Comparison with the original will show that I was not copying Byron’s When we Two Parted; yet the resemblance between that song and the tone which my translation has naturally assumed from the Latin, is certainly noticeable.  That Byron could have seen the piece before he wrote his own lines in question is almost impossible, for this portion of the Carmina Burana had not, so far as I am aware, been edited before the year 1847.  The coincidence of metrical form, so far as it extends, only establishes the spontaneity of emotion which, in the case of the medieval and the modern poet, found a similar rhythm for the utterance of similar feeling.

FOOTNOTES: 

[Footnote 32:  Page 38.]

FAREWELL TO THE FAITHLESS.

No. 40.

    A mortal anguish
      How often woundeth me;
    Grieving I languish,
      Weighed down with misery;

    Hearing the mournful
      Tale of thy fault and fall
    Blown by Fame’s scornful
      Trump to the ears of all!

    Envious rumour
      Late or soon will slay thee: 
    Love with less humour,
      Lest thy love betray thee.

    Whate’er thou dost, do secretly,
    Far from Fame’s curiosity;
    Love in the dark delights to be,
    His sports are wiles and witchery,
      With laugh of lovers greeting.

    Thou wert not slighted,
      Stained in thine honour, when
    We were united,
      Lovers unknown to men;
    But when thy passion
      Grew like thy bosom cold,
    None had compassion,
      Then was thy story told.

    Fame, who rejoiceth
      New amours to utter,
    Now thy shame voiceth,
      Wide her pinions flutter.

    The palace home of modesty
    Is made a haunt for harlotry;
    The virgin lily you may see
    Defiled by fingers lewd and free,
      With vile embraces meeting.

    I mourn the tender
      Flower of the youth of thee,
    Brighter in splendour
      Than evening’s star can be. 
    Pure were thy kisses,
      Dove-like thy smile;
    As the snake hisses
      Now is thy guile.

    Lovers who pray thee
      From thy door are scattered;
    Lovers who pay thee
      In thy bed are flattered.

    Thou bidst them from thy presence flee
    From whom thou canst not take thy fee;
    Blind, halt, and lame thy suitors be;
    Illustrious men with subtlety
      And poisonous honey cheating.

I may add that a long soliloquy printed in Carmina Burana, pp. 119-121, should be compared with the foregoing lyric.  It has a similar motive, though the lover in this case expresses his willingness for reconciliation.  One part of its expostulation with the faithless woman is beautiful in its simplicity:—­