What lady aye should sing, and if not I

What lady aye should sing, and if not I is a song Pampinea performs after supper, as the company’s storytelling gives way to music. In three stanzas, its speaker turns fulfilled, reciprocal love into a reason for gratitude: she rejoices in her beloved, celebrates that he loves her in return, and trusts that their fidelity will not bar them from heavenly bliss.

Performance and Setting

After the queen has announced a storytelling theme concerning those who, through diligence, obtain something deeply desired or recover what they have lost, the company spends time in a garden and later suppers in good cheer. As they rise from the meal, Emilia leads the round, Pampinea sings, and the other ladies respond. The song thus enters a communal performance rather than appearing as a detached lyric: one voice offers its account of happiness, and the women around her answer it.

A Speaker Who Has What She Desired

The opening question, “What lady aye should sing, and if not I, Who'm blest with all for which a maid can sigh?” makes the speaker’s joy the warrant for her song. She calls on Love, “thou source of all my weal,” and recalls the first sight of a young man distinguished by “valour, worth and loveliness divine.” Her passion began with that encounter; the song presents its lasting consequence as happiness rather than longing or loss.

Reciprocal Love and Faith

The speaker’s satisfaction depends not only on loving but on being loved: she says that she pleases her beloved as he pleases her. The relationship is described as a mutual fulfillment of her wishes, and Love receives the praise and devotion conventionally directed toward a divine power. She names Love as her “lord most high” and says that she lives joyfully within its fire. In the final stanza, personal fidelity becomes the ground of a hope extending beyond this life: she trusts that God, who sees their faith, will not deny them the kingdom of bliss.

The Song’s Place in the Gathering

The lyric brings together desire, gratitude, and religious hope without presenting them as incompatible. Its speaker does not deny earthly pleasure: her happiness rests on a beloved who matches her love. Yet she also imagines that their fidelity has spiritual consequence. Sung after a day framed by stories of fortune and the pursuit of desired goods, the song offers a compact image of desire successfully fulfilled and shared, while the answering voices of the ladies turn private-sounding joy into a social celebration.