CAPITULUM VI

HOW THE VIRTUES OF ABSTINENCE AND PATIENCE RISE IN THE SENSUALITY

When Leah saw that Rachel her sister made great joy of these two bastards born of Bilhah her maiden, she called forth her maiden Zilpah, to put to her husband Jacob; that she might make joy with her sister, having other two bastards gotten of her maiden Zilpah.  And thus it is seemly in man’s soul for to be, that from the time that reason hath refrained the great jangling of imagination, and hath put her to be underlout[63] to God, and maketh her to bear some fruit in helping of her knowing, that right so the affection refrain the lust and the thirst of the sensuality, and make her to be underlout to God, and so to bear some fruit in helping of her feeling.  But what fruit may she bear, ought but that she learn to live temperately in easy things, and patiently in uneasy things?  These are they, the children of Zilpah, Gad and Asher:  Gad is abstinence, and Asher is patience.  Gad is the sooner born child, and Asher the latter; for first it needeth that we be attempered in ourself with discreet abstinence, and after that we bear outward disease[64] in strength of patience.  These are the children that Zilpah brought forth in sorrow; for in abstinence and patience the sensuality is punished in the flesh; but that that is sorrow to the sensuality turneth to much comfort and bliss to the affection.  And therefore it is that, when Gad was born, Leah cried and said:  “Happily"[65]; and therefore Gad is cleped in the story “Happiness,” or “Seeliness."[66] And so it is well said that abstinence in the sensuality is happiness[67] in the affection.  For why, ever the less that the sensuality is delighted in her lust, the more sweetness feeleth the affection in her love.  Also after when Asher was born, Leah said:  “This shall be for my bliss";[68] and therefore was Asher called in the story “Blessed."[69] And so it is well said that patience in the sensuality is bliss in the affection.  For why, ever the more disease that the sensuality suffereth, the more blessed is the soul in the affection.  And thus by abstinence and patience we shall not only understand a temperance in meat and drink, and suffering of outward tribulation, but also [in] all manner of fleshly, kindly,[70] and worldly delights, and all manner of disease, bodily and ghostly, within or without, reasonable or unreasonable, that by any of our five wits torment or delight the sensuality.  On this wise beareth the sensuality fruit in help of affection, her lady.  Much peace and rest is in that soul that neither is drunken in the lust of the sensuality, nor grutcheth[71] in the pain thereof.  The first of these is gotten by Gad and the latter by Asher.  Here it is to wete that first was Rachel’s maiden put to the husband or the maiden of Leah; and this is the skill why.  For truly, but if the jangling of the imagination, that is to say, the in-running