The Samaritan Woman by St. Romanos the Melodist

[Jesus says,] “If you wish that I give you the streams of pure water,
Go, and call your husband; I shall not imitate your reproach;
I shall not say: ‘You are a woman of Samaria, and how is it that you ask for water?’
I do not increase your thirst; for I have brought you to thirst through thirst.
I exaggerated being thirsty and I was tormented by thirst in order that I might reveal you as thirsty.
Go, then, and call your husband and return.”
The woman said, “I think that I have no husband,” and the Creator said to her:
“Truly do you have none? You have five, the sixth you do not possess,
So that you may receive
Exceeding great joy and redemption.”

O wise enigmas! O wise characteristics!
In the faith of the holy woman is pictured
All the features of the church in true colors which do not grow old;
For the way in which the woman denied a husband when she had many,
Is just the way the church denied many gods, like husbands,
And left them and became betrothed to one Master in coming forth from the water.
She had five husbands and the sixth she did not have; and leaving the five
Husbands of impiety, she now takes Thee, as the sixth, as she comes
From the water,
Exceeding great joy and redemption….

The espoused church of the nations, then, left these things,
And she hurries here to the well of the baptismal font
And denies the things of the past, just as the woman of Samaria did;
For she did not conceal what had formerly been true from Him who knows all in advance,
But she said, “… Even if I formerly had husbands, I do not now wish to have
These husbands which I did have; for I now possess Thee who hast now taken me in Thy net;
And I am by faith rescued from the filth of my sins
That I may receive
Exceeding great joy and redemption.”
St. Romanos the Melodist