Perimele, sweet Perimele, pray, a whim:

What moves your maiden heart?

Can you vouchsafe all your love for him

When ever you must be apart?

Were you to learn such courtly love

From paternal blood relation?

Or was there one to better prove

How love makes consecration?

Some princesses get sacrificed,

Once they give away their heart;

How did you learn that love sufficed

For its sacrificial part?

Admetus erred so grievously,

He faced ignoble death,

Had not Alcestis previously,

Deemed him dearer than her breath.

Oh, how the ancients loved her,

The perfect ideal wife!

Who put her mate so far above her

As to save him with her life.

Perimele, you have a child, a little maiden fair,

Does she know your parents’ tale?

Dad’s eros, although noble, never could compare

With Mother’s deep devotion, that simply made his pale.