes bene, the deeper are we for that time fro this blisfull syte. And
therfore it semith to us oftentimes as we wern in peril of deth, in a party of Hell,
for the sorow and peyne that the synne is to us.
   And thus we arn ded for the tyme fro the very syte of our blisfull life. But in
all this I saw sothfastly that we be not dede in the syte of God, ne He passith
never fro us. But He shall never have His full bliss in us till we have our full
bliss in Him, verily seand His faire blisfull chere. For we arn ordeynid therto in
kinde, and gettyn therto be grace. Thus I saw how synne is dedly for a short time
in the blissid creatures of endless life. And ever the more clerely that the soule
seith this blisfull chere be grace of loveyng, the more it longyth to seen it in
fullhede. For notwithstonding that our Lord God wonnyth in us and is here with
us, and al He halsith us and beclosith us for tender love that He may never levyn
us, and is more nere to us than tongue can tellen or herte can thynke, yet may
we never stint of moning nor of weping ne of longyng til whan we see Him
cleerly in His blissfull chere. For in that pretious blisfull syte there may no wo
abiden, ne no wele failen.
   And in this I saw matter of myrth and matter of monyng. Matter of myrthe,
for our Lord, our Maker, is so nere to us and in us, and we in Him be sekirness
of keping of His grete goodnes; matter of monyng for our gostly eye is so blinde
and we be so born downe be weyte of our dedly flesh and derkhede of synne
that we may not sen our Lord God clerly in His faire blisful chere. No, and
because of this myrkehede unethes we can leven and trowen His grete love, our
sekirness of keping; and therefore it is that I sey we may never stinten of moning
ne of wepyng.
   This weping meneth not al in poryng out of teares by our bodily eye, but also
to more gostly understondyng. For the kindly desire of our soule is so gret and
so onmesurable, that if it were goven us to our solace and to our comfort al the
noblyth that ever God made in Hevyn and in erth, and we saw not the fair bliss
full chere of Hymselfe, yet we shuld not stynten of moning ne of gostly weping,
that is to sey, of peynfull longing, till whan we sen verily the faire blisfull chere
of our Maker. And if we were in all the peyne that herte can thynke and tongue
may tell, if we myten in that time sen his faire blisfull chere, all this peyn shuld
us not agrevin. Thus is that blisfull syte end of all manner of peyne to lovand
soule, and fulfilling all manner of joy and bliss. And that shewid He in the hey,
mervelous words wher He seyd, I it am that is heyest; I it am that is lowist; I it am
that is all.
   It longith to us to have three manner of knowyngs. The first is that we knowen
our Lord God. The second, that we knowen ourselfe, what we arn be Him in
kinde and grace. The third that we knowen mekely what our selfe is anempts
our synne and febilness. And for these three was all the shewing made, as to
myn understondyng.
 
LXXIII
 
These Revelations were shewid three wises. And of two gostly sekenes, of which God will
we amend us, remembring His passion, knowing also He is al love; for He will we have
sekirnes and liking in love, not takyng onskilfull hevyness for our synnes past. Seventy-
third chapter.

 
   All the blissid teching of our Lord God was shewid be three partes, that is to
sey, by bodily syte and by word formyd in myn understondyng, and be gostly
sight. For the bodily sygte, I have seid as I saw as trewly as I can. And for the
words, I have seid them rith as our Lord shewid hem to me. And for the gostly
syght, I have seyd sumdele, but I may never full tellen it, and therefore of this
syght I am sterrid to sey more, as God will give me grace.
   God shewid two manner of sekenes that we have. That on is onpatience or
slaith, for we bere our trevell and our peynes hevily. That other is dispeir or
doubtfull drede, as I shall seyen after. Generally, He shewid synne, wherin that
all is comprehendid. But in special He shewid not but thes two. And these two
arn thei that most travelin and tempesten us, as be that our Lord shewid me, of
which He will we be amendid. I speake of swich men and women that for God
love haten synne and disposen hem to do Gods will. Than be our gostly blind
hede and bodily hevynes, we arn most enclinand to these. And therfore it is
Gods will thei be knowen, and than shall we refusen hem as we don other
synnes. And full helpe of this ful mekely our Lord shewid: the patience that He
had in His herd passion and also the joyeing and the likyng that He hath of that
passion for love. And this He shewid in example that we shuld gladly and wisely
baren our peynes for that is gret plesing to Him and endless profitt to us. And
the cause why we arn trevellid with them is for onknoweing of love. Thow the
three persons in the Trinite ben all even in the selfe, the soule toke most under-
stonding in love. Ya, and He will in all thing that we have our beholding and our
enjoyeyng in love.
   And of this knoweyng arn we most blynd. For som of us leven that God is
almyty, and may don all, and that He is al wisdam, and can don all; but that He
is all love, and will don all, there we astynten. And this unknowing - it is that
that lettith most Gods lovers, as to my syte. For whan we begynnen to haten
synne, and amenden us be the ordinance of Holy Church, yet ther dwellith a
drede that lettith us, for the beholding of our selfe, and of our synnes aforn don,
and sum of us for our everydayly synnes. For we hold nor our covenants ne kepe not
our cleness that our Lord settith us in, but fallen oftimes in so much wretchid-
ness that shame it is to seen it. And the beholding of this makyth us so sorry and
so hevy that onethis we can finde ony comfort. And this drede we taken sumtime
for a mekness, but this is a foule blyndhed and a waykenes. And we cannot
dispisen it as we don another synne that we knowen, for it commyth of enmite,
and it is agens truth.
   For of all the propertes of the blisfull Trinite, it is God will that we have most
sekirnes and likeing in love. For love makith myte and wisdam full meke to us.
For ryte as be the curtesye of God He forgivith our synne atte the tyme that we
repenten us, ryte so will He that we forgiven our synne as anempts our unskilfull
hevyness and our doutfull dreds.
 
