(11) As the many torrents of the rivers rush toward the ocean, so do the heroes of the mortal world rush into Thy fiercely flaming mouths.

(79) This fire is the most dangerous and hurtful, and has spoiled most since the world began, and it is a very hard matter to quench it; for when it is kindled it burneth in the sweet water in the flash of life, and must be quenched through bitterness, which is scarce a water, but much rather is a fire.

(49) But this earthly love is only cold water, and is not true fire: A man cannot find any full similitude of it in this half-dead world. In all divine things that receive the true lovefire, the resurrection of the dead at the last day alone is a perfect similitude.

(83) The gracious, amiable and blessed love which rose up in the flash of the life, became a fierce and bitter venom or poison, a very murderous den, a sting of death: The tone or tune became like the hard knocking or loud rumbling of stones, and a house of lamentation.

(19) Now this is the root of covetousness, envy, pride and wrath [anger]; for in the fierce qualifying or acting and boiling rose up the wrath, and burnt like fire of heat and cold, and was also bitter as gall.

(46) Now the Will or the Desiring in the Dryness cannot reach the Light; and therein consists the Anguish in the Will [Longing] after the Light; and the Anguish is attractive, and in the Attracting is the Woe, and the Woe makes the Anguish greater, so that the Anguish in the Harshness attracts much more, and this Attracting in the Woe is the bitter [Sting or] Prickle, or the Bitterness of the Woe; and the Anguish reaches after the [Sting or] Prickle with attracting, and yet cannot comprehend it, because it resists, and the more the Anguish attracts, the more the [Sting or] Prickle raves and rages.

(18) The bitter quality qualifieth in the sweet, and in the astringent (or harsh and sour) quality, and the love riseth up therein from eternity to eternity.

(16) And the Fire generates now also a Fire, according to the Property of every Quality; in the tart Spirit it is tart; in the Bitter, bitter; in the Love, it is a very hearty Yearning, Kindling of the Love, a total, fervent, or burning Kindling, and causes very vehement Desires; in the Sound it is a very shrill tanging and where the Sound in all Qualities tells or expresses, as it were with the Lips or Tongue, whatsoever is in all the Fountain-Spirits, what Joy, Virtue, or Power, Essence, Substance, or Property [they have,] and in the Water it is a very drying Fire.

(69) Between these two qualities is heat generated from its hard and fierce bitter rubbing, tearing and raging, which riseth up in the bitter and hard quality, as a fierce wrathful kindling, and presseth quite through, as a hard fiery noise.

(48) Thirdly, the sweet quality loveth heat exceedingly, so very much that I cannot compare it to anything; but you may take this for a similitude, though it comes very short of it: Suppose that in two young people of a noble complexion, these being kindled in the heat and fervour of burning love the one to the other, there is such a fire as this: that if each could creep into the body and heart of the other, or if they could transmute themselves into one body, they would do it.

(39) And so in the sharp and fiery births or generatings there is nothing but a mere longing of love, a tasting, friendly affecting, gracious, amiable and blessed generating; there is nothing but mere love, and all wrath and bitterness in the centre are bolted up as in a strong hold. This generating is a very meek, beneficial welldoing, and the bitter spirit is now the living mobility.

(572) drawn into a perfectly lawless life, which by his seducers is termed perfect liberty; and his father and friends take part with his moderate desires, and the opposite party assist the opposite ones. As soon as these dire magicians and tyrant-makers find that they are losing their hold on him, they contrive to implant in him a master passion, to be lord over his idle and spendthrift lusts—a sort of monstrous winged drone—that is the only image which will adequately describe him. Yes, he said, that is the only adequate image of him. And when his other lusts, amid clouds of incense and perfumes and garlands and wines, and all the pleasures of a dissolute life, now let loose, come buzzing around him, nourishing to the utmost the sting of desire which they implant in his drone-like nature, then at last this lord of the soul, having Madness for the captain of his guard, breaks out into a frenzy: and if he finds in himself any good opinions or appetites in process of formation 1 , and there is in him any sense of shame remaining, to these better principles he puts an end, and casts them forth until he has purged away temperance and brought in madness to the full. Yes, he said, that is the way in which the tyrannical man is generated. And is not this the reason why of old love has been called a tyrant? I should not wonder. Further, I said, has not a drunken man also the spirit of

(3) The Blessed Lord said: It is desire, it is anger, born of Rajoguna (the impulse of action), all-consuming and all-evil. Know this as the enemy here.

(13) And it is highly to be found and considered by us, in the Light of Nature, how the Fierceness [or Wrath] is the Root of all Things, and moreover the Originality of the Life; therein only consists the Might and the Power, and from thence only proceed the Wonders; and without the Fierceness [or Wrath] there would be no Enmity, but all [would be as it were] a nothing, as is formerly mentioned.

(119) And that in all these there would stand both the angry and corrupt quality, and also the love of God; and yet all would be driven on by the spirit of love, though those two would disturb, rub, plague, squeeze and vex each other. Note.

(96) Therefore let every one enter into himself, and not speak of another, and hold his Way to be false; but look that he turn himself, and have a Care, that he be not found in the Anger of the Devourer; else if he should hoop, and halloo, and laughing say, Look how Babel burns, then he must be burnt and consumed also, for he is Fuel for that Fire; and whosoever feels a Thought in himself, that does but wish for the Anger [to devour,] 1 that proceeds from Babel.

(170) O security! the devil watcheth for thee. O high-mindedness! thou art a hellish fire. O beauty, pomp or bravery! thou art a dark valley. O potency of dominion! thou art a raging and a tearing of the hellish fire. O selfvindication or vengeance! thou art the fierce wrath of God.

(19) For as the exhalations which arise from the earth, and from marshes, gather into mists and cloudy masses; so the vapours of fleshly lusts bring on the soul an evil condition, scattering about the idols of pleasure before the soul.

(55) For they kindled the Salitter of the body, and generated a high triumphing son, which in the astringent quality was hard, rugged or rough, dark and cold, and in the sweet was burning, bitter and fiery; the tone was a hard fiery noise; the love was a lofty enmity against God.

(70) If thou stirrest or awakest the spirit in the fire, then there riseth up in thee the bitter and harsh anger; for as soon as the fire is kindled, which is done in the hardness and fierceness, then springeth up the bitter fierceness or wrath in the flash.