Imprisoned in 1577 by the Calced friars at Avila for his
activities in the reformation of the Carmelite order, Friar
John of the Cross suffered harsh exercises of cruelty and
debasement. Kneeling on the floor of the refectory,
he would be given the circular discipline on his bare shoulders,
each of the friars striking him in turn with a cane while
the Miserere was recited. This was the penalty laid down in
the constitutions for the contumacious and it was the severest
as well as the most degrading punishment that could be given
to a friar. Juan bore these scourgings in silencers.
In the darkness of his prison cell in the Toledo monastery,
after a similar episode of physical and spiritual torture,
Friar John hears the music of love, pain, and desire from
a young man on the street below: “Muérome de amores./Carillo.
Que haré?/-Que te mueras, alahé.” This melancholy
and romantic villancico instantly moves the friar into a mystical
reverie on his own difficult yearning for God. For St. John
of the Cross, the experience of mystical union came aurally.
He quotes a passage in his work Ascent of Mt. Carmel. ''For,
as Saint Paul says, Fides ex auditu. As though he were to
say: Faith is not knowledge which enters by any of the senses,
but is only the consent given by the soul to that which enters
through the hearing.” Lyric poetry, then, becomes the essential
mode of expression for the Christian mysticism of St. John
of the Cross. For his songs of prayer seek the spontaneous
union of the soul of loving faith with the object of desire:
God.
Love and faith are crucial to St John of the Cross' mysticism,
for they are the only two habits of the soul which may proceed
in the ascent to spiritual union. He states in Ascent that
the union requires ''detachment from all things whether sensual
or spiritual;” only by an exclusive love for the divine and
pure faith may the soul reach God. Ultimately, God takes over
the habit of love and faith in the soul to complete the mystical
union.
St. John of the Cross communicates the first habit of the
soul in spiritual union in his poem Canciones del alma en
la intima comunicacion de union de amor de Dios. That habit
is love.
Oh llama de amor viva,
Que tiernamente hieres
De mi alma en el mas profundo centro!
Pues ya no eres esquiva.
Acaba ya si quieres,
Rompe la tela deste dulce encuentro! (lines 1-6)
Of flame of love so living.
How tenderly you force
To my soul's inmost core your fiery probe!
Since now you've no misgiving.
End it, pursue your course
And for our sweet encounter tear the robe!
With an immediate cry of love and ecstasy, the poem begins
in the heat of intimate union–the very probe of the divine
spirit ignites the soul aflame with love for God. The divine
conflagration burns “tiernamente,” at once scalding and consoling
the vulnerable soul (line 2). “Pues ya no eres esquiva” (line
4) exposes the devotee's agnosia and submission, for he begs
God to tear off a robe which the divine will has already penetrated
(line 4). Naked and wounded, the lover recounts the synchronously
painful and inspiring effect of the divine union. ''Ya'' appears
again in line five, as the impetuous lover stutters over an
ecstatic desire for immolation. Alternating between hepta-
and hendecasyllabic lines, the verse springs and recoils at
God's tender cautery.”
Lacking a response to his ecstatic ejaculations, the poet
must rearticulate spiritual desires through the description
of sensual effects. Union between soul and God sears with
erotic rapture: ''Oh mano blanda! Oh toque delicado...!” [Oh
gentle hand! Oh touch how softly thrilling!] (line 9). Touching
the soul, God painfully heals the wounds of the first stanza;
the reiteration of this divine grace brings the poet to a
moment of seeming clarity: “Matando, muerte en vida la has
trocado” [And change my death to life, even while killing]
(line 12). The devotee's strong message mixes in the syntax
of the line, as it remains unclear whether God changes death
to life or life to death. The paradoxical sense of the line
connects with the central message of the poem: true love for
God produces as much joy as it demands sacrifice from the
desiring soul. At the end of the second stanza, the union
is complete; only the passion continues. So the devotee-poet
consummates the union with two final stanzas:
Oh lamparas de fuego,
En cuyos replandores
Las profundas cavernas del sentido,
Que estaba obscura y ciego.
Con extranos primores
Calor y luz dan junto a su querido!
Cuan manso t amoroso
Recuerdas en mi seno,
Donde secretamente solo moras:
Yen tu aspirar sabroso
De bien y gloria lleno
Cuan delicadamente me enamoras! (lines 13-24)
Oh lamps of fiery blaze
To whose refulgent fuel
The deepest caverns of my soul grow bright,
Late blind with gloom and haze,
But in this strange renewal
Giving to the belov'd both heat and light.
