(59) Also, I receive it from before the seat of his throne, where all holy souls of men stand before him, and rejoice before him; [and I tell thee] that the desire of the flesh in soft pleasingness, to be rich, to be handsome, beautiful and fair, or to be mighty or potent, is a very bath or lake of hellish wrath, into which thou crowdest and runnest, as if thou wert drawn in with cartropes; for there is very great danger therein.

(164) O noble guest! O, why didst thou depart from us! O fierceness, wrath and astringency or severity, thou art the cause of it! O fierce wrathful devil! O, what hast thou done, who hast sunk down thyself and thy beautiful bright angels into darkness? Woe, woe for ever!

(15) This species of hell (i.e., of shame) may be symbolised by the following short parable: Suppose a certain king has been celebrating his son's marriage. In the evening the young man goes off with some companions and presently returns to the palace (as he thinks) intoxicated. He enters a chamber where a light is burning and lies down, as he supposes, by his bride. In the morning, when soberness returns, he is aghast to find himself in a mortuary of fire worshippers, his couch a bier, and the form which he mistook for that of his bride the corpse of an old woman beginning to decay. On emerging from the mortuary with his garments all soiled, what is his shame to see his father, the king, approaching with a retinue of soldiers! Such is a feeble picture of the shame those will feel in the next world who in this have greedily abandoned themselves to what they thought were delights.

(1) HERE, king Lucifer, pull thy hat down over thy eyes, lest thou shouldst see how man will take off thy crown away from thee, thou canst no more rule in heaven; stand still a little while, we must first view thee, and observe what a beauteous fair bride thou art, and whether the filth of thy whoredom may not be cleansed and washed away from thee, that thou may be fair again; we will a little describe thy chastity and virtue.

(46) And though thy body may suffer pain, yet it is much worse with him when he is vanquished, for then he roareth like a lion that is robbed of her young whelps, for the fierceness and wrath of God tormenteth him; but if thou lettest him lodge within thee, then he grows fat and wanton, and will vanquish thee in time.

(2) As unto those who are too reverential, Speaking in presence of superiors, Who drag no living utterance to their teeth, It me befell, that without perfect sound Began I: "My necessity, Madonna, You know, and that which thereunto is good." And she to me: "Of fear and bashfulness Henceforward I will have thee strip thyself, So that thou speak no more as one who dreams. Know that the vessel which the serpent broke Was, and is not; but let him who is guilty Think that God's vengeance does not fear a sop. Without an heir shall not for ever be The Eagle that left his plumes upon the car, Whence it became a monster, then a prey; For verily I see, and hence narrate it, The stars already near to bring the time, From every hindrance safe, and every bar, Within which a Five-hundred, Ten, and Five, One sent from God, shall slay the thievish woman And that same giant who is sinning with her. And peradventure my dark utterance, Like Themis and the Sphinx, may less persuade thee, Since, in their mode, it clouds the intellect;

(165) O, was not the gracious, amiable, blessed and fair love in thee also? O thou high and lofty- minded devil! Why wouldst thou not be contented? Wert thou not a Cherubim? and was there anything so beautiful and bright in heaven as thou? For what didst thou seek? Wouldst thou be the whole or total God? Didst thou not know that thou wert a creature, and hadst not the fan and castingshovel in thy own hand or power?

(121) O beauty, pleasure and voluptuousness of this world! O riches and proud stateliness! O might and power! Thy unrighteous judgment and great pomp, with all thy pleasure and voluptuousness, lie all together on a heap, and are become a hellish fire!

(34) Thou art as reason, we like the tongue; 'Tis reason that teaches the tongue to speak. Thou art as joy, and we are laughing; Our every motion every moment testifies, So the revolution of the millstone, so violent, O Thou who art above our conceptions and descriptions, Dust be on our heads, and upon our similitudes of Thee! Yet Thy slaves never cease devising images of Thee; They cry to Thee always, "My life is Thy footstool!" Like that shepherd who cried," O Lord!

(59) Therefore, when thou sayest God created thee thus, or that he has without sufficient cause spewed thee up out of thy place, then art thou a liar and murderer; for the whole heavenly host or army bears witness against thee, that thou hast thyself erected and prepared this fierce quality for thyself.

(120) Their food is abomination, and grows from the fierceness of all qualities: Lamentation and woe, and that for ever without end; there is no time there; another king sitteth on their throne, which keepeth or holdeth a judgment for ever; they are only his footstool.

(17) Those vain and conceited men who, impelled by the force of their lust and attachment, subject themselves to severe austerities not ordained by the scriptures, And, fools that they are, torture all their bodily organs, and Me, too, who dwell within the body— know that they are fiendish in their resolves.

(34) The birth or geniture of light, munificence and welldoing to be an eternal hellish pain and torment; the food of pleasing relish to be an eternal abomination and stink, a loathing of all fruits; and the house of Lebanon and cedars to be a stony and rocky house of fire; the sweet scent or relish to be a stink, and a house of ruin and desolation, an end of all good; the divine body to be a black, cold, hot, eating, corroding, and yet not consuming devil, who is an enmity against God and his angels: And so he has all the heavenly hosts or armies against him. Now observe:

(8) And therefore that creature is a loathsome abomination before the total God, and before all his creatures, and must stand in eternal enmity and ignominy or shame before God, and before all the creatures.

(1) A king once saw a man, who, though clad in rags was working in the way of self-perfection. He called him and asked: 'Who is the better off, you or I?' The man said: 'O ignorant one, beat your breast and hold your tongue. Who praises himself does not understand the meaning of words; but this I must say, there can be no doubt that a man such as I is a thousand times better off than a man such as you. With not even the taste of religion, your dog of desire has reduced you to the status of an ass. He is your master and rides you on a bridle pulling your head this way and that. You do all that he commands. You are a non-entity, and fit for nothing, whereas I who know the secrets of the heart have made of this dog, my ass to ride upon. Your dog rules you, but if you will make of it an ass you are then as I, and a hundred times better off than your fellows.'

(73) I know very well what the devil intendeth; for that part of the earnest and austere birth or geniture, wherein love and wrath are set opposite the one to the other, seeth into his very heart. For when he cometh with his fierce and hellish temptation, like a fawning dog, then he setteth upon us with his wrath, in that part wherein the austere birth and geniture stands, and therein the heaven is set in opposition to him, and there the fair bride is known.

(47) Very terrible art thou, rich art thou in attributes, and great is thy love to those who dwell in the Tuat

(29) Here I write not without knowledge; but if thou, like an epicure and fatted swine of the devil, from the devil's instigation, shouldst mock at these things and say:

(178) O thou fair world, how does heaven complain of thee? How dost thou trouble the elements? O wickedness and malice! when wilt thou leave, and give over? Awaken! awaken! and bring forth, thou sorrowful woman; behold thy Bridegroom cometh, and requireth fruit at thy hands: Why dost thou sleep? Behold, he knocketh!

(36) For the light of their heart, which qualified, mixed or united with the heart of God, they themselves have extinguished, and instead thereof have generated a fierce, hot, astringent, bitter, hard and stinking devilish spirit.