adonna, almost comparable to St.
Bernard's prayer to Mary in Dante's _Divine Comedy_. It was written
about the time of Dante's death, not very long, therefore, after the
composition of the last chapters of the _Paradise_.

_The Life of Suso_ (the first German biography ever written) evidences
his adoration for the Lady of Heaven: "It was customary in his country,
Swabia, for the young men to go to their sweethearts' houses on New
Year's Eve, singing songs until they received from the maidens a chaplet
in return. This custom so pleased his young and ardent heart that he,
too, went on the eve of the New Year to his eternal love, to beg her for
a gift. Before daybreak he repaired to the statue which represented the
Virginal Mother pressing her tender child, the beautiful Eternal Wisdom,
to her bosom, and kneeling down before her, with a sweet, low singing of
his soul, he chanted a sequence to her, imploring her to let him win a
chaplet from her Child...." "He then said to the Eternal Wisdom" (and it
is uncertain whether he is addressing the mother or the child): "Thou
art my love, my glad Easter day, the summer-joy of my heart, my sweet
hour; thou art the love which my young heart alone worships, and for the
sake of which it has scorned earthly love. Give me a guerdon, then, my
heart's delight, and let me not go away from thee empty-handed."

_With a sweet, low singing of his soul_, this worshipper approached the
statue of the Queen of Heaven. This is love of woman undisguised, it
merely has a religious undertone. Other secular merry-makings were
adapted by Suso to his celestial mistress, as, for instance, the
planting of the may-tree, and he repeatedly makes use of similes and
metaphors borrowed from the chivalrous service of woman. He frequently
alludes to himself as "the servant of the Eternal Wisdom"; the meaning
of this expression is apparently intentionally obscured, but it has a
savour of the feminine. Suso pictured himself, after the manner of
lovers, with a chaplet of roses on his brow. In his _Life_ there is a
passage unsurpassed by the best of the minnesingers: "In the golden
summer-time when all the tender little flowers had opened their buds, he
gathered none until he had dedicated the first blossoms to his spiritual
love, the gentle, flower-like, rosy maiden and Mother of God; when it
seemed to him that the time had come, he culled the flowers with many
loving thoughts, carried them into his cell and wove the