However little in my days
I may have suffered the sweet pain
from that gentle heartache
which down deep within the heart
so gently works ungentleness,
something in me prophesies
such that I must believe it,
that those two lovers found relief
and comfort for their minds
when they had thrown surveillance,
that poisoner of Passion,
lovers' arch-enemy,
off their track at last.
Much have I thought about those two,		12200
and still do so, every day.
Whenever I spread the pageant
of love and anxious yearning
in all their variations
before my mind's and heart's eye,
all my own longings expand—
and contemplation, my companion—
as though they would surmount the clouds.
Then when I focus my attention
on that most mysterious mystery
which someone might find in love
who knew how to look for it—
how much joy might hide in love
for one who faithfully practiced it—
suddenly my heart exceeds
the summit of Mont Set,
and I take pity then on love
with all the feelings at my command,
that so many a living soul
pursues and cleaves to love,
and still none does it justice.
All of us are inclined to love
and want to have a try at it.

But no, that's not the way love is,
as we work it on each other
with counterfeit intentions.
We don't see things the way they are.
We sow the deadly bittersweet
and then expect it should bear
a crop of lilies and roses.
Surely that cannot be.
We have no choice but to reap
that which we have planted,
then to take what our seed yields.
We can only mow and harvest 
what it was we have sown.
We try to cultivate love
with intentions already soured
by falsehood and deception,
and then we think to reap pleasure
for both the body and the heart.
But our increase is only pain,
bad yield, bad fruit, bad seed,
just as we have farmed it.
Then when it bears a crop of rue
and heaviness within the heart
and kills us from within,
we blame it all on love,
accusing it of something
of which it's wholly innocent.		12250
All of us plant falsehood,
then reap depravity and sorrow.
If that sorrow is too painful,
we should have taken greater care
to plant better and finer seed,
then harvest what that brings.
We who think in worldly terms—
be this world good or evil—
how we spend all our days
thoughtlessly in pastimes
ever in the name of love
and then find nothing in it
other than that same effort
we have made on its behalf—
all mischance and failure!
We find nothing of that good
that each of us yearns for
but then fails to obtain,
such as friendship's steady devotion
that never fails to give comfort,
that bears roses among the thorns,
that gives respite in exertion.
Delight, deep within it,
lies concealed next to concern.
It always brings joy at last,
as often as it is called upon.
It being rarely found today,
we must plant it more carefully.


The saying goes, and it is true,
that Love has been driven
into the farthest corners.
We have nothing left but the word.
And now that only the name remains
we have so persecuted that,
so corrupted and misnamed it,
that Love is shamed to be called so
and dismayed at the very word.
She wearily despises herself
everywhere on earth.
Dishonored and unworthy,
she begs from door to door,
carrying only some few trifles
in a tattered sack
to keep these paltry gleanings
safe from her own hunger,
while peddling them on the street.
Alas, we are her customers.
We treat her in unheard-of ways
and take no responsibility.
Love, the queen of every heart,		12300
the free, the one and only,
is common in the marketplace,
and having now reversed the scales,
we require her to pay for it.
We set a crude imitation
in place of the real jewel
and deceive ourselves with it.
It is a wicked deception
that misleads even friends
so as to deceive only oneself.
We counterfeit lovers,
we deceivers of Love,
how our days evaporate
before we can bring our distress
to any satisfying conclusion!
How we waste all our lives
without love, to no profit!

But what doesn't concern us directly
may still serve to raise our spirits.
If anyone knows a good story
that tells of real affection—
whatever we retell now
of those who once were,
many hundred years ago,
this will do our hearts good.
We may be so taken with it
that hardly any one of us,
loyal and conscientious,
with no treachery toward friends,
would not wish to recreate
such pleasure of his own affairs
there in his own heart,
even though, all the while,
there lies trampled underfoot
that from which it all arises:
heartfelt fidelity.
Vainly it appeals to us.
We turn our eyes aside
and continue heedlessly
to stride roughly over it.
We have most unworthily
crushed it into the dust,
and were we to look for it,
where, in haste, we would not know.
Faith among friends can be
so wholesome, so rewarding—
why do we not care for it?
One look, one fervent glance,
from dearly beloved eyes
can surely extinguish			12350
a hundred thousand pangs
of body and of heart.
One kiss of loving mouths,
if it comes welling up
from the depths of the heart—
oh, what heartache and yearning
it is able to cure!


Tristan and Isolt, I know,
impatient as they both were,
did reduce the sufferings
and the sorrows of one another
when they achieved the aim
of their common desire.
The lust that so beclouds thought,
all of this was gone.
They indulged often
in what lovers long to do,
whenever they had the chance.
At every opportunity,
they both gave and took
from love and from each other
enthusiastic tax and tribute
in all sincerity.
Now they had deep satisfaction
in the voyage and from their journey.
When they overcame estrangement
they found the greatest riches
in secret intimacy.
And this was sensible and wise,
for those who still restrain themselves
after having given in
and then out of modesty
stint themselves of love,
are only stealing their own goods.
Then the more they hold back,
the more they steal from themselves,
mixing pleasure with regret.
But this pair of lovers
held nothing back from each other.
They exchanged words and glances
in complete confidence.
Thus they passed the time
living delightfully,
yet not entirely carefree.
A small cloud of foreboding
gave them cause to apprehend
that which indeed would come to pass,
destroying much joy and pleasure
and putting them in deep distress—
in fact, the beautiful Isolt			12400
was pledged and promised to the man
whose wife she didn't want to be.
Another problem weighed on their minds,
namely, Isolt's maidenhood.
Well, that was unfortunate, 
which caused them both unease,
but that they could dismiss
as being of no great concern
as long as they had their way
so freely with one another,
often and repeatedly.