Song by Castelloza

Friend, if I found you gracious, fair,
Candid and humble, full or virtuousness,
How I would love you! But, alas, far less
I find you now: so fell, so cruel to me.
Yet do I sing, to let the wide world know
How virtuous you could be; for I would show
That praised would be your virtue everywhere,
Though you bestow me naught but pain and care.

I shall not deem you debonair
Nor, faithful-hearted, my true love profess
Unless, first, I pronounce how fickley, yes,
How faithless is your heart!… Nay, verily,
Best I think better, lest I too be so
Heartless and faithless unto you—although
So are you unto me!—and lest I bear
Your wrath, should I your slightest wrong declare.

Well do I do; but well aware
Am I that one and all claim we transgress,
Who bare our heart and jabber to excess
Our bane and bale unto our swains. But he
Who judges so, judges us ill; for, no!
Rather than die, I would prove, à propos,
That I much comfort feel when, in my prayer,
I pray to him who causes my despair.

Passing daft must one be to dare
Say I ought love you not, nor acquiesce
To love’s demands: he knows not my distress,
Nor knows what cheer was mine when I could see
You there before me, telling me that, lo!
Done would my dolor be, undone my woe;
That love for me, once more, might bring you there:
Ah! promise of a joy beyond compare!

All other loves do I foreswear.
None else consoles me in my dire duress,
Nor brings me solacy; yours would I possess,
And yours alone, to ease my misery…
But, friend, I cannot change you; and I go
On yearning, hoping, dreaming of the beau
You will not be! Where isd your love? Oh, where
But in my sleep, that love I fain would share?

I fear I will no better fare,
Nor can, in other wise, my dole express;
For, ceaseless, have I tried, with no success,
Fair means and foul to thwart your cruelty.
This message do I send you—this canso—
Writ in my words, my very own. But, oh!
If die I must, yours be the blame! Beware:
Yours, the sin; mine, the woe without repair.

From: Shapiro, Norman R.; Krueger, Roberta L.; LaFarge Catherine and Perry, Catherine, Freench Women Poets of Nine Centuries: The Distaff and the Pen, 2008,  The John Hopkins University Press: Baltimore, Maryland, pp: 65-67.
(https://books.google.com.au/books?id=ScCsMt710ZwC

Date: 13^th century (original in Occitan); 2008 (translation in English)

By: Castelloza (13^th century)

Translated by: Norman R. Shapiro (19??- )

San Miguel de la Tumba by Gonzalo de Berceo

San Miguel de la Tumba is a convent vast and wide;
The sea encircles it around, and groans on every side;
It is a wild and dangerous place, and many woes betide
The monks who in that burial place in penitence abide.
Within those dark monastic walls, amid the ocean flood
Of pious fasting monks there dwelt a holy brotherhood;
To the Madonna’s glory there an altar high was placed
And a rich and costly image the sacred altar graced.
Exalted high upon a throne, the Virgin Mother smiled,
And as the custom is, she held within her arms the Child;
The kings and wisemen of the East were kneeling by her side;
Attended was she like a queen whom God had sanctified.

Descending low before her face a screen of feathers hung,–
A moscader or fan for flies, ’tis called in vulgar tongue;
From the feathers of the peacock’s wing ’twas fashioned bright and fair,
And glistened like the heaven above when all its stars are there.
It chanced that for the people’s sins, fell lightning’s blasting stroke;
Forth from all four sacred walls the flames consuming broke;
The sacred robes were all consumed, missal and holy book;
And hardly with their lives the monks their crumbling walls forsook.

