Two—
Writing and Memory in the Creation and Transmission of Troubadour Poetry
No other body of poetry confronts its editors with so overgrown a wilderness of autonomous versions, nearly every surviving copy a unique variation, as does troubadour song. Some variants ornament the poem, others whitewash it; some betray a slip of the pen or of the eye, others record the ear's perception of two radically different meanings in approximately the same sound;[1] still others, in a manner not explicable as the mechanical error or "vandalism" of scribes and compilers, evince a thorough recasting of the work. For example, a total of thirty-two distinct versions, distributed among six surviving songs of Jaufre Rudel, are now available in an edition of Jaufre's work by Rupert Pickens (1978). Readers accustomed to the monomorphic poem (either an editor's "best" choice or a composite) might hope that Jaufre's works were anomalous in their mobility. But it is not so: a study of 518 troubadour poems found "that nearly 40% of these songs show permutation in stanza order" (Paden 1979, 3). The percentage is much higher if we consider other kinds of variation: abridgments, alternative tornadas, and "fractured" stanzas.[2] Further, the variability in form and content of each poem in the Jaufre canon, if it developed in transmission and not through authorial redaction alone, implies a set of distinctly unmodern assumptions that pervaded the entire transmitting culture from a very early stage through a very late one.
The notion of mouvance, of "the text in process of creating itself," is borne out by the chansonniers ' testimony to extensive change in most
troubadour lyric. By comparison with Jaufre Rudel's, many of Bernart de Ventadorn's songs appear to be even more "fluid" because many more copies have survived. To take an extreme case, his "Non es meravelha s'eu chan / Melhs de nulh autre chantador" ("It is no wonder if I sing better than any other singer") comes down in nineteen manuscripts (excluding stray coblas ), and Carl Appel had to choose for his edition among eleven different arrangements of strophes (1915, 187). The thought that its self-congratulatory incipit made it a favorite among chantadors, who tailored it to suit themselves, is hard to resist. For the literary text, no less than for the musical notation, we must imagine either that the compilers of the chansonniers innovated drastically as often as they transcribed mechanically,[3] or that most of these variations already figured in the "texts" before extant compilations were written.
The customary anonymity of medieval poets might be held responsible for textual instability in other medieval literary traditions. Since the songs of the troubadours purport not to be anonymous works, the question of the authenticity of many disparate versions must draw the serious reader, as well as the editor, into a study of the process of transmission itself. D'Arco Silvio Avalle faced this problem in his edition of Peire Vidal's poems (1960) and arrived at a system of authentication based on comparing the chansonniers ' selections and orderings of Peire's poems. Deducing an autograph collection—that is, an anthology written by the poet himself, the "libro del Vidal" of Avalle's introduction—the Italian scholar believed he could rate the extant manuscripts according to their stemmatic relationship to it. Pickens set out to follow this example in his edition of Jaufre Rudel, "by rigorous application of Lachmannian principles":
It soon became apparent, however, that not only can "authentic" texts not be discovered, much less "established" with a sufficient degree of certainty, but that, given the condition of the manuscripts and the esthetic principles revolving textual integrity affirmed by Jaufre himself as well as by his transmitters, the question of "authenticity," insofar as the meaning of the texts was concerned, was largely irrelevant. (Pickens 1978, 40)
What I intend to explore in this discussion of the transmission of troubadour poetry is the degree to which other poets and their transmitters shared the "esthetic principles involving textual integrity" that Pickens observes in the songs of Jaufre Rudel. There are two separate questions here: first, whether the troubadours did invite their transmitters to revise
their poems; and second, whether the transmitters were inclined to do so even without an invitation.
A great deal depends on the breadth or narrowness of the "gap between creation and transmission"[4] —that is, the degree to which, or the way in which, poets and transmitters agreed or were at variance on the subject of textual integrity. If the mutability of poems from one chansonnier to another reflected no more than one of the worst manuscript traditions in literary history, all because its scribes were so singularly and reliably erratic, then we would find no continuous lineage of "principles involving textual integrity." Rather, we would have to assume that the "chirographic folk" (Ong 1982) had disregarded the original poets' aesthetic principles in favor of their own and had allowed their pens to slip with extreme indulgence when it came to troubadour poetry.
