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The Song of Sainte Foy A prose translation from the Provencal by Robert L. A. Clark1 i. I heard a Latin book about the old times readunder a pine.2 1listened to it in its entirety, to the end. There was no meaning that it did not render clearly. It spoke of the father of King Licinius and of the lineage ofMaximin .3 These two tormented Christians just as a hunter does stags in the morning: they led them to prison and to death. They left them dead on their backs,lying in the fields like criminals. Their neighbors did not bury them. This was around the time of Constantine.4 2.1heard asong that is beautiful to dance, which wason a Spanish subject.5 It wasnot in Greekspeech nor in the Saracentongue. It issweeter and more delicious than a drop of honey or any spiced drink prepared by man. Whoever says it well in the French style, I believethat it will be to his great profit and that it will so appear in this world.6 3. Allthe Basquecountry and Aragon and the country of the Gasconsknow what song this is and if this story is true. I heard it read by clerks and scholars, by very good ones, as the Passion in which one reads theselessons shows it.7 And ifour melody ispleasingto you, asthe first tone guides it, so will I freely sing it to you.8 4. Youhavelong and quite often heard it said that Agen was avery rich city, closed in with walls and moats. The Garonne flows past it on one side. The people from there were very bad; they lived in sloth and idleness. Not one of them abstained from the great sins, the man of reason no more than the fool,9 until God, moved to pity them, savedthem on the cross and delivered them from the Devil. 5. The people would have been beautiful if only they had been healthy in spirit. Their hearts were infirm because they were pagans. They abandoned God and rushed to the temple; they covered it with gold from Cordoba. Each offered there the ring from his hand; he who could do no more, a piece of bread.10 It would have been better to give it to a dog. They did all their works in vain. Ah, why were they not Christians! 6. King Solomon told the parable of the apple tree that is born in the bush, which the thorn bush encloses with thistle and hawthorn all around: there at the summit it brings forth flowers and then apples of good quality.11 The Gascon pagans were evil, they who rejected God in heaven. Their shadow stifled this young plant about whom we sing this song. And yet God took sweet and good fruit from it. 7. The lord of this city had great domains in abundance.12 As much as he was able, he took leaveof that sin and loved God greatly in secret. Youwill hear how God honored him and what a precious good He gave him. He gave him a daughter of such great worth that her name, sent by God, was Foy, and she was raised in chastity and preserved her holy virginity. By her God has greatly honored the world. 8. Her body was beautiful and small in size; even nobler was her reason that was within.13 Her eyes were pretty and her face white, and the wisdom of her heart was worthier still. Before she was twelve years old, she did such a deed as is pleasing to God: she took martyrdom so very harsh, as you are reading and singing. O God! this world is so greatly honored by it! 9. The honor that she had from this world wasworth no more to her than mud.14 Her heart was with God in heaven, and His service was very pleasing to her. It will not stop, so I believe, until she pays God Himself with her death. By this the Devil is put to dismay. 10. She had great country estates and strong castles and furs of wild animals and buttons and precious rings on her fingers and well-made vesselsof gold and silver. She feared that these were an evil snare that the black Devil had made for her. With her wealth she nourished the poor and the lepers. She made herself poor, like a beggar, and remained faithful to God, Who was more pleasing...

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