Cil qui d’amours me conseille
Que de li doie partir,
Ne set pas qui me resveille
Ne dont sont mi grief sospir.
Petit a sens et voisdie
Cil qui m’en veut chastier,
N’onques n’ama en sa vie;
Si fet trop nice folie
Qui s’entremet du mestier
Dont il ne se set aidier.

Hé! blanche, clere et vermeille
De vous sont mi grief souspir,
Car fetes en tel merveille
Droiture et Reson faillir.
Quant je vous vueil a amie
Droit nel porroit consentir,
Car vostre grant courtoisie,
De tres grant biauté garnie,
Ne m’i daigne conseillier.
Mar vous oï tant prisier.

Povre cuer se desconseille
Et let de poor morir;
Li viguereus s’apareille
En biau confort de guerir.
Dame, mes riens que je die
Ne me vaut, car je sorqier;
S’un petit de vilanie,
Esprise de felonnie,
Vous fet merci delaier,
Mar vous vi et ma mort qier.

Dedenz mon cuer monte treille
Toute preste de florir:
Bone amour fine et freille,
Qui la daigneroit joir.
Mes amours qui n’est joïe
Ne puet cuer esleecier;
Bien voi, se mort ne chastie
Ma volenté, m’anemie,
Ne puis mon biau tort lessier,
Ne mon outrage changier.

Gace Brulé (c1160-after 1213)

He who counsels me, concerning love,
that I must depart from her,
does not know who keeps me wakeful
nor whence come my sad sighs.
He who wishes to put me right
has little understanding or acuity,
nor has he ever loved in his life;
he who turns his hand to a craft
in which he has no expertise
commits a very foolish error.

Ah! white, radiant and rose-coloured one,
my sad sighs are for you,
because you make Right and Reason
go amiss in such an astonishing way.
If I wish to have you as a lover
Right could not consent to it,
for your great courtliness,
adorned with great beauty,
does not think it fitting to help me in that regard.
It is to my misfortune that I heard you praised so much.

A feeble heart loses resolve
and abandons itself to die of fear;
a vigorous one girds itself
to defend itself, emboldened.
Lady, nothing further that I might say
avails me, for I ask too much;
if a little baseness,
enflamed by wickedness,
causes you to delay your mercy,
then it is to my misfortune that I saw you and I seek my death.

In my heart a trellis arises
all ready to flower:
refined, delicate and good love,
for whomsoever should think it fitting to gratify it.
But a love which is not gratified
cannot gladden the heart;
I see clearly that if death does not discipline
my desire, my enemy,
I cannot desist from my fair crime,
nor relinquish my excess.