LXXIV
 
Ther ben four manner of drede, but reverent drede is a lovely true that never is without
meke love; and yet thei be not both one; and how we should pray God for the same.
Seventy-fourth chapter.

 
   For I understond four manner of dreds. One is the drede of afray that cum-
mith to a man sodenly be frelte. This drede doith good, for it helpith to purge
man as doeth bodily sekenes or swich other peyne that is not synne. For all
swich peynys helpe man, if thei be patiently taken. The second is drede of peyne,
wherby man is sterid and wakid fro sleepe of synne. He is not abil for the time
to perceivyn the soft comfort of the Holy Gost, till he have understonding of this
drede of peyne, of bodily deth, and of gostly enemyes. And this drede stirrith us
to seken comfort and mercy of God, and thus this drede helpith us to sekyn
comfort and mercy of God and abileth us to have contrition be the blisfull
touching of the Holy Gost. The third is doubtfull drede. Doutfull drede, in as
mech as it drawith to dispeir, God will have it turnyd in us into love be the
knowing of love, that is to sey, that the bitternes of doubt be turnyd into swete-
ness of kinde love be grace. For it may never plesyn our Lord that His servants
douten in his goodnes.
   The fourth is reverent drede. For there is no drede that fully plesith God in us
but reverent drede, and that is full soft, for the more it is had, the less is it felt
for swetenes of love. Love and drede are brethren, and thei arn rotid in us be the
goodnes of our makere; and thei shall never be taken fro us without end. We
have of kinde to loven, and we have of grace to loven; and we have of kinde to
dreden, and we have of grace to dreden. It longith to the lordshippe and to the
faderhede to be dred, as it longith to the goodnes to be lovid. And it longith to
us that arn His servants and His children to dreden Him for lordshipp and
faderhede, as it longith to us to loven Him for goodhede. And thow this reverent
drede and love be not partid asundre, yet thei arn not both one, but thei arn
two in properte and in werking. And neither of them may be had without other.
Therfore I am sekir, he that lovith, he dredith, thow that he fele it but a littil.
All dreds other than reverent drede that arn proferid to us, thow they come
under the collor of holyness, yet arn not so trew, and hereby may they be
knowen asunder.
   That drede that makith us hastily to fleen from all that is not good, and fallen
into our Lords brest as the child into the moder barme, with all our entent and
with all our mynd, knowand our febilness and our gret nede, knowing His ever
lesting goodnes and His blisfull love, only sekeing to Him for salvation, clevand
to with sekir troste - that drede that bringith us into this werking - it is kinde,
gracious, good, and true. And all that contraries to this, either it is wronge or it
is medlid with wronge. Than is this the remedye: to knowen hem both and
refusen the wrong. For the kinde profitt of drede which we have in this lif be the
gracious werking of the Holy Gost, the same shall be in Hevyn aforn God,
gentill, curtes, and ful delectabil.
   And thus we shall in love be homley and nere to God, and we shall in drede
be gentil and curtes to God, and both alike evyn. Desir we of our Lord God to
dredin Him reverently and to love Him mekely and to trosten in Him mytyly.
For whan we drede Him reverently and loven Him mekely our troste is never in
vaine; for the more that we trosten, and the mytylier, the more we plesyn and
worshippe our Lord that we trosten in. And if us feile this reverent drede and
meke love (as God forbode we should), our trost shall sone be misrulid for the
tyme. And therefore us nedith mekil for to prayen our Lord of grace that we may
have this reverent drede and meke love, of his gift, in herte and in werke, for
withouten this no man may plesyn God.
 
LXXV
 
Us nedith love, longing, and pite; and of three manner of longing in God which arn in
us; and how in the day of dome the joy of the blissid shal ben incresid, seing verily the
cause of all thyng that God hath don, dredfully tremeland, and thankand for joye,
mervelyng the gretnes of God and littlenes of all that is made. Seventy-fifth chapter.

