One than Helen yet more fair,
Loveliest blossom of the May,
Rose tints hath and sunny hair,
And a gracious mien and gay;
Heart that scorneth all disguise,
Lips where pearls of truth are hung:
God who gives all sovereignties
Knows her like was never sung.
Loveliest blossom of the May,
Rose tints hath and sunny hair,
And a gracious mien and gay;
Heart that scorneth all disguise,
Lips where pearls of truth are hung:
God who gives all sovereignties
Knows her like was never sung.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v20 - Phi to Qui
It involved the absolute devo-
tion of life, wit, and prowess to the service of a formally chosen lady-
love; and was as much a part of the sacramental obligations of a
full-made knight as the service of God and of his feudal seigneur.
The art in which this love found expression was thus essentially an
aristocratic one; reserved for the practice of those who were either
élite by birth and fortune, or ennobled by the possession of rare
poetic gifts. Marriage was no part of its aim, and was never once,
in the case of any well-known troubadour, its dénouement. The
minstrel's lady was quite regularly the wife of another man; often of
his feudal lord or sovereign ruler. The scope for tragedy and crime
afforded by so fantastic a relation is obvious, and history has plenty
to tell of the calamities which attended it in particular cases. Yet
the austere ideal was never totally eclipsed; and that it survived the
final disappearance of the troubadour as a court-minstrel and titu-
lar lover, we have abundant proof in the mystic lauds addressed by
Dante to Beatrice and by Petrarch to Laura.
•
For the rest, the precocious perfection of form exhibited by some
of the earliest troubadour songs which we possess, is not quite as
miraculous as at first sight it appears. The main points in the mech-
anism of troubadour verse, both in its earlier and simpler, and in its
later and highly elaborate developments, are two: strong tonic accents
- mostly iambic, though sometimes of trochaic lines- and termi-
nal rhymes. By these features it is radically distinguished from the
## p. 11873 (#503) ##########################################
PROVENÇAL LITERATURE
11873
quantitative measures of classic Greece and Rome; and in these
respects it has furnished the model for almost all modern European
poetry. But the rustic and popular poetry of the Latin race had
been, from the first, a poetry of accent: and the tradition of it had
been handed down through the early hymns of the Christian Church,
and the rude staves and ballads trolled from town to town and from
castle to castle during the Dark Ages, by the joculatores or jongleurs;
those vagrant mimes and minstrels who played so large a part after-
wards, in diffusing and popularizing the more refined compositions of
the troubadours. Rhyme, on the other hand, though it might well
have occurred to anybody as a fitting ornament of song,-rhyming
words and syllables being exactly as obvious and essential a form of
harmony as musical chords,- was very probably borrowed immedi-
ately from that Arabian verse in which it is so lavishly employed,
during the long sojourn of the Saracens in Southern Europe.
It seems a curious freak of philological fate whereby a literature
so juvenile and impulsive as that of the troubadours, so destitute of
connected thought, and at the same time so instinct with emotions,
so that the very stress of feeling often renders its utterances vague,
stammering, and all but unintelligible, should have become — largely
by virtue of its important historical position midway between the
written word of ancient Rome and that of modern France a favorite
and hard-trodden field for dry research, grammatical quibbling, and
controversy on technical points. But so it is. Every sigh of the
troubadour minstrel has been analyzed, and every trill conjugated.
Yet when all has been said and read, the reader's appreciation of this
unique body of song will have to depend rather more upon personal
divination and temperamental sympathy than upon any laboriously
acquired skill in interpretation. Even for the name and lineage of
many of the most famous and successful finders, as well as for the
incidents of their lives, we are mainly dependent upon two sets of
brief biographies, compiled by nameless monks, one in the twelfth
and one in the fourteenth century. Of these cloistered authors, the
earlier was no doubt contemporary with a certain number of his sub-
jects; but we may safely conclude that they both adorned their
facts, to some extent, with fancy and with fable. In selecting, out of
a hundred or two of these romantic lives, a few as typical of all, we
may think ourselves fortunate if, as in the case of the name that
heads all the lists, the poet be a sufficiently exalted personage to have
had a place in general history, and to have borne a part in the lead-
ing events of his time.
―――
William IX. , Count of Poitiers and Duke of Aquitaine, was born
in the year 1071, and succeeded in his fifteenth year to the sover-
eignty of a region comprising, besides Gascony and the southern half
XX-743
## p. 11874 (#504) ##########################################
11874
PROVENÇAL LITERATURE
of Aquitaine, Limousin, Berry, and Auvergne. Almost alone among
the great lords of southern France, he resisted the call of Raymond
of Toulouse to the First Crusade in 1095; but when in the last year
of the century the great news arrived of the capture of Jerusalem,
and an appeal was made for the reinforcement of the small garrison
left in the Holy Land, William was overborne, and prepared, though
still reluctantly, to go. His amours had been numerous, and he
had already written love songs,- many of which are licentious to a
degree, though some few reflect in sweet and simple strains the
most refined ideals of chivalry.
Now, on the eve of his departure for the East, early in 1101, he
composed a farewell to Provence, being haunted by a sad presenti-
ment that he should see that fair land no more. His foreboding was
not realized. He came back unscathed at the end of two years, after
many wild adventures and narrow escapes, and wrote a burlesque
account in verse (which has not survived) of his experiences in Pales-
tine. He lived until 1127, and made ruthless war in his later years
upon his young and defenseless neighbor, Alphonse Jourdain of Tou-
louse, for the sovereignty of that province. Alphonse was a son of
the heroic Raymond, the leader of the first crusade, born in the
Holy Land and baptized in the Jordan,-whence his surname. A
daughter of his was distinguished by the tuneful homage of a trou-
badour named Guiraud le Roux, of knightly rank but poor, who had
taken service at Alphonse's court. This Guiraud is remarkable as
being the only troubadour on record who loved but one woman; and
there is a quality about his whimsical and subtle but always irre-
proachable verses which reminds one a little of the Elizabethan lyric.
William IX. of Poitiers was succeeded by his son William X. ; and
he in turn was the father of one of the most illustrious women of
her age,
a great patroness of the troubadours, and past-mistress
of all that nebulous lore which was made the absurd matter of sol-
emn discussion and adjudication in the so-called Courts of Love. This
was no other than the beautiful and stately Eleanor,- Princess of
Aquitaine and Duchess of Normandy, first married to Louis VII.
of France, then divorced and married to Henry II. of England,― the
merciless but by no means immaculate censor of the fair Rosamond
Clifford, and the mother of Richard of the Lion Heart. She was
already married to Henry, who was ten years her junior; but she
had not yet visited England when she welcomed and installed as
her formal worshiper at the Norman court one of the most famous
and prolific of all the troubadours,—a true poet, though a light and
inconstant lover,— Bernard of Ventadour. Very humbly born, the
son in fact of the castle baker, Bernard's exquisite talent was early
discovered by his master, Ebles III. of Ventadour, who is described
――――
## p. 11875 (#505) ##########################################
PROVENÇAL LITERATURE
11875
in the old chronicles as having "loved, even to old age, the songs of
alacrity. " Ebles not only educated the boy, but permitted and even
encouraged him, for a long time, to afficher himself as the adorer
of his own youthful second wife, Adelaide of Montpellier. The day
came, however, when the youth's homage was suddenly discovered to
have passed the proper ceremonial bounds; and he was abruptly dis-
missed, to take new service in Normandy. It is next to impossible
to separate, in his remains, the songs of the two periods: Adelaide
or Eleanor, it is all virtually one. The limpid stream of babbling
minstrelsy flows on for some forty years, always dulcet and delicate,
sometimes lightly pathetic, but reflecting indifferently the image of
either lady. Within the long period of Bernard's placid ascendency
were comprised the rapid and fiery careers of two men of a very
different stamp,- the most tragical figures in all the miscellaneous
choir.
Jaufré Rudel, the Prince of Blaya, fell in love with a certain Count-
ess of Tripoli on the mere rumor of her charms; assumed the cross
for the sole and sacrilegious purpose of meeting her; fell ill upon the
voyage, and on his arrival was recovered from a death-like trance by
his lady's embrace, only to die almost immediately in her arms.
The horrible story of William of Cabestaing would seem quite
beyond belief were it not given circumstantially, and with very slight
variations, by an unusual number of writers. Himself a gallant and
accomplished cavalier, William won such favor in the eyes of the
Lady Margarida, wife of Raymond of Roussillon, that he aroused the
savage jealousy of the latter, who waylaid and slew him, and then
cut out his heart, which he ordered cooked and seasoned and set before
his wife. The hapless lady partook of it; then, on being brutally
told the ghastly truth, she swore that she would never eat again,
sprang past her husband, who had drawn his sword, leaped from the
high balcony of an open window, and perished. Both Raymond and
William were vassals of Alphonse II. of Aragon, himself a trouba-
dour, and a great patron of the art. He had Raymond arrested, and
caused him to die in prison; while the tomb of the lovers before
the door of the church at Perpignan was long a place of pious resort
for the pilgrims of passion in those parts.
A different and less melodramatic interest attaches to the names
of the two Arnauts,— Arnaut Daniel and Arnaut de Maroill: of whom
the former, as we know from Canto xxvi. of the 'Purgatorio,' spoke
in Provençal to Dante when he met him in the shades; while the
latter is mentioned by Petrarch in a canzone as "the less famous
Arnaut. " The distinction seems a strange one: for while the verses
of the former are chiefly remarkable for an extraordinary artificiality
and complexity of rhythm, the latter, who had vowed his devotions
## p. 11876 (#506) ##########################################
11876
PROVENÇAL LITERATURE
to a certain lovely Viscountess of Béziers, was the author of some
of the most exquisitely tender bits of Provençal song which we pos-
sess.
The laborious verbal conceits and metrical intricacies of Dante's
Arnaut were imitated with great ingenuity, and even exaggerated, by
Raimon de Miraval, who fought in the Albigensian war; during which
so many of the local poets and their patrons fell, that a whole civili-
zation seemed to perish with them. That cruel contest may be held
to mark the beginning of the end of the Provençal school of song.
The name of a woman, the Countess Die,-who also, like the
royal Eleanor, presided over a Court of Love,- remains attached to
one plaintive lament much admired in its day; and another woman,
though unnamed, was the author of the most artless and impassioned
of all the peculiar class of poems known as albas or morning-songs.
Another very beautiful alba was written by Guiraut de Borneil, of
whom it is said by his ancient biographer that he composed the first
true chanson, all previous poets having made verses only. He won a
weightier kind of renown by the virile force and fire of his sirventes,
- didactic or satiric pieces,-in which he mourned the accumulated
misfortunes of his country, or lashed the crimes and vices of the men
who had brought her to the verge of ruin.
Contemporary with Guiraut was another intrepid censor of the
corruptions of his time, Peire Cardinal; of whom we have a satire
beginning with the burning words, "Who desires to hear a sirventes
woven of grief and embroidered with anger? I have spun it al-
ready, and I can make its warp and woof! " Both these brave men
died not far from the year 1230, and the course of Provençal liter-
ature after their day is one of steady deterioration.
