41 The keys of the gates of love are gilded with cares and desires, sighs and tears; the cord which binds them is woven of conscience, devotion, contrition and atonement; the door is kept by justice and mercy. 42 The Lover beat upon his Beloved’s door with blows of love and hope. The Beloved heard His Lover’s blows, with humility, piety, charity and patience. Deity and Humanity opened the doors, and the Lover went in to his Beloved. 43 Deity and Humanity met, and joined together to make concord between Lover and Beloved. 44 There are two fires that warm the love of a true Lover: one is of pleasures, desires and thoughts: the other is of weeping and crying, of fear and grief. 45 The Lover longed for solitude, and went away to live alone, that he might gain the companionship of his Beloved, for amid many people he was lonely. 46 The Lover was all alone, in the shade of a great tree. Men passed by that place, and asked him why he was alone. And the Lover replied: ‘I am alone, now that I have seen you and heard you; until now, I was in the company of my Beloved.’ 47 By signs of love, the Lover held converse with the Beloved; by means of fear and thought, weeping and crying, the Lover recounted his griefs to the Beloved. 48 The Lover feared whether his Beloved would fail him in his greatest need; and he ceased from loving Him. Then he had contrition and repentance of heart; and the Beloved restored hope and charity to the Lover’s heart, and tears to his eyes, that love might return to him. 49 Whether Lover and Beloved are near or far is all one; for their love mingles as water mingles with wine. They are linked as heat with light; they approach and are united as Essence and Being. 50 Said the Lover to the Beloved: ‘My grief and its healing are both in Thee: the more surely Thou healed me, the greater grows my grief; when Thou dost wound me, even then dost Thou give me health.’ 51 The Lover sighed and said: ‘Ah! What is my love?’ The Beloved answered: ‘Thy love is a mark and a seal by which thou dost show forth My honour before men.’ 52 The Lover saw himself taken and bound, wounded and killed, for the love of his Beloved; and those who tortured him asked him: ‘Where is thy Beloved?’ He answered: ‘See Him here in the increase of my love, and the Strength which it gives me to bear my torments.’ 53 Said the Lover to the Beloved: ‘I have never fled from Thee, nor ceased to love Thee, since I knew Thee, for I was ever in Thee, by Thee and with Thee wheresoever I went.’ The Beloved answered: ‘Nor since thou hast known Me and loved Me have I once forgotten thee; never once have I deceived or failed thee.’ 54 As though mad went the Lover through a city, singing of his love; and they asked him if he had lost his senses. ‘My Beloved,’ he answered, ‘has taken my will, and I myself have yielded up to Him my understanding; so that there is left in me naught but memory, with which I remember my Beloved.’