The Book of Margery Kempe (26 page)

Then she beheld, in the sight of her soul, our blissful Lord Christ Jesus coming towards his Passion, and before he went, he knelt down and received his mother's blessing. Then she saw his mother falling down in a swoon before her son, saying to him, ‘Alas, my dear son, how shall I suffer this sorrow, and have no joy in all this world but you alone? Ah, dear son, if you will die at any event, let me die before you, and let me never suffer this day of sorrow, for I may never bear this sorrow that I shall have for your death. I wish, son, that I might suffer death for you, so that you should not die – if man's soul might so be saved. Now, dear son, if you have no pity for yourself, have pity on your mother, for you very well know that no man can comfort me in all this world but you alone.'

Then our Lord took up his mother in his arms and kissed her very sweetly, and said to her, ‘Ah, blessed mother, be cheered and comforted, for I have very often told you that I must needs suffer death, or else no man would be saved, or ever come to bliss. And mother, it is my father's will that it be so, and therefore, I pray you, let it be your will also, for my death shall turn for me to great worship, and to great joy and profit for you and all mankind who shall trust in my Passion, and act in accordance with it.

‘And therefore, blessed mother, you must remain here after me, for in you shall rest all the faith of Holy Church, and by your faith Holy Church shall increase in her faith. And therefore I pray you, beloved mother, cease from your sorrowing, for I will not leave you comfortless. I shall leave John, my cousin, here with you to comfort you instead of me; I shall send my holy angels to comfort you on earth; and I shall comfort you in your soul myself, for mother, you well know I have promised you the bliss of heaven, and that you are sure of.

‘Ah, beloved mother, what would you wish for better than, where I am king, you to be queen, and all angels and saints shall be obedient to your will. And whatever grace you ask of me, I shall not deny your desire. I shall give you power over the devils,
so that they shall be afraid of you, and you not of them. And also, my blessed mother, I have said to you before that I shall come for you myself, when you shall pass out of this world, with all my angels and all my saints who are in heaven, and bring you before my father with all manner of music, melody and joy. And there I shall set you in great peace and rest without end. And there you shall be crowned as queen of heaven, as lady of all the world, and as empress of hell.

‘And therefore, my beloved mother, I pray you, bless me and let me go to do my father's will, because for that I came into this world, and took flesh and blood of you.'

When the said creature beheld this glorious sight in her soul, and saw how he blessed his mother, and his mother him, and then his blessed mother could not speak one more word to him, but fell down to the ground, and so they parted from each other, his mother lying still, as though she were dead – then the said creature thought she took our Lord Jesus Christ by the clothes, and fell down at his feet, praying him to bless her, and with that she cried very loudly and wept very bitterly, saying in her mind, ‘Ah, Lord, what shall become of me? I had much rather that you would slay me than let me remain in the world without you, for without you I may not stay here, Lord.'

Then our Lord answered to her, ‘Be still, daughter, and rest with my mother here, and comfort yourself in her, for she that is my own mother must suffer this sorrow. But I shall come again, daughter, to my mother, and comfort both her and you, and turn all your sorrow into joy.'

And then she thought our Lord went forth on his way, and she went to our Lady and said, ‘Ah, blessed lady, rise up and let us follow your blessed son as long as we may see him, so that I may look upon him enough before he dies. Ah, dear lady, how can your heart last, and see your blissful son see all this woe? Lady, I may not endure it, and yet I am not his mother.'

Then our Lady answered and said, ‘Daughter, you have heard that it will not be otherwise, and therefore I simply must suffer it for my son's love.'

And then she thought that they followed on after our Lord, and saw how he made his prayers to his father on the Mount of Olivet, and heard the beautiful answer that came from his father, and the beautiful answer that he gave his father.

Then she saw how our Lord went to his disciples and ordered them to wake up – his enemies were near. And then came a great multitude of people with many lights, and many of them armed with staves, swords and pole-axes, to seek out our Lord Jesus Christ – our merciful Lord, meek as a lamb, saying to them, ‘Whom do you seek?'

They answered in rough mood, ‘Jesus of Nazareth.'