Начнет политикой
BIBLIOGRAPHY. — There is no adequate history in English of the
elder Provençal literature; nothing to compare, for instance, with
Friedrich Diez's 'Leben und Werke der Troubadours. ' This has
been brought quite up to date in the revision of Bartsch (1883), and
includes also copious poetical versions. The chief general treatises in
English are Rutherford's Troubadours' (London, 1873), and Hüffer's
'Troubadours' (London, 1878). More accessible and quite as trust-
worthy is the article in the Britannica' on Provençal literature.
The curiosity of the modern reader as to the social conditions
which created and upheld the so-called Courts of Love, is best grati-
fied by J. F. Rowbotham's 'The Troubadours and Courts of Love,'
## p. 11877 (#507) ##########################################
PROVENÇAL LITERATURE
11877
one of the series entitled 'Social England' (Macmillan, New York,
1895). Another interesting and recent work is Ida Farnell's 'Lives of
the Troubadours,' translated from Provençal sources. This little
book is illustrated with poetical English versions. Miss Preston's
own volume, 'Troubadours and Trouvères' (Roberts Brothers, Boston,
1876) is devoted, in spite of its title, chiefly to Jasmin and the more
recent Provençal poets of this century. The chapter on the Trou-
badours (pages 151 to 231) is largely made up of spirited versions,
which are in part repeated, in revised form, in the course of the
present article.
For those who wish to study the Provençal texts in the original,
the most convenient collection is Karl Appel's 'Chrestomathie' (Leip-
zig, 1895). There is an elementary introduction to the old Provençal
language by Kitchin.
[The dates at the head of these pieces represent, approximately, the time
within which the several authors wrote. ]
GUILLAUME DE POITIERS
(1190-1227)
B
I
EHOLD the meads are green again,
The orchard-bloom is seen again,
Of sky and stream the mien again
Is mild, is bright!
Now should each heart that loves obtain
Its own delight.
But I will say no ill of love,
However slight my guerdon prove;
Repining doth not me behove:
And yet—to know
How lightly she I fain would move
Might bliss bestow!
There are who hold my folly great,
Because with little hope I wait;
But one old saw doth animate
And me assure:
Their hearts are high, their might is great,
Who well endure.
Translation of H. W. P.
## p. 11878 (#508) ##########################################
11878
PROVENÇAL LITERATURE
II
DESIRE of song hath taken me,
But sorrowful must my song be;
No more pay I my fealty
In Limousin or Poitiers,
Since I go forth to exile far,
And leave my son to stormy war,
To fear and peril; for they are
No friends who dwell about him there.
What wonder then my heart is sore
That Poitiers I see no more,
And Fulk of Anjou must implore
To guard his kinsman and my heir?
If he of Anjou shield him not,
And he who made me knight, I wot
Many against the boy will plot,
Deeming him well-nigh in despair.
Nay, if he be not wondrous wise,
And gay, and ready for emprise,
Gascons and Angevins will rise,
And him into the dust will bear.
Ah, I was brave and I had fame,
But we are sundered, all the same!
I go to Him in whose great name
Confide all sinners everywhere.
Surrendering all that did elate
My heart,—all pride of steed or state,—
To Him on whom the pilgrims wait,
Without more tarrying, I repair.
Forgive me, comrade most my own,
If aught of wrong I thee have done!
I lift to Jesus on his throne
In Latin and Románs my prayer.
Oh, I was gallant, I was glad,
Till my Lord spake, and me forbade;
But now the end is coming sad,
Nor can I more my burden bear.
## p. 11879 (#509) ##########################################
PROVENÇAL LITERATURE
11879
Good friends, when that indeed I die,
Pay me due honor where I lie:
Tell how in love and luxury
I triumphed still,- or here or there.
But farewell now, love, luxury,
And silken robes and miniver!
C
GUIRAUD LE ROUX
(1110-1147)
OME, lady, to my song incline,
The last that shall assail thine ear.
Translation of H. W. P.
None other cares my strains to hear,
And scarce thou feign'st thyself therewith delighted!
Nor know I well if I am loved or slighted;
But this I know, thou radiant one and sweet,
That, loved or spurned, I die before thy feet!
Yea, I will yield this life of mine
In very deed, if cause appear,
Without another boon to cheer.
Honor it is to be by thee incited
To any deed; and I, when most benighted
By doubt, remind me that times change and fleet,
And brave men still do their occasion meet.
N°
(1140-1195)
BERNARD DE VENTADOUR
Translation of H. W. P.
O MARVEL is it if I sing
Better than other minstrels all,
For more than they am I love's thrall,
And all myself therein I fling:
Knowledge and sense, body and soul,
And whatso power I have beside:
The rein that doth my being guide
Impels me to this only goal!
## p. 11880 (#510) ##########################################
11880
PROVENÇAL LITERATURE
His heart is dead whence doth not spring
Love's odor sweet and magical;
His life doth ever on him pall
Who knoweth not that blessed thing:
Yea, God who doth my life control
Were cruel, did he bid me bide
A month or even a day, denied
The love whose rapture I extol.
How keen, how exquisite the sting
Of that sweet odor! At its call
An hundred times a day I fall
And faint; an hundred rise and sing!
So fair the semblance of my dole,
'Tis lovelier than another's pride:
If such the ill doth me betide,
Good hap were more than I could thole!
Yet haste, kind Heaven, the sundering
True swains from false, great hearts from small!
The traitor in the dust bid crawl,
The faithless to confession bring!
Ah, if I were the master sole
Of all earth's treasures multiplied,
To see my lady satisfied
Of my pure faith, I'd give the whole!
II
WHEN I behold on eager wing
The skylark soaring to the sun,
Till e'en with rapture faltering
He sinks in glad oblivion,
Alas, how fain to seek were I
The same ecstatic fate of fire!
Yea, of a truth, I know not why
My heart melts not with its desire!
Methought that I knew everything
Of love. Alas, my lore was none!
For helpless now my praise I bring
To one who still that praise doth shun;
One who hath robbed me utterly
Of soul, of self, of life entire,
So that my heart can only cry
For that it ever shall require.
## p. 11881 (#511) ##########################################
PROVENÇAL LITERATURE
11881
For ne'er have I of self been king
Since the first hour, so long agone,
When to thine eyes bewildering,
As to a mirror, I was drawn.
There let me gaze until I die;
So doth my soul of sighing tire,
As at the fount, in days gone by,
The fair Narcissus did expire.
III
A
WHEN the sweet breeze comes blowing
From where thy country lies,
Meseems I am foreknowing
The airs of Paradise.
So is my heart o'erflowing
For that fair one and wise
Who hath the glad bestowing
Of life's whole energies;
For whom I agonize
Whithersoever going.
I mind the beauty glowing,
The fair and haughty eyes,
Which, all my will o'erthrowing,
Made me their sacrifice.
Whatever mien thou'rt showing,
Why should I this disguise?
Yet let me ne'er be ruing
One of thine old replies:-
"Man's daring wins the prize,
But fear is his undoing. "
Translation of H. W. P.
RICHARD CŒUR DE LION
(1169–1199)
H! CERTES will no prisoner tell his tale
Fitly, unless as one whom woes befall;
Still, as a solace, songs may much avail:
Friends I have many, yet the gifts are small,
Shame! that because to ransom me they fail,
I've pined two years in thrall.
-
## p. 11882 (#512) ##########################################
11882
PROVENÇAL LITERATURE
But all my liegemen in fair Normandy,
In England, Poitou, Gascony, know well
That not my meanest follower would I
Leave for gold's sake in prison-house to dwell;
Reproach I neither kinsman nor ally,-
Yet I am still in thrall.
Alas! I may as certain truth rehearse,
Nor kin nor friends have captives and the dead:
'Tis bad for me, but for my people worse,
If to desert me they through gold are led;
After my death, 'twill be to them a curse
If they leave me in thrall.
No marvel, then, if I am sad at heart
Each day my lord disturbs my country more;
Has he forgot that he too had a part
In the deep oath which before God we swore?
But yet in truth I know, I shall not smart
Much longer here in thrall.
Blackwood's Magazine, February 1836.
GUILLAUME DE CABESTAING
(1181-1196)
I
SEE the days are long and glad;
On every tree are countless flowers,
And merry birds sing in the bowers,
Which bitter cold so long made sad:
But now upon the highest hills,
Each amid flowers and sparkling rills,
After his manner takes delight.
And therefore I rejoice once more
That joy of love should warm my breast,
And lay my sweet desires to rest.
As serpent from false sycamore,
I from false coldness speed me ever;
Yet for love's sake, which cheers me never,
All other joys seem vain and light.
## p. 11883 (#513) ##########################################
PROVENÇAL LITERATURE
11883
Never since Adam plucked the fruit
Whence thousand woes our race oppress,
Was seen on earth such loveliness.
The body, formed that face to suit,
Is polished more than amethyst;
Her very beauty makes me tryst,
Since she of me takes little heed.
Ah, never shall there come a time
When love, that now inflames my heart,
Shall struggle from her to depart.
As plants, even in a wintry clime,
When the sun shines regain new life,
So her sweet smiles, with gladness rife,
Deck me with love, as plants with flower.
I love so madly, many die
From less, and now my hour seems near.
For though my love's to me most dear,
In vain for help or hope I sigh.
A fire upon my heart is fed,
The Nile could quench no more than thread
Of finest silk support a tower.
Alas that I must still lament
The pains that from love ever flow;
That baffled hope and ceaseless woe
All color from my cheek have sent.
But white as snow shall be my hair,
And I a trembling dotard, ere
Of my best lady I complain.
How oft, from lady's love we see
The fierce and wicked change their mood;
How oft is he most kind and good
Who, did he not love tenderly,
Would be each passion's wayward slave.
Thus am I meek with good and brave,
But haughty to the bad and vain.
Thus with delight each cherished woe I dree,
And sweet as manna seems slight joy to me.
Blackwood's Magazine, February 1836.
## p. 11884 (#514) ##########################################
11884
PROVENÇAL LITERATURE
II
THERE is who spurns the leaf, and turns
The stateliest flower of all to cull:
So on life's topmost bough sojourns
My lady; the most beautiful!
Whom with his own nobility
Our Lord hath graced, so she may move
In glorious worth our lives above,
Yet soft with all humility.
Her pleading look my spirit shook,
And won my fealty long ago;
My heart's blood stronger impulse took,
Freshening my colors. And yet so,
No otherwise discovering
My love, I bode. Now, lady mine,
At last, before thy throngèd shrine,
I also lay my offering.
III
THE visions tender
Which thy love giveth me,
Still bid me render
My vows, in song, to thee;
Gracious and slender,
Thine image I can see,
Wherever I wend, or
What eyes do look on me.
Yea, in the frowning face
Of uttermost disgrace,
Proud would I take my place
Before thy feet,
Lady, whose aspect sweet
Doth my poor self efface,
And leave but joy and praise.
