Sol 5.6

  1. Many a maiden has been raised in piety,

    keeping the dark night alive with remembrance of the Resurrection,

  2. outstripping the dawn to prayer in devotion,

    never turning the reins away from fasting.

  3. She deems love for charming maidens a sin,

    and intimate converse with a lovesick soul an ordeal;

  4. testing the lover with abuse, a duty,

    then pardoning the messenger, the noblest tradition.

  5. But she meets a poet endowed with eloquence

    and a tongue as keen as spearpoints,

  6. and by morning becomes possessed of a passion

    whose very sigh burns water and air.

  7. She now deems the life of the heart-free a fire,

    and the lovers’ life on earth a paradise.

  8. Poetry is nothing but a spell for maidens:

    they draw passion to themselves when they hear it.

  9. In war, it turns the coward toward self-sacrifice;

    and in peace, it is temptation for budding maidens.

Sol 5.6