"Rust" and "Splinters"

In Peire d'Alvernhe's "Belh m'es qu'ieu fass' huey mays un vers," the boast about the durable structure takes the form of a metaphorical description:

On plus horn mos vers favelha
fe que·us deg, on reals valon elh
e no·y a motz fals que y rovelh
ni sobredolat d'astelha.
        (P d'Alv 15, 65–68)

The more my song is repeated, I swear to you, the more it is
worth; and there are no false words that might rust in it, nor
[words] too smoothly filed free of splinters.

"Rust" suggests a song made of metal; "splinters," of wood. Both metaphors express Peire's confidence in the future of his song: its rhymes are neither prone to rust nor sobredolat d'astelha, "polished too smooth of splinters." Whether sobredolat connotes excessive or merely superficial smoothness, Peire is content that the "barbs" remain. Astelha can refer to sharp sticks as large as war spears, and Peire's invective against those who abuse language is intended to prick the conscience. "Splinters" might be viewed as flaws in fine woodworking, but Peire has already disavowed artistic roughness (mot fals ); he ends with a paradox, transferring a metaphor from the poet's technical craft (dolar, "polish") to his moralistic intention.

Marcabru first linked mot fals with "rust" and transferred the moral term into the lexical field of poetry. In the last strophe of "Lo vers comens quan vei del fau," a song composed "segon trobar naturau" (v. 7), Marcabru defies future stagers in a passage that compares his song to a miner's lode, an archaeologist's dig, or a vandal's buried treasure:

Marcabrus ditz que no·ill en cau
qui quer ben lo vers'al foïll

que no·i pot hom trobar a frau
mot de roïll
intrar pot hom de lonc jornau
en breu doïll.
(Mcb 33; Roncaglia 1951b, 31, vv. 49–64)

Marcabru says he does not care if someone searches the poem
well with a ransacker's tool, for one cannot find there hidden a
word of rust; one can enter after a long day's work through a
small hole.

The medieval Latin equivalency rubigo:malitia (Roncaglia 1951b, 45n. 52) is expanded here to accommodate Marcabru's artistic "morality"; "a word of rust" would make way for the chipping and chiseling of the vandal's foïll ("fodiculum, to designate the instrument used to fodiculare "; Roncaglia 1951b, 45n. 50). As it is, they merely "scratch the surface" (fant gratill ):

Mas menut trobador bergau
entrebesquill
mi tornon mon chant en badau
e·n fant gratill.
(Mcb 33: Roncaglia 1951b, 31, vv. 9–12)

But petty troubadours, drones, fabricators, turn my song into
gaping and scratching.

This portrait of a "droning" performance (bergau, "hornet, fool"; Roncaglia 1951b, 37n. 9), where the singer "scrapes" at his lyre and "stands with his mouth open" instead of singing meaningful sounds ("tornar chant en badau"), catches the cantador overacting his rôle of amador at the expense of poetry, gaping with feigned desire (badar ) and "tickling" (gratillar ) the imagination of other men's wives.

But these enemies of Marcabru, who profane his song, are not merely performers but trobador who compose, or recompose it: the designation entrebesquill (interweavers) alludes to the creation of rhymed lines. Thus, Marcabru's reference to his song's "freedom from rust" as a safeguard against "ransacker's tools" suggests, like Peire d'Alvernhe's "there are no false words that might rust in it," that its structure is "impenetrable." Indeed, Marcabru has found twenty-seven different words in each of his two rhymes, so that it might be difficult to replace a line without telltale repetition. 

Because it does not rust or tarnish, and because it is "rare" and valuable, gold becomes a favorite metal for poets who use the metaphor of sculpture to describe poetic composition. Although Peire Vidal once compares the "tempering" of a love song to the goldsmith's method of purifying a lump of gold by "breaking" it in the fire, Peire more often alludes to a nonstructural, decorative exterior of gold:

Qu'era que sui malmenatz
fas meravelhatz
motz ab us sonetz dauratz .
        (P Vid 4, 12–16)

For now that I am ill treated, I make marvelous rhymes with a
gilded little tune.