One may overestimate the gap between creation and transmission, whether a gap of chronology or of mentality, if one forgets that a poem composed in 1150 must have been "transmitted" in one way or another before it was anthologized in 1254. True, many elements the poets valued in their songs had worn thin by the time the anthologies were written. The blank staves in the manuscripts where music should have been noted in; the bookish tracts from the period of compilation recommending a poetics so far removed from that of the classical troubadours that it used their works as a source of exemplary "vices"; the utter incomprehension of the late scribe of MS Q who filled all the blanks between cansos with fragments of miscollated tensos —all these instances point to more than the ordinary hazards of medieval dissemination.[5]
Yet the inconsistency of extant written sources reflects health rather than sickness, insofar as it reflects an ongoing practice of singing troubadour lyric. Ong (1982, 81) points out the "startling paradox" that associates writing with death: writing destroys memory, and the letter kills. If there was a continuous performing tradition, perpetuating an aesthetic upheld by the troubadours themselves, then the diversity of current versions as manifested in writing, beginning around 1250, does not record the decadence of a dying art but the energy of a very lively one:
There is no reason to suppose that a nearly equal amount of diversity was not current before 1250. . . . Manifestations of texts are like bubbles accidentally rising to the surface which do little to evidence the currents and crosscurrents below. Thus, one cannot reasonably assume that a text by an author active around 1150 which is manifested in 1250 is any more "authentic" than one written down in 1350. Everything depends upon the
quality of the traditions from which samples were selected by anthologizers. (Pickens 1978, 20–21)
"Authentication" may in some cases be available only in the poet's implicit consciousness and approval of the song's tendency to be essentially re-created in each act of its transmission.
Fortunately, the poets express themselves abundantly on the subject of the diffusion of their works: they speak of their intention to send their songs just as frequently as they announce the plan to compose a song. The place of honor given the topic of transmission within the poetry itself spotlights the very medium of the lyric as essential to its purpose and to the communication it contains. The exordium and the envoi often locate the addressee and the means of the song's conveyance inside the poem rather than outside it, just as the speaker himself is inside the song. Eloquence is the fabric of fin'amors (as well as of castimen in the sirventes ); in the medium of the poem, dichs e fachs (words and deeds) unite, for the speech itself is a deed in the negotiation it depicts. To "send the message" is to complete the song, entrusting it to the audience where it will do its persuasive work, give aesthetic pleasure, and live on. The fact of sending, then, has a legitimate place in the matter of the song: it is as well established a motif as praise of the lady and condemnation of those who speak falsely.
Medieval Editors: Jaufre de Foixa, Bernart Amoros, and Bernard de Clairvaux
Medieval compilers and theorists, when they expressed their principles of textual permanence, more than once cited the poets as the "wise men" whose example they have tried to follow. Jaufre de Foixa, in his Regles de trobar, appeals to authority (in this case, one who abdicates his authority) for a precedent to his own willingness to be corrected:
E si alcuna causa de repreniment hi ha ques eu non entenda, a mi platz fort que la puesquen esmenar segons rayso; car N'Aymerich de Peguilha m'o ensenya en una sua canço dient en axi:
Si eu en soy desmentitz
C'aysso no sia veritatz
No n'er om per mi blasmatz
Si per ver m'o contreditz;
Ans vey sos sabers plus grans
Si·m pot venser d'ayso segons rayso
Qu'eu non say ges tot lo sen Salamo.
(Marshall 1972, 56)
And if there is any unintentional cause for reproach here, I would be very
pleased if they could emend it according to reason, for Aimeric de
Peguilhan teaches me this [attitude] in one of his songs, speaking thus: "If I
am deceived in this, so that this be not the truth, then no man shall be
criticized by me [on my account] if for the sake of truth he contradicts me;
rather, I recognize his knowledge as greater if he can win out over me
with reason, for I by no means know all the wisdom of Solomon."
