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WORDING THE SILENCE: INITIATORY READING OF MYSTICAL TEXTS
stilheit), in which she ‘hears a great murmur from the wonder which is God
Himself in everlastingness’ (een groet gheruchte van dien wondere dat god
selue es in ewecheiden).’
The same idea is found in William of Saint-Thierry, who writes of one word
that arises in the Bride in her unity with the Bridegroom, and that word is God.
The Word is not divided into syllables but is communicated through a simple
touch.® The image of the Bridegroom who speaks to the Bride so as to make
his mark on her can shed light on the nature of the communication between
Hadewijch, in her capacity as a magistra, and her followers. The touch of the
divine voice (gherochte) moves Hadewijch to a speaking that will in turn affect
those who read it or listen to it. It may be no coincidence that Hadewijch in Letter
1 attributes to herself the role of the Bridegroom in a climactically structured
sentence that, as we shall see below, is characteristic of her own speech act.
She commands her addressee as a bridegroom commands his beloved bride
(alse brudegom ghebiedet siere lieuer bruyt) to ‘open up the eyes of [her] heart in
clarity’ (ontpluuct die oghen claerlike) and see herself in God (Letter 1, 18-24).
Seen in this light, Hadewijch’s language is not only a means of expression but
also an experience, for it is part of God’s working in the soul. God’s voice, active
within Hadewijch, turns her into the commanding, speaking Bridegroom and
by the same token gives rise - among other writings — to the Letters.
READING AS FEELING AND HEARING
There are places in Hadewijch’s Letters that provide us with some notion of
how these texts were read. Hadewijch closes Letter 24 by noting that God’s
name is loveable to ‘the ears of the reasonable soul’ (de ore der redeleker zielen)
and that the addressee should allow all the words which she has heard about
God in Scripture ‘and which you read yourself and which I have told you and
which someone else tells you, in Dutch or in Latin’ to go into her heart (laet in
uwe herte gaen). The meaning of ‘heart’ is multi-layered, but can be assumed
7 Tam making use of a new translation of Hadewijch’s Letters, by Paul Mommaers, In: Aniké
Daréczi and Paul Mommaers: The Complete Letters of Hadewijch, Peeters (in press). All her
works have been published in English by Columba Hart (Hadewijch. The Complete Works,
Paulist Press, 1980). There is a more recent translation of her Poems in Stanzas or Songs by
Marieke van Baest: Poetry of Hadewijch, Peeters, 1998.
Enarrationes in Psalmos §149, in Mommaers 1987, 144-145.William also recounts how all
of a sudden he realised that he hears what he does not see, and feels through an inner sense
what he does not understand, namely, the presence of the Divine. (‘Et subito videtur sibi
primo audire quod non videt, et sentire sensu interiore quod non intelligit, praesentiam
Divinitatis.’ Expositio super Cantica canticorum, in Mommaers and Willaert 1988, 123.)
Ende alle die woerde die ghi hoert van hem inde scrifture, ende die ghi selue leset Ende die
ic v gheseghet hebbe Ende die v yeman seghet in dietsche Ochte in latine, die laet in uwe
herte gaen, Ende merct ende benyedt te leuene na sine werdicheit. Dus oefent v in al dat ic
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