But though the desolating flame raged fearfully and wild,
It did not reach the Virgin Queen, it did not reach the Child;
It did not reach the feathery screen before her face that shone,
Nor injured in a farthing’s worth the image or the throne.
The image it did not consume, it did not burn the screen;
Even in the value of a hair they were not hurt, I ween;
Not even the smoke did reach them, nor injure more the shrine
Than the bishop, hight Don Tello, has been hurt by hand of mine

From: https://www.poetry-archive.com/b/san_miguel_de_la_tumba.html

Date: 13^th century (original in Spanish); 1844 (translation in English)

By: Gonzalo de Berceo (c1197-before 1264)

Translated by: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)

The Home of the Heart by Muktabai

Where never darkness comes my home I’ve made;
There my delightsome lodging ever find.
That perfect shelter cannot fail our need;
Going and coming trouble us no more.
Beyond all vision and above all spheres,
He, our delight, our inmost sould indwells.
He, Mukta says, is our heart’s only home.

From: Macnicol, Margaret (ed.), Poems by Indian Women, Selected and Rendered by Various Translators, 1923, Association Press: Calcutta and Oxford University Press: London, p. 47.
(https://archive.org/details/poemsbyindianwom00macn/)

Date: 13th century (original in Marathi); 1923 (translation in English)

By: Muktabai (1279-1297)

Translated by: Margaret Grant Campbell Macnicol (18??-19??) and D. K. Laddu (?-?)

On an Apple by Baha’ al-din Zuhair

Many thanks to my love for the apple she sent;
I can see that a gift so ingenious was meant
To ensure my not keeping whole-hearted ;
For its colour resembles the hue of her cheeks,
And the sip of her lip its fine flavour bespeaks,
While its perfume her touch has imparted.

From: Zuhair, Baha’ al-din and Palmer, E. H. (ed. and transl.), The Poetical Works of Behā-ed-Dīn Zoheir, of Egypt. With a Metrical English Translation, Notes, and Introduction, Volume II, 1877, University Press: Cambridge, p. 40.
(https://books.google.com.au/books?id=5NveEgFDbJAC)

Date: 13th century (original in Arabic); 1877 (translation in English)

By: Baha’ al-din Zuhair (1186-1258)

Translated by: Edward Henry Palmer (1840-1882)

Quatrain by Najmuddīn-e Kubrā

What never existed
leaves nothing in the hand
but wind
while “reality”
offers nothing but imperfection
and failure;
that being the case
one can only dream
of what never was
and as for what “really is,”
remember:
it doesn’t exist.

From: Wilson, Peter Lamborn and Pourjvady, Nasrollah, The Drunken Universe: An Anthology of Persian Sufi Poetry, 1987, Phanes Press: Grand Rapids, USA, p. 20.
(https://archive.org/details/TheDrunkenUniverse/)

Date: 13th century (original in Persian); 1987 (translation in English)

By: Najmuddīn-e Kubrā (1145-1221)

Translated by: Peter Lamborn Wilson (1945- ) and Nasrollah Pourjvady (1943- )

Lines 1-17 of “The Chatelaine of Vergi” by Anonymous

There are people who pretend
Loyalty, say they intend
To keep your confidence so well
That you may without danger tell
Your secrets; and when they discover
Proof that someone has a lover
Make it their pleasure and their pride
To send the news out far and wide,
And afterward make fun of those
Who lose their joy because they chose
To have it known. The greater the love
The more will be the sorrow of
The true lover who must start
Doubting the one who rules his heart.
And oftentimes such harm is done
By this that love will quickly run
Its course, to end in grief and shame.

From: Terry, Patricia (ed. and transl.), The Honeysuckle and the Hazel Tree: Medieval Stories of Men and Women, 1995, University of California Press: Berkeley, Los Angeles, London, Section 8.
(https://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft4580069z)

Date: 13^th century (original in French); 1995 (translation in English)

By: Anonymous

Translated by: Patricia Terry (1929- )

How Can I Blame the Cherry Blossoms by Fujiwara no Shunzei no Musume (Shunzei’s Daughter)

How can I blame the cherry blossoms
for rejecting this floating world
and drifting away as the wind calls them?

