en lay.
I was startled with great gladness,
And bewildered so with love,
I can hardly sing thereof.

The sensuous element still dominated Bernart and his contemporaries to
some extent. In their poems, all of which are genuine and sincere, the
longing for kisses, sometimes for more, is frankly expressed, but the
tendency towards the not sensuous and super-sensuous is already
apparent. The lover loves one woman only, and would rather love in vain,
patiently enduring every pang she causes him, than receive favours from
another woman, were she beautiful as Venus her self.

Bernart says:

My sorrow is a sweet distress
To which no alien bliss compares,
And if my pain such sweetness bears,
How sweet would be my happiness!

Elias of Barjols:

Full of joy I am and sorrow
When I stand before her face.

Bonifacio Calvo:

There is no treasure-trove on earth
Which I would barter for my pain;
I love my grief, but spite and wrath
Run riot in my heart; my brain
Is reeling--and I laugh and cry.
Jubilant and desperate,
Exultant, I bewail my fate.
Quarter! Lady, ere I die.

The earlier troubadours were still ignorant of the later dogma which
made chaste love the sole fountain of virtue and the road to
perfection--the beloved woman can make of her admirer what she wills--a
saint or a sinner.

Thus Guillem of Poitiers says:

Love heals the sick
And a grave does it delve
For the strong; mars the beauty of beauty itself,
Makes a fool of the sage with its magic,
A clown of the courteous knight,
And a king of the lowliest wight.

The equally early Cercamon:

False can I be or true for her,
Sincere or full of lies,
A perfect knight or worthless cur,
Serene or grave, stupid or wise.

Raimon of Toulouse:

In the kingdom of love
Folly rules and not sense.

It was typical of this enthusiastic love that the social rank of the
beloved, the mistress, was invariably above the rank of the lover. The
latter was fond of calling himself her vassal and serf, proclaiming that
she had invested him with all his goods; even kings and German emperors
composed love-songs, although in all probability they would have
achieved their purpose far more quickly by other means; but in all cases
we find the characteristic attitude of the humble lover, looking up to
his mistress. The underlying thoug