 
   I saw that God may done all that us nedith. And these three that I shall seyen,
neden: love, longing, pite. Pite in love kepith us in the time of our nede, and
longing in the same love drawith us into Hevyn. For the threist of God is to
have the general man into Him, in which thrist He hath drawyn His holy that be
now in bliss; and gettand His lively members, ever He drawith and drinkith, and
yet He thristith and longith.
   I saw three manner of longing in God, and al to one end; of which we have the
same in us, and of the same vertue, and for the same end. The first is for that He
longyth to learn us to knowen Him and loven Him evermore, as it is convenient
and spedefull to us. The second is that He longith to have us up to His bliss as
soules arn whan thei arn taken out of peyne into Hevyn. The third is to fulfillen
us in bliss, and that shall be on the last day fulfillid, ever to lesten. For I saw, as
it is knowne in our feith, that the peyne and sorow shall be endid to all that
shall be savid. And not only we shall recevyn the same bliss the soule aforne
have had in Hevyn, but also we shall receive a new, which plenteously shall be
flowing out of God into us, and fullfillen us. And this be the goods which He
hath ordeynid to geve us from without begynnyng.
   These goods are tresurid and hidde in Hymselfe. For into that time, creature
is not myty ne worthy to receivin them. In this we shall seen verily the cause of
all thyng He hat don. And evermore we shall seen the cause of all things that He
hath suffrid. And the bliss and the fulfilling shall be so deepe and so hey that,
for wonder and mervell, all creatures shall have to God so gret reverent drede,
overpassing that hath been seen and felt beforn, that the pillers of Hevyn shall
tremelyn and quakyn, but this manner of tremelyng and drede shall have no peyne.
   But it longith to the worthy myte of God thus to be beholden of His creatures,
dredfully tremeland and quakand for mekehede of joye, mervelyng at the greatnes
of God the maker, and of the litilhede of all that is made. For the beholdyng of
this makith the creature mervelous meke and mylde. Wherfore God will, and
also it longith to us both in kynde and grace, to witten and knowen of this,
desirand this syte and this werking. For it ledith us in ryte wey, and kepith us in
true life, and onyth us to God. And as good as God is, as gret He is, and as mekil
as it longith to His Godhede to be lovid, so mekill it longyth to His grethede to
be dredid. For this reverent drede is the faire curtesie that is in Hevyn aforn
Gods face. And as mekil as He shall than be knowen and lovid overpassing that
He is now, in so mekill He shall be dredid overpassing that He is now. Wherfore
it behovith needs to ben that all Hevyn and erth shall tremelyn and quaken when
the pillars shall tremelyn and quaken.
 
LXXVI
 
A loveand soule hatith synne for vilehede more than all the peyn of Hell; and how the
beholdyng of other mannys synne (but if it be with compassion), lettith the beholdyng
of God; and the devill, be putting in remembrans our writchidness, would letten for the
same; and of our slawth. Seventy-sixth Chapter.

 
   I speke but littil of reverent drede, for I hope it may be seen in this matter
afornseid. But wele I wot our Lord shewid me no soules but those that dred
Him. For wele I wott the soule that trewly takith the techyng of the Holy Gost,
it hatith more synne for vilehede and horibilite, than it doth all the peyne that
is in Hell. For the soule that beholdith the kindenes of our Lord Jesus, it hatith
non helle but synne, as to my sygte. And therefore it is Goddis will that we
knowen synne, and prayen bysyly, and travellyn willfully, and sekyn teching
mekely, that we fall not blindly therin; and, if we fallen, that we risen redily.
For it is the most peyne that the soule may have, to turne fro God ony time be
synne. The soule that will be in rest, whan other mannys synne commith to my
mynde, he shall fleen it as the peyne of Helle, seking into God for remedy, for
helpe agayne it. For the beholdyng of other mannys synnes, it makith, as it were,
a thick myst aforne the eye of the soule, and we may not for the tyme se the
fairehede of God - but if we may beholden hem with contrition with him, with
compassion on him, and with holy desire to God for him. For withouten this it
noyeth and tempestith and lettith the soule that beholdith hem. For this I under-
stode in the shewing of compassion.
   In this blisfull shewing of our Lord, I have understondyng of two contaries.
That one is the most wisdam that ony creture may don in this life; that other is
the most foly. The most wisdam is a creature to done after the wille and councell
of his heyest, sovereyn freind. This blissid freind is Jhesus, and it is His will and
His councell that we holden us with Him, and festyn us to Him, homley, ever-
more in what state so we ben, for whether so that we ben foule or clene we arn
al one in His loveing. For wele ne for wo, He will never we fleen Him.
   But for the chongeabilitie that we arn in, in ourselfe we fallen often into
synne. Than we have this be the stering of our enemy and be our owne foly and
blyndhede. For they seien thus: Thou wittest wele thou art a wretch, a synner,
and also ontrew, for thou kepist not the command; thou behotist oftentymes our
Lord that thou shalt don better, and anon after, thou fallest agen in the same,
namely in slauth, in lesyng of tyme. For that is the begynning of synne, as to my
syghte, and namely to the creatures that have goven hem to serven our Lord with
inward beholding of his blissid goodness. And this makith us adred to apear
afore our curtes Lord. Than is it our enemy that will putt us on bakke with his
false drede of our writchidnes, for peyne that he threatith us by, for it is his men-
yng to make us so hevy and so wery in this that we shuld lettyn out of mende the
fair, blisfull beholdyng of our everlasting freind.
 