Who shall deny me
The memory of thine eyes?
Evermore by me
Thy lithe white form doth rise.
## p. 11885 (#515) ##########################################
PROVENÇAL LITERATURE
11885
If God were nigh me
Alway, in so sure wise,
Quick might I hie me
Into his Paradise!
Ο
COMTESSE DE DIE
Translations of H. W. P.
(TWELFTH CENTURY)
F THAT I would not, I, alas! must sing,
He whom I love has caused me such deep pain:
For though I love him more than earthly thing,
My love and courtesy but meet disdain,
And beauty, merit, wit, are all in vain;
But I must mourn as hopelessly and long
As if I wittingly had done him wrong.
It comforts me, sweet friend, to think that never
Have I 'gainst you in word or deed transgressed:
More than Seguis Valens* I loved you ever,
And that my love surpasses yours I'm blessed;
For you are worthier far, O dearest, best.
You're proud to me in conduct, speech, and air,
But to all others kind and debonaire.
It marvels me, sweet friend, that you can feel
Towards me that pride that cuts me to the heart:
All wrong it were that any dame should steal
Your love from me, whate'er may be her art;
And never let the memory depart
Of what our love once was. Mother divine!
Forbid that coldness sprang from fault of mine.
Your prowess which all others hold so dear,
Your fame, disquiet me with their bright shine;
For not a lady, whether far or near,
But will, if e'er she love, to you incline.
But you, sweet friend, ah! well might you divine
Where beats the heart more tender than them all:
Forget not former vows, whate'er befall.
* Seguis and Valens were the hero and heroine of a romance of that day.
## p. 11886 (#516) ##########################################
11886
PROVENÇAL LITERATURE
Much should pure fame, much should desert avail,
My beauty much, but truth and love far more;
Therefore send I this song to bid you hail,
And in your ear my thoughts and hopes to pour.
I fain would know, O friend that I adore!
Why you to me are ever harsh and cold:
Is't pride or hate, or think you me too bold?
All this my message bears, and this beside,
That many suffer from excess of pride.
Blackwood's Magazine, February 1836.
So
ARNAUT DE MAROILL
(1170-1200)
OFTLY sighs the April air
With the coming of the May;
Of the tranquil night aware,
Murmur nightingale and jay;
Then, when dewy dawn doth rise,
Every bird, in his own tongue,
Wakes his mate with happy cries,-
All their joy abroad is flung.
Gladness, lo, is everywhere,
When the first leaf sees the day:
And shall I alone despair,
Turning from sweet love away?
Something to my heart replies
Thou too wast for rapture strung:
Wherefore else the dreams that rise
Round thee, when the year is young?
One than Helen yet more fair,
Loveliest blossom of the May,
Rose tints hath and sunny hair,
And a gracious mien and gay;
Heart that scorneth all disguise,
Lips where pearls of truth are hung:
God who gives all sovereignties
Knows her like was never sung.
Though she lead through long despair,
I would never say her nay,
## p. 11887 (#517) ##########################################
PROVENÇAL LITERATURE
11887
If one kiss-reward how rare! -
Each new trial might repay.
Swift returns I'd then devise,
Many laborers but not iong;
Following so fair a prize,
I could never more go wrong.
RAIMON DE MIRAVAL
(1190-1200)
Translation of H. W. P.
F
AIR summer-time doth me delight,
And song of birds delights no less;
Meadows delight in their green dress,
Delight the trees in verdure bright;
And far, far more delights thy graciousness,
Lady, and I to do thy will, delight.
Yet be not this delight my final boon,
Or I of my desire shall perish soon!
For that desire most exquisite
Of all desires, I live in stress
Desire of thy rich comeliness;
Oh, come, and my desire requite!
Though doubling that desire by each caress,
Is my desire not single in thy sight?
Let me not then, desiring sink undone;
To love's high joys, desire be rather prone!
No alien joy will I invite,
But joy in thee, to all excess:
Joy in thy grace, nor e'en confess
Whatso might do my joy despite.
So deep my joy, my lady, no distress
That joy shall master; for thy beauty's light
Such joy hath shed, for each day it hath shone,
Joyless I cannot be while I live on.
Translation of H. W. P.
## p. 11888 (#518) ##########################################
11888
PROVENÇAL LITERATURE
ALBA-AUTHOR UNKNOWN
(TWELFTH CENTURY)
UNE
NDER the hawthorns of an orchard lawn,
She laid her head her lover's breast upon,
Silent, until the guard should cry the dawn;
Ah God! ah God! Why comes the day so soon?
I would the night might never have passed by!
So wouldst thou not have left me, at the cry
Of yonder warder to the whitening sky;-
Ah God! ah God! Why comes the day so soon?
One kiss more, sweetheart, ere the melodies
Of early birds from all the fields arise!
One more, without a thought of jealous eyes! —
Ah God! ah God! Why comes the day so soon?
And yet one more, under the garden wall,
For now the birds begin their festival,
And the day wakens at the warder's call;-
Ah God! ah God! Why comes the day so soon?
-
'Tis o'er! O dearest, noblest, knightliest,
The breeze that greets thy going fans my breast!
I quaff it, as thy breath, and I am blest! —
Ah God! ah God! Why comes the day so soon?
Fair was the lady, and her fame was wide;
And many knights for her dear favor sighed;
But leal the heart out of whose depths she cried,-
Ah God! ah God! Why comes the day so soon?
Translation of H. W. P.
ALBA-GUIRAUT DE BORNEIL
(1175-1230)
Α΄
LL-GLORIOUS King! True light of all below!
Thou who canst all! If it may please thee so,
The comrade of my soul from danger screen;
Whom all the darkling hours I have not seen,
And now the dawn is near.
Dear comrade, wakest thou, or sleepest yet?
Oh, sleep no more, but rouse thee, nor forget
## p. 11889 (#519) ##########################################
PROVENÇAL LITERATURE
11889
The herald signal in the brightening east,
The star of day that I behold increased-
For now the dawn is near.
Dear comrade, hark my summons, I implore!
The little birds are waking,- sleep no more!
Through all the wood they clamor for the day;
Let not yon jealous foe thy steps waylay,
For now the dawn is near.
Dear comrade, rouse thee! Throw thy window wide!
See writ in heaven the harm that may betide:
A trusty guardian in thy comrade own,
Or else, alas, the woe will be thine own;
For now the dawn is near.
Dear comrade, since at nightfall we did part,
Slept have I none, but prayed with fervent heart
The son of holy Mary to restore
My loyal fellow to my side once more:
And now the day is near.
Dear comrade, yonder by the frowning keep,
Didst thou not warn me never once to sleep?
Now have I watched all night. Thou doest me wrong
Thus to disdain the singer and the song;
For now the dawn is near.
Sweet comrade mine, I am so rich in bliss,
Naught reck I of the morns to follow this!
I clasp the loveliest one of mother born,
And care no longer, in my happy scorn,
If dawn or foe draw near!
A
Translation of H. W. P.
ALBA- BERTRAND D'AAMANON
(END OF TWELFTH CENTURY)
KNIGHT was sitting by her side.
He loved more than aught else beside;
And as he kissed her, often sighed :-
Ah, dearest, now am I forlorn,
Night is away - alas, 'tis morn!
Ah, woe!
XX-744
## p. 11890 (#520) ##########################################
11890
PROVENÇAL LITERATURE
Already has the warder cried,
"Up and begone, 'tis now bright day.
The dawn has passed away. "
Ah, dearest love! it were a thing
Sweet beyond all imagining,
If naught could day or dawning bring
There, where, caressing and caressed,
A lover clasps her he loves best.
Ah, woe!
Hark! what must end our communing!
"Up and begone, 'tis now bright day-
The dawn has passed away. "
-
Dearest, whate'er you hear, believe
That nothing on the earth can grieve
Like him who must his true love leave:
This from myself I know aright.
Alas, how swiftly flies the night!
Ah, woe!
The warder's cry gives no reprieve:
"Up and begone, 'tis now bright day —
The dawn has passed away. "
I go! Farewell, sweet love, to thee,
Yours I am still, where'er I be.
Oh, I beseech you think on me!
For here will dwell my heart of hearts,
Nor leave you till its life departs.
Ah, woe!
The warder cries impatiently,
"Up and begone! 'tis now bright day—
The dawn has passed away. "
Unless I soon to you can fly,
Dearest, I'll lay me down and die;
So soon will love my heart's springs dry.
Ah! soon will I return again—
Life without you is only pain.
Ah, woe!
Hark to the warder's louder cry!
"Up and begone! 'tis now bright day-
The dawn is passed away. "
-
Blackwood's Magazine, February 1836.
## p. 11891 (#521) ##########################################
11891
LUIGI PULCI
(1431-1486)
teenth century.
ITTLE creative work was done in Italian literature in the fif-
Students loved rather to revive the ancient
classics; and the Italian language came to be regarded as a
tongue too plebeian for the expression of lofty conceptions. Luigi
Pulci is one of the few poets of that century who held in honor the
Tuscan dialect.
-
Pulci was born in 1431, and died (according to most authorities) in
1486. His life seems to have had no importance in the political his-
tory of his times; but in literature he prepared the way for Berni
and for Ariosto, and established for himself a firm position as the
author of 'Il Morgante Maggiore' (Morgante the Giant), a burlesque
epic in twenty-eight cantos. He was a warm friend of Lorenzo de'
Medici, the Magnificent, whose mother, Lucrezia Tornabuoni, he
says, urged and inspired him in the composition of this work. The
romances of Carlovingian chivalry had acquired at the time wonderful
popularity in Italy; by which popularity Pulci was half maddened,
half amused. With infinite delight he gave his mocking imagination
free play; and in 'Il Morgante Maggiore' he turns into good-natured
ridicule the combats and exploits which form the scheme of the medi-
æval epic.
The poem has three heroes,- Roland, Rinaldo, and Charlemagne;
and a dramatis persona of such proportions that adventures become
as numerous as are the sands of the sea. Time and space are here
more successfully annihilated than in these days of steam and of
electricity. The journey to France from Persia or Babylon is accom-
plished with a speed which staggers the modern world.
'Il Morgante Maggiore' treats of the time when Roland, enraged
by the relations which have sprung up between Charlemagne and
Gano di Maganza, leaves the court of the Emperor, to which he is
bound as a paladin, and journeys in foreign lands. At the outset of
his trip he comes to a monastery assaulted by three giants of fabu-
lous proportions: Roland confronts two of these and kills them; the
third, Morgante, he converts to Christianity, and carries with him as
a companion. Though not its principal personage, this giant, Mor-
gante, gives his name to the epic. He and Roland proceed together;
## p. 11892 (#522) ##########################################
11892
LUIGI PULCI
but in Persia, Roland is taken prisoner. On his liberation he becomes
Sultan of Babylon, which empire he after a short time relinquishes,
mastered by his old hatred of Gano, to fight whom he returns to
France. Charlemagne, as soon as he learned of the flight of his dear
Roland, sends in quest of him Rinaldo, Ulivieri, and Dodoni, each of
whom has marvelous experiences. Ulivieri converts to Christianity
a Saracen princess, Meridiana, who falls in love with him; Rinaldo
wrests the throne from Charlemagne, and in deference to his advanced
years, returns it to him,-forgiving, on the ground of senility, his
faith in Gano. Morgante too has now set out in search of his lost
Roland, taking with him a giant called Margutte. Their congenial
companionship, however, is terminated by an unusual catastrophe.
