Enclosed By the Infinitely Frail; Permeated By the Immanently Elusive--Part 4

                                                                                                                          For YB

somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose

or if your wish be to close me,i and
my life will shut very beautifully,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

                                                                     --e.e.cummings

So nu?  Why, then, would the Beloved ever possibly close the Lover? 



A garden locked is my sister, my bride; a spring enclosed, a fountain sealed.
                 --Song of Songs 4:12



The Beloved, of course, does not want to shut and close off the Lover from life, from experience, from anything really. The Beloved does not actively close the Lover. Real love is not ever forceful.

All the Beloved does… is reveal herself. She wishes to show herself to her Lover. And that shuts him "very beautifully,suddenly."

All true lovers are,

Unstaid and skittish in all motions else

Save in the constant image of the creature

That is beloved.          --Twelfth Night II, 4

Why are all true lovers such? What is it about "the constant image of the creature that is beloved" that makes the lover "unstaid and skittish in all motions else"? What closes the Lover?

O spirit of love, how quick and fresh art thou,

That, notwithstanding thy capacity

Receiveth as the sea, nought enters there,

Of what validity and pitch soe'er,

But falls into abatement and low price

Even in a minute.        --ibid, I, 1

Or as Cleopatra said to her dying Antony...

 Noblest of men, woo’t die?

Hast thou no care of me? Shall I abide

In this dull world, which in thy absence is

No better than a sty? O see, my women,

The crown o’ th’ earth doth melt...

And there is nothing left remarkable

Beneath the visiting moon.              

                                        --Antony and Cleopatra IV,15

The Lover sees no value to anything else in the world compared to the Beloved. The Beloved does not need to close off the Lover from the world; the Lover cares not for anything else when seeing, in the mind's eye or the physical, the Face of the Beloved.


This is why Antony had similarly earlier declared to Cleopatra,

Egypt, thou knew’st too well

My heart was to thy rudder tied by th’ strings,

And thou shouldst tow me after. O’er my spirit

Thy full supremacy thou knew’st, and that

Thy beck might from the bidding of the gods

Command me.               --ibid, III,11

This "full supremacy" comes not from control. Love is not ever controlling. Rather from the sheer lack of value of all things else, "there is nothing left remarkable," compared to the Beloved.


Every time we say goodbye, I die a little...
                                     --Cole Porter
                           

The Face of the Beloved is the "crown o' th' earth." It is the glory of creation. 


As Isaac says to Tracy,

You know what you are? You're God's answer to Job, y'know? You would have ended all argument between them. I mean, He would have pointed to you and said, y'know, "I do a lot of terrible things, but I can still make one of these." You know? And then Job would have said, "Eh. Yeah, well, you win."
                                                 --Woody Allen, Manhattan

or if your wish be to close me,i and
my life will shut very beautifully,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

Though snow everywhere threatens to cool off the ardor, and it too is exquisite, silky, and enticing, the Lover would never leave a cake for a crumb. 



And so does the lover of God feel about Him...

What is the proper [degree] of love? That a person should love God with a very great and exceeding love until his soul is bound up in the love of God. Thus, he will always be obsessed with this love as if he is lovesick.

[A lovesick person's] thoughts are never diverted from the love of that woman. He is always obsessed with her; when he sits down, when he gets up, when he eats and drinks. With an even greater [love], the love for God should be [implanted] in the hearts of those who love Him and are obsessed with Him at all times as we are commanded [Deuteronomy 6:5: "Love God...] with all your heart and with all soul."

This concept was implied by Solomon [Song of Songs 2:5] when he stated, as a metaphor: "I am lovesick." [Indeed,] the totality of the Song of Songs is a parable describing [this love].

                                                      --Maimonides, Laws of Repentance, 10

A garden locked is my sister, my bride; a spring enclosed, a fountain sealed.
                 --Song of Songs 4:12


Just as the garden is locked, so does the "woman of Israel" lock her opening for her Husband ...
                 --Targum, in versu


Rabbi Shmuel of Lubavitch (Maamar of Parshas Tazria/Metzora 5640) explains that the metaphor of a garden is being used because the purpose of a garden is for pleasure. It is the incomparable pleasure that the lover of God has in His Face that seals her from all else "very beautifully,suddenly." She only gets her pleasure from Godliness...


Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss.
Her lips suck forth my soul: see where it flies!
Come, Helen, come, give me my soul again.
Here will I dwell, for heaven is in these lips,
And all is dross that is not Helena.
                                 --Christopher Marlowe