Women in Praise of the Sacred

by Hirshfield, Jane

• ISBN13: 9780060925765
• ISBN10: 0060925760
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-11-13
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publications

Summary

This beautiful collection of poems, prayers and songs is by women throughout history, from a wide variety of religious traditions. Biographies and insightful commentary by Hirshfield accompany the poems and illuminate their historical contexts and meanings.

Table of Contents

Preface
Enheduanna (ca. 2300 B.C.E.)	p. 3
from The Hymn to Inanna	p. 4
Shu-Sin's Ritual Bride (ca. 2000 B.C.E.)	p. 8
Bridegroom, beloved of my heart	p. 9
Makeda, Queen of Sheba (ca. 1000 B.C.E.)	p. 11
Wisdom is	p. 13
I fell	p. 14
Sappho (7th c. B.C.E.)	p. 15
Leave Crete	p. 16
Evening Star who gathers everything	p. 17
Sumangalamata (6th c. B.C.E.)	p. 18
At last free	p. 18
Patacara (6th c. B.C.E.)	p. 19
When they plow their fields	p. 20
Zi Ye (6th-3rd c. B.C.E.)	p. 21
All night I could not sleep	p. 21
Song of Songs: The Shulammite (ca. 3rd c. B.C.E.)	p. 22
I am dark, daughters of Jerusalem (Song 1:5-6)	p. 23
At night on my bed I longed for (Song 3:1-5)	p. 24
I was asleep but my heart stayed awake (Song 5:2-6)	p. 25
Come, my beloved (Song 7:12-14)	p. 27
Pan Zhao (48-117?)	p. 28
Needle and Thread	p. 28
Gnostic Gospel: Nag Hammadi Library (2nd-4th c.)	p. 29
from The Thunder: Perfect Mind	p. 30
A Roman Spell (2nd-4th c.?)	p. 34
I bind you by oath	p. 35
Sabina Lampadius (fl. ca. 377)	p. 36
As a symbol	p. 37
Antal (8th c.)	p. 38
O sister of wealth	p. 39
O you who guard over	p. 40
We rose before dawn	p. 41
Rabi'a (717-801)	p. 42
I am fully qualified to work as a doorkeeper . . .	p. 43
O my Lord,/if I worship you	p. 44
O my Lord,/the stars glitter	p. 45
Yeshe Tsogyel (757?-817?)	p. 46
Listen,/O brothers and sisters	p. 47
Lakshminkara (8th c.)	p. 48
Lay your head on a block of butter and chop -	p. 49
Three Tantric Buddhist Women's Songs (8th-11th c.)	p. 51
KYE HO! Wonderful!/Lotus pollen wakes up . . .	p. 51
Who speaks the sound of an echo?	p. 52
KYE HO! Wonderful!/You may say "existence". . .	p. 52
Kassiane (804?-?)	p. 53
Troparion	p. 54
Yu Xuanji (843?-868)	p. 55
At Home in the Summer Mountains	p. 56
Izumi Shikibu (974?-1034?)	p. 57
I cannot say	p. 58
Watching the moon	p. 59
Although I try	p. 60
Although the wind	p. 61
The way I must enter	p. 62
Ly Ngoc Kieu (1041-1113)	p. 63
Birth, old age	p. 63
Li Qingzhao (1084-1151?)	p. 64
Written to the Tune "The Fisherman's Honor"	p. 65
Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179)	p. 66
Antiphon for Divine Wisdom	p. 67
Antiphon for the Holy Spirit	p. 68
Antiphon for the Angels	p. 69
Song to the Creator	p. 70
Alleluia-verse for the Virgin	p. 71
Kojiju (1121?-1201?)	p. 72
On the Spirit of the Heart as Moon-Disk	p. 72
Sun Bu-er (1124-?)	p. 73
Cut brambles long enough	p. 73
Late Indian summer's	p. 74
Zhou Xuanjing (12th c.)	p. 75
Meditating at midnight	p. 75
Cui Shaoxuan (dates unknown)	p. 76
Black hair and red cheeks: for how long?	p. 76
Mahadeviyakka (12th c.)	p. 77
(On Her Decision to Stop Wearing Clothes)	p. 78
So long as this breath fills your nostrils	p. 79
When I am hungry	p. 80
A vein of sapphires	p. 81
It was like a stream	p. 82
When the body becomes Your mirror	p. 83
I do not call it his sign	p. 84
Mechtild of Magdeburg (1207?-1282? or 1297?)	p. 85
I cannot dance, O Lord	p. 86
A fish cannot drown in water	p. 87
God speaks to the soul	p. 88
How the soul speaks to God	p. 89
How God answers the soul	p. 90
The desert has many teachings	p. 91
How God comes to the soul	p. 92
Effortlessly	p. 93
God's absence	p. 94
True love in every moment praises God	p. 95
Of all that God has shown me	p. 96
Marguerite Porete (?-1310)	p. 97
Beloved, what do you want of me?	p. 98
Hadewijch of Antwerp (13th c.)	p. 99
Love's maturity	p. 100
Knowing Love in herself	p. 101
Love's constancy	p. 102
The madness of love	p. 103
Love has subjugated me	p. 104
Hadewijch II (13th c.)	p. 105
All things/are too small	p. 106
If I desire something, I know it not	p. 107
Tighten/to nothing	p. 108
You who want/knowledge	p. 109
The French Beguine (late 13th c.)	p. 110
from The Soul Speaks	p. 111
Jusammi Chikako (fl. ca. 1300)	p. 113
On this summer night	p. 113
Janabai (1298?-1350?)	p. 114
Cast off all shame	p. 115
Catherine of Siena (1347-1380)	p. 116
from Prayer 20	p. 117
Lal Ded (14th c.?)	p. 118
I drag a boat over the ocean	p. 119
I was passionate	p. 120
The soul, like the moon	p. 121
This world,/compared to You -	p. 122
Coursing in emptiness	p. 123
To learn the scriptures is easy	p. 124
