The twelve Unspeakable Hours of Love
From the Letters of Hadewijch of Brabant
The nature from which true love springs has twelve hours which first drive love from her and then bring her back to herself. And returning love brings with her everything that makes the unspeakable hours drive her from herself - a mind seeking to know, a heart full of desire, and a soul full of love. When love brings these things back she throws them into the abyss of the mighty nature in which she was born and nurtured. Then the unspeakable hours enter unknown nature - love has come into her and rejoices in her nature, below, above and around. Those who have not attained this knowledge shudder at those who have fallen into the abyss and work there and live and die. For such is love's command and her nature.
In the first unspeakable hour of the twelve that draw the soul into love's nature, love reveals herself and touches the soul unexpectedly - and uninvited - when her nobility leads us to least suspect it. No matter how strong willed, the soul fails to understand, for this is truly an unspeakable hour.
The second unspeakable hour love makes the heart taste a violent death, and the heart goes through death, but it does not die. And yet the soul has not known love for long, and has barely moved from the first to the second hour.
In the third unspeakable hour love shows how one may die and live in her, and how one cannot love without great suffering.
In the fourth unspeakable hour love makes the soul taste her hidden designs, which are deep and darker than the abyss. Then love reveals how miserable the soul is without love. But the soul does not yet partake of love's nature. This hour is truly unspeakable, for the beloved is made to accept love's designs before he possesses love.
In the fifth unspeakable hour love seduces the heart and the soul, and the soul is driven out of her and out of love's nature and then back into love's nature. The soul has then ceased to wonder about the power and darkness of love's designs, and has forgotten the pains of love. Then the soul knows love only through love herself, which may seem lower but is not. For where knowledge is most intimate the beloved knows least.
In the sixth unspeakable hour love despises reason and all that lies within reason and above it and below. Whatever belongs to reason stands against the blessed state of love. For reason cannot take away anything from love or bring anything to love, for love's true reason is a flood that rises forever and knows no peace.
In the seventh unspeakable hour nothing can dwell in love or touch her except desire. And touch is love's most secret name, and touch springs from love herself. For love is always touch and desire and feasts on herself forever. Yet love is perfect in herself.
Love cannot dwell in all things. Love can dwell in charity, but charity cannot dwell in love. Mercy and humility cannot dwell in love, nor can reason or fear, hardship or moderation, or any other thing. But love dwells in them all and gives them all sustenance, though she receives no other food than the wholeness of herself.
The eighth unspeakable hour brings bewilderment when the beloved learns that he cannot know love's nature from her face. Yet the face is held to reveal the inmost nature, and that is most hidden in love. For that she is herself in herself. Love's other limbs and her works are easier to know and understand.
The ninth unspeakable hour brings love's fiercest storm, harshest touch, and deepest desires. The face is sweetest there, at peace, and most winsome. And the deeper love wounds the one she assails, the sweeter she drowns him in herself with the soft splendour of her face. And there she shows herself in her loveliness.
The tenth unspeakable hour is that when no one judges love, but when love judges all things. From God she takes the power to judge all she loves. Love does not yield to saints or men, or angels, heaven or earth, and she enfolds the divine in her nature. To love she calls the hearts who love, in a voice that is loud and untiring. The voice has great power and it tells of things more terrible than thunder. This word is the rope love uses to bind her prisoners, this is the sword she turns on those whom she touches, it is the rod she uses to chastise her children, this is the craft she teaches her companions.
In the eleventh unspeakable hour love possesses the beloved by force. For not a moment can he stray from her, or his heart desire or his soul love. And love makes the memory shrink and the beloved cannot think of saints or men, or angels, heaven or earth, God or himself, but of love alone who has possessed him in a present ever new.
In the twelfth unspeakable hour love is the likeness of her uppermost nature. Only now she breaks out of herself and she works with herself and sinks deep in herself, utterly satisfied with her nature. She fully rejoices in herself, and even if no one loved her the name of love would give her enough loveliness in the nature of her splendid self. Her name which is her nature inside her, her name which is her works outside her, her name which is her crown above her, her name which is the soil under her.
These are the twelve unspeakable hours of love. For in none of the twelve can love be understood, except by those I mentioned, those who have been thrown into the abyss of love's mighty nature and those who belong there, and they believe in love more than they understand her.