LXXVII
 
Off the enmite of the fend which lesith more in our uprising than he winnith be our
fallyng, and therfore he is scornyd. And how the scorge of God shuld be suffrid with
mynde of His passion. For that is specially rewardid aboven penance be ourselfe chosen.
And we must nedes hove wo, but curtes God is our leder, keper, and bliss. Seventy-
seventh chapter.

 
   Our good Lord shewid the enmite of the fend, wherby I understode that all
that is contrarious to love and to pece, it is the fend and of his parte. And we
have of our febilnes and our foly to fallen, and we have of mercy and grace of
the Holy Gost to risen to more joye. And if our eneme owte wynnith of us by
our fallyng, for it is his likenes, he lesith manyfold more in our rising be charite
and mekenes. And this glorious riseing, it is to him so gret sorow and peyne for
the hate that he hath to our soule that he brynnyt continuly in envy. And al this
sorow that he wold maken us to have, it shal turne to himselfe. And for this it
was that our Lord scornyd him, and this made me mytyly to lauhen.
   Than is this the remedy - that we ben aknowen our writchidnes and flen to
our Lord. For ever the mor nedier that we ben, the more spedefull it is to us to
neyghen Him. And sey we thus in our mening: I know wele I have a shrewid
peyne, but our Lord is almyty and may punish me mytyly, and He is al wisdam
and can punish me skilfully, and He is all goodnes and lovith me full tendirly.
And in this beholdyng it is necessarye for us to abeyden, for it is a lovely meke-
ness of a synfull soule, wroute be mercy and grace of the Holy Gost, whan we
will willfully and gladly taken the scorge and chastening of our Lord Himselfe
will geve us. And it shall be full tendir and full esy, if that we will onely holden
us paid with Him and with all His werkes.
   For the pennance that man taketh of himselfe was not shewid me, that is to
sey, it was not shewid specifyed; but it was shewid specialy and heyly and with
full lovely chere, that we shall mekely and patiently beryn and suffren the pen-
ance that God Himselfe gevith us with mynde in His blissid passion. For whan
we have mend in His blissid passion with pite and love, than we suffren with
Him like as His freinds did that seen it. And this was shewid in the thirteenth
ner at the begynnyng wher it spekith of pite. For He seith, Accuse not selfe
overdon mekil, demandand that tribulation and thy wo is al for thy defaute, for I
will not that thou be hevye ne sorowfull undiscretly. For I tell the howso tho thou
do, thou shalt have wo, and therfore I will that thou wisely know thi penance and
shalt then sothly seene that all thi living is penance profitable
. This place is prison,
and this life is penance; and in the remedy He will we enjoyen. The remedy is
that our Lord is with us, kepand and ledand into the fulhede of joye. For this is
an endless joy to us in our Lords menyng, that He that shall ben our bliss whan
we arn there, He is our keper while we arn here. Our wey and our Hevyn is trew
love and sekir troste, and of this He gaf understonding in al, and namly in the
shewing of His passion wher He made me mytyly to chesin Him for my Hevyn.
   Fle we to our Lord, and we shall be comfortid; touch we Him, and we shull be
made clene; cleve to Him, and we shall be sekir and safe fro al maner of peril.
For our curtes Lord will that we ben as homley with Him as herte may thinke or
soule may desiren. But beware that we taken not so reklesly this homleyhede
that we levyn curtesy. For our Lord Himselfe is sovereyn homleyhede, and as
homley as He is, as curtes He is, for He is very curtes. And the blissid creatures
that shall ben in Hevyn with Him without end, He will have hem like to Himselfe
in all things. And to be like our Lord perfectly, it is our very salvation and our
full bliss. And if we wott not how we shall don all this, desire we of our Lord, and
He shal lerne us, for it is His owne likeing and His worship. Blissid mot He be.
 
LXXVIII
 
Our Lord will we know four manner of goodnes that He doith to us; and how we neede
the lyte of grace to knowen our synne and febilnes, for we arn nothing of ourselfe but
writchidnes, and we may not know the horribilnes of synne as it is. And how our enemy
would we should never know our synne til the last day, wherfore we arn mekil bowndend
to God that shewith it now. Seventy-eighth chapter.

