By Torsten Schwanke
I
O Muse, sing the most beautiful goddess Dinah!
But the virgin Dinah, Leah's daughter,
Leah gave birth to Israel,
She went out to see the daughters of the land.
But Shechem saw the most beautiful Dinah,
The son of Hamor, the young man of the Hivites,
He took Dinah and lay with her
And weakened her. O God, have mercy on her!
And Shechem's heart was sincerely attached to Dinah,
He loved the girl and he spoke
To Dinah all words of love.
And Shechem said to his father Hamor,
Take this most beautiful girl, Dinah, to be my wife!
And Jacob heard that his child
Desecrated was, the favourite daughter Dinah,
And Jacob's sons were with the cattle
As shepherds in the field, Jacob kept silent
For the pain of it, till the sons came.
And there went father Hamor, Shechem's father,
Went out to Jacob to speak with him.
And the sons of Jacob came out of the field.
And when they heard of the iniquity of Shechem
And what he had done to their Dinah,
They were angry and displeased,
Because they loved their sister Dinah very much,
They were angry with Shechem for his folly,
Which he committed against sister Dinah
And with violence lay Dinah by,
Daughter of Jacob, daughter of Israel.
This is not how it should be on God's earth!
And Hamor spoke to them, and he said,
The soul of my son Shechem longs,
Longs greatly for Dinah! Give her to him as his wife!
Make friends with us, ye children of God,
With us, the heathen, the children of this world,
Give your daughters to us as wives,
Take our daughters to be your wives,
And dwell with us as friends in the land.
The land shall be open to you and you can dwell
In the land of the Hivites, take wives for yourselves
And go to work here and do your business.
And Shechem said unto Jacob and unto the sons,
O let us find favour with you!
And what ye ask, that will I give you.
Only give me Dinah for a wife.
Then Jacob's sons said to Shechem
And to his father Hamor with deceit,
Because they had defiled sister Dinah,
And said unto them: This cannot be done,
That we give the much beloved Dinah
To the heathen, uncircumcised in the foreskin,
That would be a disgrace to God's children.
But we will be at your beck and call
And give Dinah to you as wife and daughter,
If you become like us, the sons of God,
And all men be circumcised,
Then we will give you our beautiful daughters
And take your daughters to be our wives.
Then we will dwell as guests with your people
And the Jews and the Hivites will become friends.
But if you do not let yourselves be circumcised,
Then we will take our beautiful daughters
And go away with them into distant lands.
The word pleased Hamor and Shechem.
And the young man waited not, and did it
And had his foreskin circumcised,
For he had a lust for his darling Dinah!
Then came father Hamor and his son
Into the gate of the city and spoke
There with the citizens in the city and said,
This people is peaceful and wants to dwell with us
And woo women. Great is our land
And sufficient for the Hivites and the Jews.
And our daughters shall be their wives
And their daughters will become our wives.
But they will not dwell with us unless
All our men have their foreskin
Circumcised with a sharp knife,
Just as the Jews are circumcised.
Their cattle and all their possessions will become ours,
If we only let ourselves be circumcised,
Then they will dwell with us as friends.
And all the men hearkened unto Hamor,
All the men in the gate of the city,
And so all the men were circumcised
With sharp knife on sensitive foreskin.
On the third day, when they were in pain,
Then Jacob's sons, Simeon
And Levi, Dinah's brethren, took their swords
And went into the city, and slew
There all the men that piss standing.
For God and Dinah! That was their slogan.
And they slew Hamor also and Shechem
And took their sister Dinah again
From Shechem's house, and then went away.
And all the sons of Jacob came upon
The dead of the Hivites and the city
And spoiled, and took sheep, and oxen
And asses and all their goods and chattels
And all their wives and their children
They took as captives and cried out,
For God and Dinah! Terrible is our vengeance!
II
Saint Dinah was the daughter of Seraphia.
When Dinah was thirteen years old, she read,
How to give oneself to the Christ Jesus,
By giving oneself completely to His mother.
When she was fifteen she read the story
Of the little soul who died at twenty,
Who taught to do everything only out of love.
Saint Dinah learned to play the piano from the nuns,
To play the piano, she was very talented.
The sisters sent Dinah to New York,
So that she would become more perfect in playing the piano.
She lived in New York with nuns,
The Sisters of Mary and of Jesus,
She was very impressed by their lives,
That when she returned home
To Canada she joined this order.
There she taught the nuns music.
She was active as a teacher of harmony
And music in other places,
Then she often gave up her work,
Because she had become very ill and suffering.
But until her death Saint Dinah remained
The nuns' teacher of music.
In the year nineteen hundred and twenty-five
Saint Dinah received celestial visions
And looked into the realm of eternity.
Thus she became a master of mysticism.
She was commissioned by the abbess,
To write down the revelations and the visions
And the knowledge of God.
