Marguerite Porete: Humility

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Humility

by Marguerite Porete
(1260? - 1310) Timeline

English version by
Ellen L. Babinsky

This Humility, who is aunt and mother,
is daughter of Divine majesty and so is born from Divinity.
Deity is her mother and grandmother of her branches,
by whom the buds make such great fruitfulness.
We are silent about them, for speaking ruins them.
This one, that is, Humility,
has given the stem and the fruit from the buds,
because she is there, close
to the peace of this Fairness
who unencumbers her from works,
and turns away the speaking,
makes dark there the pondering.
This Fairness unencumbers,
no one encumbers her with anything.
This one is freed from all service,
for she lives by freeness.
Whoever serves, he is not free,
whoever senses, he has not died,
whoever desires, he wills,
whoever wills, he begs,
whoever begs, he has a lack of divine sufficiency.

-- from Marguerite Porete: Mirror of Simple Souls (Classics of Western Spirituality), by Ellen Babinsky

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Themes

Birth, Rebirth

Death

Silence

Womb

Recommended Books

	Christian Mystics: Their Lives and Legacies throughout the Ages, by Ursula King
	Marguerite Porete: Mirror of Simple Souls (Classics of Western Spirituality), by Ellen Babinsky
	Meister Eckhart and the Beguine Mystics: Hadewijch of Brabant, Mechthild of Magdeburg, and Marguerite Porete, by Bernard Mcginn
	Sacred Voices: Essential Women's Voices Through the Ages, Edited by Mary Ford-Grabowsky
	The Soul as Virgin Wife: Mechthild of Magdeburg, Marguerite Porete, and Meister Eckhart, by Amy M. Hollywood

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There is a lot of richness to discover in this poem by Marguerite Porete. I'll just suggest a few things to contemplate...

Why is she singing these praises of "humility"? What do most people mean when they speak of humility? Do you think a mystic's understanding of humility is different?

Notice that Marguerite Porete describes "Divinity" and "Deity" in feminine terms as "mother" and "grandmother." Bold, dangerously bold, in Christian Europe. But that feminine language, mixed with the imagery of a tree and "buds" and "fruitfulness" conveys a mysticism of nature and life and growth that feels a lot like the writings of Hildegard von Bingen.

"We are silent about them, for speaking ruins them." What a great line. The mystic's silence. Trying to contain the vast, formless Truth in words necessarily entails an editing. The divide between the words and the reality is so great, that silence alone can convey the full meaning.

And those final closing lines about "freeness" and the traps that keep us from knowing it...

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