What peace, with love enwreathing,
You conjure to my breast
Which only you your dwelling place may call:
While with delicious breathings
In glory, grace, and rest,
So daintily in love you make me fall!
Each stanza develops in one exclamatory sentence. The first
relates that when the devotee purged all sensual desire he
was also devoid of spiritual contentment. At that moment,
St. John of the Cross's flame of love was smothered, making
his religious vision ''obscuro y ciego'' (line 16). But when
he joins with the flame of religious love, his soul rekindles
with divine fervor. The shift from flickering desire to incendiary
delight nearly consumes the memory of earlier loss, for the
new light and less apocalyptic heat leads the desiring soul
to a private and attached love for God. Finally, the amorous
union settles in the breast of the devotee, refilling the
caverns of smoke and confusion with breaths ''De bien y gloria
lleno'' (line 23). God's last touch of love and grace falls
''delicadamente'' (line 24).
Whereas the poem above professes the ecstatic union of soul
and God through love, Cantar del alma que se huelga de conoscer
a Dios por fe sings softly of that union consummated through
faith–the second habit of the soul in spiritual union. This
villancico begins with humble testament to God's serene and
fluid movement:
Que bien se yo la fonte que mana y corre
Aunque es de noche (lines 1-2)
How well I know that fountain's rushing flow
Although by night
The lines complement the former poem, as they begin with
deep reflection on, rather than an impetuous desire for, God's
grace. In addition, the initial two lines announce the estribillo,or
theme, of the villancico: the desiring soul knows the splendor
of divine grace through faith.
Inverting the expressions of self- knowledge ‘yo sé’
to “sé yo,” elisions split the pronoun between the
verb and direct object. As a result, the poet connects himself
with the flow of God's fountain: “yo la fonte que mana y corre”
(line 1). The inverted, poetic locution ends with a non sequitur:
“Aunque es de noche” (line 2). Here, John of the Cross interjects
the refrain of the villancico; and, when matched with the
title of the work, it becomes clear that ''noche'' works as
the central metaphor for fe (line 2).
Privy to the unknown beauties and secrets of God's everlasting
spring, the poet enumerates its qualities:
Sé que no puede ser cosa tan bella,
Y que cielos y tierra beben de ella,
Aunque es de noche (lines 9-11)
I know there is no other thing so fair
And earth and heaven drink refreshment there
Although by night.
“Sé yo,” {I know} “no lo sé,” {I do not know
[the origins]} and “Mas sé” (but I do know} form into
the poet's definitive statement of knowledge “Sé que”
{I know that} (lines 1,6,7,9). That avowed knowledge, however,
is predicated on faith, as he speaks confidently in the language
of impossibility: “no puede ser cosa tan bella” (line 9).
This knowledge comes with difficulty, for faith, similar to
the experience of God's love, comes paradoxically:
Su claridad Ithaca escurecida,
Y sé que toda luz de ella es venida,
Aunque es de noche (lines 15-17)
Its clarity unclouded still shall be:
Out of it comes the light by which we see
Though it be night.
Divine brilliance illuminates the universe, yet that light
shines “[a]unque es de noche” (line 17). Seeing invisible
light, the poet obtains the power to describe His creations.
The paradox of ''luz'' and ''noche,'' however, overwhelms,
so that the understanding of ''aunque'' must change. Thus,
divine light does not shine although it is night, but rather
because it is night. Or, metaphorically understood, because
the observing soul holds faith.
Conveying the nature of faith thus, the devotee-poet begins
to make greater claims about the powers and beauties of God's
eternal fountain:
Sé ser tan caudalosas sus corrientes,
Que infiernos, cielos riegan, y las gentes,
Aunque es de noche.
El corriente que nace de esta fuente,
Bien sé que es tan capaz y omnipotente,
Aunque es de noche (lines 18-23)
Flush with its banks the stream so proudly swells;
I know it waters nations, heavens, and hells
Though it be night.
The current that is nourished by this source
I know to be omnipotent in force
Although by night.