Senher N'Agout, no·us sai lauzar
mas de vos dauri  mon chantar.
(P Vid 7, 81–82)

Sir Agout, I know not how to praise you, but with you I gild
my song.

In both of these instances, the context indicates that Peire has reason not to produce a "solid gold" song: in the first passage, he has been mistreated, and in the second, a man unworthy of Peire's praise provides the "gilt" with which he adorns his song. Peire gives a comic twist to the familiar idea that a poem should be worth the price paid for it and worthy of its addressee.

The combination of noble and base metals or of metal and wood as materials for "sculpture in words" reappears in Peire Vidal's "En una terra estranha," where Peire points to the futility of "gilding and filing" with words. He observes that whoever applies the gold leaf first and then shapes his words with a file destroys his own work, revealing his "illschooled" heart. Such a man's work, the amors he fabricates in words, can last no longer than a spider's web:

Quar pus qu'obra d'aranha
no pot aver durada
amors, pus es proada,
qu'ab ditz daur'ez aplana
tals qu'al cot de vilan escuelh.
        (P Vid 25, 49–53) 

For no more than a spider's web can love have duration, since
it has come to the test [been proven] that such a man as gilds
with words, and [then] files, gets his intention [heart] from an
ignoble school.

Taken together, Peire's uses of the verb daurar to describe poetic ornamentation disapprove the thin film of glitter, applied to conceal an unsound structure.

The troubadour who best reconciles the constructive metaphors for poetry—sculpture, building, and metallurgy—is Raimbaut d'Aurenga. In his rimeta prima that he "built without rule or line" (2,3) as well as in "Cars, dous e fenhz' (I ), Raimbaut associates the process of filing (limar ) with the removal of rust. More descriptively than in Marcabru's trobar naturau, the search for "rust" takes the form of a probing inspection; Marcabru's ransacker ("qui quer ben lo vers'al foïll") has his counterpart in Raimbaut's falsa genz:

De la falsa genz qe lima
e dech'e ditz (don quec lim)
ez estreinh e mostr'e guinha
(so don Joi frainh e esfila),
per q'ieu sec e pols e guinh;
Mas ieu no·m part del dreg fil,
quar mos talenz no·s roïlha
q'en Joi nos ferm ses roïlh.
        (R d'Aur 2, 9–16)

[I complain] about the false people who file and dictate and
speak (wherefore I file each of them) and squeeze and point
and stare at that which causes  Joi  to break and unravel; be-
cause of them I follow [or "dry out"] and pound and squint,
but I do not leave the straight wire, for my intention does not
rust, because it encloses us in  Joi  without rust.

Like Marcabru, Raimbaut regards the critical scrutiny of his enemies ("estreinh e mostr'e guinha") as something closely related to vandalism. The two poets' enemies use comparable tools in their destruction: the lima and the foïll have in common the fact that both wear away their object and risk breaking it ("frainh e esfila"). One is reminded of Bernart Amoros's caution against overediting, to illustrate which he quotes "a wise man": 

Blasmat venon per frachura
d'entendimen obra pura
maintas vetz de razon prima
per maintz fols qe·s tenon lima.
        (Stengel 1898, 350)

Pure works come to be blamed through breakage of under-
standing, very often [works] with outstanding arguments, be-
cause of many fools with files ["erasers"] in their hands.

Bernart too speaks of "breakage" (frachura ) as the result of emendation by "fools with files in their hands."^[3]

Raimbaut criticizes the falsa genz for actions that he and other poets associate with the making of legitimate vers . The least of it is the parallelism between Raimbaut's attentiveness ("ieu sec e pols e guinh," v. 13) and that of his enemies, who "estreinh e mostr'e guinha" (v. 11). Their "filing," which Raimbaut deprecates, is part of the work that goes on in a poet's obrador; Raimbaut himself admits to doing it:

Cars, bruns e tenhz    motz entrebesc
pensius-pensanz    enquier e serc
(com si liman    pogues roire
l'estraing roill    ni'l fer tiure)
don mon escur    cor esclaire.
        (R d'Aur 1, 19–23)

Rare, dark, and colored words I intertwine; pensively ponder-
ing I search and seek (as if by filing I could rub off the incon-
gruous rust or the hard calcifications) how I might clarify my
obscure intention.^[4]

