The following post is the third in a series of translations I’ll be uploading to my Substack in this new section, “Trysts in Translation.” Angelus Silesius (1624-1677) was a Lutheran mystic who was forced out of the Lutheran Church for his Boehmism (incidentally, he was actually born the same year that Boehme died!). He ended up becoming Roman Catholic, and is remembered as a harsh polemicist against Protestantism, as well as a deeply moving spiritual poet. The following text is a great example of his use of mystical themes in verse, demonstrating what sort of mysticisms continued on into the early modern period. The text I’m translating the current poem from is Die Duetsche Literatur: Texte und Zeugnisse: Band III by Albrecht Schoene. The German text is located on pages 281-282 in that volume.
Angelus Silesius - The Cherubic Wanderer (Selections) 21 One knows not what one is I know not what I am; I am not what I know A thing and not a thing: both a point and a circle 22 You must become what God is Should I find my final end and first beginning I must discover myself in God and God in me. And in order to become what He is, I must become a shine in a shine, A word in a word, a god in god. God does not live without me I know that without me God cannot live a moment If I become nothing, he must become nothing and die, too! 27 God is that which he wills God is the wonder-thing! : He is what he wills And he wills whatever he is without any measure or end. 34 The dead will reigns So far as my will is dead, God must do as I will: I, myself, proscribe for him the pattern and goal. 35 The Spiritual Alchemy Then blue becomes gold, and chance ceases to be, When I am transmuted with God through God in God. The Rose The Rose, which your outer eye sees here, has bloomed from eternity in God. 48 The more surrendered, the more godly The saints are so drunk on God's divinity; They are so lost, sinking deep in her. 54 The Triunity in Nature God's triunity is shown you in every plant; There, sulfur, salt, and mercury can all be seen as one. 58 Without Why The Rose is without why, it blooms because it blooms, It does not consider itself, and does not ask if man sees it. 64 Extoll yourself above yourself The man who does not extoll his spirit over himself- He is not worthy to be called a human being. From the midpoint one sees all The one who elects to make a home for himself in the midpoint Sees in a glance what is in the imperceptible. 65 Men, become essential : for when the world dissipates the accidental falls away, but the essence does not. 69 The spiritual sea voyage The world is my ocean; God's Spirit is the captain The ship is my body; the soul, that which travels home. 71 You are your own prison The world does not cling to you: you are the world. The origin of its strong hold on you is within you. 72 The Secret of Self-Abandonment [Gelassenheit] Self-abandonment drives God: God loses himself. It is a self-abandonment that few men grasp. 81 The Spirit is like being My Spirit is like Being: My Spirit seeks Being out; in it she finds her origin and from it she emanates. 86 God plays with the creation All this is a game that you, the Godhead, play: It has conceived the creature for its own will. 93 Five gradations are in God Five stages are found in God: Slave, Friend, Son, Bride, and Spouse Whoever goes beyond them dissolves, and knows number no longer.