|
I |
1 |
At Eastertime I love to sing |
|
|
|
In summer, at the beginning of May, |
|
|
|
When the flower appears on the branch, |
|
|
|
And the sword-lilies are again in bloom; |
|
|
5 |
(But) the courtly season is worth little to me, |
|
|
|
For I neither have, nor get close to joy, |
|
|
|
And I don’t boast of its company. |
|
|
|
|
|
II |
|
For they have just as much of love— |
|
|
|
The base, aggravating good-for-nothings— |
|
|
10 |
As do the best and most worthy; |
|
|
|
Youth and Deeds break down and decline; |
|
|
|
And Baseness has taken its place |
|
|
|
In love affairs, for a lover is not |
|
|
|
Loved, nor enjoys a beloved. |
|
|
|
|
|
III |
15 |
I know well that it is indecent |
|
|
|
That husbands become wild |
|
|
|
Womanizers and courters; |
|
|
|
And the reward that they get for it |
|
|
|
The countryman tells of in his proverb: |
|
|
20 |
Whoever takes the sword, with the sword |
|
|
|
Is struck by his own mortal blow. |
|
|
|
|
|
IV |
|
False lovers, in my opinion, |
|
|
|
Yours will be the loss, and I cannot help it; |
|
|
|
It is to consent to great folly |
|
|
25 |
When one cheats and betrays another; |
|
|
|
And since you have asked for it, |
|
|
|
Lover, wife, and husband—all three— |
|
|
|
May you be joined together in sin. |
|
|
|
|
|
V |
|
In the great fire you shall burn, |
|
|
30 |
At the judgment of the Last Court, |
|
|
|
Recreant, disrupting deceivers, |
|
|
|
In the pain which does not abate, |
|
|
|
Where all the bad and good |
|
|
|
Shall be judged, and let a lady who has |
|
|
35 |
An unfaithful lover not cry to me for mercy. |
|
|
|
|
|
VI |
|
Worthless from now on is she |
|
|
|
Who sleeps with two or three, |
|
|
|
And ah! I gain a heavy heart because of it, |
|
|
|
For God never created a falser one here; |
|
|
40 |
It would have been better if she had not been born, |
|
|
|
Rather than that she commit a sin |
|
|
|
That will be gossiped of as far as Poitou. |
|
|
|
|
|
VII |
|
Holy Savior, give me lodging |
|
|
|
There in the land where my lady stays, |
|
|
45 |
With the noblest one, so that in kissing, |
|
|
|
Our agreements may be fulfilled; |
|
|
|
And let her give me what she promised; |
|
|
|
Then at daybreak I shall go away won over, |
|
|
|
Though it sits ill with the rude, jealous man. |
|
|
|
|
|
VIII |
50 |
Friend, tell her for me when you see her, |
|
|
|
If the time we agreed on passes by, |
|
|
|
That I am dead, by St. Nicholas! |
