The Book of Margery Kempe (14 page)

‘Fasting, daughter, is good for young beginners, and discreet penance, especially what their confessor gives them or enjoins them to do. And to pray many beads is good for those who can do no better, yet it is not perfect. But it is a good way towards perfection. For I tell you, daughter, those who are great fasters and great doers of penance want it to be considered the best life; those also who give themselves over to saying many devotions would have that to be the best life; and those who give very generous alms would like that considered the best life.

‘And I have often told you, daughter, that thinking, weeping, and high contemplation is the best life on earth. You shall have more merit in heaven for one year of thinking in your mind than for a hundred years of praying with your mouth; and yet you will not believe me, for you will pray many beads whether I wish it or not. And yet, daughter, I will not be displeased with you whether you think, say or speak, for I am always pleased with you.

‘And if I were on earth as bodily as I was before I died on the cross, I would not be ashamed of you, as many other people are, for I would take you by the hand amongst the people and greet you warmly, so that they would certainly know that I loved you dearly.

‘For it is appropriate for the wife to be on homely terms with her husband. Be he ever so great a lord and she ever so poor a woman when he weds her, yet they must lie together and rest together in joy and peace. Just so must it be between you and me, for I take no heed of what you have been but what you would be, and I have often told you that I have clean forgiven you all your sins.

‘Therefore I must be intimate with you, and lie in your bed with you. Daughter, you greatly desire to see me, and you may boldly, when you are in bed, take me to you as your wedded husband, as your dear darling, and as your sweet son, for I want to be loved as a son should be loved by the mother, and I want
you to love me, daughter, as a good wife ought to love her husband. Therefore you can boldly take me in the arms of your soul and kiss my mouth, my head, and my feet as sweetly as you want. And as often as you think of me or would do any good deed to me, you shall have the same reward in heaven as if you did it to my own precious body which is in heaven, for I ask no more of you but your heart, to love me who loves you, for my love is always ready for you.'

Then she gave thanks and praise to our Lord Jesus Christ for the high grace and mercy that he showed to her, unworthy wretch.

This creature had various tokens in her hearing. One was a kind of sound as if it were a pair of bellows blowing in her ear. She – being dismayed at this – was warned in her soul to have no fear, for it was the sound of the Holy Ghost. And then our Lord turned that sound into the voice of a dove, and afterwards he turned it into the voice of a little bird which is called a redbreast, that often sang very merrily in her right ear. And then she would always have great grace after she heard such a token. She had been used to such tokens for about twenty-five years at the time of writing this book.

Then our Lord Jesus Christ said to his creature, ‘By these tokens you may well know that I love you, for you are to me a true mother and to all the world, because of that great charity which is in you; and yet I am cause of that charity myself, and you shall have great reward for it in heaven.'

‘Daughter, you are obedient to my will, and cleave as fast to me as the skin of the stockfish sticks to man's hand when it is boiled, and you will not forsake me for any shame that any man can do you.

‘And you also say that, though I stood before you in my own person and said to you that you should never have my love, never come to heaven, nor ever see my face, yet you say, daughter, that you would never forsake me on earth, never love me the less, nor ever be less busy to please me, though you should lie in hell without end, because you cannot go without my love on earth nor have any other comfort but me alone, who am I, your God, and am all joy and all bliss to you.

‘Therefore I say to you, beloved daughter, it is impossible that any such soul should be damned or parted from me, who has such great meekness and charity towards me. And therefore, daughter, never be afraid, for all the great promises that I have promised to you and yours, and to all your confessors, shall always be true and truly fulfilled when the time comes. Have no doubt about it.'

Another time while she was in Rome, a little before Christmas,
¹
our Lord Jesus Christ commanded her to go to her confessor, Wenslawe by name, and ask him to give her leave to wear her white clothes once again, for he had made her stop doing so, by virtue of obedience, as is written before. And when she told him the will of our Lord he did not dare once say ‘no'. And so she wore white clothes ever after.

Then our Lord bade her that she should at Christmas go home again to her host's house where she was lodged before. And then she went to a poor woman whom she served at the time at the bidding of her confessor, as is written before, and told the poor woman how she must leave her. Then the poor woman was very sorry and greatly bemoaned her departure. This creature told her how it was the will of God that it should be so, and then she took it more easily.

Afterwards, while this creature was in Rome, our Lord bade her give away all her money and make herself destitute for his love. And she immediately, with a fervent desire to please God, gave away such money as she had, and such also as she had borrowed from the broken-backed man who went with her. When he found out how she had given away his money, he was greatly
moved and displeased that she had given it away, and spoke very sharply to her. And then she said to him, ‘Richard, by the grace of God, we shall come home to England very well. And you shall come to me in Bristol in Whitsun week, and there I shall pay you well and truly, by the grace of God, for I trust faithfully that he who bade me give it away for his love will help me to pay it back.'

And so he did.
²

After this creature had thus given away her money and had not a penny to help herself with, as she lay in St Marcellus's Church in Rome,
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thinking and concentrating as to where she could get her living, inasmuch as she had no silver to keep herself with, our Lord answered to her mind and said, ‘Daughter, you are not yet as poor as I was when I hung naked on the cross for your love, for you have clothes on your body and I had none. And you have advised other people to be poor for my sake, and therefore you must follow your own advice.

‘But do not be afraid, daughter, for money will come to you, and I have promised you before that I would never fail you. I shall pray my own mother to beg for you, for you have many times begged for me, and for my mother also. And therefore do not be afraid. I have friends in every country, and I shall cause my friends to comfort you.'