Speaking directly about the powers of God, the poet increases
the number and degree of adjectives. The adverb “tan” twice
introduces the more emphatic descriptions. The slipping ‘s’
alliteration of “[s]é ser tan caudalosas sn corrientes”
floods the varied landscape of ''infiernos,'' “cielos,” and
“gentes” with an “omnipotente” deluge (lines 18, 19, 22).
The later internal assonance of “corriente” and “fuente” empowers
the flow. And still, it is night.
The final four stanzas make a dramatic shift from colorful
description to ecstatic prayer: ''Aquesta eterna fonte esta
escondida/En este vivo pan por darnos vida,/Aunque es de noche''
[The eternal source hides in the Living Bread/That we with
life eternal may be fed/Though it be night] (lines 27-29).
To emphasize the sustaining power that God offers through
the fountain and the relationship between “este vivo pan”
and divine grace, John of the Cross makes a simple allusion
to Christ and the sacramental union. Only divine waters can
quench spiritual thirst. In the confluence of image, intention,
and revelation, the devotee brings the encomium to its religious
height ''Aqui se esta llamando a las criaturas,/Y de esta
agua se hartan, aunque a escura,/Porque es de noche'' [Here
to all creatures it is crying, hark!/That they should drink
their fill though in the dark,/For it is night] (lines 30-32).
All those souls desiring the fresh waters of divine sustenance,
he says, should drink in the dark. for it requires faith.
Ecstatic yet weary, the poet offers his most literal expression
of the meaning of night–we drink unknowingly, because we drink
with faith, ''Porque as de noche” (line 32). And, of course,
since we drink with faith, we drink with divine grace. The
poem ends in the same way that it began, as the poet expresses
what only he can understand by faith: “Aquesta viva fuente...yo
la veo,/Aunque es de noche” [This living fount...I see it
clear/Though it be night] (lines 33-35).
Canciones del alma que se goza de haber llegado al alto estado
de la perfeccion, que es la union con Dios, por el camino
de la negacion espiritual, or Noche, relates the complete
process of religious ascent to the spiritual union which occurs
through the two habits of the soul, love and faith. As in
the earlier poem Llama, this spiritual reflection begins with
the language and images of erotic love poetry. And, as with
Aunque es de Noche, this poem seeks to create a dramatic scene:
En una noche oscura,
Con ansias en amores inflamada
Oh dichosa ventura!
Sali sin ser notada,
Estando ya mi casa sosegada (1-4)
Upon a gloomy night,
With all my cares to loving ardours flushed,
(O venture of delight!)
With nobody in sight
I went abroad when all my house was hushed.
Setting a secret mood with the introductory line, the devotee-lover
ignites his loves and cares with the friction between “n”
and “m” in the alliteration “ansias... amores” (line 2). With
all concerns consumed in love for God, the poet bursts into
a new spiritual state: ''inflamada'' (line 2). Al1 aflame,
John of the Cross inverts his gender from masculine to feminine
to relate that it is ''el alma'' which makes the sojourn into
the night. The definitive past participle in “amores inflamada,”
when linked with its rhyme ''sin ser notada,'' defines the
journey of the night: an individual and intimate search for
spiritual union with God. Impatient yet fearless in the prevailing
darkness, the devotee announces the joy of moving into the
erotic escapade of sensual and spiritual escape.
Faith and love combine early in the ascent to spiritual union.
In stanza three, the poet describes how his soul passes through
the now “segura” and “dichosa” night; “Sin otra luz y guia,/Sino
la que en el corazon ardia” [And with no other light/Except
for that which in my heart was burning] (lines 14-15). With
the vision of faith, the soul advances with safe passage,
guided only by the obscure light of faith which burns in his
heart. The poet passes through the night “a escuras” not only
because he passes with faiths, but because he does not wish
to be seen: “En secreto, que nadie me veia/Ni yo miraba cosa”
[In secrecy, inscrutable to sight,/ I went without discerning]
(lines 12-13) . The music enjambs the line, as “que nadie
me veia” flows into “ni yo” (lines 12-13). This, as if not
even the poet should look to himself; rather, he should look
only to the light of faith.
As the narrative continues. the poet develops his soul's journey
thorough the night:.
Aquesta me guiaba
Mas cierto que la luz del mediodia,
A donde me esperaba
Quien yo bien me sabia,
En parte donde nadie parecia (lines 16-20)
It lit and led me through
More certain than the light of noonday clear
To where One waited near
Whose presence well I knew,
There where no other presence might appear.
