164 The Lover met his Beloved, and he knew Him and wept. The Beloved reproved him, because he wept not until he knew Him. ‘How didst thou know Me,’ He asked, ‘since thine eyes were not already wet with tears?’ And the Lover answered: ‘By memory, understanding and will, through which, as soon as the eyes of my body saw Thee, my love was increased.’ 165 ‘What meanest thou by love?’ said the Beloved. And the Lover answered: ‘It is to bear on one’s heart the sacred marks and the sweet words of the Beloved. It is to long for Him with desire and with tears. It is boldness. It is fervour. It is fear. It is the desire for the Beloved above all things. It is that which causes the Lover to grow faint when he hears the Beloved’s praises. It is that in which I die daily, and in which is all my will.’ 166 Devotion and Absent Longing sent thoughts as messengers to the Lover’s heart, to bring tears to his eyes, which for long had wept but now would weep no more. 167 Said the Lover: ‘O ye that love, if ye will have fire, come light your lanterns at my heart; if water, come to my eyes, whence flow the tears in streams; if thoughts of love, come gather them from my meditations.’ 168 It happened one day that the Lover was meditating on the great love which he had for his Beloved, and the great trials and perils into which this love for so long had led him, and he fell to considering his reward, which, he said, would surely be great. And as he thus discoursed with himself, it came to him that his Beloved had recompensed him already, for had he not been inspired with a love for His Presence,--with that very love through which his sufferings had come? 169 The Lover was wiping away the tears which for Love’s sake he had shed, that none should see the sufferings which the Beloved sent him. But the Beloved said: ‘Why wouldst thou hide from others these marks of thy love? Behold, I have given them to thee that others may love and honour Me also.’ 170 ‘Say, O thou that goest as a fool for love’s sake, how long wilt thou be a slave, and forced to weep and suffer trials and griefs?’ He answered: ‘Till my Beloved shall separate body and soul in me.’ 171 ‘Say, O Fool, hast thou riches?’ He answered: ‘I have my Beloved.’ ‘Hast thou villas, castles or cities, provinces or kingdoms?’ He answered: ‘I have thoughts of love, tears, desires, trials, griefs, which are better than kingdoms or empires.’ 172 They asked the Lover: ‘How knowest thou the justice of thy Beloved’s decrees?’ He answered: ‘In that He allots to his lovers an equality of joys and of griefs.’ 173 ‘Say, O Fool, which of these knows the more of love--he that has joys or he that has trials and griefs?’ He answered: ‘There can be no knowledge of love without both the one and the other.’