Prologue

to 'The Mirror of Simple Souls' in a Foreign Land.

LOVE: You, actives and contemplatives, perhaps even annihilated by true Love, you who are going to learn about certain powers of pure Love, noble Love, the high Love of the freed Soul, and how the Holy Spirit gave her a sail, as if she were His ship, I beseech you for Love's sake to listen very attentively, with the subtle understanding within you and with great diligence. For otherwise, all those who will hear these things will misunderstand them.

Now, in humility, listen to a little example of love here below and understand how it resembles divine Love.

Example: Once upon a time there was a lady, a king's daughter, whose heart was very worthy and noble and whose spirit was noble too, and she lived in a foreign land. Now it happened that this lady heard about the great courtliness and nobility of King Alexander: at once, in intent, she loved him for the great fame of his nobility. But this lady was so far from the great lord in whom she had placed her love that she could neither see nor possess him. That is why she was often disconsolate within, since no other love except this sufficed her. When she saw that this far-off love - though so close within her heart - was so far outside her, she thought she would seek comfort in her sorrow by somehow imagining the appearance of her beloved who so often brought suffering to her heart. Thus she had a portrait painted to the likeness of the king that she loved, as close as possible to the way that she pictured her beloved to be, according to the sentiment of the love that pervaded her. And by means of this image, together with her practices, she dreamed the king himself.

From: 'The Mirror of Simple Souls' by Marguerite Porete