La Chatelaine de Vergi - part 11
(By Ysabeau de Vergi as appeared in the August 1990 Bolt)

La Chatelaine de Vergi - part 11

Never before nor during nor after,
In thought or word or deed
Great or small, did I commit any fault
By which I could earn your hate;
Nor such villainous treachery
As to shatter our love,
To love another and to leave me,
And to reveal our secret,
Alas! My love, it is a wonder,
Since my heart was never
Thus towards you, because, had God
Offered me all the world and His Heaven
And His Paradise, and required in return
That I lose you, I would never have done it.
Because you were my wealth
And my health and my merriment,
Nothing could ever grieve me
As long as my heart knew
That yours loved me.
Alas! Love! Who would have thought
That he would ever hurt me,
He who said, when he was with me,
And I was doing my best
To fulfill his every desire,
That he was all my own, and as his lady
He held me with body and with spirit?
And he said it so sweetly
That I believed him truly,
And I never would have thought
That for either duchess or queen,
He could find in his heart
Anger or hate towards me;
For it was such a joy to love him
That my heart held his in mine.
I believed that he too
Considered my love
For all his life,
For I know in my soul,
If he had died, I loved him so,
That after him I would not have endured.
To be dead to me was better
Than to live, if my eyes
Would never see him again.
Alas! True Love, is it so
That he has thus revealed
Our secret? By that he loses me.
Because, in pledging him my love I told him,
And said in our covenant,
That he would lose me at the very hour
That he revealed our love. And since
I have lost him before he has lost me,
I cannot, after such anguish,
Live without him for whom I mourn,
Nor do I desire or want to live.
There is no longer pleasure in life for me,
Thus I pray God grant me death;
And also that, truly,
Since I have lover loyally
He who causes my pain,
For God to have pity on my soul;
And to he who wrongly
Betrayed me and condemned me to death,
To give honor; and I pardon him.
In death I find only sweetness,
Since it comes from him,
And in remembering that he love me,
To die for him is not painful."
Then the lady ceased to speak,
Except to say, sighing,
"Sweet love, may God keep you!"
She clutched her chest,
Her heart faltered, her face pales;
In great anguish she swooned,
And lay pale and wan
On the bed, lifeless.

To be continued.....

 Page last updated 12/28/99