Farai un vers de dreit nïen;
Non er de mi ni d’autra gen,
Non er d’amor ni de joven
Ni de ren au,
Qu’enans fo trobatz en durmen
Sus un chivau.

I’ll do a song about nothing at all;
It won’t be about me nor about others,
It won’t be about love nor about happiness
Nor about anything else
For it was composed earlier while (I was) sleeping
On a horse.

William VII, Count of Poitiers, in The Poetry of William VII, Count of Poitiers, IX Duke of Aquitaine, translated by Gerald A. Bond