Canticus Troili

The "Canticus Troili" is a translation of Francesco Petrarch's "Sonnet 132" embedded by Geoffrey Chaucer in his 1380 long poem Troilus and Criseyde. Like the rest of the long poem, the "Canticus Troili" is converted into rhyme royal. This song is sung when Troilus first sees--and falls in love with--Criseyde, and it is the first translation of a sonnet in English.

Canticus Troili

"If no loue is, O god, what fele I so?

And if loue is, what thing and which is he?

If loue be good, from whennes cometh my woo?

If it be wikke, a wonder thynketh me,

Whenne euery torment and aduersite

That cometh of hym may to me sauory thinke,

ffor ay thurst I the more that ich it drynke.

"And if that at myn owen lust I brenne,

ffrom whennes cometh may waillynge and my pleynte?

If harme a-gree me, wherto pleyne I thenne?

I noot, ne whi vn-wery 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, i-wis; thus possed to and fro,

Al sterelees with-inne a boot am I

Amydde the see, bitwixen wyndes two,

That inne contrarie stonden euere mo.

Allas, what is this wondre maladie?

ffor hete of cold, for cold of hete, I dye