Here, the living flame of Llama and the light of faith from
Aunque es de Noche brighten the ascent with greater certainty
than the rays of the midday sun. Waiting alone at the summit,
God invests the soul with His own love and faith:
Oh noche, que guiaste,
Oh noche amable mas que el alborada:
Oh noche, que juntaste
Amado con amada,
Amada en el Amado transformada! (lines 21-25)
Oh night that was my guide!
Oh darkness dearer than the morning's pride,
Oh night that joined the lover
To the beloved bride
Transfiguring them each into the other.
With an exclamation of the ultimate union with God, the soul
follows its guide, the night, which joins the soul with the
divine: “Amado con amada,/Amada en el Amado transformada!”
(lines 24-25). The repetition of internal rhymes, or near
internal rhymes, and the reverberating sets of consonants
and vowels mingle each other's love and faith, transforming
the soul in the divine spirit. A unity is established which
resolves all paradoxes. Embraced and relieved, the soul finds
solace and love flowering in his breast: “En mi pecho florido,/Que
entero para el solo se guardaba,/Alli quedo dormido,/Y yo
le reglaba,/Y el ventalle de cedros aire daba” [Within my
flowering breast/Which only for himself entire l save/ he
sank into his rest/And all my gifts I gave/Lulled by the airs
with which the cedars wave] (lines 26-30). The poet confesses
that he has saved his heart for God with virginal patience.
The vicissitudinous sense of the verse, ''Y el ventalle de
cedros aire daba'' carries the fumes of cedar amid the region
of consummation.
Divinity, emerging from His sleep in the breast of the amada,
strikes loving blows with ''su mano serna'' [His serenest
hand] (line 33). Using verbs in the imperfect tense, the poet
reproduces the scene of intimacy and assault: “yo sus cabellos
esparcia,” {me his tresses whipped} “mi cuello heria.” [my
neck he wounded] “mis sentidos suspendia” {my senses he suspended}
(line 32, 34, 35). The devotee can neither hold sense and
feeling, nor can he continue with the account. The distraught
lover finishes,
Quedéme y olvidéme,
El rostro recliné sobre el Amado,
Ceso todo, y dejéme,
Dejando mi cuidado
Entre las azuncenas olvidado (36-40)
Lost to myself I stayed
My face upon my lover having laid
From all endeavor ceasing:
And all my cares releasing
Threw them amongst the lilies there to fade.
The switch to the preterit tense signals a feverish attempt
to include all events which transpired during the union. As
a result, the lines abruptly end the drama and themselves:
“ceso” “dejéme” (line 38). But as the union breaks,
the devotee maintains his love and faith and his ''cuidado''
is already ''olvidado'' (line 39, 40).
In his villancico, Coplas del mismo hechas sobre un éxtasis
de alta contemplacion, the devotee-poet attempts to recapture
this moment of ecstatic exaltation. The poem begins traditionally,
as the soul searches alone.
Entréme donde no supe.
Y quedéme no sabiendo.
Toda sciencia trascendiendo (lines 1-3)
I entered in, I knew not where,
And I remained, though knowing naught,
Transcending knowledge with my thought.
Without knowledge of his location or direction to his thought,
the devotee must turn to the refrain of the estribillo, ''Toda
sciencia transcendiendo'' (line 3). Oddly splitting the last
line, “sciencia” refers to knowledge which is gained from
the faculties. The term, as yet, lacks a specific context.
Beginning again with nearly the same description, the verse
of the second stanza becomes redundant and vague, ''Sin saber
donde me estaba'' {without knowing where I was} (line 6).
Likewise, ''[g]randes cosas” {large things} of the next line
speaks generally about general things (line 7). At first,
the poetry lacks image and movement. Moreover, the poet acknowledges
that he will not or cannot say how he felt: “No dire lo que
senti” [that which I felt I’ll not declare] (line 8). The
rigid equipoise of present participles in the lines. “Que
me quede no sabiendo,/Toda sciencia trascendiendo,” renders
the verses rhythmically inert (lines 9-10). Poetics give way
to ideology, as the word ''sciencia'' would include in it
an uncompromising authoritative kind of knowledge: theology.
The poem slowly continues,
De paz y de piedad
Era la sciencia perfecta,
En profunda soledad,
Entendida via recta:
Era cosa tan secreta
Que me quede balbuciendo.
