Today’s Poem: Songs of the Soul
The mysticism of St. John of the Cross, for his June 24 birthday
Songs of the Soul in Intimate Amorous Communion with God
by St. John of the Cross (translated by Rhina P. Espaillat)
O love, you living flame who wound with tender fire my very soul, down to its depths descending! No longer hushed by shame, come now, to your desire; sunder the veil that parts for sweet befriending. O soft subjection! O wound that joys beget! O gentle hand! O touch with pleasures rife that hints at resurrection and ransoms every debt! You have done death to death, and made it life. O fiery lamps ignited — whose bright resplendent gleams light those deep caverns where the mind, in hiding, dwelt blind and all benighted — your dazzling radiance streams warm rays on the beloved there abiding! How tenderly you love me and conjure in my breast — that secret place where you alone are treasured— how — your sweet breath above me — by heaven’s good possessed — with what rare lover’s skill have I been pleasured!
In 1567, just a few months after his ordination as a priest, a young man named Juan de Yepes y Álvarez (1542–1591) was contemplating joining the Carthusians for a life of silent prayer and solitary contemplation. But then, in September of that year, in the town of Medina del Campo, he met Teresa of Ávila (1515–1582) — a woman so overwhelming that no one escaped an encounter with her unscathed. And thereby, joining Teresa’s Carmelite movement, he became a major figure in the Spanish Counter-Reformation, a Doctor of the Church, one of the world’s great writers on mysticism, and a founder of Spanish literature.
Here on the June 24 birthday of John of the Cross, it’s worth considering his place among Spanish writers. Spanish is not unique in having a serious Christian as one of its key figures; the foundational figures of all modern European languages were Christians. Spanish is perhaps unique, however, in having such mystical works as the Spiritual Canticle and the Dark Night of the Soul, John’s major writings, early in its literature — important both as statements of Christian thought and major artistic achievements.
John occupies a place in Spanish literature that doesn’t quite match anything in English poetry. He’s not exactly the Chaucer (c. 1345–1400) of the language; that’s probably Juan Ruiz (c. 1283–c. 1350), the Archpriest of Hita (except that Ruiz’s Spanish is closer to modern Spanish than Chaucer’s English is to the language of our day). John is a figure in Spain’s Golden Age, the era that produced Cervantes’s fiction, Lope de Vega’s plays, Teresa of Ávila’s mystical writings, together with the poetry of Francisco de Quevedo (1580–1645) and Luis de Góngora (1561–1627). But with his small body of work, only 2,500 recorded verses, John can’t stand as, say, the Shakespeare of Spanish.
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The best analogy might be Edmund Spenser (1553–1599), creating forms that subsequent poets would use and teaching a sense of sound in the modern language that would last down the ages. Except that John of the Cross is still read and revered in Spanish in a way that Spenser is not: an English poet more gestured at as a historical fact than read as a living source these days.
Rhina P. Espaillat (b. 1932) is a poet we much admire here at Poems Ancient and Modern — see, for example, her poem “Here,” which we ran in April — and her work on the Spanish poet was collected in the 2023 volume, The Spring that Feeds the Torrent: Poems by Saint John of the Cross. In her translation of Today’s Poem, “Songs of the Soul in Intimate Amorous Communion with God,” Canciones de el alma en la íntima comunicación de unión de amor de Díos, she captures John’s sense of the erotic as a lens into the numinous. Contemporary poets like to think of themselves as brave, but they are often, in their way, prissy and self-censoring. John of the Cross plunges without hesitation into sexual ecstasy as a metaphor for divine love: “How tenderly you love me . . . / with what rare lover’s skill have I been pleasured!”
(Poem ©Rhina P. Espaillat, 2023. Used by permission.)
I encountered St. John of the Cross in my college Spanish lit courses -- I do wish I'd kept up my Spanish since then, but I've lost most of the vocabulary by now (and I never did a good grasp on the grammar of the Spanish verb, sorry to say). I loved his work, and I'm glad to find such an excellent translation of it. His description of "the dark night of the soul" especially resonates with my experience of depression and offered hope at a time I desperately needed it.
Joshua Hren has aptly addressed the concerns regarding the use of the word pleasure, some of which I will share here. Rhina Espaillat is, of course, a highly regarded poet and for good reason. As a poet she knows that one of the most important responsibilities of the poet is to refine and reclaim the language, especially in age like ours, one with many afflictions, including narrowness and presentism - the idea that contemporary definitions of a word are all that matter or that we can make words, which are rich and dense and have long family trees, mean only one thing.
Ryan Wilson says that a poet should know the etymology of all the words he uses in a poem.
Rhina would never use a word like 'pleasure' without knowing its etymologies.
Here are some of the Spanish etymologies:
Larousse: Regalo: pleasure, gratification. Regalar: acariciar.
A New Pronouncing Dictionary of the Spanish and English Languages: Regalar: agasajar; indulge, lavish attention on, pamper.
Diccionario español de sinónimos y antónimos: Regalar-se: recrear-se, deleitar-se, diverter-se, alegrar-se
Breve diccionario etimológico de la langua castellana: Regalar: agasajar, divertir, festejar
Diccionario de la lengua castellana de la academia Española: Regalar: agasajar, acariciar, recrear, deleitar. Regalo: Gusto o complacencia que se recibe en cualquier linea; Latin luxus, mollicies
Tesoro de la lengua castellana o Española, de la real academia Española: Regalo: Trato real, tener las delicias que los reyes pueden tener. Latin rex. Regalado: el que se trata con curiosidad y con gusto, especialmente en su comida.
The “gift” meaning of the words “regalar” and “regalo” and “regalarse” come from the root of “regale,” which means to give pleasure, delight, and joy, among other things. In Spanish, “regalarse” means 1) to give oneself with joy; 2) to find joy in the giving; 3) to find joy in the receiving of love from the beloved, which is the ultimate pleasure because it is mutual.
In English, the etymology and roots of the word pleasure also offer interesting and important insight into understanding Rhina's choices and why they work so well. You can find those here.
https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=pleasure
The etymology of the word pleasure includes "will", which is exactly right in this case. "his pleasure (his will) was my guide."
The phrase "I serve at the king's pleasure" is a good example of what Rhina is doing with this word choice - with the nuance of a poet who knows the meanings of words, she is able to convey both the pleasure experienced when in union with God AND the underlying necessity which makes that union possible - that is, that it is only in His will (his pleasure) that we find happiness (or pleasure).