Edward Sapir, trans.

From “French-Canadian Folk-songs”

ON a lovely bed of roses a lovely maiden sleeping,

White as the snow, beautiful as day.

They are three knights that come to her their love to say.

’Tis the youngest that alights and takes her white hand.

“Princess, come with me—on the back of my steed away!

To Paris we shall go, in a mansion we shall stay.”

As soon as they were come, the hostess turns to her:

“Oh tell me, lovely maid, give me the truth to hear—

Is it willing you have come and have you shed no tear?”

And maiden to the hostess: “Innocent am I;

From my father’s castle away king’s folk have ravished me,

They’ve carried me to horse to this beautiful hostelry.”

She’d finished with her plaint, returned the man-at-arms:

“Eat and drink, my sweet, with a goodly appetite—

’Tis with a man-at-arms you’ll pass a pleasant night.”

They are seated at the feast, then dead the maiden falls.

“Ring—oh, ring the bells, let drum a dirge for her!

My mistress she is dead, had come to her fifteenth year.”

“Where shall we bury her, this beautiful princess?”—

“In the garden of her father, under an apple tree.

With God in paradise we pray her spirit be.”

Three days she buried lay, her father is passing by.

“Open, open the grave, my father, and rescue me.

I’ve played the dead three days for the sake of purity.”