Only someone who "knows the truth" better than Aimeric, then, would venture to correct any false statements in his work; Aimeric authorizes such corrections, implying that criticism itself demonstrates superior knowledge. Jaufre de Foixa extends this principle, a matter of truth, to "any cause for reproach" that might require "emendation" in his treatise. He invites his readers to change his text if they find errors in it (again, the ability to criticize proves wisdom); more interesting, he believes that the troubadour Almeric extended the same invitation. The special privilege of the highly qualified reader here reaches its peak: permission to rewrite the book.
In similar fashion, the medieval compiler Bernart Amoros cites one of the poets, uns savis (a wise man), to confirm his idea that only the best qualified, those most nearly approaching the wisdom of Solomon, should undertake to emend a text: when the emendador "does not have understanding," then even the finest work is likely to be spoiled (see text below, points 7 and 8). In a sense, Bernart Amoros and Jaufre de Foixa share a tolerant view of intelligent, informed "improvements" to the text: Jaufre welcomes emendanon "segons rayso" (according to reason), and Bernart allows it, implicitly, wherever an "emender" has "ben aüt l'entendimen" (truly grasped the intended meaning). Each admits that his own version is not always letter-perfect.
In the light of current thinking about mouvance and transmission, Bernart Amoros's "curieuse note" takes on a significance hardly suspected since its publication by Ernest Stengel (1898, 350).[6] Bernart's preface to a collection of troubadour songs survives in the paper manuscript a . As a first-person account of how a medieval compiler of troubadour poetry might operate, describing the choices open to him and the prin-
ciples he followed, the passage from beginning to end offers rare and valuable information about medieval editing—an art that otherwise, in the chansonnier tradition, kept silent about itself and in its very anonymity disavowed its creativity as well as its conservatism, concealing its efforts behind fair copy under authors' names. Matfre Ermengaud—if (as Gustav Gröber believed) he did prepare chansonnier C for copying—prefaced it with no such frank statement of method.[7] Because of the premises he takes for granted, as well as the ideas he presents as his own personal insight, Bernart Amoros's foreword is reproduced here in full.[8]
Eu Bernartz Amoros clergues scriptors d'aquest libre si fui d'Alvergna don son estat maint bon trobador, e fui d'una villa que a nom Saint Flor de Planeza. E sui usatz luenc temps per Proenza per las encontradas on son mout de bonz trobadors, et ai vistas et auzidas maintas bonas chanzos. (2) Et ai apres tant en l'art de trobar q'eu sai cognoisser e devezir en rimas et en vulgar et en lati, per cas e per verbe, lo dreig trobar del fals. Per qu'eu dic qe en bona fe eu ai escrig en aqest libre drechamen lo miels q'reu ai sauput e pogut. (3) E si ai mout emendat d'aquo q'leu trobei en l'issemple, don eu o tiejn e bon e dreig, segon lo dreig lengatge. (4) Per q'ieu prec chascun que non s'entrameton de emendar e granren que si ben i trobes cots de penna en alcuna letra. (5) Chascuns horns, si truep pauc ne saubes, [no] pogra leumen aver drecha l'entencion. Et autre(s) fail non cuig qe i sia bonamen. (6) Que granz faillirs es d'ome que si fai emendador sitot ades non a l'entencion. (7) Qe maintas vetz, per frachura d'entendimen, venon afollat maint bon mot obrat primamen e d'avinen razo. (8) Si com dis uns savis:
Blasmat venon per frachura
D'entendimen obra pura
Maintas vetz de razon prima
Per maintz fols que-s tenon lima.
(9) Mas ieu m'en sui ben gardatz. Que maint luec son qu'eu non ai ben aüt
l'entendimen, per q'ieu non ai ren volgut mudar, per paor q'ieu non
peiures l'obra. Que truep volgra esser prims e sutils horn qi o pogues tot
entendre, specialmen de las chanzos d'En Giraut de Borneill lo maestre.[9]
I, Bernart Amoros, cleric, writer of this book, came from Auvergne, from which many good troubadours have come; and I was from a town that has the name Saint Flor de Planeza. And I have spent a long time [traveling] through Provence and through regions where there are many good trou-
badours, and I have seen and heard many good songs. (2) And I have learned so much in the art of poetic composition that I can recognize and distinguish, in rhymes both in the vernacular and in Latin, by case and by verb, the right trobar from the false. Therefore I say that in good faith I have written this book, correctly, to the best of my knowledge and ability. (3) And I have emended much of what I found in the exemplar, which I consider both good and proper to do, according to correct language. (4) Therefore I beg every man not to undertake to emend a great deal unless you truly find a slip of the pen in some letter. (5) Every man, if he knows too little, will not easily be able to get the intended meaning right. And I do not think that another man's error should properly be there. (6) For it is a great failing in a man who makes himself an emender unless he first has the intended meaning. (7) For many times, through a flaw in understanding, many good verses of the first workmanship and elegant reasoning have come to a bad end. (8) As a wise man says: "Through flaws in understanding of the first razo, pure works often come to be blamed, on account of many fools with erasers in their hands." But I took good care not to do this. For there are many passages where I did not really grasp the intention, and for this reason I did not wish to change anything, for fear that I might make the work worse. For a man will have to be extremely superior and subtle in order to understand everything, especially the songs of Giraut de Bornelh, the master.
In describing his background and travels, Bernart Amoros is not indulging in mere vanity: he is giving his credentials. By using the vida form for his autobiographical introduction, he presents himself as the peer of the troubadours, like them an initiate in the art of lyric composition. He counts on his reader's believing that the proximity of his birthplace to the origin of so many good troubadours, as well as his extensive travels in Provence and Auvergne, enhances his qualifications to distinguish "lo dreig trobar del fats." Certainly trobar was still a living art at the time of Bernart's visits, since it is clear from the passage that Bernart was not limited to traveling from library to library examining manuscripts: not only did he see many songs; he heard them also. He implies that the troubadours' native lands were a particularly abundant and reliable source of their songs; we may infer that each region not only preserved copies of its natives' works (the songs Bernart "saw") but also maintained them in a performing tradition (the songs he "heard").
When Bernart says that he has "learned so much in the art of composi-
tion" that he can devezir (make decisions) both "en vulgar e en lati" (in the vernacular and in Latin), he does not necessarily mean only that he has become a good critic, an informed member of poetry's audience. He may also mean that he can versify. Five Latin hexameters bearing his name survive, at the end of a collection of Latin proverbs; they demonstrate that his enthusiasm extends to his having learned to create original lines in the style of what he edited:
Anno milleno ter centum ter quoque deno
Adjuncto terno complevit tempore verno
Dictus Amorosus Bernardus, in his studiosus,
Librum presentem, proverbia mille tenentem,
Milleque quingentos versus hic ordine junctos.[10]
In the year one thousand three hundred and thirty and three
added, in the springtime, the man called Bernart Amoros, a
devoted student of these matters, completed the present book
containing a thousand proverbs, and a thousand five hundred
lines of verse here adjoined in order.
Bernart knew his contemporaries—both copyists and compilers—better than we know them today, and if he thought it necessary to make a special plea for careful, responsible copying, we can be sure that he expected emendadors by the dozen. He himself was one, and in good conscience. He begs that others correct only "slips of the pen," implying that writers of the day were in the habit of correcting more serious errors, perhaps even the kinds of errors (vicis ) for which the grammarians constantly reproach the anciens trobadors . What saves Bernart Amoros, at least in his own eyes, is that he made his emendations "in good faith," following both "correct language" and "the intended meaning." In his view, one must resort to mechanical transcription when one has not understood the passage. He admits that this has been his practice "especially with the songs of Sir Giraut de Bornelh the master." But how does Bernart proceed when he does understand the passage before him and finds it "flawed"? He emends "much." And it requires all the powers of this learned man, who has taken pains not only to learn the grammar but also to listen to as many songs as possible in their native lands, and who can write original verse if necessary, to make these emendations "rightly, to the best of my knowledge and ability."[11]
Sylvia Huot, who has recently commented on Bernart Amoros's pref-
ace, argues that this late-thirteenth-century text reflects an attitude that "can exist only within the framework of a written literary tradition; It is foreign to the semi-improvisational oral tradition." The case for this conclusion is well-stated in Huot's book: "For Bernart, vernacular and Latin poetry alike exist as a written tradition, governed by strict rules of poetic and grammatical form. His concern with textual emendations further reflects a consciousness of the poem as having a fixed form, composed by a gifted individual; the task of the copyist is to restore and preserve the work of the masters" (1987, 333). Yet Bernart's concern is not so much with preserving the literal utterances of the gifted individual (and Giraut de Bornelh is the only poet Bernart mentions as particularly deserving of non-emendation) but with preserving the "rightness" of the poem. As for the claim that Bernart's attitude belongs exclusively to a written tradition, we should not discount Bernart's "seeing and hearing" of many songs. It may be that in his "fieldwork" he conceived of himself as seeking the "right" version of any given song, assuming that the "right" version would of course coincide with the "authentic" or "authorial" version. Nonetheless, Bernart obviously was exposed to the "semi-improvisational oral tradition" and was keenly aware of the existence of variant versions.
