Alas for my young days, alas for my plaint. They would force me into a convent. Nevermore then shall I see the grass grow green and the green clover flowers, nevermore hear the little birds sing. Woe it is, and dead is my joy, for they would part me from my true love, and I die of sorrow. Alas, alas for my grief, which I must bear in secret! Sisters, dear sisters, must we be parted from the world? Deepest woe it is, since I may never wear the bridal wreath and must make moan for my sins, when I would fain be in the world and would fain wear a bright wreath upon my hair, instead of the veil that the nuns wear. Alas, alas for my grief, which I must bear in secret! I must take leave of the world, since the day of parting is come. I must look sourly upon all joy, upon dancing and leaping and good courage, birds singing and hawthorn blooming. If the little birds had my sorrow well might they sit silent in the woods and upon the green branches. Alas, alas for my grief, which I must bear in silence[1744].
A sixteenth century French song has something of the same serious tone, though it is more sophisticated and less poignant than the medieval German version:
Une jeune fillette
de noble cœur
gratieuse et honeste
de grand valeur,
contre son gré l’on a rendu nonette
point ne le voloit estre
par quoy vit en langueur.
One day after Compline she was sitting alone and lamenting her fate and she called on the Virgin to shorten her life, which she could endure no longer:
If I were married to my love, who has so desired me, whom I have so desired, all the night long he would hold me in his arms and would tell me all his thought and I would tell him mine. If I had believed my love and the sweet words he said to me, alack, alack, I should be wedded now. But since I must die in this place let me die soon. O poor heart, that must die a death so bitter! Fare you well, abbess of this convent, and all the nuns therein. Pray for me when I am dead, but never tell my thought to my true love. Fare you well, father and mother and all my kinsfolk; you made me a nun in this convent; in life I shall never have any joy; I live unhappy, in torment and in pain[1745].
Usually, however, the chanson de nonne is more frivolous than this and all ends happily. A well defined group contains songs in the form of a round with a refrain, meant to be sung during a dance[1746]. One of the prettiest has a refrain rejecting the life of a nun for the best of reasons:
Derrière chez mon père
Il est un bois taillis
(Serai-je nonnette, oui ou non?
Serai-je nonnette? je crois que non!)
Le rossignol y chante
Et le jour et la nuit.
Il chante pour les filles
Qui n’ont pas d’ami,
Il ne chante pas pour moi,
J’en ai un, dieu mercy[1747].
Another (first found in a version belonging to the year 1602) has the dance-refrain:
Trépignez vous, trépignez,
Trépignez vous comme moy,
and the words seem to trip of themselves: