The German minnesinger, Heinrich of Morungen, called woman "a mirror of
all the delights of the world," and sang:
Blessed be the tender hour,
Blest the time, the precious day,
When my brimming heart welled over,
When my secret open lay.
I was startled with great gladness,
And bewildered so with love,
I can hardly sing thereof.
The sensuous element still dominated Bernart and his contemporaries to
some extent. In their poems, all of which are genuine and sincere, the
longing for kisses, sometimes for more, is frankly expressed, but the
tendency towards the not sensuous and super-sensuous is already
apparent. The lover loves one woman only, and would rather love in vain,
patiently enduring every pang she causes him, than receive favours from
another woman, were she beautiful as Venus her self.
Bernart says:
My sorrow is a sweet distress
To which no alien bliss compares,
And if my pain such sweetness bears,
How sweet would be my happiness!
Elias of Barjols:
Full of joy I am and sorrow
When I stand before her face.
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