Chapter VIII.

Taking the passage concerning the honeycomb in the Song of Songs, he expounds it, comparing the sacred virgins to bees.

40. Let, then, your work be as it were a honeycomb, for virginity is fit to be compared to bees, so laborious is it, so modest, so continent. The bee feeds on dew, it knows no marriage couch, it makes honey. The virgin’s dew is the divine word, for the words of God descend like the dew. The virgin’s modesty is unstained nature. The virgin’s produce is the fruit of the lips, without bitterness, abounding in sweetness. They work in common, and their fruit is in common.

41. How I wish you, my daughter, to be an imitator of these bees, whose food is flowers, whose offspring is collected and brought together by the mouth. Do imitate her, my daughter. Let no veil of deceit be spread over your words; let them have no covering of guile, that they may be pure, and full of gravity.

42. And let an eternal succession of merits be brought forth by your mouth. Gather not for yourself alone (for how do you know when your soul shall be required of you?), lest leaving your granaries heaped full with corn, which will be a help neither to your life nor to your merits, you be hurried thither where you cannot take your treasure with you. Be rich then, but towards the poor, that as they share in your nature they may also share your goods.

43. And I also point out to you what flower is to be culled, that one it is Who said: “I am the Flower of the field, and the Lily of the valleys, as a lily among thorns,”41    Cant. ii. 1, 2. which is a plain declaration that virtues are surrounded by the thorns of spiritual wickedness, so that no one can gather the fruit who does not approach with caution.

CAPUT VIII.

Locum sequentem Canticorum, Favus distillans, etc., sic edisserit, ut inde ansam arripiat cum apibus sacras virgines comparandi.

40. Favum itaque mellis tua opera componant (Cant. IV, 11); digna enim virginitas quae apibus comparetur: sic laboriosa, sic pudica, sic continens. Rore pascitur apis, nescit concubitus, mella componit. Ros quoque virginis est sermo divinus; quia sicut ros, Dei verba descendunt. Pudor virginis est intemerata natura. Partus virginis fetus est labiorum, 0200B expers amaritudinis, fertilis suavitatis. In commune labor, communis est fructus.

41. Quam te velim, filia, imitratricem esse hujus apiculae cui cibus flos est, ore soboles legitur, ore componitur! Hanc imitare tu, filia. Verba tua nullum doli velamen obtendant, nullum habeant fraudis involucrum; ut et puritatem habeant, et gravitatis plena sint.

42. Meritorum quoque tuorum tibi aeterna posteritas tuo ore pariatur. Nec soli tibi, sed etiam pluribus congreges, (qui scis enim quando a te anima tua reposcatur?) ne receptacula horreorum frumentis coacervata dimittens, nec vitae tuae usui profutura, nec meritis, rapiaris eo quo thesaurum tuum ferre non possis. Dives igitur esto, sed pauperibus; ut 0200C naturae participes tuae, participes sint etiam facultatum.

157 43. Florem quoque tibi demonstro carpendum, illum utique qui dixit: Ego flos campi, et lilium convallium. Tamquam lilium in medio spinarum (Cant. II, 1, 2); quod est evidentis indicii, spiritalium nequitiarium sentibus virtutes obsideri; unde nemo fructum referat, nisi qui cautus accedat.