No More Learning

All anxiously I delight in her,

For whether I fear or court her then

Is up to her; or be false or truer,

Trick her, or prove all innocent,

Or courteous or vile be found,

Or in torment, or take my leisure.

But, who it may please or who astound,

She may, if she wants, retain me there.

Say I: scarce courteous is he crowned,

The man who shall of Love despair.

Rigaut de Berbezilh (fl. 1140-1163)

Rigaut, also Richart or Richartz, de Berbezilh, also Berbezill or Barbesiu, French: Rigaud de Barbezieux, Latin: Rigaudus de Berbezillo, was of the petty nobility of Saintonge. He was a major influence on the Sicilian School and is quoted in the Roman de la Rose. The Planh below was previously attributed, by Pound and others, to Bertran de Born.

Si tuit li dol e? lh plor e? lh marrimen

If all the grief and woe and bitterness

The pain, the harm and all the misery

Yet heard of in this grievous century

Were set together, they would seem but light

Against the death of the young English king.

He leaves worth clouded, and youth dolorous,

The world obscure, shadowed and in darkness,

Void of all joy, full of despair and sadness.

In pain and sadness, full of bitterness

Are left behind the courteous soldiery,

The troubadours, the subtle minstrelsy,

In Death they find a foe of greater might,

Who's taken from them the young English king,

That made the freest hand seem covetous.

There are no more, nor were in past excess

Of this world, the tears to drown such sadness.

Relentless Death, so full of bitterness,

Well may you boast now the most knightly

Chevalier you have taken, best of any,

For there is nothing worthy of delight

That belonged not to this young English king;

If it pleased God, it were better for us

That he should live than many of the rest

Who offer us no joy but grief and sadness.

From this pale world, so full of bitterness

Love flies, his deceits must be taken lightly,

Nothing is his indeed but pains us swiftly;

And less than yesterday is each day's light.
All saw themselves in this young English king

Who of the world was the most virtuous;

Gone is his body, amorous in finesse,

Leaving us pain, and discord, and great sadness.

He whom it pleased in all our bitterness

To come to earth to raise us from misery,

And died His death, to bring us victory,

Him do we ask, of mercy, Lord of right

And of humility, that the young English king

He please to pardon, if pardon be for us,

And with honoured companions grant him rest,

There where there is no grief, nor any sadness.

Note: The young English king was the charismatic Henry Plantagenet (1155-1183) an elder brother to Richard Coeur de Lion, and twice crowned king in his father Henry II's lifetime, a Capetian custom. He predeceased his father, and so never wielded power, dying of dysentery while on campaign in the Limousin.

Bernart de Ventadorn (fl. 1145-1175)

According to the troubadour Uc de Saint Circ, Bernart was the son of a baker at the castle of Ventadour or Ventadorn, in the Correze. His first patron was Viscount Eble III of Ventadorn. He composed his first poems for his patron's wife, Marguerite de Turenne. Uc de Saint Circ has him ultimately withdrawing to the Cistercian abbey of Dalon and dying there.

'Like to the lark ascending, in the air,

first singing and then silent,

content with the final sweetness that sates her. '

Dante - Paradiso XX:73-75
Can vei la lauzeta mover

When I see the lark display

His wings with joy against the day,

Forgetting, fold then fall away,

As sweetness to his heart makes way,

Such great envy then invades

My mind: I see the rest take fire,

And marvel at it, for no way

Can my heart turn from its desire.

Ah, I so dearly wished to know

Of love, yet so little learn,

For I cannot keep from loving her

Who will not have me, though I burn.

She stole my heart, and all of me,

And she herself, and worlds apart;

Lacking herself, now nothing's left

But longing and the willing heart.

For 'I' has no power over 'I'

Nor has had since the day I know

I let myself gaze in her eye,

The mirror that pleased me so.

Mirror, now I'm mirrored in you,

Profound sighs are killing me,

I lost myself as he did too

Narcissus gazing in the deep.

Of every lady I despair!