316 Love comes from love, thoughts from thoughts and tears from griefs; and love leads to love, as thoughts lead to tears and griefs to sighs. And the Beloved watches His Lover, who bears all these afflictions for His love.
317 The desires of the Lover and his memories of the Beloved’s greatness kept vigils and went on journeys and pilgrimages. And they brought to the Lover graces which lit up his understanding and made his will to increase in love.
318 With his imagination the Lover formed and pictured his Beloved’s Countenance in bodily wise, and with his understanding he beautified It in spiritual things; and with his will he worshipped It in all creatures.
319 The Lover purchased a day of tears with another of thoughts; and a day of love came through a day of tribulations; and both his thoughts and his love were increased.
320 The Lover was in a far country, and he forgot his Beloved, but was sad at the absence of his lord, his wife, his children and his friends. But soon the memory of his Beloved returned to him, that he might be comforted, and that his exile might cause him neither vexation nor sorrow.
321 The Lover heard his Beloved’s words; his understanding beheld Him in them; his will had pleasure in that which he heard; and his memory recalled his Beloved’s virtues and His promises.
322 The Lover heard men speak evil of his Beloved, and in this evil-speaking his understanding perceived his Beloved’s justice and patience; for His justice would punish the evil-speakers, while His patience would await their contrition and repentance. In which of these two think you that the Lover believed more earnestly?
323 The Lover fell sick, and made his testament with the counsel of his Beloved. His sins and faults he bequeathed to penance and contrition; worldly pleasures to contempt. To his eyes he left tears; to his heart sighs of love; to his understanding his Beloved’s graces, and to his memory the Passion which his Beloved endured for love of him. And to his activity he bequeathed the guidance of unbelievers, who go to their doom through ignorance.
324 The scent of flowers brought to the Lover’s mind the evil stench of riches and meanness, of old age and lasciviousness, of discontent and pride. The taste of sweet things recalled to him the bitterness of temporal possessions and of entering and quitting this world. The enjoyment of earthly pleasures made him feel how quickly this world passes, and how the delights which are here so pleasant may be the occasion of eternal torments.
325 The Lover endured hunger and thirst, cold and heat, poverty and nakedness, sickness and tribulations; and he would have died had he not had remembrance of his Beloved, who healed him with hope and memory, with the renunciation of this world and contempt for the revilings of men.