My heart, said the holy spouse, melted when he spoke. [300] And what does melted mean save that it was no longer contained within itself, but had flowed out towards its divine lover? God ordered that Moses should speak to the rock, and that it should produce waters: no marvel then if he himself melted the heart of his spouse when he spoke to her in his sweetness. Balm is so thick by nature that it is not fluid or liquid, and the longer it is kept the thicker it grows, and in the end grows hard, becoming red and transparent: yet heat dissolves it and makes it fluid. Love had made the beloved fluid and flowing, whence the spouse calls him oil poured out; and now she tells us that she herself is all melted with love. My soul, said she, melted when he spoke. The love of her spouse was in her heart and breast as a strong new wine which cannot be contained in the tun; for it overflowed on every side; and, because the soul follows its love, after the spouse had said: Thy breasts are better than wine, smelling sweet of the best ointments, she adds: Thy name is as oil poured out. [301] And as the beloved had poured out his love and his soul into the heart of the spouse, so the spouse reciprocally pours her soul into the heart of her beloved; and as we see a honeycomb touched with the sun's ardent rays goes out of itself, and forsakes its form, to flow out towards that side where the rays touch it, so the soul of this lover flowed out towards where the voice of her beloved was heard, going out of herself and passing the limits of her natural being, to follow him that spoke unto her.

 But how does this sacred outflowing of the soul into its well-beloved take place? An extreme complacency of the lover in the thing beloved begets a certain spiritual powerlessness, which makes the soul feel herself no longer able to remain in herself. Wherefore, as melted balm, that no longer has firmness or solidity, she lets herself pass and flow into what she loves: she does not spring out of herself as by a sudden leap, nor does she cling as by a joining and union, but gently glides as a fluid and liquid thing, into the divinity whom she loves. And as we see that the clouds, thickened by the south wind, melting and turning to rain, cannot contain themselves, but fall and flow downwards, and mix themselves so entirely with the earth which they moisten that they become one thing with it, so the soul which, though loving, remained as yet in herself, goes out by this sacred outflowing and holy liquefaction, and quits herself, not only to be united to the well-beloved, but to be entirely mingled with and steeped in him.