. There is a poem in which the Provencals claim the fathership
of the cult of woman; their opponents do not deny it, but add that it
was an invention which "could fill no man's stomach." These words
express the great and insurmountable barrier between pure spiritual love
and pleasure. The Christian dualism: soul-body, spirit-matter, had
invaded the domain of love.

Spontaneous, genuine love, untainted by speculations and metaphysics, is
found in the songs of the earlier troubadours. The greatest among all of
them, Bernart of Ventadour, was the first to praise chaste love. If any
champion of civilisation deserves a monument, it is this poet.

Dead is the man who knows not love,
A sweet tremor in the heart.

Love's rapture fills my heart
With laughter and sighs.
Grief slays me a hundred times,
Joy bids me rise.

Sweet is love's happiness,
Sweeter love's pain.
Joy brings back grief to me,
Grief, joy again.

Guillem Augier Novella expressed the feeling of being "elated with
exaltation and grieved to death" as follows:

Lady, often flow my tears,
Glad songs in my mem'ry ring,
For the love that makes my blood
Dance and sing.
I am yours with heart and soul,
If it please you, lady, slay me....

Aimeril de Peguilhan is of opinion that the pain of love is no less
sweet than the joy of love:

For he who loves with all his heart would fain
Be sick with love, such rapture is his pain.

And Bernart again:

God keep my lady fair from grief and woe,
I'm close to her, however far I go;
If God will be her shelter and her shield,
Then all my heart's desire is fulfilled.

And:

My mind was erring in a maze,
That hour I was no longer I,
When in your eyes I met my gaze
As in a mirror strange and shy.
Oh, mirror sweet, reflecting me,
Sighing I fell beneath your spell;
I perished in you utterly
As did Narcissus in the well.

In the same poem he goes on to say that he will ask for no reward, but
finally concludes:

My fervent kisses her sweet lips should cover,
For weeks they'd show the traces of her lover.

The German minnesinger, Heinrich of Morungen, called woman "a mirror of
all the delights of the world," and sang:

Blessed be the tender hour,
Blest the time, the precious day,
When my brimming heart welled over,
When my secret op