24 The 'Szveet Breath' of Zephyr 



If he is handsome, I am lovely. O Lord God, why hast thou done 

 so? When each longs for the other, why hast thou parted us? 

 O Lord God, etc. 



What gives me assured hope is that I have received his homage; 

 and when the sweet breeze blows from that sweet land where he is 

 for whom I yearn, I turn my face thither with gladness, and at that 

 moment seem to feel him underneath my gray mantle. 



O Lord God, etc. 



Where I have been cozened is that I was not of his escort when he 

 departed.' He sent me, that I might kiss it, the tunic that he had 

 donned ; and at night, when love for him gives me no rest, I take it 

 to my bed and lay it next my naked flesh, to soothe my woe. 



O Lord God, etc. 



The last two lines of the first stanza are referred to^ in 

 Guillaume de Lorris' part of the Roman de la Rose (ed. Michel, 

 2688-94) : 



Si me semble [Kaluza, sovient] que por ce dist 



Une dame qui d'amer sot. 



En sa changon un cortois mot: 



'Moult sui, fet-ele, a bonne escole. 



Quant de mon ami oi parole; 



Se m'ai'st Diex, il m'a garie 



Qui m'en parle, quoi qu'il m'en die.' 



The Middle English rendering- of the above lines is (2837-50), 

 in Skeat's text (cf. Kaluza, p. 165) : 



And therefore now it cometh to minde. 



In olde dawes, as I finde. 



That clerkis writen that hir knewe, 



Ther was a lady fresh of hewe, 



Which of hir love made a song 



On him for to remembre among, 



In which she seide, 'Whan that I here 



Speken of him that is so dere. 



To me it voidith al [my] smerte; 



Ywis, he sit so nere myn herte, 



To speke of him, at eve or morwe, 



' The pilgrim, with the staflf and scrip he had assumed, was accompanied 

 through the fij-st stage of his journey by his relatives and friends. This 

 being passed, he resumed his ordinary garments, of which the tunic in 

 question was not one. See Bedier, p. 117. 



® So Hist. Litt. de la France 28. 2>73, note 3; Romania 8. 360, note 5. 