It is unlikely that Bernart Amoros's plea for literal copying by the tasteless scribes of posterity reflects a sudden, late upsurge in zealous emendation. Even in the twelfth century we find much concern about the reproduction of musical texts. Bernard de Clairvaux addresses the preface of his treatise on song (De cantu ) both to future copyists and to future singers: "omnibus transcripturis hoc Antiphonarium, sive cantaturis in illo" (to all those who will transcribe this Antiphonary, or who will stag in it). St. Bernard apparently detects mouvance in the traditional antiphonary of the Cistercians and wishes to correct this situation, finding it unseemly for laudes Deo . Observing that the songs have long been entrusted to those who sang them,
Cantum quem Cisterciensis Ordinis ecclesiae cantare consueverant, licet
gravis et multiplex absurditas, diu tamen canentium commendavit
auctoritas
The song which the assemblies of the Cistercian order are accustomed to
sing—though granted it is a serious and manifold absurdity—has never-
theless for a long time been entrusted by authority to those singing it,
he urges that some regularity be adopted in singing by monks who, in all other respects, follow the Rule:
Dignum siquidem est, ut qui tenent Regulae veritatem, praetermissis al-
iorum dispensationibus, habeant etiam rectam canendi scientiam, re-
pudiatis eorum licentiis, qui similitudinem magis, quam naturam in can-
tibus attendentes, cohaerentia disjungunt, et conjungunt opposita; sicque
omnia confundentes, cantum prout libet, non prout licet, incipiunt et ter-
minant, deponunt et elevant, componunt et ordinant. Unde nemo miretur
aut indignetur, si cantum aliter quam huc usque audierit, in plerisque mu-
tatum invenerit. (Migne 1844–1902, vol. 182, cols. 1121ff.)
If in fact it is proper that those who uphold the truth of the Rule, ignoring
the directions of others, yet still have true knowledge of how to sing, refus-
ing the liberties taken by those men, who, paying more attention to simili-
tude than to nature in songs, disjoin coherences and conjoin opposites;
and thus, confounding everything, as they will and not as they should, they
begin and end the song, lower and raise it, put it together and put it in
order. Thus, no one is astonished or indignant if he hears a song different
from the way it was in the past, and finds changes in several places.
St. Bernard is speaking both of the melodies and of the words to these church songs; he finds an "excusatio facilis" (easy excuse) for "mutatio litterae" (change in the letter) in the fact that most of the repeated phrases in the antiphonary are nowhere to be found in the Scriptures. His desire to establish a fixed text for nonscriptural material, and the weight of the opposition to fixity in song that his preface is designed to overcome, show how deeply ingrained must have been the distraction between divinely inspired texts (to be reproduced prout licet ) and mere human, transitory utterances (to be reproduced prout libet ). Yet Bernard de Clairvaux seeks to give his own edition of the antiphonary some of the lustre and integrity of a sacred text. Like Bernart Amoros, the saint explains that he has made many necessary changes and now desires that no one after him undertake the same charge.
Raimon Vidal, in the Razos de trobar, observes that troubadour poetry has captured the imagination, and the memory, of the listening public. Audiences are not mere audiences—they participate. Everyone from the highest walk of life to the lowest has taken a daily interest in poetry, both composing and singing it:
Totas genz cristianas, iusieuas et sarazinas, emperador, princeps, rei, duc,
conte, vesconte, contor, valvasor, clergue, borgues, vilans, paucs e granz,
meton totz iorns lor entendiment en trobar et en chantar, o q'en volon
trobar o q'en volon entendre o q'en volon dire o q'en volon auzir; qe greu
seres en loc negun tan privat ni tan sol, pos gens i a paucas o moutas, qe
ades non auias cantar un o autre o tot ensems, qe neis li pastor de la mon-
tagna lo maior sollatz qe ill aiant an de chantar. Et tuit li mal e·l ben del
mont son mes en remembransa per trobadors. Et ia non trobares mot [ben]
ni mal dig, po[s] trobaires l'a mes en rima, qe tot iorns [non sia] en re-
membranza, qar trobars et chantars son movemenz de totas galliardias.
(cited in Poe 1984, 69)
All people—Christians, Jews, and Saracens, emperors, princes, kings,
dukes, counts, viscounts, contors, vavasseurs, clerics, bourgeois, peasants,
small and great, every day apply their attention to poetry and song, either
that they want to compose it or they want to understand it or they want to
recite it or they want to listen to it; so that you could hardly find yourself
in any place so private or so isolated, be there few or many people, that
you would not hear singing one person or another or all of them at once,
for even the shepherds of the mountains, the greatest amusement that they
have is to sing. And all the goods and evils of the world have been placed in
remembrance by the troubadours. And never will you find anything, well
or badly said, once a troubadour has set it to rhyme, which will not forever
be in memory, for poetic composition and singing are movements of all
gladness.
But few of these amateurs know how to compose properly ("la drecha maniera de trobar"), so Raimon must take it upon himself to set them straight. As for his own book, Raimon is equally conservative and monumentalist: "Per qu'ieu vos dig qe en neguna ren, pos basta ni ben ista, no·n deu om ren ostar ni mais metre" (Therefore I tell you that in no detail, since it suffices and is good as it stands, should a man take anything out or put in anything more). Let the public wreak havoc on troubadour poetry, but let it leave untouched the manual for undoing that havoc! Raimon Vidal's Razos have been dated by Jeanroy at ca. 1200—half a century before the writing of the earliest extant troubadour songbook. We may notice that in Raimon's list of all the things people want to do to poetry—hear it, understand it, compose it, recite it—we do not see the words read and write . The song was a matter for remembranza —memory.
If troubadour poetry was "a dying art" after 1254 in its native land, surely it continued to be a living art in its adoptive patriae —in Italy, Catalonia, northern France—in the regions, that is, where most of the early chansonniers were compiled. Ferrari de Ferrara, Bernart Amoros, and Miquel de la Tor were all, to some extent, practicing poets as well as makers of books. Ferrari de Ferrara
fo giullar et intendez meill detrobar proensal the negus om che fos mai en
lombardia e meill entendet la lenga proensal e sap molt be letras e scriuet
meil ch'om del mond e feis de molt bos libres e de beil.... Mas non fes
mais .II. cancos e una retruensa mais seruentes e coblas les el asai de las
meillor del mon e fe un estrat de tutas las cancos des bos trobador del mon.
(Teulié and Rossi 1901–1902, 13:60–61)
was a longleur and understood better how to compose poetry in Proveçal
than any man who was still living Lombardy, and he better understood
the Proveçal language and knew letters very well and wrote better than
any man in the world and made some very good and beautiful books. . . .
But he only composed two love songs and one retruensa, but he composed
plenty of sirventes and coblas, some of the best in the world, and he made a
selection of all the love songs of the good troubadours of the world.
