[Abelard] “I remove to a distance from your person with an intention of avoiding you as an enemy; and yet I incessantly seek for you in my mind; I recall your image in my memory, and in different disquietudes I betray and contradict myself. I hate you! I love you!” [Heloise] "But if I lose you, what have I left to hope for? Why continue on life's pilgrimage, for which I have no support but you, and none in you save the knowledge that you are alive, now that I am forbidden all other pleasures in you, and denied even the joy of your presence which from time to time could restore me to myself?" [Abelard] “I am at this moment afraid I should seem more indifferent than you fare, and yet I am ashamed to discover my trouble.
Ah, Heloise, how far are we from such a happy temper?
Your heart still burns with that fatal fire you cannot extinguish, and mine is full of trouble and unrest.
Think not, Heloise, that I here enjoy a perfect peace; I will for the last time open my heart to you; I am not yet disengaged from you, and though I fight against my excessive tenderness for you, in spite of all my endeavours I remain but too sensible of your sorrows and long to share in them.”
The hollow bell rings The cloistered hearts yearn to forget These mournful but dear remembrances Sought solace never met
I promise myself that I will forget, yet I cannot Your words that burn within my heart my bitter tears shall blot The tree from which I tasted fruit displays now naught but leaves This history of misfortunes made my heart bleed within me
My heart is pierced with your sorrows, pierced with mine own With my face pressed I mix my tears with earth, the earth my home When all is finished, you'll be near, cold ashes need not fear My tomb shall be the richer for them, lover ever near
The violent motion of my heart Our sufferings and revolutions Though time aught to have closed my wounds, they open up and bleed afresh Your words sufficient, they bleed afresh
Cold ashes need not fill our sufferings and revolutions (x4)