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: