Bernard of Clairvaux, on Song 3:3

“The watchmen who keep the city, found me: Have you seen him, whom my soul loveth?”

“1. "Have you seen him whom my soul loves?" O love headlong, vehement, burning, impetuous, who does not allow anything to be thought of besides yourself, who disdains all other things, who despises everything besides yourself, content with yourself! You confound all order, you disregard custom, you know no measure; everything that seems to belong to propriety, to reason, to modesty, to counsel or judgment, you triumph over in yourself, and you bring into captivity. Behold, everything that this one thinks, and that she speaks, sounds of you, smells of you, and of nothing else: so thoroughly have you claimed for yourself both her heart and her tongue. She says: "Have you seen him whom my soul loves?" As if indeed these men should know what she herself is thinking. You ask about him whom your soul loves? And does he not have a name? And indeed who are you, and who is he? And these things I have said thus on account of the singularity of the speech, and the remarkable carelessness of the words, by which the present Scripture appears quite unlike the rest. Whence in this epithalamium the words are not to be weighed, but the affections. Why is this so, unless because holy love, which is established to be the one subject of this whole volume, is not to be judged by word or tongue, but by work and truth? Love speaks everywhere: and if anyone desires to gain knowledge of these things which are read, let him love. Otherwise, he who does not love approaches in vain to hear or read the song of love: since a cold heart can in no way grasp the fiery speech. For just as one who does not know Greek does not understand one speaking Greek, nor one who is not Latin one speaking Latin, and so with the rest; so the tongue of love will be barbarous to one who does not love, and it will be as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal (1 Cor 13:1). But these men (I speak of the watchmen), since they too have received from the Spirit that they might love, know what the Spirit speaks, and since the voices of love are perfectly well known to them, they have ready at hand to respond in a like tongue, that is, in the pursuits of love and the offices of devotion.”

Imported from an open dataset — not yet checked against the printed edition.