In the year nineteen hundred and fifty-one
Saint Dinah's bones and remains were
Raised and placed in a sarcophagus
Which was placed in the chapel
Of the Sisters of Mary and Jesus of Canada,
And was venerated. The relics of Saint Dinah
Remain of her sanctity.
Her book of her eternal visions
Has already been translated into fifty languages.
In the year nineteen hundred and ninety-three
In Rome by Pope John Paul the Great
Saint Dinah raised to the honour of the altars
And venerated her as a Blessed.
Saint Dinah, pray to God for us!
III
The angel Dinah is the angel of learning,
Guardian angel of law and wisdom
Is Dinah. When the world was created
Dinah taught all the children of men
The seventy-two languages of all peoples.
Thus Dinah is a beautiful angel,
Angel of teaching and angel of learning.
Yes, Dinah is the name of an angel.
Angels are known to be messengers of God.
Well, Dinah is an angel who protects us
And who guides us. And Dinah encourages us
To strive for wisdom and for science
And to study God's Bible diligently.
Yes, Dinah is the angel of the Bible
And messenger of God's feminine wisdom.
But Dinah, this most beautiful angel,
Encourages not only men to strive for knowledge
And to strive for science, but
Above all for the beautiful love of God
And the love of one's neighbour and brother,
For the highest Wisdom of God is - Love!
IV
Now my Muse speaks Sanskrit to the wise,
For in Sanskrit, Dinah means helpless, small,
A little poor child in its humility,
In its weakness and in its sorrow,
Afflicted, needy, intimidated, afraid,
Such are the children in the valley of tears,
In the shadowy realm of death.
But in the Sanskrit of the holy Brahmins
Dinah is also the great mother-deity.
The Mother of God Dinah is the patroness
Of the poor and the sick and the little ones,
She is the mother of mercy,
And when you are poor and helpless and sad,
If your mother has died on you,
When your own little child has left you
And when your dearest friend has betrayed you,
Then turn to Our Lady Dinah,
She will make thee drink the milk of consolation
And will bed you between her breasts.
And when you suffer, when you are sad,
Then complain to the Father in heaven,
For God the Father is called Dinah,
He is the Father of mercy.
V
Now we ask the Jewish rabbis
And magicians of astrologers' folly.
Jacob Israel had twelve sons,
Twelve zodiacal pictures have the Zodiac.
Each child of Israel is one
Of the zodiacal images in the Zodiac.
Only Joseph is not a constellation in the sky.
But Dinah is it, the daughter of Israel,
She is the constellation of the Virgin in the heavens,
That rises on the fifteenth of August,
That is the feast of the Assumption of Saint Mary.
Since the Virgin Dinah is the judge,
For that is what Virgin Dinah's name means,
Is right for her the celestial constellation Virgo,
Which once the Greeks named after Astraea,
Astraea, goddess of justice,
To the Romans the Justitia Divina,
She reigned in the golden age
And was the queen of the whole earth.
But man began with war and murder,
With rape and greed for money,
Then Astraea fled to the third heaven.
But she will come again in the end times!
This is the Virgin Dinah whom we praise.
And in the Revelation of John
Mary appears, standing on the crescent moon,
Clothed only in the light of the sun,
On her head the wreath of the Zodiac,
Twelve stars crown Our Lady.
And in the wreath of the Queen of Heaven
Is Dinah's star the most beautiful star of all!
VI
Now we praise the wisdom of the Kabbalists.
The glory, the supreme beauty,
Is eternally glorious, eternally beautiful,
In it appears all the kingdom of angels,
The thrones, cherubim and seraphim,
And Gabriel and Michael and all
Guardian angels of all men on earth.
The thrones are also called gods,
The cherubim the angels are of wisdom,
The seraphim the angels of love.
The heavenly ones created seven heavens.
What is the name of the glory?
It is the beauty with the name Adonai,
She is the kingdom of the heavens on earth.
It is from her that all names come,
She it is who renews all things in the world.
What is her name? The Almighty!
She, she is God's dwelling place in creation,
She, she is God's heavenly palace,
She, she is God's tent and tabernacle,
She, she is God's pleasure place in heaven,
She, she is God's paradise and pleasure palace!
From her David got his royal crown,
From her, Solomon got the Wisdom of God.
She is the mother of all wise men,
She teaches the Bible and tradition,
She teaches the Torah and the Talmud.
She, our master and teacher,
She is the night, the dark mother night,
She is the immaculate mirror of God.
But what do we see in the mirror of beauty?
We look at the mothers in the mirror of beauty!
We look at Rachel with the beautiful eyes,
We look at Leah with her large breasts,
We see Zilpah, we see Bilhah there,
The maidservants of the two wives of Israel,
We see maiden Dinah in the mirror!
The immaculate mirror of God's beauty
Reveals to us the glory of Dinah!