Our Lord replied, ‘
Ego sum.
'

And then she saw the Jews fall down to the ground – they could not stand for fear – but immediately they got up again, and searched as they had done before. And our Lord asked, ‘Whom do you seek?'

And they said again, ‘Jesus of Nazareth.'

Our Lord answered, ‘I am he.'

And then she immediately saw Judas come and kiss our Lord, and the Jews laid hands upon him most violently. Then our Lady and she had much sorrow and great pain to see the Lamb of Innocence so contemptuously handled and dragged about by his own people, to whom he was especially sent. And very soon the said creature beheld with her spiritual eye the Jews putting a cloth before our Lord's eyes, beating him and buffeting him on the head, and striking him on his sweet mouth, shouting very cruelly at him, ‘Tell us now, who hit you?'

They did not spare to spit in his face in the most shameful way that they could. And then our Lady and she, her unworthy handmaid for the time, wept and sighed keenly because the Jews so foully and so venomously treated her blissful Lord. And they would not spare to lug his blessed ears, and pull the hair of his beard.

And soon after, she saw them pull off his clothes and strip him all naked, and then drag him before them as if he had been the greatest malefactor in the world. And he went on very meekly
before them, as naked as he was born, towards a pillar of stone, and spoke no word back to them, but let them do and say what they wished. And there they bound him to the pillar as tightly as they could, and beat him on his fair white body with rods, with whips, and with scourges.

And then she thought our Lady wept wonderfully sorely, and therefore the said creature had to weep and cry, when she saw such spiritual sights in her soul as freshly and veritably as if they had been done in her bodily sight, and she thought that our Lady and she were always together to see our Lord's pains. Such spiritual sights she had every Palm Sunday and every Good Friday, and in many other ways as well, many years together. And therefore she cried and wept very bitterly, and suffered much contempt and rebuke in many places.

And then our Lord said to her soul, ‘Daughter, these sorrows, and many more, I suffered for your love, and divers pains, more than any man on earth can tell. Therefore, daughter, you have great cause to love me very well, for I have bought your love most dearly.'

Another time she saw in her contemplation our Lord Jesus Christ bound to a pillar, and his hands were bound above his head.
¹
And then she saw sixteen men with sixteen scourges, and each scourge had eight tips of lead on the end, and each tip was full of sharp prickles, as if it had been the rowel of a spur. And those men with the scourges made a covenant that each of them should give our Lord forty strokes.
²

When she saw this piteous sight, she wept and cried very loudly, as if she would have burst for sorrow and pain. And when our Lord was severely beaten and scourged, the Jews loosed him from
the pillar, and gave him his cross to bear on his shoulder. And then she thought that our Lady and she went by another way to meet with him, and when they met with him, they saw him carrying the heavy cross with great pain, it was so heavy and so huge that he could scarcely bear it.
³

And then our Lady said to him, ‘Ah, my sweet son, let me help to carry that heavy cross.'
⁴

And she was so weak that she could not, but fell down and swooned, and lay as still as if she had been a dead woman. Then the creature saw our Lord fall down by his mother, and comfort her as he could with many sweet words. When she heard the words and saw the compassion that the mother had for the son, and the son for the mother, then she wept, sobbed and cried as though she would have died, for the pity and compassion that she had for that piteous sight, and the holy thoughts that she had in the meantime, which were so subtle and heavenly that she could never describe them afterwards, as she had them in feeling.

Later she went forth in contemplation, through the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, to the place where he was nailed to the cross. And then she saw the Jews with great violence tear off of our Lord's precious body a cloth of silk, which had stuck and hardened so firmly and tightly to our Lord's body with his precious blood, that it pulled away with it all the skin from his blessed body and renewed his precious wounds, and made the blood to run down all around on every side. Then that precious body appeared to her sight as raw as something that was newly flayed out of its skin, most pitiful to behold. And so she had a new sorrow, so that she wept and cried very bitterly.

And soon after, she beheld how the cruel Jews laid his precious body on the cross, and then took a long nail, all rough and coarse, and set it on one hand, and with great violence and cruelty they drove it through his hand. His blessed mother beholding – and this creature – how his precious body shrank and drew together with all the sinews and veins in that precious body for the pain that it suffered and felt, they sorrowed and mourned and sighed very grievously.

Then she saw, with her spiritual eye, how the Jews fastened ropes on to the other hand – for the sinews and veins were so shrunken with pain that it would not reach to the hole that they had drilled for it
⁵
– and they pulled on it to make it reach the hole. And so her pain and her sorrow ever increased. And later they pulled his blessed feet in the same way.

And then she thought, in her soul, she heard our Lady say to the Jews, ‘Alas, you cruel Jews, why do you treat my sweet son like this, and he never did you any harm? You fill my heart full of sorrow.'

And then she thought the Jews spoke back roughly to our Lady, and moved her away from her son.

Then the said creature thought that she cried out at the Jews, and said, ‘You accursed Jews, why are you killing my Lord Jesus Christ? Kill me instead, and let him go.'

And then she wept and cried surpassingly bitterly, so that many people in the church were astonished. She straightaway saw them take up the cross with our Lord's body hanging on it, and make a great noise and cry; and they lifted it up from the earth a certain distance, and then let the cross fall down into the mortise.
⁶
And then our Lord's body shook and shuddered, and all the joints of that blissful body burst and broke apart, and his precious wounds ran down with rivers of blood on every side, and so she had ever more reason for more weeping and sorrowing.

And then she heard our Lord, hanging on the cross, say these words to his mother, ‘Woman, see your son, St John the Evangelist.'

Then she thought our Lady fell down and swooned, and St John took her up in his arms and comforted her with sweet words, as well as he could. This creature then said to our Lord, as it seemed to her, ‘Alas, Lord, you are leaving here a mother full of care. What shall we do now, and how shall we bear this great sorrow that we shall have for your love?'

And then she heard the two thieves speaking to our Lord, and our Lord said to the one thief, ‘This day you shall be with me in paradise.'

Then she was glad of that answer, and prayed our Lord, for his mercy, that he would be as gracious to her soul when she should pass out of this world as he was to the thief – for she was worse, she thought, than any thief.

And then she thought our Lord commended his spirit into his father's hands, and with that he died. Then she thought she saw our Lady swoon and fall down and lie still, as if she had been dead. Then this creature thought that she ran all round the place like a mad woman, crying and roaring. And later she came to our Lady, and fell down on her knees before her, saying to her, ‘I pray you, Lady, cease from your sorrowing, for your son is dead and out of pain, and I think you have sorrowed enough. And Lady, I will sorrow for you, for your sorrow is my sorrow.'

Then she thought she saw Joseph of Arimathea take down our Lord's body from the cross, and lay it before our Lady on a marble stone.
⁷
Our Lady had a kind of joy when her dear son was taken down from the cross and laid on the stone before her. And then our blessed Lady bowed down to her son's body and kissed his mouth, and wept so plentifully over his blessed face, that she washed away the blood from his face with the tears of her eyes.

And then this creature thought she heard Mary Magdalene say to our Lady, ‘I pray you, Lady, give me leave to handle and kiss his feet, for at these I get grace.'

At once our Lady gave leave to her and all those who were there, to offer what worship and reverence they wished to that precious body. And Mary Magdalene soon took our Lord's feet, and our Lady's sisters took his hands, the one sister one hand and the other sister the other hand, and wept very bitterly in kissing those hands and those precious feet. And the said creature thought that she continually ran to and fro, as if she were a woman without reason, greatly desiring to have had the precious body by herself alone, so that she might have wept enough in the presence of that precious body, for she thought she would have died with weeping and mourning for his death, for love that she had for him.

And at once she saw St John the Evangelist, Joseph of
Arimathea, and other friends of our Lord, come and want to bury our Lord's body, and they asked our Lady that she would allow them to bury that precious body. Our sorrowful Lady said to them, ‘Sirs, would you take away from me my son's body? I might never look upon him enough while he lived. I pray you, let me have him now he is dead, and do not part my son and me from each other. And if you will bury him in any case, I pray you, bury me with him, for I may not live without him.'

And then this creature thought that they asked our Lady so beautifully, until at last our Lady let them bury her dear son with great worship and great reverence, as was fitting for them to do.