Drawing the Honey from the Wax

The literal level of meaning vanishes, or is transformed, when scriptural commentary applies its principles of interpretation to passages whose literal meaning seems unacceptable for moral instruction, and this phenomenon is exaggerated with the Song of Solomon. Its Old French translator explains patiently to his reader how the actual "letter of the text," sacred though it may be, serves as a mere container—disposable and, in itself, not spiritually "nourishing"—for the "honey of meaning" that it is the commentator's duty to extract:

Molt a de miel en ceste ree
que nos avoms ici trovee.
Or covenroit fors le miel traire.
Deus le nos doinst dignement faire.
(Song of Songs, 12th-cent. O.F. version,
2535–2548; Pickford 1974)

There is much honey in this honeycomb which we have found
here. Now it would be fitting to draw out the honey: may God
grant that we do it worthily.

When the Occitan poets adapt this image to their poetry, they observe that with amors the wax at times becomes as important as the honey, just as trobar values form as highly as meaning. In Marcabru's "Dirai vos senes duptansa," amors reverses the normal interpretive procedure: she extracts the wax from the honey. After this action, it will be difficult for her to be "true" in the future:

Greu sera mais Amors vera
pos del mel triet la cera

anz sap si pelar la pera;
—Escoutatz!—
Doussa·us er corn chans de lera
Si sol la coa·l troncatz.
        (Mcb 18, 31–36)

With difficulty will Love be true hereafter, since she drew out
the wax from the honey; but she does know how to peel the
pear—Listen! She will be as sweet to you as the song of a lyre,
if only you cut off her tail.

Raimbaut d'Aurenga, much less resistant to the appeal of amors than Marcabru was, is intrigued by the geometric form of the honeycomb; he uses the image in conjunction with that of the chain, since the bresca (honeycomb) consists of interlocking compartments and expands the linear structure of the cadena (chain) to three dimensions. His thought (pessars )—which will become the sens and ric'entendensa for his song—takes like form, proceeding from one "link" inevitably to another:

Qu'Amors m'a mes tal cadena
plus doussa que mel de bresca;
quan mos pessars en comensa
pus pes que·l dezirs m'en vensa.
        (R d'Aur 5, 29–32)

Because love has contrived for me such a chain, sweeter than
honey from the honeycomb, that once my thinking begins,
then thought more than desire overcomes me.

Raimbaut's "meaning," then, is the counterpart not merely of the mel, but also of the "interlocking" structure that holds it:

Ben ai ma voluntat plena
de tal sen que s'entrebesca.
        (R d'Aur 5, 36–37)

My will is full of a meaning of such kind that it intertwines
itself.

In a song that "conceals its meaning" yet can be "easily understood"—

li mot seran descubert
Al quec de razon deviza
        (R d'Aur 3, 7–8) 

The words will be revealed to one who divides [interprets]
them properly

—Raimbaut uses both triar and devezir to describe aesthetic discrimination:

Ben saup lo mel de la cera
triar, e·l miels devezir
lo iorn que·m fes lieys ayzir;
pus, cazen clardat d'estela,
sa par no·s fay ad contendre ( CR:  ad entendre)
beutatz d'autra, si be·s lima,
ni aya cor tan asert
de be s'aribar en Piza.
        (R d'Aur 3, 25–32)

He knew well how to separate the honey from the wax, and to
discern the best, that day when he introduced me to her; since,
when light is falling from the stars, she has no peer to compete
with [CR:  understand] her, no matter how well polished is the
beauty of another woman, nor may anyone's heart be so
certain of having actually arrived in Pisa.

The lady surpasses others in beauty as honey is sweeter than wax. She is the "pure meaning," extractable by wise men, from the general form of womankind. Raimbaut, however, uses the terms of carefully shaped poetry to describe her beutatz: the phrase "si be·s lima" (if it is well polished) belongs to trobar plan and applies the metaphor of sculpture to song. The "starlight" by which she looks best, along with Raimbaut's "cor asert," recall the combination of clar and ferm that distinguish the songs of Arnaut Daniel. In embodying an ideal she is "essential," as honey is the essence of honeycomb, but it is her forma that interests Raimbaut and not some more specifically interpretable message underlying beutatz .

A striking feature of the passage is its comparison, by the choice of terms of praise, between the Creator and the poet. Raimbaut does not praise God so much for having made so many beautiful ladies, but rather for being able to discern what is finest among all his creations: "He knew well how to separate the honey from the wax, and to discern the best" (R d'Aur 3, 25–26). This metaphor of "trying out the honey from the wax" (in the terms triar and devezir ) appears to function like entendre: it 

serves to designate both interpretation and composition, that task of "making distinctions" that all parties to the message must undertake— the "original" poet, the performer (who recomposes), and the auditor, who reconstructs the message in his mind.

We have thus distinguished two concepts of the "text" in the lyrics of the troubadours: one is a distinctly "open" text that is made for the pleasure of the retransmitter—permutable, conventional, additive, and with movable parts in the style of Bernart de Ventadorn and Jaufre Rudel. The second, the "closed" text, admits the possibility of literary property that traces the "lineage" of a song to its creator, of a text intricately shaped like a honeycomb, such that its honey can be extracted only by the worthy. Poets who speak of the closed text are not incapable of comparing divine Creation with poetic creation: the poet is elevated to Author. The task of interpretation inherent in reception is also viewed as an act of poetic creation, since it is an act of aesthetic discernment. For those advocating "closed" poetry (here represented by Marcabru and Raimbaut d'Aurenga), only a select audience deserves a share in this privilege of recreating discernment. In the tenso with Raimbaut, Giraut de Bornelh plays on both sides of the net: he understands Raimbaut's concern with "legitimacy" and "lineage" for song, but he favors a classless aesthetics that makes song openly available to even the poorest of singers and listeners.

It will become more and more apparent, as we trace the metaphorical vocabulary of "open" and "closed" poetry in the works of the troubadours, that with the twelfth-century troubadours we are in the presence of massive ambivalence surrounding their medium. On the one hand a successful song is innately beautiful; on the other hand a successful song circulates widely and in the process adds some shady characters to its lineage. Exclusive, limited circulation could prevent tarnish or shame to a song's "legitimacy," yet it could also doom the song to oblivion. It is the rare poet who takes a fixed, immobile stance; the others uphold now exclusivity, now commonality. But a great many of them, even those who change their minds, are aware that their songs are to be judged. They therefore ask themselves who holds the aesthetic standard by which songs are to be judged: small, select court audiences, or large indiscriminate "marketplace" audiences.