“The state of desire in which I then was cannot be expressed by any words or any person that I know. And even that which I could say of it would be incomprehensible to all who hadn't confessed this love by means of acts of passion and who were not known by Love.”

—  Hadewijch

Visions
Context: One Pentecost at dawn I had a vision. Matins were being sung in the church and I was there. And my heart and my veins and all my limbs trembled and shuddered with desire. And I was in such a state as I had been so many times before, so passionate and so terribly unnerved that I thought I should not satisfy my Lover and my Lover not fully gratify me, then I would have to desire while dying and die while desiring. At that time I was so terribly unnerved with passionate love and in such pain that I imagined all my limbs breaking one by one and all my veins were separately in tortuous pain. The state of desire in which I then was cannot be expressed by any words or any person that I know. And even that which I could say of it would be incomprehensible to all who hadn't confessed this love by means of acts of passion and who were not known by Love. This much I can say about it: I desired to consummate my Lover completely and to confess and to savour in the fullest extent--to fulfil his humanity blissfully with mine and to experience mine therein, and to be strong and perfect so that I in turn would satisfy him perfectly: to be purely and exclusively and completely virtuous in every virtue. And to that end I wished, inside me, that he would satisfy me with his Godhead in one spirit (1 Cor 6:17) and he shall be all he is without restraint. For above all gifts I could choose, I choose that I may give satisfaction in all great sufferings. For that is what it means to satisfy completely: to grow to being god with God. For it is suffering and pain, sorrow and being in great new grieving, and letting this all come and go without grief, and to taste nothing of it but sweet love and embraces and kisses. Thus I desired that God should be with me so that I should be fulfilled together with him.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The state of desire in which I then was cannot be expressed by any words or any person that I know. And even that which…" by Hadewijch?
Hadewijch photo
Hadewijch 16
13th-century Dutch poet and mystic 1200–1260

Related quotes

Catherine of Genoa photo
Anna Quindlen photo
Haruki Murakami photo
Coventry Patmore photo

“Strong passions mean weak will, and he
Who truly knows the strength and bliss
Which are in love, will own with me
No passion but a virtue 'tis.”

Coventry Patmore (1823–1896) English poet

Book I, Canto III, II Love a Virtue.
The Angel In The House (1854)

William Faulkner photo
Margot Asquith photo

“From the happy expression on their faces you might have supposed that they welcomed the war. I have met with men who loved stamps, and stones, and snakes, but I could not imagine any man loving war.”

Margot Asquith (1864–1945) Anglo-Scottish socialite, author and wit

The Autobiography of Margot Asquith (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1963) p. 291. (1922)
Of the crowds outside 10 Downing Street on August 3, 1914.

Thomas Hardy photo
Zelda Fitzgerald photo

“I love you anyway-even if there isn't any me or any love or even any life-
I love you.”

Zelda Fitzgerald (1900–1948) Novelist, wife of F. Scott Fitzgerald

Variant: I love you, even if there isn’t any me, or any love, or even any life. I love you.
Source: Dear Scott, Dearest Zelda: The Love Letters of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald

John F. Kennedy photo

Related topics