Marie de France

I love no woman, for love is a serious business, not a jest.

If one of two lovers is loyal, and the other jealous and false, how may their friendship last, for Love is slain!

For above all things Love means sweetness, and truth, and measure; yea, loyalty to the loved one and to your word. And because of this I dare not meddle with so high a matter.

Out of five hundred who speak glibly of love, not one can spell the first letter of his name.

For what the lover would, that would the beloved; what she would ask of him that should he go before to grant. Without accord such as this, love is but a bond and a constraint.

But sweetly and discreetly love passes from person to person, from heart to heart, or it is nothing worth.

The dead and past stories that I have told again in divers fashions, are not set down without authority.

The fool shouts loudly, thinking to impress the world.

There are divers men who make a great show of loyalty, and pretend to such discretion in the hidden things they hear, that at the end folk come to put faith in them.

Now will I rehearse before you a very ancient Breton Lay. As the tale was told to me, so, in turn, will I tell it over again, to the best of my art and knowledge. Hearken now to my story, its why and its reason.