Laude LXXXIX. Amor de caritate
In this laude Jacopone expresses the emotions that ecstasy aroused in him and that now, writing the laude, are renewed vividly in his memory. Evelyn Underhill considered it Jacopone's masterpiece, reaching a peak rarely equalled in Italian religious poetry.
Other great saints, close to Jacopone in sensitivity and experience, expressed themselves in language strongly echoing the sentiments of this laude. Little Thérèse of Lisieux described her mystical experience in this way:
Like a torrent that rushes into the ocean and sweeps away everything it finds in its path, so, my Jesus, the soul that sinks into the ocean of your love draws with it all the treasures it possesses.
And Saint Augustine – much loved by Jacopone – described his experience of God thus:
You called, you shouted, and you broke through my deafness. You flashed, you shone and you dispelled my blindness. You breathed your fragrance on me; I drew in breath and now I pant for you. I have tasted you, now I hunger and thirst for more. You touched me, and I burned for your peace.
Thérèse_de_Lisieux_in_1885
This long laude – of 36 stanzas, each of eight lines, plus two initial lines – is intense as a prayer, but is also passionate and tender as a declaration of love. It falls into three clearly identifiable parts:
The first 18 stanzas resemble Thérèse of Lisieux’s raging torrent (Underhill described the whole laude as a “torrent of wild loveliness”). Jacopone expresses in a thousand ways the passion of love for Jesus that turned his life upside down.
The next 12 stanzas offer a surprising change of pace: Jesus himself interrupts, speaking to the poet and Jacopone responds to him.
In the final 6 stanzas (48 lines) the word ‘love’ is repeated 73 times. Jacopone understood this as the conclusion of his poetry and also of his life: he wishes to die by immersing himself, singing, in the ocean of love for the crucified Jesus.
First Part:
The love of Christ is like a fire burning in Jacopone’s heart: it invades him, constrains him, to the point of making him suffer, as if with an open wound.
Amor de caritate, perché m’hai sì ferito?
Lo cor tutt’ho partito, ed arde per amore
Arde ed encende, nullo trova loco:
non pò fugir, però ched è legato;
sì se consuma como cera a foco;
(lines 1-5)
Love of charity, why have you wounded me so?
My broken heart burns with love.
It burns and blazes without respite:
It cannot escape, because it is bound
and is consumed like wax in the fire;
Jacopone senses the impossibility of adequately responding to such a great love and, at the same time, is overcome by a beauty he describes using the words of Saint Augustine (“Late have I loved you, beauty so ancient and so new: late have I loved you!”):
Amare voglio più, se più potesse:
ma, co più ami, lo cor già non trova;
più che me dare con ciò che volesse
non posso, questo è certo senza prova;
tutto l’ho dato, perché possedesse
quell’amador che tanto me renova:
belleza antiqua e nova, di poco t’ho trovata,
O luce smesurata de sì dolce splendore!
(lines 75-82)
I would like to love more, if I could,
but my heart does not know how;
however much I wanted, to give more than myself
is impossible, that is certain;
I have given my all, so as to possess
that Love that renews me so fully:
Beauty ancient and new, recently have I found you,
O immeasurable light of such sweet splendour!
Finally, a series of paradoxes points to the surprising, stunning overturning of everything Jacopone had been and is no longer:
Sappi parlare, ora so fatto muto
vedea, mo so cieco deventato.
Sì grande abisso non fo mai veduto:
tacendo parlo, fugo e so legato,
scendendo salgo, tengo e so tenuto,
de for so dentro, caccio e so cacciato.
Amor esmesurato, perché me fai empazire,
en fornace morire de sì forte calore?
(lines 139-146)
Once I could speak, now I am mute;
I could see once, now I am blind.
Such a deep abyss has never been seen:
Though silent, I speak; I flee and I am bound;
Descending, I rise; I possess and am possessed;
Outside, I am within; I pursue and am pursued.
Love without limits, why do you drive me mad
And destroy me in this blazing furnace?
