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The Book of the Duke of True Lovers

Chapter 8: BALLAD
By de Pisan Christine
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Romance

About This Book

A framed romance recounts a nobleman's long devotion to a lady, narrating courtly festivities, tournaments, letters, and intermittent meetings across years interrupted by campaigns. The prose combines vivid description of medieval pageantry and daily court life with short lyric exchanges presented as poetic interludes. Interwoven is a moralizing letter that examines feminine virtue, the dangers of illicit love, and the duties of wives. Overall the work balances pictorial attention to social ritual with reflective commentary on longing, fidelity, and the emotional cost of enforced separation.

BALLAD

Love, I had not ever thought
Thou would'st bid thy servant share
Grief to which all else is naught,
Grief whereunder I despair:
Thus unfaltering I declare
That in death I pass away
If thy saving grace delay.
 
In a burning passion caught
I grow faint, and may not bear
All the torment it hath wrought:
Thine the fault, be thine the care!
Loose me from this evil snare!
Other help is none to pray,
If thy saving grace delay.
 
Rather had I death besought,
(So without deceit I swear),
Since my heart is all distraught
With thy flame enkindled there.
Murmuring is not mine to dare:
I must perish as I may,
If thy saving grace delay.
 
Love, with gladness meet my prayer,
Cleanse my soul and make it fair,
Since in sorrow I must stay
If thy saving grace delay.

[pg 42]

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And at the end of the month it behoved my mistress ... to quit the castle

And at the end of the month it behoved my mistress, by reason of whom I lived in anguish, to quit the castle afore-named, for no longer could she remain there, and so she departed. Then was I truly in grievous plight, since I lost from sight the very perfect fair one without whom I could not live. Now was all my happiness ended, for longwhiles had I been used to look on her, and to be with her, at all times. But now it befell that perchance three months or four would pass ere I should hear of her, or see her, the which was very grievous unto me to endure. And I so grieved over the past, and felt such dolour at her departure, that I lost my colour, my judgment, my demeanour, and my self-command. Thus I believe that, as it might well be, many folk perceived my yearning, about which they made gossip, the which caused her disquiet. And so much did this weigh upon me, that I thought to die of grief. And when I heard it noised abroad that I loved my fair lady, my grief was the more increased, for, because of this, I had suspicion that this great friendship made discord between me and her friends, and this grief caused me very dire distress, for I much [pg 43] feared me that she was constrained to leave because of this, and so much did this disquiet me, that I know not how to tell of it. Howsoever, as far as in me lay, I hid my sorrowful anger better than was my wont, and, enduring great grief, sighing, I uttered these words:—