Margutte, after a lavish feast, falls into a heavy sleep. Morgante, for
the sake of having a little sport when his companion wakes, takes off
Margutte's boots and hides them; but they are found by a monkey,
who, enchanted by this new toy, amuses herself by putting them on
and drawing them off. She continues this amusement so long that
Margutte wakes and sees her; at which he is attacked by such vio-
lent laughter that his body bursts open. Morgante dies a less hilarious
death, occasioned by the bite of a crawfish on his heel. This poem,
with the disconnected paths of its heroes and its isolated events, can
scarcely claim any unity of conception. The moving power of the
story is, however, the malignity of Gano di Maganza; and this holds
together with a slender thread the arbitrary incidents of the story,
weaving them into a fascinatingly bizarre pattern. The climax of the
poem is the death of Roland in the narrow valley of Roncesvalles,
and the death by torture of Gano, whose infidelity Charlemagne can
no longer doubt.
In the midst of extravagant buffooneries, Pulci often pauses, and
by a line of finest pathos reveals himself a true poet. While ridicul-
ing the troubadours with grotesque humor, he suddenly brightens his
descriptions by a gleam of human philosophy. He is the author of a
series of sonnets, of a parody on a pastoral poem written by Lorenzo
de' Medici, and also of a novel called 'A Confession to the Holy Vir-
gin. ' His reputation, however, lives entirely through his 'Morgante
Maggiore'; which is interesting as being the first romantic poem
which Italy produced, as well as through the variety of its incident
and the fascination of its style.
## p. 11893 (#523) ##########################################
LUIGI PULCI
11893
THE CONVERSION OF THE GIANT MORGANTE
From the 'Morgante Maggiore ›
B
UT watchful Fortune, lurking, takes good heed
Ever some bar 'gainst our intents to bring.
While Charles reposed him thus, in word and deed
Orlando ruled court, Charles, and everything;
Curst Gan, with envy bursting, had such need
To vent his spite, that thus with Charles the King
One day he openly began to say,—
"Orlando must we always then obey?
"A thousand times I've been about to say,
Orlando too presumptuously goes on.
Here are we, counts, kings, dukes, to own thy sway;
Hamo and Otho, Ogier, Solomon,
Each have to honor thee and to obey:
But he has too much credit near the throne;
Which we won't suffer, but are quite decided
By such a boy to be no longer guided.
"And even at Aspramont thou didst begin
To let him know he was a gallant knight,
And by the fount did much the day to win;
But I know who that day had won the fight
If it had not for good Gherardo been:
The victory was Almonte's else; his sight
He kept upon the standard, and the laurels
In fact and fairness are his earning, Charles.
"If thou rememberest being in Gascony,
When there advanced the nations out of Spain,
The Christian cause had suffered shamefully,
Had not his valor driven them back again.
Best speak the truth when there's a reason why:
Know then, O Emperor! that all complain;
As for myself, I shall repass the mounts
O'er which I crossed with two-and-sixty counts.
"Tis fit my grandeur should dispense relief,
So that each here may have his proper part,
For the whole court is more or less in grief:
Perhaps thou deem'st this lad a Mars in heart? »
## p. 11894 (#524) ##########################################
11894
LUIGI PULCI
Orlando one day heard this speech in brief,
As by himself it chanced he sat apart:
Displeased he was with Gan because he said it,
But much more still that Charles should give him credit.
And with the sword he would have murdered Gan,
But Oliver thrust in between the pair,
And from his hand extracted Durlindan,
And thus at length they separated were.
Orlando, angry too with Carloman,
Wanted but little to have slain him there;
Then forth alone from Paris went the chief,
And burst and maddened with disdain and grief.
Then full of wrath departed from the place,
And far as pagan countries roamed astray,
And while he rode, yet still at every pace
The traitor Gan remembered by the way;
And wandering on in error a long space,
An abbey which in a lone desert lay,
'Midst glens obscure and distant lands, he found,
Which formed the Christian's and the pagan's bound.
The abbot was called Clermont, and by blood
Descended from Angrante; under cover
Of a great mountain's brow the abbey stood,
But certain savage giants looked him over:
One Passamont was foremost of the brood,
And Alabaster and Morgante hover
Second and third, with certain slings, and throw
In daily jeopardy the place below.
The monks could pass the convent gate no more,
Nor leave their cells for water or for wood.
Orlando knocked, but none would ope, before
Unto the prior it at length seemed good;
Entered, he said that he was taught to adore
Him who was born of Mary's holiest blood,
And was baptized a Christian; and then showed
How to the abbey he had found his road.
Said the abbot, "You are welcome; what is mine
We give you freely, since that you believe
With us in Mary Mother's son divine;
And that you may not, cavalier, conceive
## p. 11895 (#525) ##########################################
LUIGI PULCI
11895
The cause of our delay to let you in
To be rusticity, you shall receive
The reason why our gate was barred to you;-
Thus those who in suspicion live must do.
"When hither to inhabit first we came
These mountains, albeit that they are obscure,
As you perceive, yet without fear or blame
They seemed to promise an asylum sure;
From savage brutes alone, too fierce to tame,
'Twas fit our quiet dwelling to secure;
But now, if here we'd stay, we needs must guard
Against domestic beasts with watch and ward.
"These make us stand, in fact, upon the watch;
For late there have appeared three giants rough:
What nation or what kingdom bore the batch
I know not; but they are all of savage stuff.
When force and malice with some genius match,
You know they can do all-we are not enough;
And these so much our orisons derange,
I know not what to do till matters change.
"Our ancient fathers living the desert in,
For just and holy works were duly fed;
Think not they lived on locusts sole,- 'tis certain
That manna was rained down from heaven instead:
But here tis fit we keep on the alert in
[bread,
Our bounds, or taste the stones showered down for
From oft yon mountain daily raining faster,
And flung by Passamont and Alabaster.
"The third, Morgante, 's savagest by far: he
Plucks up pines, beeches, poplar-trees, and oaks,
And flings them, our community to bury;
And all that I can do but more provokes. "
While thus they parley in the cemetery,
A stone from one of their gigantic strokes,
Which nearly crushed Rondell, came tumbling over,
So that he took a long leap under cover.
"For God's sake, cavalier, come in with speed!
The manna's falling now," the abbot cried.
"This fellow does not wish my horse should feed,
Dear abbot," Roland unto him replied:
## p. 11896 (#526) ##########################################
11896
LUIGI PULCI
"Of restiveness he'd cure him had he need;
That stone seems with good will and aim applied. »
The holy father said, "I don't deceive:
They'll one day fling the mountain, I believe. »
Orlando bade them take care of Rondello,
And also made a breakfast of his own.
"Abbot," he said, "I want to find that fellow
Who flung at my good horse yon corner-stone. "
Said the abbot, "Let not my advice seem shallow,—
As to a brother dear I speak alone:
I would dissuade you, baron, from this strife,
As knowing sure that you will lose your life.
"That Passamont has in his hand three darts,-
Such slings, clubs, ballast-stones, that yield you must;
You know that giants have much stouter hearts
Than we, with reason, in proportion just:
If go you will, guard well against their arts,
For these are very barbarous and robust. "
Orlando answered, "This I'll see, be sure,
And walk the wild on foot to be secure. "
The abbot signed the great cross on his front:
"Then go you with God's benison and mine! "
Orlando, after he had scaled the mount,
As the abbot had directed, kept the line
Right to the usual haunt of Passamont;
Who, seeing him alone in this design,
Surveyed him fore and aft with eyes observant,
Then asked him "if he wished to stay as servant? "
And promised him an office of great ease.
But said Orlando, "Saracen insane!
I come to kill you, if it shall so please
God, not to serve as footboy in your train:
You with his monks so oft have broke the peace-
Vile dog! 'tis past his patience to sustain. »
The giant ran to fetch his arms, quite furious,
When he received an answer so injurious:
And being returned to where Orlando stood,
Who had not moved him from the spot, and swinging
The cord, he hurled a stone with strength so rude
As showed a sample of his skill in slinging;
## p. 11897 (#527) ##########################################
LUIGI PULCI
11897
It rolled on Count Orlando's helmet good
And head, and set both head and helmet ringing,
So that he swooned with pain as if he died,
But more than dead, he seemed so stupefied.
Then Passamont, who thought him slain outright.
Said, "I will go; and while he lies along,
Disarm me: why such craven did I fight? "
But Christ his servants ne'er abandons long,
Especially Orlando, such a knight
As to desert would almost be a wrong.
While the giant goes to put off his defenses,
Orlando has recalled his force and senses.
And loud he shouted, "Giant, where dost go?
Thou thought'st me doubtless for the bier outlaid:
To the right about! — without wings thou'rt too slow
To fly my vengeance, currish renegade!
'Twas but by treachery thou laid'st me low. "
The giant his astonishment betrayed,
And turned about, and stopped his journey on,
And then he stooped to pick up a great stone.
Orlando had Cortana bare in hand;
To split the head in twain was what he schemed.
Cortana clave the skull like a true brand,
And pagan Passamont died unredeemed;
Yet harsh and haughty, as he lay he banned,
And most devoutly Macon still blasphemed:
But while his crude, rude blasphemies he heard,
Orlando thanked the Father and the Word,-
Saying, "What grace to me thou'st given!
And I to thee, O Lord, am ever bound.
I know my life was saved by thee from heaven,
Since by the giant I was fairly downed.
All things by thee are measured just and even;
Our power without thine aid would naught be found.
I pray thee take heed of me, till I can
At least return once more to Carloman. "
And having said thus much, he went his way;
And Alabaster he found out below,
Doing the very best that in him lay
To root from out a bank a rock or two.
## p. 11898 (#528) ##########################################
11898
LUIGI PULCI
Orlando, when he reached him, loud 'gan say,
"How think'st thou, glutton, such a stone to throw? »
When Alabaster heard his deep voice ring,
He suddenly betook him to his sling,
And hurled a fragment of a size so large,
That if it had in fact fulfilled its mission,
And Roland not availed him of his targe,
There would have been no need of a physician.
Orlando set himself in turn to charge,
And in his bulky bosom made incision
With all his sword. The lout fell; but, o'erthrown, he
However by no means forgot Macone.
Morgante had a palace in his mode,
Composed of branches, logs of wood, and earth;
And stretched himself at ease in this abode,
And shut himself at night within his berth.
Orlando knocked, and knocked again, to goad
The giant from his sleep; and he came forth,
The door to open, like a crazy thing,
For a rough dream had shook him slumbering.
