s earthly mistress, Jacopone describes Mary's ascent into Heaven,
where she is received by the angels singing songs of jubilee, their
_sanctus, sanctus, sanctus_, replaced by a joyful _sancta, sancta,
sancta_--a goddess has been received in the place of God.

Gottfried of Strassburg, the author of the sensuous and passionate epic
poem "Tristan and Isolde," composed a long poem in honour of Mary
couched in the well-known terms of the loving worshipper:

Thou vale of roses,--violet-dell,
Thou joy that makest hearts to swell,
Eternal well
Of valour; Queen of Heaven!
Thou rosy dawn, thou morning-red,
Thou steadfast friend when hope has fled,
The living bread,
Oh! Lady, hast thou given.

Thou sheen of flow'rs with love alight,
Thou bridal crown, all maids' delight,
Thou art bedight
With heaven's golden splendour!

Thou of all sweetness sweetest shine,
Thou sweeter than the sweetest wine,
The sweetness thine,
Is my salvation ever.
Thou art a potion sweet of love,
Sweetly pervading heaven above,
To sailors rough
Sang syrens sweeter never.

Thou enterest through eye and ear,
Senses and soul pervading,
Thou givest to the heart great cheer,
A guerdon dear,
A glory never fading.

The poet who wrote of Isolde's love potion here calls the Queen of
Heaven a _potion sweet of love_, a strange metaphor to use in connection
with the Mary of dogma. Another characteristic frequently alluded to is
her _sweet perfume_, an attribute which we to-day do not look upon as
exclusively celestial.

Quaintly delicate and tender are the love-songs of Brother Hans, an
otherwise unknown monk of the fourteenth century. He himself tells us
that he deserted his earthly mistress for the Queen of Heaven. Perhaps
the dualism between earthly and transcendent love has never been
expressed more clearly than by him; for in his case the worshipping love
did not gradually lead up to Mary, the essence of womanhood, but an
earthly love had to be killed so that the pure heavenly love could live.

Mary! Gentle mistress mine!
I humbly kneel before you;
All my heart and soul are thine.

And:

Oh, Mary! Secret fountain,
Closed garden of delight,
The Prince of Heaven mirrors
Him in thy beauty bright.

But after describing all the joys of heaven, Brother Hans comes to the
conclusion that a