Por conforter mon corage
Qui d’Amors s’esfroie,
L’autre jor les un boschage
Toz seus chevauchoie.
Pastorele
Gente et bele
Truis et simple et coie.
En l’erboie
Qui verdoie
Repaissoit sa proie.
Cors ot gent
Et avenant,
Bouche vermeille et oel riant,
Noirs sorcis
Et bien assis,
Blanc col et coloré le vis,
Quar nature
Mist sa cure
En former tel enfant.
A! E! O!
Son frestel, son baston prent,
A! E! O!
Chantoit et notoit:
«Je voi venir Emmelot
Par mi le vert bois».

J’oi la touse qui frestele
Et demaine joie;
Por ce qu’ele est simple et bele
Vers li ti[n]g ma voie.
Je li dis
Com fins amis:
«Touse, car soiez moie!»
La bergiere,
Qui fu fiere,
Durement s’esfroie.
Maintenant
S’amor demant;
El dit que n’en fera noiant.
De Robin
A fait ami
Qui li a juré et plevi
Que sa vie
D’autre amie
N’avra los ne cri.
A! E! O!
«Robins est loiaus amis.
A! E! O!
Traiez vos en la!
Robins m’a de cuer amee
Si nel lairai ja.»

«Jentix touse debonaire,
Preus sanz vilenie,
Ne m’i faites plus contraire:
Devenez m’amie.
Cote noire,
C’est la voire,
Ne vos donrai mie;
D’escarlete
Iert vermeillete,
De vert mi partie.»
Ele dit:
«Traiez arrier!
N’i vaut vostre desnoier».
Je la pris,
Qui fui soupris,
Par force soz moi la mis;
Demanois
Le ju françois,
Li fis a mon talant.
A! E! O!
«Touse, or est il autremant?»
A! E! O!
Cele crie en haut:
«Se Robins m’a mal guardee
Maldehait qui chaut».

Ernoul le vielle de Gastinois (fl c1280-1280)

To raise my spirits,
laid low by love,
I rode all alone the other day
by a wood.
I found there a shepherdess,
fine and beautiful,
innocent and at ease.
She was pasturing
her flock
on the green grass.
She had a fine
and comely body,
a red mouth and a laughing eye,
black
and well-placed eyebrows,
a white neck and a rosy complexion,
for nature
had exerted all her powers
to make such a child.
A! E! O!
She took her flute and her crook.
A! E! O!
She sang and played:
‘I see Emmelot coming
amidst the greenwood’.

I heard the lass who was playing the flute
and regaling herself;
because she was sweet and beautiful
I made my way towards her.
I said to her
like a courtly lover:
‘Lass, be mine’.
The shepherdess,
who was haughty,
was greatly taken aback.
Straightaway
I asked her for her love;
she said that she would never grant it.
She has taken Robin
as a lover
who has sworn and pledged to her
that all his life
he will never be allied or associated
with any other lover.
A! E! O!
‘Robin is a loyal friend.
A! E! O!
Get away!
Robin loves me with all his heart
and so I will never leave him.’

‘Noble and courteous lass,
worthy, with no baseness,
do not oppose me any further:
become my love.
Truly,
I will never give you
a black gown;
it will be of scarlet,
vermillion
and green, parti-coloured.’
She said:
‘Go back!
your declaration is worth nothing!’
I, who was smitten,
then took her
and put her beneath me by force;
forthwith
I played the ‘French game’
with her as I desired.
A! E! O!
‘Lass, how goes it now?’
A! E! O!
She cried aloud:
‘Damn anyone who cares
that Robin has guarded me badly’.