He thought that a fierce serpent had attacked him,
And Mahomet he called; but Mahomet
Is nothing worth, and not an instant backed him;
But praying blessed Jesu, he was set
At liberty from all the fears which racked him.
And to the gate he came with great regret:
"Who knocks here?
tion of life, wit, and prowess to the service of a formally chosen lady-
love; and was as much a part of the sacramental obligations of a
full-made knight as the service of God and of his feudal seigneur.
The art in which this love found expression was thus essentially an
aristocratic one; reserved for the practice of those who were either
élite by birth and fortune, or ennobled by the possession of rare
poetic gifts. Marriage was no part of its aim, and was never once,
in the case of any well-known troubadour, its dénouement. The
minstrel's lady was quite regularly the wife of another man; often of
his feudal lord or sovereign ruler. The scope for tragedy and crime
afforded by so fantastic a relation is obvious, and history has plenty
to tell of the calamities which attended it in particular cases. Yet
the austere ideal was never totally eclipsed; and that it survived the
final disappearance of the troubadour as a court-minstrel and titu-
lar lover, we have abundant proof in the mystic lauds addressed by
Dante to Beatrice and by Petrarch to Laura.
•
For the rest, the precocious perfection of form exhibited by some
of the earliest troubadour songs which we possess, is not quite as
miraculous as at first sight it appears. The main points in the mech-
anism of troubadour verse, both in its earlier and simpler, and in its
later and highly elaborate developments, are two: strong tonic accents
- mostly iambic, though sometimes of trochaic lines- and termi-
nal rhymes. By these features it is radically distinguished from the
## p. 11873 (#503) ##########################################
PROVENÇAL LITERATURE
11873
quantitative measures of classic Greece and Rome; and in these
respects it has furnished the model for almost all modern European
poetry. But the rustic and popular poetry of the Latin race had
been, from the first, a poetry of accent: and the tradition of it had
been handed down through the early hymns of the Christian Church,
and the rude staves and ballads trolled from town to town and from
castle to castle during the Dark Ages, by the joculatores or jongleurs;
those vagrant mimes and minstrels who played so large a part after-
wards, in diffusing and popularizing the more refined compositions of
the troubadours. Rhyme, on the other hand, though it might well
have occurred to anybody as a fitting ornament of song,-rhyming
words and syllables being exactly as obvious and essential a form of
harmony as musical chords,- was very probably borrowed immedi-
ately from that Arabian verse in which it is so lavishly employed,
during the long sojourn of the Saracens in Southern Europe.
It seems a curious freak of philological fate whereby a literature
so juvenile and impulsive as that of the troubadours, so destitute of
connected thought, and at the same time so instinct with emotions,
so that the very stress of feeling often renders its utterances vague,
stammering, and all but unintelligible, should have become — largely
by virtue of its important historical position midway between the
written word of ancient Rome and that of modern France a favorite
and hard-trodden field for dry research, grammatical quibbling, and
controversy on technical points. But so it is. Every sigh of the
troubadour minstrel has been analyzed, and every trill conjugated.
Yet when all has been said and read, the reader's appreciation of this
unique body of song will have to depend rather more upon personal
divination and temperamental sympathy than upon any laboriously
acquired skill in interpretation. Even for the name and lineage of
many of the most famous and successful finders, as well as for the
incidents of their lives, we are mainly dependent upon two sets of
brief biographies, compiled by nameless monks, one in the twelfth
and one in the fourteenth century. Of these cloistered authors, the
earlier was no doubt contemporary with a certain number of his sub-
jects; but we may safely conclude that they both adorned their
facts, to some extent, with fancy and with fable. In selecting, out of
a hundred or two of these romantic lives, a few as typical of all, we
may think ourselves fortunate if, as in the case of the name that
heads all the lists, the poet be a sufficiently exalted personage to have
had a place in general history, and to have borne a part in the lead-
ing events of his time.
―――
William IX. , Count of Poitiers and Duke of Aquitaine, was born
in the year 1071, and succeeded in his fifteenth year to the sover-
eignty of a region comprising, besides Gascony and the southern half
XX-743
## p. 11874 (#504) ##########################################
11874
PROVENÇAL LITERATURE
of Aquitaine, Limousin, Berry, and Auvergne. Almost alone among
the great lords of southern France, he resisted the call of Raymond
of Toulouse to the First Crusade in 1095; but when in the last year
of the century the great news arrived of the capture of Jerusalem,
and an appeal was made for the reinforcement of the small garrison
left in the Holy Land, William was overborne, and prepared, though
still reluctantly, to go. His amours had been numerous, and he
had already written love songs,- many of which are licentious to a
degree, though some few reflect in sweet and simple strains the
most refined ideals of chivalry.
Now, on the eve of his departure for the East, early in 1101, he
composed a farewell to Provence, being haunted by a sad presenti-
ment that he should see that fair land no more. His foreboding was
not realized. He came back unscathed at the end of two years, after
many wild adventures and narrow escapes, and wrote a burlesque
account in verse (which has not survived) of his experiences in Pales-
tine. He lived until 1127, and made ruthless war in his later years
upon his young and defenseless neighbor, Alphonse Jourdain of Tou-
louse, for the sovereignty of that province. Alphonse was a son of
the heroic Raymond, the leader of the first crusade, born in the
Holy Land and baptized in the Jordan,-whence his surname. A
daughter of his was distinguished by the tuneful homage of a trou-
badour named Guiraud le Roux, of knightly rank but poor, who had
taken service at Alphonse's court. This Guiraud is remarkable as
being the only troubadour on record who loved but one woman; and
there is a quality about his whimsical and subtle but always irre-
proachable verses which reminds one a little of the Elizabethan lyric.
William IX. of Poitiers was succeeded by his son William X. ; and
he in turn was the father of one of the most illustrious women of
her age,
a great patroness of the troubadours, and past-mistress
of all that nebulous lore which was made the absurd matter of sol-
emn discussion and adjudication in the so-called Courts of Love. This
was no other than the beautiful and stately Eleanor,- Princess of
Aquitaine and Duchess of Normandy, first married to Louis VII.
of France, then divorced and married to Henry II. of England,― the
merciless but by no means immaculate censor of the fair Rosamond
Clifford, and the mother of Richard of the Lion Heart. She was
already married to Henry, who was ten years her junior; but she
had not yet visited England when she welcomed and installed as
her formal worshiper at the Norman court one of the most famous
and prolific of all the troubadours,—a true poet, though a light and
inconstant lover,— Bernard of Ventadour. Very humbly born, the
son in fact of the castle baker, Bernard's exquisite talent was early
discovered by his master, Ebles III. of Ventadour, who is described
――――
## p. 11875 (#505) ##########################################
PROVENÇAL LITERATURE
11875
in the old chronicles as having "loved, even to old age, the songs of
alacrity. " Ebles not only educated the boy, but permitted and even
encouraged him, for a long time, to afficher himself as the adorer
of his own youthful second wife, Adelaide of Montpellier. The day
came, however, when the youth's homage was suddenly discovered to
have passed the proper ceremonial bounds; and he was abruptly dis-
missed, to take new service in Normandy. It is next to impossible
to separate, in his remains, the songs of the two periods: Adelaide
or Eleanor, it is all virtually one. The limpid stream of babbling
minstrelsy flows on for some forty years, always dulcet and delicate,
sometimes lightly pathetic, but reflecting indifferently the image of
either lady. Within the long period of Bernard's placid ascendency
were comprised the rapid and fiery careers of two men of a very
different stamp,- the most tragical figures in all the miscellaneous
choir.
Jaufré Rudel, the Prince of Blaya, fell in love with a certain Count-
ess of Tripoli on the mere rumor of her charms; assumed the cross
for the sole and sacrilegious purpose of meeting her; fell ill upon the
voyage, and on his arrival was recovered from a death-like trance by
his lady's embrace, only to die almost immediately in her arms.
The horrible story of William of Cabestaing would seem quite
beyond belief were it not given circumstantially, and with very slight
variations, by an unusual number of writers. Himself a gallant and
accomplished cavalier, William won such favor in the eyes of the
Lady Margarida, wife of Raymond of Roussillon, that he aroused the
savage jealousy of the latter, who waylaid and slew him, and then
cut out his heart, which he ordered cooked and seasoned and set before
his wife. The hapless lady partook of it; then, on being brutally
told the ghastly truth, she swore that she would never eat again,
sprang past her husband, who had drawn his sword, leaped from the
high balcony of an open window, and perished. Both Raymond and
William were vassals of Alphonse II. of Aragon, himself a trouba-
dour, and a great patron of the art. He had Raymond arrested, and
caused him to die in prison; while the tomb of the lovers before
the door of the church at Perpignan was long a place of pious resort
for the pilgrims of passion in those parts.
A different and less melodramatic interest attaches to the names
of the two Arnauts,— Arnaut Daniel and Arnaut de Maroill: of whom
the former, as we know from Canto xxvi. of the 'Purgatorio,' spoke
in Provençal to Dante when he met him in the shades; while the
latter is mentioned by Petrarch in a canzone as "the less famous
Arnaut. " The distinction seems a strange one: for while the verses
of the former are chiefly remarkable for an extraordinary artificiality
and complexity of rhythm, the latter, who had vowed his devotions
## p. 11876 (#506) ##########################################
11876
PROVENÇAL LITERATURE
to a certain lovely Viscountess of Béziers, was the author of some
of the most exquisitely tender bits of Provençal song which we pos-
sess.
The laborious verbal conceits and metrical intricacies of Dante's
Arnaut were imitated with great ingenuity, and even exaggerated, by
Raimon de Miraval, who fought in the Albigensian war; during which
so many of the local poets and their patrons fell, that a whole civili-
zation seemed to perish with them. That cruel contest may be held
to mark the beginning of the end of the Provençal school of song.
The name of a woman, the Countess Die,-who also, like the
royal Eleanor, presided over a Court of Love,- remains attached to
one plaintive lament much admired in its day; and another woman,
though unnamed, was the author of the most artless and impassioned
of all the peculiar class of poems known as albas or morning-songs.
Another very beautiful alba was written by Guiraut de Borneil, of
whom it is said by his ancient biographer that he composed the first
true chanson, all previous poets having made verses only. He won a
weightier kind of renown by the virile force and fire of his sirventes,
- didactic or satiric pieces,-in which he mourned the accumulated
misfortunes of his country, or lashed the crimes and vices of the men
who had brought her to the verge of ruin.
Contemporary with Guiraut was another intrepid censor of the
corruptions of his time, Peire Cardinal; of whom we have a satire
beginning with the burning words, "Who desires to hear a sirventes
woven of grief and embroidered with anger? I have spun it al-
ready, and I can make its warp and woof! " Both these brave men
died not far from the year 1230, and the course of Provençal liter-
ature after their day is one of steady deterioration.
