was over foul, that she should use to lie on a sack full of straw. Tenthly, how she hath despised the iniquity of the fiend our enemy; it is read that in especial she had a custom that from mid-day she was in prayers and remembering the passion and sufferance of Jesu Christ, two hours during, and after the eventide she was always a long while in orisons. And it is read that ofttimes the fiend appeared to her by night saying: 'If so be that ye abstain you not from waking and weeping, ye shall for certain be blind.' And she answered: 'He shall not be blind that shall see our Lord in his glory.' And when the fiend heard this answer, anon he departed all confused, ne durst never after tempt her ne let her of her prayers. Eleventhly, God of his grace had pierced her heart; it is read that S. Clare for to dispend amorously the time that God had lent her, in especial she was determined that from the hour of mid-day unto evensong time, she would dispend all that time in thinking and beweeping the passion of Jesu Christ, and say prayers and orisons according thereto, after unto the five wounds of the precious body of Jesu Christ, as smitten and pierced to the heart with the dart of the love divine. It is read that from the time on a Shere-Thursday, the hour of the maundy, unto Easter even the Saturday, she was remembering and thinking on the sufferance of our Lord Jesu Christ so burningly, that she was ravished as all drunken in the love of God, that she knew not what was said ne done about her, but as unmovable or as all insensible, in standing she held her eyes
Q
