What is Love ?

People are being all squeeeee about crushes etc. and it's adorable and I love it! 


This post is ..... random really. It is a passage from Chaucer's "Troilus and Criseyde" I will post the original anglo-norman first and then my (kind of ok but not great) modern english translation.


The context is that Troilus has just fallen madly in love with (surprise!) Criseyde, so he goes back to his room and rants about it... 


Canticus Troili
"If no love is, O God, what fele I so?
And if love is, what thing and which is he?
If love be good, from whennes cometh my woo?
If it be wikke, a wonder thynketh me,
When every torment and adversite
That cometh of hym may to me savory thinke,
For ay thurst I, the more that ich it drynke.

"And if that at myn owen lust I brenne,
From whennes cometh my waillynge and my pleynte?
If harm agree me, wherto pleyne I thenne?
I noot, ne whi unwery that I feynte.
O quike deth, O swete harm so queynte,
How may of the in me swich quantite,
But if that I consente that it be?

"And if that I consente, I wrongfully
Compleyne, iwis. Thus possed to and fro,
Al sterelees withinne a boot am I
Amydde the see, bitwixen wyndes two,
That in contrarie stonden evere mo.
Allas, what is this wondre maladie?
For hote of cold, for cold of hote, I dye."
(Tr 1. 400-420)


ENGLISH TIME!! 


The Song of Troilus


Oh God, if there is no love, then what do I feel? 
If there is love, then what is it and where?
If love is good, then why do I feel such woe?
If it is bad, it seems to me quite strange,
that every torment and adversity
that comes to me seems pleasant.
And the more of it I drink, the more I crave.


If it is of my own desire that I burn,
then why do I wail and lament?
If this suffering is pleasing, then why do I complain?
I do not know why I grow faint when I'm not tired.
O living death, O sweet harm so curious,
how can these contrary ideas be in me,
unless I have consented.


And if I do consent, I wrongfully complain.
So tossed to and fro, powerless,
within a boat am I.
Upon the sea, between 2 wings
that are set against each other for all time.
Alas, what is this strange malady
that makes me die of cold in heat,
and of the heat in cold.




The end.


PS - one more quotation - 


"To love well and in a worthy place, Thou ought not call it chance, but grace"