356 The Lover passed through divers places and found many men who were rejoicing, laughing and singing and living in great joy and comfort. And he wondered if this world were meant for laughing or for weeping.
357 So the Virtues came, to pronounce upon that question. And Faith said: ‘It is for weeping, because the faithless are more in number than the believers.’ Hope said: ‘It is for weeping, because few are those that hope in God, whereas many put their trust in the riches of earth.’ Charity said: ‘It is for weeping, because so few are those that love God and their neighbour.’ And there followed the other Virtues, and so declared they all.
358 The lovers sought to prove Love’s messenger, and they said that they should go through the world, crying that worshippers must honour servants as servants and the Lord as a lord, so that their requests might better be heard, and because there needs not to love, save the Beloved.
359 They asked Love’s messenger whence came to the Beloved so many useless servants, viler, more abject, and more contemptible than secular men. Love’s messenger answered and said: ‘They come through the fault of those whose task it is to furnish their Sovereign,—the King of Kings,—the Beloved,—with servants. They make no question, as they ought, concerning the wisdom nor the lives nor the habits of those whom they choose. And those whom they will not take for His train they allow to serve the Eternal King in His palace, and in the most holy ministry of His Table. Wherefore ought they to fear the severest retributions when they are called by the Beloved to their account.’
360 They asked the Lover: ‘In which is love greater, in the Lover who lives or in the Lover who dies?’ He answered: ‘In the Lover who dies.’ ‘And why?’ ‘Because in one who lives for love it may yet be greater, but in one who dies for love it can be no greater.’
361 Two lovers met: the one revealed his Beloved, and the other learned of Him. And it was disputed which of those two was nearer to his Beloved; and in the solution the Lover took knowledge of the demonstration of the Trinity.
362 ‘Say, O Fool, why dost thou speak with such subtlety?’ He answered: ‘That I may raise my understanding to the height of my Beloved’s greatness, and that thereby more men may honour, love and serve Him.’
363 The Lover drank deeply of the wine of memory, understanding and love for his Beloved. And that wine the Beloved made bitter with His Lover’s tears.
364 Love heated and inflamed the Lover with remembrance of his Beloved; and the Beloved cooled his ardour, with sorrows and tears and forgetfulness of the delights of this world, and the renunciation of vainglories. So his love grew, when he remembered wherefore he suffered grief and affliction, and the men of the world persecutions and trials.
365 They asked the Lover this question: ‘Wherein dies love?’ The Lover answered: ‘In the delights of this world.’ ‘And whence has it life and sustenance?’ ‘In thoughts of the world to come.’ Wherefore they that had inquired of him prepared to renounce this world, that they might think the more deeply upon the next, and that their love might live and find nourishment.