E s’ieu anc jorn fui gays ni amoros, Er non ai joy d’amor ni non l’esper; Ni autres bes nom pot al cor plazer, Ans mi semblan tug autre joy esmai. Pero d’amor lo ver vos en dirai: Nom lais del tot ni no m’en puesc mover Ni sus no vau, ni no puesc remaner; Aissi cum sel qu’en mieg de l’arbr’estai, Qu’es tan poiatz que non pot tornar jos Ni sus no vai, tan li par temeros. _Translation._ But for my heart, this would the season be To sing of love and joy a joyous song; But grievously I suffer from the wrong,— Seeing the good and evil of my case— Which all men do me when my fate they praise; Who speaks suchwise is of the foolish throng, Who know not that the joys of life belong To none but who receives them with good grace. Wherefore a joyous heart in poverty Is better far than wealth and misery. Maybe I once was happy for a space, But joy and hope of love have passed away; No other good can make me blithe and gay, For all the world I hold in dire disdain. Of love the full truth let me now explain: I cannot leave it, nor yet on my way Pass back or forward, neither can I stay; Like one who mounts a tree mid-high, and fain Would mount still higher, or downward move apace, But fear and tremor bind him in his place. His father’s wealth, it is evident, was of little use to poor Folquet, and we can quite understand his chafing at the folly of men who would insist on envying his brilliant misery. For all his early dreams of happiness had been dispelled by the stern virtue of a woman.