When our Lord had talked sweetly to her soul in this way, she thanked him for this great comfort, completely trusting that it would be as he said. Afterwards she got up and went out into the street and by chance met a good man. And so they fell into edifying conversation as they went along together, and she repeated to him many good tales and many pious exhortations until God visited him with tears of devotion and compunction, so
that he was highly comforted and consoled. And then he gave her money, by which she was relieved and comforted for a good while.

Then one night she saw in a vision how our Lady, she thought, sat at table with many worthy people and asked for food for her. And then this creature thought that our Lord's words were fulfilled spiritually in that vision, for he promised this creature a little before that he would pray his mother to beg for her.

And very shortly after this vision she met up with a worthy lady, Dame Margaret Florentyne, the same lady who brought her from Assisi to Rome, and neither of them could understand the other very well, except by signs and tokens and a few common words. And then the lady said to her, ‘
Margerya In poverté?
'

She, understanding what the lady meant, answered, ‘
Yea, grand poverté, madame.
'
²

Then the lady commanded her to eat with her every Sunday and seated her at her own table above herself, and served her her food with her own hands. Then this creature sat and wept bitterly, thanking our Lord that she was thus encouraged and cherished for his love by those who could not understand her language.

When they had eaten, the good lady used to give her a hamper with other stuff which she could make stew from for herself, enough to serve her with two days' food, and filled her bottle with good wine. And sometimes she gave her eight bolendine coins
³
as well.

Then another man in Rome, who was called Marcelle, asked her to meals two days a week. His wife was about to have a baby, and she very much wanted this creature to be godmother to her child when it was born, but she did not stay in Rome long enough.

And also there was a pious single lady who gave this creature her food on Wednesdays. Other days, when she was not provided for, she begged for her food from door to door.

Another time, just as she came by a poor woman's house, the poor woman called her into her house and made her sit by her little fire, giving her wine to drink in a stone cup. And she had a little boy-child sucking at her breast some of the time; at another time it ran to this creature, the mother meanwhile sitting full of sorrow and sadness. Then this creature burst out crying, as though she had seen our Lady and her son at the time of his Passion, and she had so many holy thoughts that she could never tell half of them, but always sat and wept plentifully for a long time, so that the poor woman, feeling sorry for her weeping, begged her to stop, not knowing why she wept.

Then our Lord Jesus Christ said to this creature, ‘This place is holy.' And then she got up and went about in Rome and saw much poverty among the people; then she thanked God highly for the poverty that she was in, trusting by means of it to be a partner with them in merit.

Then there was a great gentlewoman in Rome, praying this creature to be godmother to her child, and naming it after St Bridget, for they knew her during her lifetime.
¹
And so she did. Afterwards, God gave her grace to have great love in Rome, both from men and women, and great favour amongst the people.

When the Master and Brothers of the Hospital of St Thomas -where she was previously refused, as is written before – heard tell of what love and favour she had in the city, they asked her if she would go to them again, and she should be more welcome than she ever was before, because they were very sorry that they had barred her from them. And she thanked them for their charity and did as they commanded. When she had come back to them, they received her warmly and were very glad she had come.

Then she found there the girl who was her maidservant previously, and rightly should still have been so, living in the Hospital in great wealth and prosperity, for she was the keeper of their wine. And this creature sometimes went to her out of humility
and begged her for food and drink, and the girl gave it to her willingly, and sometimes a groat as well. Then she complained to her maidservant, and said she felt great sorrow at their separation, and what slander and evil talk people spoke of her because they were apart – but the girl never wanted to be with her again.

Afterwards this creature spoke with St Bridget's former maidservant
²
in Rome, but she could not understand what she said. Then she had a man who could understand her language, and that man told St Bridget's maid what this creature said, and how she asked after St Bridget, her lady. Then the maidservant said that her lady, St Bridget, was kind and meek with everybody, and that she had a laughing face. And the good man where this creature was lodged also told her that he knew St Bridget himself, but he little thought that she had been as holy a woman as she was, because she was always homely and kind with everybody who wanted to talk to her.

She was in the chamber that St Bridget died in,
³
and heard a German priest preach of her there, and of her revelations and of her manner of life. She knelt also on the stone on which our Lord appeared to St Bridget and told her what day she should die on.
⁴
And this was one of St Bridget's days
⁵
when this creature was in her chapel, which previously was her chamber that she died in. Our Lord sent such storms of winds and rains, and various atmospheric disturbances, that those who were in the fields and at their work outdoors were compelled to enter houses to avoid danger and injury to themselves. Through such tokens this creature supposed that our Lord wished that his holy saint's day should be hallowed, and the saint held in more respect than she was at that time.

And sometimes, when this creature would have done the Stations of Rome,
⁶
our Lord warned her at night in her bed that she should not go out far from her lodging, for he would send great storms that day of thunder and lightning. And so it was indeed. There were such great storms that year of thunder and lightning, heavy rain and stormy weather, that very old men living in Rome at that time said they had never seen anything like
it before; the flashes of lightning were so frequent and shone so brightly inside their houses, that they truly believed that their houses would be burnt with the contents.

Then they cried on this creature to pray for them, fully believing that she was the servant of Almighty God, and that through her prayers they would be helped. This creature praying our Lord for mercy at their request, he answered in her soul saying, ‘Daughter, do not be afraid, for no weather, no storm, shall harm you, and therefore do not distrust me, for I shall never deceive you.'

And our merciful Lord Christ Jesus, as it pleased him, withdrew the storms, preserving the people from all misfortunes.