e bark without timber.
When I left Germany, I knew not what became of my heart, save
that it went away hither after you. Here was my heart and there
my body. I was not absent from Greece, for my heart had gone
thither, and to reclaim it have I come back here; but it neither
comes nor returns to me, and I cannot bring it back to me, and
yet I seek it not and cannot do so. And how have you fared since
you have come into this land? What joy have you had here? Do the
people, does the land please you? I ought to ask you nothing
further save this--whether the land please you." "Formerly it
pleased me not; but now there dawns for me a joy and a pleasure
that I would not lose, be assured, for Pavia or for Placentia;
for I cannot dissever my heart from it, nor shall I ever use
force to do so. In me is there nought save the bark, for without
my heart I live and have my being. Never was I in Britain, and
yet my heart has made I know not what contract in Britain without
me." "Lady, when was your heart there? Tell me when it went, at
what time and at what season, if it is a matter that you can
reasonably tell me or another. Was it there when I was there?"
"Yes, but you knew it not. It was there as long as you were there
and departed with you." "God! and I neither knew nor saw it
there. God! why did I know it not? If I had known it, certainly,
lady, I would have borne it good company." "Much would you have
comforted me and well would it have become you to do so, for I
would have been very gracious to your heart, if it had pleased it
to come there where it might have known me to be." "Of a surety,
lady, it came to you." "To me? Then it came not into exile, for
mine also went to you." "Lady, then are both our hearts here with
us as you say; for mine is wholly yours." "Friend, and you on
your side have mine, and so we are well matched. And know well
that, so may God guard me, never had your uncle share in me, for
neither did it please me nor was it permitted to him. Never yet
did he know me as Adam knew his wife. Wrongly am I called dame;
but I know well that he who calls me dame knows not that I am a
maid. Even your uncle knows it not, for he has drunk of the
sleeping draught and thinks he is awake when he sleeps, and he
deems that he has his joy of me, just as he fain would have it,
and just as though I were lying between his arms; but well have I
shut him out. Yours is my heart, yours is my body, nor indeed
will any one by my examp