"Should not a bride love, and above all, Love's bride?"

Bernard of Clairvaux, Reading to Monks,
Morgan Library MS B.52, fol. 4r

"Should not a bride love, and above all, Love's bride?  Could it be that Love not be loved?"

"Quidni amet sponsa, et sponsa Amoris?  Quidni ametur Amor?"

     St. Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermo 83.5, as translated in the Office of readings for 20 August, Liturgy of the hours.  Cf. the 1895 translation by Eales (Cantica canticorum:  eighty-six sermons on the Song of Solomon, trans. Samuel J. Eales (London:  Elliot Stock, 1895), 510):  "How could she do otherwise who is the Bride, and the Bride of Love?  How can Love fail to be loved?"  Opera omnia, ed. Leclercq, Talbot, & Rochais, vol. 2 (1958), pp. 300-302; SC 511 =Œuvres complètes 14; Bernhard von Clairvaux:  Sämtliche Werke, lateinisch-deutsch 6, p. 616, l. 29.

"the sole purpose of his love is to be loved, in the knowledge that those who love him are made happy by their love of him" (Liturgy of the hours).
"He loves us that he may be loved by us, knowing that those who love Him become blessed by their love itself" (Eales).

     Ibid., sec. 4.