Начнет политикой
BIBLIOGRAPHY. — There is no adequate history in English of the
elder Provençal literature; nothing to compare, for instance, with
Friedrich Diez's 'Leben und Werke der Troubadours. ' This has
been brought quite up to date in the revision of Bartsch (1883), and
includes also copious poetical versions. The chief general treatises in
English are Rutherford's Troubadours' (London, 1873), and Hüffer's
'Troubadours' (London, 1878). More accessible and quite as trust-
worthy is the article in the Britannica' on Provençal literature.
The curiosity of the modern reader as to the social conditions
which created and upheld the so-called Courts of Love, is best grati-
fied by J. F. Rowbotham's 'The Troubadours and Courts of Love,'
## p. 11877 (#507) ##########################################
PROVENÇAL LITERATURE
11877
one of the series entitled 'Social England' (Macmillan, New York,
1895). Another interesting and recent work is Ida Farnell's 'Lives of
the Troubadours,' translated from Provençal sources. This little
book is illustrated with poetical English versions. Miss Preston's
own volume, 'Troubadours and Trouvères' (Roberts Brothers, Boston,
1876) is devoted, in spite of its title, chiefly to Jasmin and the more
recent Provençal poets of this century. The chapter on the Trou-
badours (pages 151 to 231) is largely made up of spirited versions,
which are in part repeated, in revised form, in the course of the
present article.
For those who wish to study the Provençal texts in the original,
the most convenient collection is Karl Appel's 'Chrestomathie' (Leip-
zig, 1895). There is an elementary introduction to the old Provençal
language by Kitchin.
[The dates at the head of these pieces represent, approximately, the time
within which the several authors wrote. ]
GUILLAUME DE POITIERS
(1190-1227)
B
I
EHOLD the meads are green again,
The orchard-bloom is seen again,
Of sky and stream the mien again
Is mild, is bright!
Now should each heart that loves obtain
Its own delight.
But I will say no ill of love,
However slight my guerdon prove;
Repining doth not me behove:
And yet—to know
How lightly she I fain would move
Might bliss bestow!
There are who hold my folly great,
Because with little hope I wait;
But one old saw doth animate
And me assure:
Their hearts are high, their might is great,
Who well endure.
Translation of H. W. P.
## p. 11878 (#508) ##########################################
11878
PROVENÇAL LITERATURE
II
DESIRE of song hath taken me,
But sorrowful must my song be;
No more pay I my fealty
In Limousin or Poitiers,
Since I go forth to exile far,
And leave my son to stormy war,
To fear and peril; for they are
No friends who dwell about him there.
What wonder then my heart is sore
That Poitiers I see no more,
And Fulk of Anjou must implore
To guard his kinsman and my heir?
If he of Anjou shield him not,
And he who made me knight, I wot
Many against the boy will plot,
Deeming him well-nigh in despair.
Nay, if he be not wondrous wise,
And gay, and ready for emprise,
Gascons and Angevins will rise,
And him into the dust will bear.
Ah, I was brave and I had fame,
But we are sundered, all the same!
I go to Him in whose great name
Confide all sinners everywhere.
Surrendering all that did elate
My heart,—all pride of steed or state,—
To Him on whom the pilgrims wait,
Without more tarrying, I repair.
Forgive me, comrade most my own,
If aught of wrong I thee have done!
I lift to Jesus on his throne
In Latin and Románs my prayer.
Oh, I was gallant, I was glad,
Till my Lord spake, and me forbade;
But now the end is coming sad,
Nor can I more my burden bear.
## p. 11879 (#509) ##########################################
PROVENÇAL LITERATURE
11879
Good friends, when that indeed I die,
Pay me due honor where I lie:
Tell how in love and luxury
I triumphed still,- or here or there.
But farewell now, love, luxury,
And silken robes and miniver!
C
GUIRAUD LE ROUX
(1110-1147)
OME, lady, to my song incline,
The last that shall assail thine ear.
Translation of H. W. P.
None other cares my strains to hear,
And scarce thou feign'st thyself therewith delighted!
Nor know I well if I am loved or slighted;
But this I know, thou radiant one and sweet,
That, loved or spurned, I die before thy feet!
Yea, I will yield this life of mine
In very deed, if cause appear,
Without another boon to cheer.
Honor it is to be by thee incited
To any deed; and I, when most benighted
By doubt, remind me that times change and fleet,
And brave men still do their occasion meet.
N°
(1140-1195)
BERNARD DE VENTADOUR
Translation of H. W. P.
O MARVEL is it if I sing
Better than other minstrels all,
For more than they am I love's thrall,
And all myself therein I fling:
Knowledge and sense, body and soul,
And whatso power I have beside:
The rein that doth my being guide
Impels me to this only goal!
## p. 11880 (#510) ##########################################
11880
PROVENÇAL LITERATURE
His heart is dead whence doth not spring
Love's odor sweet and magical;
His life doth ever on him pall
Who knoweth not that blessed thing:
Yea, God who doth my life control
Were cruel, did he bid me bide
A month or even a day, denied
The love whose rapture I extol.
How keen, how exquisite the sting
Of that sweet odor! At its call
An hundred times a day I fall
And faint; an hundred rise and sing!
So fair the semblance of my dole,
'Tis lovelier than another's pride:
If such the ill doth me betide,
Good hap were more than I could thole!
Yet haste, kind Heaven, the sundering
True swains from false, great hearts from small!
The traitor in the dust bid crawl,
The faithless to confession bring!
Ah, if I were the master sole
Of all earth's treasures multiplied,
To see my lady satisfied
Of my pure faith, I'd give the whole!
II
WHEN I behold on eager wing
The skylark soaring to the sun,
Till e'en with rapture faltering
He sinks in glad oblivion,
Alas, how fain to seek were I
The same ecstatic fate of fire!
Yea, of a truth, I know not why
My heart melts not with its desire!
Methought that I knew everything
Of love. Alas, my lore was none!
For helpless now my praise I bring
To one who still that praise doth shun;
One who hath robbed me utterly
Of soul, of self, of life entire,
So that my heart can only cry
For that it ever shall require.
## p. 11881 (#511) ##########################################
PROVENÇAL LITERATURE
11881
For ne'er have I of self been king
Since the first hour, so long agone,
When to thine eyes bewildering,
As to a mirror, I was drawn.
There let me gaze until I die;
So doth my soul of sighing tire,
As at the fount, in days gone by,
The fair Narcissus did expire.
III
A
WHEN the sweet breeze comes blowing
From where thy country lies,
Meseems I am foreknowing
The airs of Paradise.
So is my heart o'erflowing
For that fair one and wise
Who hath the glad bestowing
Of life's whole energies;
For whom I agonize
Whithersoever going.
I mind the beauty glowing,
The fair and haughty eyes,
Which, all my will o'erthrowing,
Made me their sacrifice.
Whatever mien thou'rt showing,
Why should I this disguise?
Yet let me ne'er be ruing
One of thine old replies:-
"Man's daring wins the prize,
But fear is his undoing. "
Translation of H. W. P.
RICHARD CŒUR DE LION
(1169–1199)
H! CERTES will no prisoner tell his tale
Fitly, unless as one whom woes befall;
Still, as a solace, songs may much avail:
Friends I have many, yet the gifts are small,
Shame! that because to ransom me they fail,
I've pined two years in thrall.
-
## p. 11882 (#512) ##########################################
11882
PROVENÇAL LITERATURE
But all my liegemen in fair Normandy,
In England, Poitou, Gascony, know well
That not my meanest follower would I
Leave for gold's sake in prison-house to dwell;
Reproach I neither kinsman nor ally,-
Yet I am still in thrall.
Alas! I may as certain truth rehearse,
Nor kin nor friends have captives and the dead:
'Tis bad for me, but for my people worse,
If to desert me they through gold are led;
After my death, 'twill be to them a curse
If they leave me in thrall.
No marvel, then, if I am sad at heart
Each day my lord disturbs my country more;
Has he forgot that he too had a part
In the deep oath which before God we swore?
But yet in truth I know, I shall not smart
Much longer here in thrall.
Blackwood's Magazine, February 1836.
GUILLAUME DE CABESTAING
(1181-1196)
I
SEE the days are long and glad;
On every tree are countless flowers,
And merry birds sing in the bowers,
Which bitter cold so long made sad:
But now upon the highest hills,
Each amid flowers and sparkling rills,
After his manner takes delight.
And therefore I rejoice once more
That joy of love should warm my breast,
And lay my sweet desires to rest.
As serpent from false sycamore,
I from false coldness speed me ever;
Yet for love's sake, which cheers me never,
All other joys seem vain and light.
## p. 11883 (#513) ##########################################
PROVENÇAL LITERATURE
11883
Never since Adam plucked the fruit
Whence thousand woes our race oppress,
Was seen on earth such loveliness.
The body, formed that face to suit,
Is polished more than amethyst;
Her very beauty makes me tryst,
Since she of me takes little heed.
Ah, never shall there come a time
When love, that now inflames my heart,
Shall struggle from her to depart.
As plants, even in a wintry clime,
When the sun shines regain new life,
So her sweet smiles, with gladness rife,
Deck me with love, as plants with flower.
I love so madly, many die
From less, and now my hour seems near.
For though my love's to me most dear,
In vain for help or hope I sigh.
A fire upon my heart is fed,
The Nile could quench no more than thread
Of finest silk support a tower.
Alas that I must still lament
The pains that from love ever flow;
That baffled hope and ceaseless woe
All color from my cheek have sent.
But white as snow shall be my hair,
And I a trembling dotard, ere
Of my best lady I complain.
How oft, from lady's love we see
The fierce and wicked change their mood;
How oft is he most kind and good
Who, did he not love tenderly,
Would be each passion's wayward slave.
Thus am I meek with good and brave,
But haughty to the bad and vain.
Thus with delight each cherished woe I dree,
And sweet as manna seems slight joy to me.
Blackwood's Magazine, February 1836.
## p. 11884 (#514) ##########################################
11884
PROVENÇAL LITERATURE
II
THERE is who spurns the leaf, and turns
The stateliest flower of all to cull:
So on life's topmost bough sojourns
My lady; the most beautiful!
Whom with his own nobility
Our Lord hath graced, so she may move
In glorious worth our lives above,
Yet soft with all humility.
Her pleading look my spirit shook,
And won my fealty long ago;
My heart's blood stronger impulse took,
Freshening my colors. And yet so,
No otherwise discovering
My love, I bode. Now, lady mine,
At last, before thy throngèd shrine,
I also lay my offering.
III
THE visions tender
Which thy love giveth me,
Still bid me render
My vows, in song, to thee;
Gracious and slender,
Thine image I can see,
Wherever I wend, or
What eyes do look on me.
Yea, in the frowning face
Of uttermost disgrace,
Proud would I take my place
Before thy feet,
Lady, whose aspect sweet
Doth my poor self efface,
And leave but joy and praise.
Who shall deny me
The memory of thine eyes?
Evermore by me
Thy lithe white form doth rise.
## p. 11885 (#515) ##########################################
PROVENÇAL LITERATURE
11885
If God were nigh me
Alway, in so sure wise,
Quick might I hie me
Into his Paradise!
