Doete de Troyes

Doete de Troyes (1220–1265) was a troveresse whose work survives only in fragments. Further verses are attributed to her in the legendary Poésies de Clotilde.

Quotes

Disputed

• Quant revient la saison que l'herbe reverdoie
  Que di fleons clerets la terre alme s'ondoie,
    Qu'esjoissent oysels de lors gracieux chantz
    Li bois, et la pré, e li chamz,
  Soir et matin, filles, n'allez sollettes
  Quierre ez gazons derraines violettes;
  Serpent y gist que n'y mord au talon,
    Por ce n'est il, tendres poulettes,
    Por ce n'est il que plus felon.
  • When comes the beauteous summer time,
      And grass grows green once more,
    And sparkling brooks the meadows lave
      With fertilizing power;—
    And when the birds rejoicing sing
      Their pleasant songs again,
    Filling the vales and woodlands gay
      With their enlivening strain;—
    Go not at eve nor morn, fair maids,
      Unto the mead alone,
    To seek the tender violets blue,
      And pluck them for your own;
    For there a snake lies hid, whose fangs
      May leave untouch'd the heel,
    But not the less—O not the less,
      Your hearts his power shall feel.
  • From the Poésies de Marguerite-Éléonore Clotilde de Vallon-Chalys, depuis Madame de Surville, Poëte François du XVe. siècle (1803), therein ascribed to Doete, and stated to have existed in MS. among the other specimens there given of a series of early French poetry, but now thought to be a forgery. Translated by Edgar Taylor, Lays of the Minnesingers and Troubadours (1825), p. 271
  • Cp. Virgil, Eclogues, III, 93: Latet Anguis in Herba