 
   Our Lord of His mercy shewith us our synne and our febilnes be the swete
gracious lyte of Hymselfe, for our synne is so vile and so horrible that He of His
curtesee will not shew it to us, but be the lyte of His grace and mercy. Of four
things it is His will that we have knowing: The first is that He is our ground of
whom we have all our life and our being. The second, that He kepith us mytyly
and mercifully in the tyme that we arn in our synne and monge all our enemies
that arn full fel upon us; and so mekil we arn in the more peril, for we geven
hem occasion therto and kno not our owne nede. The third is how curtesly He
kepith us and makith us to knowen that we gon amyss. The fourth is how sted
fastly He abidith us and chongith no chere, for He will that we be turnyd and
onyd to Him in love as He is to us.
   And thus be this gracious knoweing we may seen our synne profitably without
despeir. For sothly us nedith to seen it, and be the syte we shall be made ashamd of
ourselfe and broken downe as anempts our pride and presumtion. For us behov-
ith verily to seen that of ourselfe we arn ryte nowte but synne and wretchiddnes.
And thus be the syte of the less that our Lord shewith us, the more is wastid
which we se not. For He of his curtesye mesurith the syte to us, for it is so vile
and so horrible that we shuld not enduren to seen it as it is. And be this meke
knowing, thus throw contrition and grace we shall be broken fro all things that
is not our Lord, and than shall our blissid Saviour perfectly helyn us and one
us to Him.
   This breking and this helyng our Lord menith be the generall man. For he that
is heyest and nerest with God, he may seen himselfe synnefull, and nedith, with
me. And I that am the lest and lowest of those that shall be save, I may be
comfortid with him that is heyest. So hath our Lord onyd us in charite whan He
shewid me that I shuld synne. And for joy that I had in beholdyng of Him, I
entend not redily to that shewing, and our curtis Lord stynte then, and wold not
ferther tech me till that He gave me grace and will to entenden. And hereof was
I lerid thow that we be heyly lifted up into contemplation be the special gift of
our Lord, yet us behovith nedis therwith to have knoweing and syte of our synne
and our febilnes. For withouten this knowing we may not have trew mekenes,
and without this we may not be savid. And also I saw that we may not have this
knowing of ourselfe, ne of none of all our gostly enemies, for thei will us not so
mekil good. For if it wer be their will, we should not seen it into our endyng day.
Than we be mekil bounden to God that He will Himselfe for love shewen it us
in time of mercy and grace.
 
LXXIX
 
We are lernyd to our synne, and not to our neighbors, but for their helpe; and God will
we know whatsomever stering we have contrary to this shewing, it comith of our enemy.
For the gret love of God knowen, we should not ben the more reckles to fallen, and if we
fallen, we must hastily risen or ell we are gretly onkind to God. Seventy-ninth chapter.

 
   Also I had in this more understondyng. In that He shewid me that I should
synne, I toke it nakidly to myne owne singular person, for I was none otherwise
stirrid at that time. But be the hey, gracious comfort of our Lord that followid
after, I saw that His menyng was for the general man, that is to sey, all man
which is synfull and shall ben into the last day, of which man I am a member, as
I hope, be the mercy of God. For the blissid comfort that I saw, it is large enow
for us all. And here was I lerid that I shuld se myn owne synne and not other
mens synns but if it may be for comfort and helpe of myn evin Cristen. And also
in this same shewing where I saw that I shuld synne, then was I leryd to be
dredfull for onsekirness of myselfe, for I wott not how I shall fallen, nor I know
not the mesure ner the gretness of synne. For that wold I have wist dredfully;
and therto, I had non answere. Also our curtes Lord, in the same tyme, He
shewid full sekirly and mytyly the endleshede and the onchongeabilitie of His
love. And alsa, be His grete goodnes and His grace inwardly keping, that the
love of Him and our soule shal never be departid in two, without end. And thus
in this drede I have matter of mekeness that savith me from presumption. And
in the blissid shewing of love, I have matter of tru comfort and of joy that savith
me fro dispeir.
   All this homley shewing of our curtes Lord, it is a lovely lesson and a swete,
gracious teching of Himselfe in comforting of our soule. For He will that we
knowen be the swetenes and homley loveing of Him, that all that we seen or felyn,
within or without, which is contrarious to this is of the enemy, and not of God.
As thus: if we be stired to be the more recles of our living or of the keping of
our herts be the cause that we have knowing of this plenteous love, than needs
us gretly to beware. For this stering, if it come, it is ontrew, and gretly we owen
to haten it, for it all hath no likeness of Gods will. And whan that we be fallen
be frelte or blyndhede, than our curtes Lord touchith us, stireth us, and kepith
us, and than will He that we seen our wretchidness and mekely ben it aknowen.
But He will not we abiden thus, ne He will not that we beseyn us gretly about
our accusing, nor He will not that we ben wretchfull of our selfe. But He will that
we hastily entenden to Him, for He stondyth al alufe, and abideth us swemefully
and monyngly till whan we come, and hath hast to have us to Him, for we arn
His joy and His deligte, and He is our salve and our life. Tho I sey He stondyth
al alone, I leve the speking of the blissid company of Hevyn, and speke of His
office and His werking here on erth upon the condition of the shewyng.
 
LXXX
 
By three thyngs God is worshippid and we savid; and how our knowing now is but as an
ABC. And swete Jhesus doith all, abyding and monyng with us, but whan we arn in
synne, Christ monyth alone. Than it longith to us for kindness and reverens hastily to
turne agen to Him. Eightieth chapter.

 
   Be three things man stondith in this life, be which three God is worshippid and
we be spedid, kept, and savid. The first is use of manys reason naturall. The
second is commen teching of Holy Church. The thred is inward, gracious werking
of the Holy Gost. And these three ben all of one God: God is the ground of our
kindly reason, and God, the teaching of Holy Church, and God is the Holy Gost.
And all ben sundry gifts to which He will we have gret regard and attenden us
therto. For these werkyn in us continualy all to God, and these ben grete thyngs,
of which gret things He will we have knowing here as it were in one ABC; that
is to seyn, that we have a litill knoweing, whereof we shall have fullhede in
Hevyn; and that is for to spede us.
   We knowen in our feith that God alone toke our kinde, and non but He; and
ferthermore that Criste allone did all the werks that longin to our salvation, and
none but He; and ryte so He alone doith now in the last end. That is to sey, He
wonnyth here with us and rulith us and governith us in this lifing and bringith us
to His bliss. And thus shall He doe as long as ony soule is in erth that shall
come to Hevyn; and so ferforth that if ther were no suich soule but one, He shuld
be, with all, alone, till He had brought it up to His bliss.
   I leve and understond the ministration of angells, as clerks tellen, but it was
not shewid me. For Himselfe is nerest and mekest, heyest and lowest, and doith
all. And not only all that us neds, but also He doith all that is worshipfull to our
joy in Hevyn. And wher I sey he abidith swemefully and monyng, it menyth all
the trew felyng that we have in ourselfe in contrition and compassion, and all
sweming and monyng that we are not onyd with our Lord. And all swich that is
spedfull, it is Christ in us. And thow some of us fele it seldam, it passith never
fro Criste till what tyme He hath browte us out of all our wo. For love suffrith
never to be without pite.
   And what tyme that we fallen into synne and leve the mynd of Him and the
keping of our own soule, than kepith Criste alone al the charge of us, and thus
stondith He swemely and monyng. Than longith it to us for reverence and kinde-
ness to turne us hastely to our Lord and levyen Him not alone. He is here alone
with us all; that is to sey, only for us, He is here. And what tyme I am strange to
Him be synne, dispeir, or slawth, than I let my Lord stonden alone in as mekill
as it is in me. And thus it farith with us all which ben synners. But thow it be so
that we do thus oftentimes, His goodnes suffrith us never to be alone, but lest-
ingly He is with us, and tenderly He excusith us, and ever sheildith us fro blame
in His syte.
 
LXXXI
 
This blissid woman saw God in divers manners, but she saw Him take no resting place
but in manys soule. And He will we enjoyen more in His love then sorowen for often
falling, remembring reward everlasting and liveing gladly in penance; and why God
suffrith synne. Eighty-first chapter.

 
   Our good Lord shewid Him in dyvers manners, both in Hevyn, in erth; but I
saw Him take no place but in mannys soule. He shewid Him in erth in the swete
incarnation, and in His blissid passion. And in other manner He shewid Him in
erth, wher I sey I saw God in a poynte. And in other manner He shewid Him in
erth, thus as it were in pilegrimage, that is to sey, He is here with us, ledand us,
and shul ben till whan He hath browte us all to His bliss in Hevyn. He shewid
Him dyvers tymes reynand, as it is afornseyd, but principally in mannys soule. He
hath taken there His resting place and His worshipfull cyte, out of which wor-
shipfull see He shall never risen nor removen without end. Mervelous and sol-
emne is the place wher the Lord wonnyth, and therefore He will that we redily
entenden to His gracious touching, more enjoying in His hole love than sorow
and in our often fallings.
   For it is the most worshippe to Him of onything that we may don that we
leven gladly and meryly, for His love, in our penance. For He beholdith us so
tendirly that He seith all our liveing and penance. For kind loveand is to Him
ay lestand penance in us, which penance He werkith in us, and mercifully He
helpith us to baren it. For His love makith Him to longyn, His wisdam and His
trewth with His rytfulhede makith Him to suffren us here; and in this manner
He will seene it in us. For this is our kindly penance and the heyest, as to my
syte. For this penance commith never fro us till what tyme that we be fullfilled
whan we shal have Him to our mede. And therfore He will that we setten our
herts in the overpassing, that is to sey, fro the peyne that we felen into the bliss
that we trosten.
 
LXXXII
 
God beholdith the monyng of the soule with pite and not with blame, and yet we do
nowte but synne, in the which we arn kept in solace and in drede. For He will we turne
us to Him, redy clevand to His love, seand that He is our medicyne. And so we must love
in longing and in enjoyeing, and whatsover is contrarie to this is not of God but of
enmity. Eighty-second chapter.

 
   But here shewid our curtes Lord the moneing and the morning of the soule,
menand thus: I wote wele thou wilt liven for My love, merily and gladly suffrand
all the penance that may com to the. But inasmech as thow livest not without
synne, thou woldest suffre for My love all the wo, all the tribulation, and disese
that myte come to the. And it is soth, but be not mekill agreved with synne that
fallith to the agens thy will.
   And here I understode that: that the Lord biholdith the servant with pitie and
not with blame, for this passing lif askith not to liven al withoute blame and
synne. He loveith us endlesly, and we synne customably. And He shewith us full
myldely; and than we sorow and mornen discretly, turnand us into the beholding
of His mercy, clevand to His love and goodness, seand that He is our medicine,
wittand that we doe nowte but synne. And thus be the mekeness that we getten
be the syte of our synne, feythfully knowyng His everlasting love, Him thanking
and prayseing, we plesyn Him. I love the and thou lovist Me, and our love shall
not be departid in two, and for thi profitt I suffre. And all this was shewid in gostly
understondyng, seyand these blissid words: I kepe the full sekerly.
   And be gret desire that I have in our blissid Lord that we shal leven in this
manner, that is to sey, in longing and enjoyeing as all this lesson of love shewith,
therby I understode that all that is contrarious to us is not of Him, but of
enmyte. And He will that we knowen it be the swete gracious lyt of His kynde
love. If any swich lover be in erth which is continuly kept fro falling, I know it
not, for it was not shewid me. But this was shewed, that in falling and in ryseing
we arn ever preciously kept in one love. For in the beholding of God we fall not;
in the beholding of selfe we stond not; and both these ben soth, as to my syte.
But the beholdyng of our Lord God is the heyest sothnes.
   Than arn we mekil bound to God, that He will in this living shewin us this hey
sothness. And I understode that while we be in this life, it is full spedefull to us
that we sen both these at onys. For the heyer beholding kepith us in gostly
solace and trew enjoying in God. That other, that is the lower beholding, kepith
us in drede and makith us ashamyd of ourselfe. But our good Lord will ever that
we holden us mekil more in the beholdyng of the heyer, and not levyn the know-
ing of the lower, into the time that we be browte up above wher we shall have
our Lord Jhesus onto our mede, and ben fulfillid of joy and bliss without ende.
 
LXXXIII
 
Of three properties in God - Life, Love and Light; and that our reason is in God,
accordand. It is heyest gift; and how our feith is a light commeing of the Fadre mesurid
to us, and in this night us ledand. And the end of our wo: Sodenly our eye shall be
openid in full light and clarity of syte which is our maker, Fader, and Holy Gost, in
Jhesus our Savior. Eighty-third chapter.

 
   I had in parte touching, sight, and feling in three propertes of God in which
the strength and effect of all the revelation stondith, and thei were seene in
every shewing, and most propirly in the twelfth wher it seith oftentimes, I it am.
The propertees are these: lif, love, and ligte. In life is mervelous homlihede, and
in love is gentil curtesye, and in lyte is endless kyndhede. These propertes were
in on goodness, into which goodnes my reason wold ben onyd and cleve to with
all the myte. I beheld with reverent drede, and heyly mervelyng in the syte and
in the feling of the swet accord, that our reason is in God, understondyng that it
is the heyest gifte that we have receivid, and it is groundid in kinde. Our feith is a
light kindly command of our endles day that is our fader, God, in which light our
Moder, Criste, and our good lord, the Holy Gost, leidith us in this passand life.
   This light is mesurid discretly, nedefully standand to us in the night. The light
is cause of our life, the night is cause of our peyne and of al our wo, in which we
diserven mede and thanks of God. For we, with mercy and grace, wilfuly knowen
and leven our light, goeand therin wisely and mytyly. And at the end of wo,
sodenly our eye shall ben openyd, and in clerte of light our sight shall be full,
which light is God our Maker, and Holy Gost, in Christ Jhesus our savior. Thus
I saw and understode that our feith is oure light in our night, which light is God,
our endless day.
 
LXXXIV
 
Charite is this light which is not so litil but that it is nedefull with travel to deserven
endles worshipfull thanke of God. For feith and hope leden us to charite which is in
three manners. Eighty-fourth chapter.

