No More Learning

Others preen and chatter wildly,

Claim to be blessed, rich and nobly,

With 'true love': I've twice the thing!

When I admire her body hale

Well-formed, in all respects I mean,

Her courtesy and her sweet speech,

For all my praise I yet gain nothing;

Though I took a year completely

I could not paint her truthfully

So courtly is she, of sweet forming.

You who think that I can't fail,

Not realising her spirit keen

Is open and is friendly, even

Yet her body is far from being,

Know, the best messenger I see

From her is my own reverie,

That recalls her fairest seeming.

Lady, I'm yours, today, every day,

In your service my self I'll keep,

Sworn, and pledged to you complete,

As I have been always in everything.

And as you are first of joys to me,

So the last joy too you will be,

As long as I'm still living.

I know not when I'll see you again;

But I am grieved and sad to leave.

For you I spurned (don't now harm me,

I beg of you) the court and king,

Now I will serve you there entirely,

Among the knights, among the ladies,

All sweet, true, and humble beings.

Huguet, my messenger, go, kindly

Sing my song and sing it freely,

To the Norman Queen go warbling.

Note: 'True love' in verse two, is fins amor, noble love, the troubadour ideal.

La rossinhols s'esbaudeya

The nightingale sings happily

Hard by the blossom on the bough,

And I am taken by such envy

I can't help but sing any how;

Knowing not what or whom either,

For I love not I, nor another.

Such effort I make that this will prove

Good verse too, though I'm not in love!

They gain more from love who pay

Court by deceiving, in their pride,

Than he who humbly makes his way,

And ever the suppliant does abide,

For Amor has no love for the man

Who is honest and noble as I am.

My loss is all the more complete,

That I am not false nor use deceit.

But as the bough bends beneath

The tempest that makes it sway,

I did to her my whole will bequeath,

She who assails me every way.

So she maddens and destroys me,

Sunk to low-born acts, completely,

Yet I'll give her my eyes to blind,

If any wrong she in me can find.
She often accuses me and tries me,

And lays false charges now, at will,

Yet whenever she acts vilely

All the fault's laid at my door still!

She quietly makes sport of me,

With her own faults damning me!

Truly they say, and it's my belief:

'All are my brothers! ' cries the thief.

No man who sees her and has faith

In her sweet looks, her lovely eyes;

Could ever believe, in any way

Her heart is evil: her mind, it lies:

But waters that slide calmly by

Drown more than those that roar and sigh.

They deceive who seem so fair,

Oh, be wary of the debonair.

From every place she might be

I absent myself most carefully,

And so as not her form to see

I pass, eyes closed, and nervously.

So he follows Love, who avoids it,

And it pursues the man who flees it.

But I'm determined to pass it by,

Till I see it again in my lady's eye.

That will not be, if she torments me,

Peace and a truce are all I'm asking,

For it grieves me to exit limply,

And lose the good of all this suffering.

May she guard me and keep me hers,

And if we are not mutual lovers,

No other love it seems will shine

As bright to light this heart of mine.

As I am, would he were taken too,

My Auvergnat, then we'd make two,

For he could no more fare

Far from Bel Vezer of Beaucaire.

Tristan, though it seem not so to you,

Yet I love you more than I used to do.

Can l'erba fresch'e? lh folha par

When fresh leaves and shoots appear,

And the blossom gleams on the bough,

And the nightingale high and clear

Raises his voice, and sings aloud,

I joy in him, and enjoy the flowers,

And joy in my lady and I, for hours;

By joy on all sides I'm caught and bound,

But this is joy, and all other joys drowned.

Alas, how I die of musing deeply!