Bertran de Born is evidently quite conscious of the force of his songs, and the use he makes of his power betrays great sagacity of political purpose. But with him the love of war for war’s sake is so great that sometimes every deeper design seems to vanish before this ruling passion. His character is a psychological problem in this respect. A man who, after a life of wildest storm and stress, passed in continual strife with domestic and political foes, dies in peace and in the quiet possession of his usurped dominion, must have been endowed in a more than usual degree with calmness and deliberation. But there is no trace of this in his songs. They breathe one and all the recklessness and animal buoyancy of a savage chieftain who regards fighting as the only enjoyment and true vocation of a man. One of his warlike _sirventeses_ ends with the naïve exclamation by way of _tornada_ or _envoi_, ‘Would that the great barons could always be inflamed against each other!’ In another he gives vent to his insatiate pugnacity with most unqualified openness. ‘There is peace everywhere,’ he says, ‘but I still retain a rag (_pans_) of warfare; a sore in his eye (_pustella en son huelh_) to him who tries to part me from it, although I may have begun the quarrel! Peace gives me no pleasure, war is my delight. This is my law, other I have none. I don’t regard Monday or Tuesday, or week, or month, or year: April or March would not hinder me in doing damage to those who wrong me. Three of them would not get the value of an old leather strap from me.’[24]