What I write now I write with grief and pain, 
those troubadours of a previous generation,
dead now, committed a most grievous sin 
and threw their epoch into dire confusion 
when they were frankly critical of women; 
for those who hear, believing their glib song, 
decide there must be truth in the aspersion 
and so perpetuate a serious wrong.
Those gentlemen, great poets though they be, 
only pretended to be serious lovers 
since he who speaks of love ambiguously
dishonours love and is a great deceiver.
And if, against the truth of his own nature, 
he should deceive himself, it's his disgrace:
without a woman he can have no future;
the love of women is his best resource.