I searched for my Self	p. 125
On the way to God the difficulties	p. 126
At the end of a crazy-moon night	p. 127
Vittoria Colonna (1492-1547)	p. 128
As a starved little bird, who sees and hears	p. 129
I see in my mind, surrounding God	p. 130
Mirabai (1498-1565?)	p. 131
O friends, I am mad	p. 132
Love has stained my body	p. 133
All I Was Doing Was Breathing	p. 134
The wild woman of the forests	p. 135
O friends on this Path	p. 136
The song of the flute, O sister, is madness	p. 137
O friend, understand: the body	p. 138
Why Mira Can't Go Back to Her Old House	p. 139
I was going to the river for water	p. 140
The Heat of Midnight Tears	p. 141
It's True I Went to the Market	p. 142
Teresa of Avila (1515-1582)	p. 143
(Lines written on a bookmark found in her Breviary)	p. 144
Maria de' Medici, Queen of France (1573-1642)	p. 145
(To the Virgin)	p. 145
Two Nahuatl Invocations (early 1600s)	p. 146
(Invocation for storing corn)	p. 147
(A midwife's invocation)	p. 148
Anne Bradstreet (1612-1672)	p. 149
from The Vanity of All Worldly Things	p. 150
Catharina Regina von Greiffenberg (1633-1694)	p. 151
On the Ineffable Inspiration of the Holy Spirit	p. 152
On the Fruit-Providing Autumn Season	p. 153
from On the Sweet Comfort Brought by Grace	p. 154
Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz (1648?-1695)	p. 155
Because my Lord was born to suffer	p. 157
Since Love is shivering	p. 158
Chiyo-ni (1703-1775)	p. 160
The morning glory!	p. 161
Grazing/ my fishing line	p. 162
From the mind/of a single, long vine	p. 163
Ann Griffiths (1776-1805)	p. 164
His left hand, in heat of noonday	p. 165
Emily Bronte (1818-1848)	p. 166
No coward soul is mine	p. 167
Bibi Hayati (?-1853)	p. 168
Is this darkness the night of Power . . .	p. 169
Before there was a trace of this world of men	p. 170
Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)	p. 171
Who has not found the Heaven - below -	p. 172
I never saw a Moor -	p. 173
Death is a dialogue between	p. 174
The Props assist the House	p. 175
Dare you see a Soul at the White Heat?	p. 176
I'm ceded - I've stopped being Theirs -	p. 177
'Tis little I - could care for Pearls -	p. 178
I had been hungry, all the Years -	p. 179
Mine - by the Right of the White Election!	p. 180
Wild Nights - Wild Nights!	p. 181
The Infinite a sudden Guest	p. 182
Let me not thirst with this Hock at my Lip	p. 183
A Georgia Sea Island Shout Song (19th c.)	p. 184
Down to the Mire	p. 185
Penny Jessye's Deathbed Spiritual (19th c.)	p. 186
Good Lord in That Heaven	p. 187
Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830-1894)	p. 188
After Communion	p. 189
from Behold a Shaking	p. 190
Amen	p. 191
from Later Life: A Double Sonnet of Sonnets	p. 192
Uvavnuk (19th c.)	p. 193
The great sea	p. 193
Two Kwakiutl Women's Prayers (ca. 1895)	p. 194
Prayer of a Woman in Charge of Berry Picking . . .	p. 194
Prayer to the Sockeye Salmon	p. 195
Owl Woman (mid-19th-early 20th c.)	p. 196
How shall I begin my song	p. 197
Brown owls come here in the blue evening	p. 197
Black Butte is far	p. 197
The morning star is up	p. 197
An Osage Woman's Initiation Song (early 20th c.)	p. 198
Planting Initiation Song	p. 198
A Traditional Navajo Prayer (early 20th c.)	p. 199
Dark young pine, at the center of the earth originating	p. 200
H. D. (1886-1961)	p. 201
White World	p. 202
from The Walls Do Not Fall [25]	p. 203
from The Walls Do Not Fall [36]	p. 204
from Sagesse [10]	p. 206
Anna Akhmatova (1889-1966)	p. 207
Everything is plundered, betrayed, sold	p. 208
A land not mine, still	p. 209
Summer Garden	p. 210
Gabriela Mistral (1889-1957)	p. 211
from Prayer	p. 212
The Rose	p. 213
Those Who Do Not Dance	p. 214
Song	p. 215
Nelly Sachs (1891-1970)	p. 216
How long have we forgotten how to listen!	p. 217
Your eyes, O my beloved	p. 219
Someone	p. 220
Rushing at times like flames	p. 222
In the evening your vision widens	p. 223
But perhaps God needs the longing	p. 224
Edith Sodergran (1892-1923)	p. 225
On Foot I Had to Walk Through the Solar Systems	p. 226
"There is no one . . ."	p. 227
Forest Lake	p. 228
Question	p. 229
Homecoming	p. 230
Marina Tsvetaeva (1892-1941)	p. 231
I know the truth	p. 232
I bless the daily labor	p. 233
If the soul was born with pinions	p. 234
God (3)	p. 235
The gold that was my hair has turned	p. 236
Kadya Molodowsky (1894-1975)	p. 237
Prayers: I	p. 238
Sub-ok (1902-1966)	p. 239
Spring at Yesan Station	p. 239
A Note on the Translations	p. 241
For Further Reading	p. 243
Acknowledgments	p. 251
About the Editor	p. 253
Alphabetical Index of Authors	p. 255
Table of Contents provided by Blackwell. All Rights Reserved.