Ο
COMTESSE DE DIE
Translations of H. W. P.
(TWELFTH CENTURY)
F THAT I would not, I, alas! must sing,
He whom I love has caused me such deep pain:
For though I love him more than earthly thing,
My love and courtesy but meet disdain,
And beauty, merit, wit, are all in vain;
But I must mourn as hopelessly and long
As if I wittingly had done him wrong.
It comforts me, sweet friend, to think that never
Have I 'gainst you in word or deed transgressed:
More than Seguis Valens* I loved you ever,
And that my love surpasses yours I'm blessed;
For you are worthier far, O dearest, best.
You're proud to me in conduct, speech, and air,
But to all others kind and debonaire.
It marvels me, sweet friend, that you can feel
Towards me that pride that cuts me to the heart:
All wrong it were that any dame should steal
Your love from me, whate'er may be her art;
And never let the memory depart
Of what our love once was. Mother divine!
Forbid that coldness sprang from fault of mine.
Your prowess which all others hold so dear,
Your fame, disquiet me with their bright shine;
For not a lady, whether far or near,
But will, if e'er she love, to you incline.
But you, sweet friend, ah! well might you divine
Where beats the heart more tender than them all:
Forget not former vows, whate'er befall.
* Seguis and Valens were the hero and heroine of a romance of that day.
## p. 11886 (#516) ##########################################
11886
PROVENÇAL LITERATURE
Much should pure fame, much should desert avail,
My beauty much, but truth and love far more;
Therefore send I this song to bid you hail,
And in your ear my thoughts and hopes to pour.
I fain would know, O friend that I adore!
Why you to me are ever harsh and cold:
Is't pride or hate, or think you me too bold?
All this my message bears, and this beside,
That many suffer from excess of pride.
Blackwood's Magazine, February 1836.
So
ARNAUT DE MAROILL
(1170-1200)
OFTLY sighs the April air
With the coming of the May;
Of the tranquil night aware,
Murmur nightingale and jay;
Then, when dewy dawn doth rise,
Every bird, in his own tongue,
Wakes his mate with happy cries,-
All their joy abroad is flung.
Gladness, lo, is everywhere,
When the first leaf sees the day:
And shall I alone despair,
Turning from sweet love away?
Something to my heart replies
Thou too wast for rapture strung:
Wherefore else the dreams that rise
Round thee, when the year is young?
One than Helen yet more fair,
Loveliest blossom of the May,
Rose tints hath and sunny hair,
And a gracious mien and gay;
Heart that scorneth all disguise,
Lips where pearls of truth are hung:
God who gives all sovereignties
Knows her like was never sung.
Though she lead through long despair,
I would never say her nay,
## p. 11887 (#517) ##########################################
PROVENÇAL LITERATURE
11887
If one kiss-reward how rare! -
Each new trial might repay.
Swift returns I'd then devise,
Many laborers but not iong;
Following so fair a prize,
I could never more go wrong.
RAIMON DE MIRAVAL
(1190-1200)
Translation of H. W. P.
F
AIR summer-time doth me delight,
And song of birds delights no less;
Meadows delight in their green dress,
Delight the trees in verdure bright;
And far, far more delights thy graciousness,
Lady, and I to do thy will, delight.
Yet be not this delight my final boon,
Or I of my desire shall perish soon!
For that desire most exquisite
Of all desires, I live in stress
Desire of thy rich comeliness;
Oh, come, and my desire requite!
Though doubling that desire by each caress,
Is my desire not single in thy sight?
Let me not then, desiring sink undone;
To love's high joys, desire be rather prone!
No alien joy will I invite,
But joy in thee, to all excess:
Joy in thy grace, nor e'en confess
Whatso might do my joy despite.
So deep my joy, my lady, no distress
That joy shall master; for thy beauty's light
Such joy hath shed, for each day it hath shone,
Joyless I cannot be while I live on.
Translation of H. W. P.
## p. 11888 (#518) ##########################################
11888
PROVENÇAL LITERATURE
ALBA-AUTHOR UNKNOWN
(TWELFTH CENTURY)
UNE
NDER the hawthorns of an orchard lawn,
She laid her head her lover's breast upon,
Silent, until the guard should cry the dawn;
Ah God! ah God! Why comes the day so soon?
I would the night might never have passed by!
So wouldst thou not have left me, at the cry
Of yonder warder to the whitening sky;-
Ah God! ah God! Why comes the day so soon?
One kiss more, sweetheart, ere the melodies
Of early birds from all the fields arise!
One more, without a thought of jealous eyes! —
Ah God! ah God! Why comes the day so soon?
And yet one more, under the garden wall,
For now the birds begin their festival,
And the day wakens at the warder's call;-
Ah God! ah God! Why comes the day so soon?
-
'Tis o'er! O dearest, noblest, knightliest,
The breeze that greets thy going fans my breast!
I quaff it, as thy breath, and I am blest! —
Ah God! ah God! Why comes the day so soon?
Fair was the lady, and her fame was wide;
And many knights for her dear favor sighed;
But leal the heart out of whose depths she cried,-
Ah God! ah God! Why comes the day so soon?
Translation of H. W. P.
ALBA-GUIRAUT DE BORNEIL
(1175-1230)
Α΄
LL-GLORIOUS King! True light of all below!
Thou who canst all! If it may please thee so,
The comrade of my soul from danger screen;
Whom all the darkling hours I have not seen,
And now the dawn is near.
Dear comrade, wakest thou, or sleepest yet?
Oh, sleep no more, but rouse thee, nor forget
## p. 11889 (#519) ##########################################
PROVENÇAL LITERATURE
11889
The herald signal in the brightening east,
The star of day that I behold increased-
For now the dawn is near.
Dear comrade, hark my summons, I implore!
The little birds are waking,- sleep no more!
Through all the wood they clamor for the day;
Let not yon jealous foe thy steps waylay,
For now the dawn is near.
Dear comrade, rouse thee! Throw thy window wide!
See writ in heaven the harm that may betide:
A trusty guardian in thy comrade own,
Or else, alas, the woe will be thine own;
For now the dawn is near.
Dear comrade, since at nightfall we did part,
Slept have I none, but prayed with fervent heart
The son of holy Mary to restore
My loyal fellow to my side once more:
And now the day is near.
Dear comrade, yonder by the frowning keep,
Didst thou not warn me never once to sleep?
Now have I watched all night. Thou doest me wrong
Thus to disdain the singer and the song;
For now the dawn is near.
Sweet comrade mine, I am so rich in bliss,
Naught reck I of the morns to follow this!
I clasp the loveliest one of mother born,
And care no longer, in my happy scorn,
If dawn or foe draw near!
A
Translation of H. W. P.
ALBA- BERTRAND D'AAMANON
(END OF TWELFTH CENTURY)
KNIGHT was sitting by her side.
He loved more than aught else beside;
And as he kissed her, often sighed :-
Ah, dearest, now am I forlorn,
Night is away - alas, 'tis morn!
Ah, woe!
XX-744
## p. 11890 (#520) ##########################################
11890
PROVENÇAL LITERATURE
Already has the warder cried,
"Up and begone, 'tis now bright day.
The dawn has passed away. "
Ah, dearest love! it were a thing
Sweet beyond all imagining,
If naught could day or dawning bring
There, where, caressing and caressed,
A lover clasps her he loves best.
Ah, woe!
Hark! what must end our communing!
"Up and begone, 'tis now bright day-
The dawn has passed away. "
-
Dearest, whate'er you hear, believe
That nothing on the earth can grieve
Like him who must his true love leave:
This from myself I know aright.
Alas, how swiftly flies the night!
Ah, woe!
The warder's cry gives no reprieve:
"Up and begone, 'tis now bright day —
The dawn has passed away. "
I go! Farewell, sweet love, to thee,
Yours I am still, where'er I be.
Oh, I beseech you think on me!
For here will dwell my heart of hearts,
Nor leave you till its life departs.
Ah, woe!
The warder cries impatiently,
"Up and begone! 'tis now bright day—
The dawn has passed away. "
Unless I soon to you can fly,
Dearest, I'll lay me down and die;
So soon will love my heart's springs dry.
Ah! soon will I return again—
Life without you is only pain.
Ah, woe!
Hark to the warder's louder cry!
"Up and begone! 'tis now bright day-
The dawn is passed away. "
-
Blackwood's Magazine, February 1836.
## p. 11891 (#521) ##########################################
11891
LUIGI PULCI
(1431-1486)
teenth century.
ITTLE creative work was done in Italian literature in the fif-
Students loved rather to revive the ancient
classics; and the Italian language came to be regarded as a
tongue too plebeian for the expression of lofty conceptions. Luigi
Pulci is one of the few poets of that century who held in honor the
Tuscan dialect.
-
Pulci was born in 1431, and died (according to most authorities) in
1486. His life seems to have had no importance in the political his-
tory of his times; but in literature he prepared the way for Berni
and for Ariosto, and established for himself a firm position as the
author of 'Il Morgante Maggiore' (Morgante the Giant), a burlesque
epic in twenty-eight cantos. He was a warm friend of Lorenzo de'
Medici, the Magnificent, whose mother, Lucrezia Tornabuoni, he
says, urged and inspired him in the composition of this work. The
romances of Carlovingian chivalry had acquired at the time wonderful
popularity in Italy; by which popularity Pulci was half maddened,
half amused. With infinite delight he gave his mocking imagination
free play; and in 'Il Morgante Maggiore' he turns into good-natured
ridicule the combats and exploits which form the scheme of the medi-
æval epic.
The poem has three heroes,- Roland, Rinaldo, and Charlemagne;
and a dramatis persona of such proportions that adventures become
as numerous as are the sands of the sea. Time and space are here
more successfully annihilated than in these days of steam and of
electricity. The journey to France from Persia or Babylon is accom-
plished with a speed which staggers the modern world.
'Il Morgante Maggiore' treats of the time when Roland, enraged
by the relations which have sprung up between Charlemagne and
Gano di Maganza, leaves the court of the Emperor, to which he is
bound as a paladin, and journeys in foreign lands. At the outset of
his trip he comes to a monastery assaulted by three giants of fabu-
lous proportions: Roland confronts two of these and kills them; the
third, Morgante, he converts to Christianity, and carries with him as
a companion. Though not its principal personage, this giant, Mor-
gante, gives his name to the epic. He and Roland proceed together;
## p. 11892 (#522) ##########################################
11892
LUIGI PULCI
but in Persia, Roland is taken prisoner. On his liberation he becomes
Sultan of Babylon, which empire he after a short time relinquishes,
mastered by his old hatred of Gano, to fight whom he returns to
France. Charlemagne, as soon as he learned of the flight of his dear
Roland, sends in quest of him Rinaldo, Ulivieri, and Dodoni, each of
whom has marvelous experiences. Ulivieri converts to Christianity
a Saracen princess, Meridiana, who falls in love with him; Rinaldo
wrests the throne from Charlemagne, and in deference to his advanced
years, returns it to him,-forgiving, on the ground of senility, his
faith in Gano. Morgante too has now set out in search of his lost
Roland, taking with him a giant called Margutte. Their congenial
companionship, however, is terminated by an unusual catastrophe.
