Marcabrun introduces us into the full splendour of southern spring; the trees are strewn with the young year’s blossoms, and resonant with the songs of birds. By the brook in the orchard we see a lonely maiden, the beautiful daughter of the châtelain. Little she heeds the bloom of the spring, or the joyous note of the songsters. Her tears mingle with the brook, and bitterly she complains to ‘Jesus, Lord of the world, for great grief has come to me through thee. The best men have gone to distant lands at thy behest, and with them my true love, bravest among the brave.’ The poet here steps in to interrupt the lady’s lament with gentle remonstrance. ‘Your tears,’ he suggests, ‘will injure your face and complexion; moreover He, who has adorned the trees with blossoms, may turn your grief into joy.’ But the lady turns a deaf ear to his comfortings. ‘Sir,’ she replies, ‘I willingly believe that God in the next world may vouchsafe me his grace; but in this I have lost my true love.’[18] Supposing the tendency of the poem to be such as I have surmised it to be, it must be owned that Marcabrun has carried out his purpose in the most ingenious manner. Pious souls might be referred to the religious commonplaces, introduced for safety sake, while more intelligent listeners could not fail to perceive the poet’s real meaning in the naïve pleadings of the desolate girl. An analogous mode of treatment of the identical subject occurs, by the way, in a poem by the excellent North-French trouvère Rutebœuf. He also describes a discussion between an assailant and a staunch defender of the crusades. To keep up appearances, the wicked sceptic had ultimately to confess himself convinced, but the reader easily perceives that the greater force of argument is, and is meant to be, with the vanquished.