From: Rexroth, Kenneth and Atsumi, Ikuko (eds. and transls.) Women Poets of Japan, 1982, New Directions: New York, p. 43.
(https://books.google.com.au/books?id=0BMQwLapofkC)

Date: 13^th century (original in Japanese); 1977 (translation in English)

By: Fujiwara no Shunzei no Musume (Shunzei’s Daughter) (?1171-?1252)

Translated by: Kenneth Charles Marion Rexroth (1905-1982) and Ikuko Atsumi (1940- )

Song Against the Sea by Roi Fernandez de Santiago

Whenever I look at the waves
that break below the bluffs,
I feel a pounding of waves
in my heart for the one I loved.
Damn the sea
that makes me grieve!

I never look at the waves
that beat against the shores
without being pounded by waves
in my heart for the one I adored.
Damn the sea
that makes me grieve!

Each time I look at the waves
that crash into the cliffs,
I feel a pounding of waves
in my heart for the one I miss.
Damn the sea
that makes me grieve!

From: http://www.poetryinternationalweb.net/pi/site/poem/item/4676/auto/0/SONG-AGAINST-THE-SEA

Date: 13^th century (original in Galician-Portugese); 1995 (translation in English)

By: Roi Fernandez de Santiago (13^th century)

Translated by: Richard Zenith (1956- )

No Jewel is Worth His Lady by Giacomo da Lentini

Sapphire, nor diamond, nor emerald,
Nor other precious stones past reckoning,
Topaz, nor pearl, nor ruby like a king,
Nor that most virtuous jewel, jasper call’d,
Nor amethyst, nor onyx, nor basalt,
Each counted for a verv marvellous thing,
Is half so excellently gladdening,
As is my lady’s head uncoronall’d.
All beauty by her beauty is made dim;
Like to the stars she is for loftiness;
And with her voice she taketh away grief.
She is fairer than a bud, or than a leaf.
Christ have her well in keeping, of His grace,
And make her holy and beloved, like Him!

From: Rosetti, Dante Gabriel (ed. and transl.), Dante and His Circle: with the Italian Poets Preceding Him. (1100-1200-1300). A Collection of Lyrics, 1887, Roberts Brothers: Boston, p. 201.
(https://archive.org/stream/danteandhiscirc02aliggoog#page/n224/mode/2up)

Date: 13^th century (original in Sicilian dialect); 1861 (translation in English)

By: Giacomo da Lentini (13^th century)

Translated by: Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882)

Love Has Seven Names by Hadewijch

Love has seven names.
Do you know what they are?
Rope, Light, Fire, Coal
make up its domain.

The others, also good,
more modest but alive:
Dew, Hell, the Living Water.
I name them here (for they
are in the Scriptures),
explaining every sign
for virtue and form.
I tell the truth in signs.
Love appears every day
for one who offers love.
That wisdom is enough.

Love is a ROPE, for it ties
and holds us in its yoke.
It can do all, nothing snaps it.
You who love must know.

The meaning of LIGHT
is known to those who
offer gifts of love,
approved or condemned.

The Scripture tell us
the symbol of COAL:
the one sublime gift
God gives the intimate soul.

Under the name of FIRE, luck,
bad luck, joy or no joy,
consumes. We are seized
by the same heat from both.

When everything is burnt
in its own violence, the DEW,
coming like a breeze, pauses
and brings the good.

LIVING WATER (its sixth name)
flows and ebbs
as my love grows
and disappears from sight.

HELL (I feel its torture)
damns, covering the world.
Nothing escapes. No one has grace
to see a way out.

Take care, you who wish
to deal with names
for love. Behind their sweetness
and wrath, nothing endures.
Nothing but wounds and kisses.

Though love appears far off,
you will move into its depth.

From: http://www.poetry-chaikhana.com/Poets/H/Hadewijch/LoveHasSeven/index.html

Date: 13^th century (original); 2002 (translation)

By: Hadewijch (13^th century)

Translated by: Willis Barnstone (1927- ) and Elene Kolb (19??- )