Margutte, after a lavish feast, falls into a heavy sleep. Morgante, for
the sake of having a little sport when his companion wakes, takes off
Margutte's boots and hides them; but they are found by a monkey,
who, enchanted by this new toy, amuses herself by putting them on
and drawing them off. She continues this amusement so long that
Margutte wakes and sees her; at which he is attacked by such vio-
lent laughter that his body bursts open. Morgante dies a less hilarious
death, occasioned by the bite of a crawfish on his heel. This poem,
with the disconnected paths of its heroes and its isolated events, can
scarcely claim any unity of conception. The moving power of the
story is, however, the malignity of Gano di Maganza; and this holds
together with a slender thread the arbitrary incidents of the story,
weaving them into a fascinatingly bizarre pattern. The climax of the
poem is the death of Roland in the narrow valley of Roncesvalles,
and the death by torture of Gano, whose infidelity Charlemagne can
no longer doubt.
In the midst of extravagant buffooneries, Pulci often pauses, and
by a line of finest pathos reveals himself a true poet. While ridicul-
ing the troubadours with grotesque humor, he suddenly brightens his
descriptions by a gleam of human philosophy. He is the author of a
series of sonnets, of a parody on a pastoral poem written by Lorenzo
de' Medici, and also of a novel called 'A Confession to the Holy Vir-
gin. ' His reputation, however, lives entirely through his 'Morgante
Maggiore'; which is interesting as being the first romantic poem
which Italy produced, as well as through the variety of its incident
and the fascination of its style.
## p. 11893 (#523) ##########################################
LUIGI PULCI
11893
THE CONVERSION OF THE GIANT MORGANTE
From the 'Morgante Maggiore ›
B
UT watchful Fortune, lurking, takes good heed
Ever some bar 'gainst our intents to bring.
While Charles reposed him thus, in word and deed
Orlando ruled court, Charles, and everything;
Curst Gan, with envy bursting, had such need
To vent his spite, that thus with Charles the King
One day he openly began to say,—
"Orlando must we always then obey?
"A thousand times I've been about to say,
Orlando too presumptuously goes on.
Here are we, counts, kings, dukes, to own thy sway;
Hamo and Otho, Ogier, Solomon,
Each have to honor thee and to obey:
But he has too much credit near the throne;
Which we won't suffer, but are quite decided
By such a boy to be no longer guided.
"And even at Aspramont thou didst begin
To let him know he was a gallant knight,
And by the fount did much the day to win;
But I know who that day had won the fight
If it had not for good Gherardo been:
The victory was Almonte's else; his sight
He kept upon the standard, and the laurels
In fact and fairness are his earning, Charles.
"If thou rememberest being in Gascony,
When there advanced the nations out of Spain,
The Christian cause had suffered shamefully,
Had not his valor driven them back again.
Best speak the truth when there's a reason why:
Know then, O Emperor! that all complain;
As for myself, I shall repass the mounts
O'er which I crossed with two-and-sixty counts.
"Tis fit my grandeur should dispense relief,
So that each here may have his proper part,
For the whole court is more or less in grief:
Perhaps thou deem'st this lad a Mars in heart? »
## p. 11894 (#524) ##########################################
11894
LUIGI PULCI
Orlando one day heard this speech in brief,
As by himself it chanced he sat apart:
Displeased he was with Gan because he said it,
But much more still that Charles should give him credit.
And with the sword he would have murdered Gan,
But Oliver thrust in between the pair,
And from his hand extracted Durlindan,
And thus at length they separated were.
Orlando, angry too with Carloman,
Wanted but little to have slain him there;
Then forth alone from Paris went the chief,
And burst and maddened with disdain and grief.
Then full of wrath departed from the place,
And far as pagan countries roamed astray,
And while he rode, yet still at every pace
The traitor Gan remembered by the way;
And wandering on in error a long space,
An abbey which in a lone desert lay,
'Midst glens obscure and distant lands, he found,
Which formed the Christian's and the pagan's bound.
The abbot was called Clermont, and by blood
Descended from Angrante; under cover
Of a great mountain's brow the abbey stood,
But certain savage giants looked him over:
One Passamont was foremost of the brood,
And Alabaster and Morgante hover
Second and third, with certain slings, and throw
In daily jeopardy the place below.
The monks could pass the convent gate no more,
Nor leave their cells for water or for wood.
Orlando knocked, but none would ope, before
Unto the prior it at length seemed good;
Entered, he said that he was taught to adore
Him who was born of Mary's holiest blood,
And was baptized a Christian; and then showed
How to the abbey he had found his road.
Said the abbot, "You are welcome; what is mine
We give you freely, since that you believe
With us in Mary Mother's son divine;
And that you may not, cavalier, conceive
## p. 11895 (#525) ##########################################
LUIGI PULCI
11895
The cause of our delay to let you in
To be rusticity, you shall receive
The reason why our gate was barred to you;-
Thus those who in suspicion live must do.
"When hither to inhabit first we came
These mountains, albeit that they are obscure,
As you perceive, yet without fear or blame
They seemed to promise an asylum sure;
From savage brutes alone, too fierce to tame,
'Twas fit our quiet dwelling to secure;
But now, if here we'd stay, we needs must guard
Against domestic beasts with watch and ward.
"These make us stand, in fact, upon the watch;
For late there have appeared three giants rough:
What nation or what kingdom bore the batch
I know not; but they are all of savage stuff.
When force and malice with some genius match,
You know they can do all-we are not enough;
And these so much our orisons derange,
I know not what to do till matters change.
"Our ancient fathers living the desert in,
For just and holy works were duly fed;
Think not they lived on locusts sole,- 'tis certain
That manna was rained down from heaven instead:
But here tis fit we keep on the alert in
[bread,
Our bounds, or taste the stones showered down for
From oft yon mountain daily raining faster,
And flung by Passamont and Alabaster.
"The third, Morgante, 's savagest by far: he
Plucks up pines, beeches, poplar-trees, and oaks,
And flings them, our community to bury;
And all that I can do but more provokes. "
While thus they parley in the cemetery,
A stone from one of their gigantic strokes,
Which nearly crushed Rondell, came tumbling over,
So that he took a long leap under cover.
"For God's sake, cavalier, come in with speed!
The manna's falling now," the abbot cried.
"This fellow does not wish my horse should feed,
Dear abbot," Roland unto him replied:
## p. 11896 (#526) ##########################################
11896
LUIGI PULCI
"Of restiveness he'd cure him had he need;
That stone seems with good will and aim applied. »
The holy father said, "I don't deceive:
They'll one day fling the mountain, I believe. »
Orlando bade them take care of Rondello,
And also made a breakfast of his own.
"Abbot," he said, "I want to find that fellow
Who flung at my good horse yon corner-stone. "
Said the abbot, "Let not my advice seem shallow,—
As to a brother dear I speak alone:
I would dissuade you, baron, from this strife,
As knowing sure that you will lose your life.
"That Passamont has in his hand three darts,-
Such slings, clubs, ballast-stones, that yield you must;
You know that giants have much stouter hearts
Than we, with reason, in proportion just:
If go you will, guard well against their arts,
For these are very barbarous and robust. "
Orlando answered, "This I'll see, be sure,
And walk the wild on foot to be secure. "
The abbot signed the great cross on his front:
"Then go you with God's benison and mine! "
Orlando, after he had scaled the mount,
As the abbot had directed, kept the line
Right to the usual haunt of Passamont;
Who, seeing him alone in this design,
Surveyed him fore and aft with eyes observant,
Then asked him "if he wished to stay as servant? "
And promised him an office of great ease.
But said Orlando, "Saracen insane!
I come to kill you, if it shall so please
God, not to serve as footboy in your train:
You with his monks so oft have broke the peace-
Vile dog! 'tis past his patience to sustain. »
The giant ran to fetch his arms, quite furious,
When he received an answer so injurious:
And being returned to where Orlando stood,
Who had not moved him from the spot, and swinging
The cord, he hurled a stone with strength so rude
As showed a sample of his skill in slinging;
## p. 11897 (#527) ##########################################
LUIGI PULCI
11897
It rolled on Count Orlando's helmet good
And head, and set both head and helmet ringing,
So that he swooned with pain as if he died,
But more than dead, he seemed so stupefied.
Then Passamont, who thought him slain outright.
Said, "I will go; and while he lies along,
Disarm me: why such craven did I fight? "
But Christ his servants ne'er abandons long,
Especially Orlando, such a knight
As to desert would almost be a wrong.
While the giant goes to put off his defenses,
Orlando has recalled his force and senses.
And loud he shouted, "Giant, where dost go?
Thou thought'st me doubtless for the bier outlaid:
To the right about! — without wings thou'rt too slow
To fly my vengeance, currish renegade!
'Twas but by treachery thou laid'st me low. "
The giant his astonishment betrayed,
And turned about, and stopped his journey on,
And then he stooped to pick up a great stone.
Orlando had Cortana bare in hand;
To split the head in twain was what he schemed.
Cortana clave the skull like a true brand,
And pagan Passamont died unredeemed;
Yet harsh and haughty, as he lay he banned,
And most devoutly Macon still blasphemed:
But while his crude, rude blasphemies he heard,
Orlando thanked the Father and the Word,-
Saying, "What grace to me thou'st given!
And I to thee, O Lord, am ever bound.
I know my life was saved by thee from heaven,
Since by the giant I was fairly downed.
All things by thee are measured just and even;
Our power without thine aid would naught be found.
I pray thee take heed of me, till I can
At least return once more to Carloman. "
And having said thus much, he went his way;
And Alabaster he found out below,
Doing the very best that in him lay
To root from out a bank a rock or two.
## p. 11898 (#528) ##########################################
11898
LUIGI PULCI
Orlando, when he reached him, loud 'gan say,
"How think'st thou, glutton, such a stone to throw? »
When Alabaster heard his deep voice ring,
He suddenly betook him to his sling,
And hurled a fragment of a size so large,
That if it had in fact fulfilled its mission,
And Roland not availed him of his targe,
There would have been no need of a physician.
Orlando set himself in turn to charge,
And in his bulky bosom made incision
With all his sword. The lout fell; but, o'erthrown, he
However by no means forgot Macone.
Morgante had a palace in his mode,
Composed of branches, logs of wood, and earth;
And stretched himself at ease in this abode,
And shut himself at night within his berth.
Orlando knocked, and knocked again, to goad
The giant from his sleep; and he came forth,
The door to open, like a crazy thing,
For a rough dream had shook him slumbering.
He thought that a fierce serpent had attacked him,
And Mahomet he called; but Mahomet
Is nothing worth, and not an instant backed him;
But praying blessed Jesu, he was set
At liberty from all the fears which racked him.
And to the gate he came with great regret:
"Who knocks here?