The skepticism expressed by "com si" admits that "filing" will not really remove "rust" from "dark words": it is only a simile. Cor can mean intention or will, and Raimbaut seeks to clarify his intention despite the "darkness" of his rhymes. The impurities that obscure his words—rust and calcium deposits—create a context in which Raimbaut's intention resembles a vein of gold surrounded by a mineral crust foreign to it, or a statue that has been left out in the rain for years and needs cleaning and restoration. The former image, "intention as a vein of gold," is consistent with the lines in Raimbaut's rimeta prima, where his "intention does not rust" because he "does not depart from the straight wire": "mas ieu no·m 

part del dreg fil, / quar mos talenz no·s roïlha" (R d'Aur 2, 14–15). The excellent poet does not need to "file" because he works in rustproof materials. Raimbaut's implication of this "straight wire of gold" may be a sort of signature, a play on his nickname, Linhaure, "Golden Line."^[5] Raimbaut identifies with this noble metal in several poems. In his view, anyone who "mistakes copper for gold" is courting danger: "Que vau doptan / aur per coire / cor al perill / on ie·m liure" (Because I go mistaking gold for copper, I run toward the peril to which I surrender myself; R d'Aur 1, 48–49). In the tenso with Giraut de Bornelh, he compares the rarest and best of songs to the rare metal: "Per so prez'om mais aur que sal / e de tot chant es atretal" (That is why one values gold more than salt, and it is the same way with every song; R d'Aur 31, 34–35).

Arnaut Daniel recalls Raimbaut's criticism of "la falsa genz que lima" (the false people who file) when he describes the art of his "Chansson do·ill mot son plan e prim," defending himself against anticipated objections like Raimbaut's:

Pel bruoill aug lo chan e·l refrim
e per c'om no men fassa crim
obre e lim
motz de valor
ab art d'Amor.
        (Arn D 2, 10–14)

Through the grove I hear the song and I echo it, and in order
that this not be made an accusation against me, I work and file
words of value by the art of love.

To what crim might Arnaut be referring? Through the woods he hears the song e·l refrim, and to avoid being accused of error for this, he applies his poetic craft. My solution to the question is that refrim is a verb: refrimar, "retentir, résonner" (Levy 1961). Arnaut echoes the song he hears in the woods and "polishes it up." As he did in the famous razo, he adapts the song of another to his own art—but this time it is the song of a bird, and he jokingly suggests that he might be accused of plagiarism. Arnaut justifies using the lima by asserting the value of his results ("motz de valor") and the worthiness of the guiding aesthetics ("ab art d'Amor"). Like Raimbaut d'Aurenga, Arnaut combines the workshop metaphors with the idea of "following a (straight) line" and alludes to the possibility of "digression," inadvertent separation from the "right way": "ans si be·m 

faill, / la sec a traill" (vv. 16–17). It is worth noting that although there is a tradition associating "filing" with "rust," the obvious rhyme ruoilla does not appear in extant copies of Arnaut's poem, although it meets the requirements of the leonine rhyme fuoilla/bruoilla/tuoilla .^[6]

Arnaut also flouts Peire Vidal's criticism of "Amors, pus es proada / qu'ab ditz daur'ez aplana" (Love, since it has been proven that with speeches she gilds and [then] polishes; P Vid 25, 51–52), except that he does his "filing and gilding" in the more sensible order:

En cest sonet coind'e leri
fauc motz e capuig e doli
que serant verai e cert
qan n'aurai passat la lima
q'Amors marves plan'e daura
mon chantar, que de liei mou
qui pretz manten e governa.
        (Arn D 10, 1–6)

In this graceful and gay little melody, I construct rhymes and
hone them and file them so that they will be true and sure
when I have passed the file over them, for Love without hesita-
tion planes and gilds my song, which originates in her who
supports and controls worth.

He defends love and his craft in one breath, declaring that love is not the creation of poetic artifice, but its creator. He counters Peire's taunt that the gilded works of Amor "can last no longer than a spider's web" by weighting his "graceful and frivolous little tune" with the sense of substantial, reliable carpentry that, he claims, will make his words "true and sure."