To his most beloved father and lord Innocent, by the grace of God supreme pontiff, brother Bernard, styled abbot of Clairvaux, the little that he is.

1. ‘It is necessary that scandals come’: necessary, but not pleasant. That is why the prophet says: ‘Who will give me wings like a dove’s, and I will fly and be at rest?’ And the apostle wishes to be dissolved and to rest with Christ; and another of the holy men says: ‘It is enough for me, Lord, take away my soul: for I am no better than my fathers.’ I too now have something in common with holy men, in will, at any rate, not in merit. For I too should wish to be removed from the scene at this moment, overcome (I confess it) by ‘pusillanimity of spirit and a storm’; but I fear that, though equally afflicted, I may be found not equally prepared. I am tired of living, and I know not if it is profitable to die; and it may be that I differ from holy men in my wishes too: they are spurred on by desire for the better, while I am compelled to depart by scandals and woes. In fine, Paul says: ‘To be dissolved and to be with Christ, a thing by far better.’ Therefore in the holy man longing prevails, and in me feeling; but in this most wretched life he cannot have the good he craves and I cannot but have the distress I suffer. And for this reason we both of us desire to depart: we have the same wish, but not the same motives.

2. I once used to promise myself rest if the madness of the Lion grew quiet and peace were restored to the Church. I was foolish: for look, that madness has grown quiet, but I have not. I did not know that I was ‘in the vale of tears’, or had forgotten that I dwelt ‘in the land of forgetfulness’. I did not notice that the earth in which I dwell was ‘bringing forth thorns and thistles to me’, that when they were cut back new ones were following on them, and that yet others were growing after them, with no intermission. I had heard this; but, as I now find, ‘vexation’ alone ‘makes one understand’ better ‘what one hears’.