No More Learning

For sharper than thorns this pain and woe

The sadness that joy heals swiftly,

For which I want no man's pity.

Without parchment brief, I bestow

On Filhol the verses I sing now,

In the plain Romance tongue, that he

May take them to Uc le Brun, anew.

They rejoice in it, I'm pleased to know,

In Poitou, and in Berry,

In Guyenne, and Brittany.

Note: Uc le Brun is Uc VII of Lusignan, who had taken the cross for the Second Crusade in 1147. Filhol is the name of the joglar (jongleur, or minstrel)

No sap chanter qui so no di

No one can sing where no melody is,

Or fashion verse with words unclear,

Or know how the rhymes should appear,

If his logic inwardly goes amiss;

But my own song begins like this:

My song gets better, the more you hear.

Let no man wonder about me,

If I love one I've never known,

My heart joys in one love alone,

That of one who'll never know me;

No greater joy do I welcome gladly,

Yet I know not what good it may be.

I am struck by a joy that kills me,

And pangs of love that so ravish

All my flesh, body will perish;

Never before did I so fiercely

Suffer like this, and so languish,

Which is scarce fitting or seemly.

How often do I close my eyes

And know my spirit is fled afar;

Never such sadness that my heart

Is far from where my lover lies;

Yet when the clouds of morning part,

How swiftly all my pleasure flies.

I know I've never had joy of her,

Never will she have joy of me,

Nor promise herself, nor will she

Ever now take me as her lover;

No truth or lie does she utter,

To me: and so it may ever be.

The verse is good, I have not failed,

All that is in it is well placed;

He whose lips it may chance to grace,

Take care it's not hacked or curtailed

When Bertran in Quercy's assailed,

Or, at Toulouse, the Count you face.

The verse is good, and they'll be hailed

For something they'll do in that place.

Marcabru (fl. 1130-1150)

Marcabru was a powerful influence on later poets who adopted the trobar clus style. He experimented, as here, with the pastorela. Among his patrons were William X of Aquitaine and, probably, Alfonso VII of Leon.
Marcabru may have travelled to Spain in the entourage of Alfonso Jordan, Count of Toulouse, in the 1130s. In the 1140s he was a propagandist for the Reconquista, of Spain from the Moors.

A la fontana del vergier

In an orchard down by the stream,

Where at the edge the grass is green,

In the shade of an apple-tree,

By a plot of flowers all white,

Where spring sang its melody,

I met alone without company

One who wishes not my solace.

She was a young girl, beautiful,

Child of the lord of that castle;

But when I thought the songbirds' call

Might, from its tree, make her heart light,

And sweet the fresh season all,

And she might hear my prayers fall,

A different look did cross her face.

Her tears flowed, the fount beside,

And from her heart her prayer sighed.

'Jesus, King of the World,' she cried,

'Through you my grief is at its height,

Insult to you confounds me, I

Lose the best of this world wide:

He goes to serve and win your grace.

With you goes my handsome friend,

The gentle, noble, and brave I send;

Into great sorrow I must descend,

Endless longing, and tears so bright.

Ai! King Louis to ill did tend

Who gave the order and command,

That brought such grief to my heart's space! '

When I heard her so, complaining,

I went to her, by fountain's flowing:

'Lady,' I said 'with too much crying

Your face will lose its colour quite;

And you've no reason yet for sighing,

For he who makes the birds to sing,

Will grant you joy enough apace. '

'My lord,' she said, 'I do believe

That God will have mercy on me

In another world eternally,

And many other sinners delight;

But here he takes the thing from me

That is my joy; small joy I see

Now that he's gone so far away. '

Cercamon (fl. c. 1137-1152)

Born apparently in Gascony, his real name unknown, he probably spent most of his career in the courts of William X of Aquitaine and Eble III of Ventadorn. He was the inventor of the planh, the Provencal dirge, and some circumstantial evidence points to his having died on crusade as a follower of Louis VII of France.

Quant l'aura doussa s'amarzis

When the sweet air turns bitter,

And leaves fall from the branch,

And birds their singing alter

Still I, of him, sigh and chant,

Amor, who keeps me closely bound,

He that I never had in my power.