 
   The light is charite, and the mesuring of this light is don to us profitably by
the wisdam of God. For neyther the light is so large that we may seen our blis
full day, ne it is sperid fro us, but it is suich a light in which we may liven mede-
fully with travel deservand the endless worship of God. And this was seen in the
sixth shewing where He seid, I thanke the of thi service and of thi travell. Thus
charite kepith us in feith and in hope, and hope ledith us in charite. And at the
end, al shall be charite.
   I had three manner of understonding in this light, charite. The first is chartite
onmade. The second is charite made. The third is charite goven. Charite onmade
is God. Charite made is our soule in God. Charite goven is vertue. And that is
a gracious geft of werking in which we loven God for Himselfe and ourselves in
God, and that God lovith, for God.
 
LXXXV
 
God lovid His chosen fro without begynnyng, and He never suffrith them to be hurte,
wherof their bliss might be lessid; and how privities now hidde in Hevyn shall be
knowen, wherefore we shall bliss our Lord that everything is so wele ordeynid. Eighty-
fifth chapter.

 
   And in this sight I mervelid heyley. For notwithstondyng our simple liveing
and our blindhede here, yet endlesly our curtes Lord beholdith us in this worke-
ing, enjoyand. And of all thing we may plesin Him best wisely and truely to leven
it and to enjoyen with Him and in Him. For as verily as we shall ben in the bliss
of God withouten end, Him praysand and thankand, as verily we have ben in the
foresight of God lovid and knowen in His endless purpose fro withouten begyn-
ning, in which onbegunne love He made us, and in the same love He kepith us,
and never suffrith us to be hurte be which our bliss myte be lesid. And therfore
whan the dome is goven, and we ben al browte up above, than we cleerly se in
God the privities which be now hidde to us. Than shall non of us be sterid to sey
in onywise, "Lord if it had ben thus, than it had bene full wele"; but we shall
seyn al without voice, "Lord, blissid mot thou ben, for it is thus, it is wele." And
now se we verily that all thing is done as it was then ordeynd beforn that ony
thing was made.
 
LXXXVI
 
The Good Lord shewid this booke shuld be otherwise performid than at the first writing.
And for His werking He will we thus prey, Him thankand, trostand, and in Him enjoy-
and. And how He made this shewing because He will have it knowen, in which knoweing
He will give us grace to love Him. For fifteen yeere after it was answerid that the cause
of all this shewing was love, which Jhesus mote grant us. Amen. Eighty-sixth chapter.

 
   This booke is begunne be Gods gift and His grace, but it is not yet performid,
as to my syte. For charite pray we all to God, with Godds werking, thankand,
trostand, enjoyand. For thus will our good Lord be prayd, as be the understond-
ing that I tooke in al His owne mening and in the swete words wher He seith full
merrily, I am ground of thi beseking. For trewly I saw and understode in our
Lords mening that He shewid it for He will have it knowen more than it is, in
which knowing He will given us grace to loven Him and clevyn to Him. For He
beholdith His hevenly tresure with so grete love on erth that He will give us
more light and solace in hevenly joy, in drawing of our herts, for sorow and merk-
ness which we arn in.
   And fro that time that it was shewid I desired oftentimes to witten what was
our Lords mening. And fifteen yer after and more I was answerid in gostly
understonding, seyand thus: Woldst thou wetten thi Lords mening in this thing?
Wete it wele, love was His mening. Who shewid it the? Love. What shewid He the?
Love. Wherfore shewid it He? For love. Hold the therin, and thou shalt witten and
knowen more in the same. But thou shalt never knowen ne witten therein other
thing without end.
Thus was I lerid that love was our Lords mening. And I saw
full sekirly, in this and in all, that ere God made us, He lovid us, which love was
never slakid, no, never shall. And in this love He hath don all his werks, and in
this love He hath made all things profitable to us. And in this love our life is
everlestand. In our making we had beginning. But the love wherin He made us
was in Him from withoute begynning, in which love we have our beginning. And
all this shall be seen in God without end, which Jhesus mot grant us. Amen.
 
   Thus endith the Revelation of love of the blissid Trinite shewid by our Savior,
Christ Jesu, for our endles comfort and solace and also to enjoyen in Him in this
passand jorney of this life.
 
Amen. Jhesu. Amen.
 
   I pray Almyty God that this booke com not but to the hands of them that will
be His faithfull lovers, and to those that will submitt them to the feith of Holy
Church, and obey the holesom understondying and teching of the men that be of
vertuous life, sadde age, and profound lerning. For this Revelation is hey Divin-
itye and hey wisdam, wherfore it may not dwelle with him that is thrall to synne
and to the Devill. And beware thou take not on thing after thy affection and
liking and leve another, for that is the condition of an heretique. But take every-
thing with other, and trewly understonden all is according to holy scripture and
growndid in the same, and that Jhesus, our very love, light, and truth, shall shew
to all clen soules that with mekenes aske perseverantly this wisdom of Hym.
And thou to whome this booke shall come, thanke heyly and hertely our Savior
Crist Jhesu that He made these shewings and revelations for the, and to the, of
His endles love, mercy, and goodnes, for thine and our save guide and conduct
to everlestyng bliss; the which Jhesus mot grant us. Amen.