Toda sciencia transcendiendo (lines 11-17)
Of peace and piety interwound
This perfect science had been wrought,
Within the solitude profound
A straight and narrow path it taught.
Such secret wisdom there I found
That there I stammered, saying naught,
But topped all knowledge with my thought.
Insipidly restating the already mundane term ''sciencia perfecta,''
and literally transcribing the Latin via recta from the manuals
of moral theology, the devotee decreases the vitality of his
verse (line 12). And again, his solitude is generally and
equivocally ''profunda'' (line 13). The repeated and ultimately
excessive use of ''tan'' with indefinite adjectives undermines
the sense of immensity to which the devotee juxtaposes himself.
If these excesses of speech attempt to convey the limitations
of human thought and locution in describing the ineffable,
then the verse itself should manage without the penultimate
line of the third stanza, “Que me quede balbuciendo” (line
16). The mellifluous onomatopoeia of ''balbuciendo,'' when
isolated between the hard preterit “me quedé” and the
obdurate refrain “Toda sciencia trascendiendo,” fails to revive
the formality of the verse. With the marginal repetition of
“E” and later “Q.” St John of the Cross confines the freedom
of poetic composition. Even if John of the Cross succeeds
at (not) articulating the ineffability of God, his use of
poetry as the occasion for theological discourse is a failure.
Alonso, conversely, sees the work as the model for the “lucha
con la expresion humana;” yet he also remarks that the poem
takes on the role of prose in John of the Cross's “exposicion
doctrinal.”
Stanza four proceeds with equal inadequacy in expressing and
not expressing the qualities of the divine. The line ''[d]e
todo sentir privado'' [my sense or feeling could not stay]
is too literal, and the rhyming counterpart parallels this
sense: “Y el espiritu dotado'' [and the spirit revealed] (lines
21-22). In all of John of the Cross's poetry, the notion of
the soul or spirit comes through metaphor, gender, or allegory:
but in this instance the attempt to recapture the quality
of spiritual union comes through the actual word ''espiritu''
(line 22).
In the final two stanzas, the sober verses halt in theological
formalism.
Y es de tan alta excelencia
Aqueste sumo saber,
Que no hay facultad ni sciencia
Que le puedan emprender;
Quien se supiere vencer
Con un no saber sabiendo,
Ira siempre trascendiendo.
Y si lo queréis oir,
Consiste esta suma sciencia
En un subido sentir
De la divinal Esencia;
Es obra de su clemencia
Hacer quedar un entendiendo
Toda sciencia trascendiendo (lines 46-59)
This summit all so steeply towers
And is of excellence so high
No human faculties or powers
Can ever to the top come nigh,
Whoever with its steep could vie,
Though knowing nothing, would transcend
A1l thought, forever, without end.
If you would ask, what is its essence–
This summit of all sense and knowing:
It comes from the Divine Presence–
The sudden sense of Him outflowing,
In His great clemency bestowing
The gift that leaves men knowing naught,
Yet passing knowledge with their thought.
In negating the power of rational faculties regularly, the
devotee replaces the grace of God with the impotence of man
as the subject of the poem. For this reason. the other verses
which attest to the powers of God and ''su clemencia'' come
less credibly (line 57). The first line of the last stanza
begins a final descent down from the ecstatic, for the poet
argues that to hear the nature of divinity one must know that
divinity consists in the highest knowledge of the divine ''Esencia''
(line 56). Coupling the infinitives ''Hacer'' and ''quedar,''
the poet creates a dissonance that prevents any attempt to
“oir” {to hear} (lines 53, 58). Furthermore, the connection
in sense between knowledge and essence, along with the rhyme
“sciencia” and “Esencia,” attempts confines the divine to
human powers of intellection. If the union consists of “toda
scienca trascendiendo,” then so too must the powers of God.
In light of the earlier poems, this presentation of the rational
soul after ecstatic union is unconvincing.
St. John of the Cross assesses the religious way of life with
one selective yet simple criterion: “todo y nada;” that same
criterion might be used to judge his poetry. Although the
devotee-poet extends a universal hand with his erotic, religious,
and popular verse, still his poetry demands that the listener
hear his message. Sometimes, however, that message eludes
its own speaker. Perhaps the realization that the soul has
no true experience after divine union is the most complete
understanding of Christian mysticism. TBJ
