The day when first I saw you, lady sweet, When first your beauty deigned on me to shine, I laid my heart’s devotion at your feet; No other wish, no other thought were mine. For in my soul you wakened soft desire; In your sweet smile and in your eyes I found More than myself and all the world around. Your tender speech, so amorous, so kind, The solace of your words, your beauty’s spell Once and for ever have my heart entwined, No longer in my bosom it will dwell. Your worth to cherish it shall never tire. Oh! then, your gentle grace let me implore; My all I gave you, I can give no more. So wholly, lady, is my heart your own That love will not allow another’s love. Oft when to gentle ladies I have flown, Somewhat the burden of my pain to move, The thought of you, the fountain of my bliss, Has aye dispelled all other vain desires; To you with tenfold love my heart retires. Do not forget, I pray, the hopeful word You granted me when last I saw your face; My heart leaped up with pleasure when I heard The joyful message vouchsafed by your grace. In present grief my comfort still is this: That when your heart to mercy is inclined My ardent wish may yet fulfilment find. Pride and unkindness have for me no sting, As long as I may hope that in this life One day from you may kindest message bring. Grief turns to joy and pleasure springs from strife; For well I know that Love has willed it so That lovers should forgive the deadliest sin, By deepest sorrow highest bliss to win. The hour will come, O lady, well I know, When from your yielding mercy I may claim The one word ‘friend.’ I ask no other name. Several biographical facts may be gleaned from this song. First of all we meet with an allusion to the poet’s intercourse with other ‘gentle ladies,’ which shows a striking likeness to the lines previously quoted from Guillem’s most celebrated _canzo_. Margarida, it might be inferred, was not altogether free from a feeling of jealousy towards not one but several ladies, and both passages are evidently written by Guillem with a view to appeasing this ill-founded suspicion; a circumstance which throws still graver doubt on the fanciful connection of the first-mentioned lines with the incident at Castle Liet. Whether the temporary banishment alluded to in the present _canzo_ has anything to do with these lovers’ quarrels remains undecided. But the poet’s complaints of cruelty tend to prove that the lady did not yield with the astonishing readiness implied by the biographer. Guillem, it appears, had to undergo a severe probation before the fatal gift of love was vouchsafed to him, and at the stage marked by the _canzo_ the name of ‘friend’ is the highest boon to which he ventures to aspire. Well for him if that stage had never been passed. CHAPTER XVI. PEIRE VIDAL.