Each paradox has a precise meaning. “Descending, I rise” tells us that we can only ascend towards God by lowering ourselves in humility. The phrases “I flee and I am bound”, “I possess and am possessed”, “I pursue and am pursued” remind us that in the pursuit of God, the initiative always lies with God. In the passionate search for union with God, says Jacopone, I believe I am seeking him but in reality he’s pursuing me; I think I’m the one embracing him but actually he’s holding me. So lower yourself, be silent, let yourself be taken, let yourself be embraced. God is not our conquest; rather, let us abandon ourselves to the condition that allows us to become his conquest...
Second Part:
Estelle Zunino writes of how Jacopone’s mystical experience led him to develop “completely unexpected expressive solutions” in his poetry. One such completely unexpected expressive solution now appears, in the dialogue between Jacopone and Jesus. After 18 stanzas of passionate fervour, Jesus himself bursts into the laude, rebuking Jacopone for his excessive enthusiasm and calling him to greater sobriety of ‘orderly’ feelings and words. Jacopone responds with touching familiarity (if not humility), arguing the point with Jesus and saying in effect, “if I’m excessive, it’s your fault, not mine. You know the smallness of my heart, yet you poured immense love into it. So how can you expect me to control myself?”:
A tal fornace perché me menavi,
se volevi ch’io fosse en temperanza?
Quando sì smesurato me te davi
tollevi da me tutta mesuranza:
puoie che picciolello me bastavi,
tenerte grande non aggio possanza;
onde, se c’è fallanza, amor, tua è, non mia,
però che questa via tu la facesti, amore.
(lines 187-94)
Why did you lead me to this fiery furnace,
if you wanted me to live in temperance?
When you gave yourself to me without measure,
you took away all moderation from me:
Just a little of your love would be enough for me;
how can I contain it in its fullness?
So if there is a fault in my love, it’s yours, not mine,
since it was you who led the way, my love.
“And furthermore”, Jacopone insists, “Jesus, you were excessive first. You humbled yourself out of love and gave up your divine power and wisdom, to come and beg for our love as the least and humblest of human beings”:
Ché quell’amore che me fa empazire
a te par che tollesse sapienza,
e quell’amor che sì me fa languire,
a te per me sì tolse la potenza;
non voglio ormai, né posso sofferire:
d’amor so preso, non faccio retenza
daramme la sentenza che io d’amor sia morto:
già non voglio conforto, se non morire, amore.
(lines 235-242)
Because the same love that drives me crazy
seems to have stripped you of wisdom;
and the love that makes me weak
stripped you of your power, for me.
Now I cannot delay, nor want to:
I'm captured by love, I can’t resist;
let it sentence me to death for love’s sake:
I want no other comfort than to die, my love.
Third Part
Like a teenager in love, or a mother cradling her baby in her arms, Jacopone finds a way in the last six stanzas to repeat the word ‘love’ endlessly. His love is Jesus and Jacopone wants to wait no longer: he seeks death as the desired and blessed moment when his soul will be lost in the ocean of love of the crucified Jesus:
Amor, amor Iesù desideroso,
amor, voglio morire te abbracciando;
amor, amor Iesù, dolce mio sposo
amor, amor, la morte t’addemando;
amor, amor Iesù sì delettoso,
tu me t’arrendi en te me trasformando;
pensa ch’io vo pasmando, Amor, non so o’ me sia:
Iesù, speranza mia, abissame en amore.
(lines 283-290)
Love, love, Jesus my heart’s desire,
Love, I want to die embracing you;
Love, love, Jesus, my sweet spouse,
Love, love, I ask you for death;
Love, love, Jesus, my delight
You give yourself to me, making me one with you;
Consider my suffering, Love, I don't know where I am:
Jesus, my hope, drown me in love.
Church of the convent at Collazzone
Legend has it that this last stanza was the final prayer recited by the dying Jacopone in the small convent of the Poor Clares of Collazzone. On Christmas night 1306 Jacopone’s spirit, praying this laude, sank into that boundless ocean of love.
We invite you to read the full laude Amor de caritate with translation in English here and in Italian here.