The sixteenth-century scholar Giovanni Barbieri, according to his book on the origins of rhymed poetry, had the same text, with a few additions, on page 5 of his libro slegato (Barbieri 1790, 84). In the biography of Peire Cardenal (d. ca. 1272), Miquel de la Tor solemnly certifies that he personally wrote the sirventes of Peire following the vida, that he was in Nimes when he wrote it, and (as if he knew Peire) that the poet was more than a hundred years old when he died. Beyond that, the only trace of Miquel's work is preserved in Barbieri's testimony, and that only in a book published more than two hundred years after Barbieri wrote it.[12] Barbieri quotes poetry from a book he calls the "Libro di Michele" and cites the following statements from it (Italian phrases are Barbieri's):
Maistre Miquel de la Tor de Clarmon del Vernhesi escrius aquest libre estant en Monpeslier &c.
E ne scrisse ancora delle sue in soggetto del suo amore, di cui dice in una Canzone:
En Narbone era plantatz
L'albre quem fara murir,
Et en Monpesher es cazatz
En molt bon luec se nes mentir.
(Barbieri 1790, 120–121)
"Master Miquel de la Tor, from Clermont in Alvernhe, wrote this book
while he was in Montpellier etc." And he wrote more of his own [poetry]
on the subject of his own love, of which he says in a canso: "In Narbonne
was planted the tree which will make me die, and in Montpellier it [the
tree] fell, in many a good place and that's no lie."
Like Bernart Amoros, these men in their biographies evince the conviction that to compile and copy troubadour lyric poetry one should be able to compose it. Ferrari de Ferrara tried his hand at various genres but specialized in the sirventes (political satire)—yet his compilation is one of cansos . Miquel de la Tor, scholar though he was, adopts the ethos and idiom of the poet/lover ("que·m fara murir") with his boast that his song (the "tree," the body of knowledge he has mastered in Montpellier) has been well distributed ("es cazatz en molt bon luec"). Poets and compilers, these men's expertise in troubadour poetry came not only from reading but also from performing and listening to others perform.
For these reasons we must now challenge the accepted theory (of Gröber, Avalle, and Marshall) that all the poetry anthologized in the chansonniers descends exclusively from authorized Liederblätter (song sheets) distributed, multiplied, and modified only through repeated copying from copies .[13] There is no proof that twelfth-century jongleurs habitually referred to written copies as they sang their renditions; indeed, there is evidence that many of these performers were illiterate (Paden 1979, 4–5; Paden 1984, 97–98). It is also, as Hendrik van der Werf points out, very likely that some copies were taken down from performances rather than from written texts. The act of transcription itself, given medieval methods of reading, may have tended to reenact performance. Van der Werf, in his study of variants in musical notation, observes that
there was no one prescribed way of performing a certain chanson, nor was there the uniformity in musical notation that we know now. Furthermore, we may conclude that the scribes did not copy at sight symbol for symbol. Instead, the differences between certain manuscripts suggest that a scribe may have sung to himself a section from the draft in front of him—not necessarily the melody of exactly one entire line—and then copied from memory what he had heard rather than what he had seen. Consequently he
put himself in the position of a performer notating his own performance.
(1972, 30)[14]
Bernart Amoros implies strongly that the correctness of the text he writes owes as much to the fact that he has "seen and heard" many songs as to "so qu'ieu trobei en l'issemple" (that which I found in the exemplar). Might not a copyist, familiar with a song as song more than as tuneless poetry, also sing the words to himself as he wrote, copying what he sang rather than what he saw? Might not he sing, moreover, what he had heard in preference to what he had read? The adaptability of spelling to conform to the scribe's own pronunciation of the language would surely not detract from this point of view: one might cite, for example, the "nonidentical twin" manuscripts G and Q in their presentation of the poems of Rigaut de Berbezilh: the six songs are given in exactly the same order, with a line-for-line correspondence that suggests a case where both copies were made from the same original, yet there is almost no letter-for-letter correspondence in their spelling (Bertom 1912, 187–196; Bertoni 1905, 85–90).
Our modern literalism, influenced by the printing press, conceives of the "faithful copy" in quite a different sense from Bernart Amoros's transcription "en bona fe" (in good faith). It is true that "matters of editorial technique" need to come more to the attention of readers of troubadour poetry; it is also true that "at least in certain kinds of lyric poetry, the exact letter of the text matters a very great deal indeed" (Marshall 1975, 11). But do those "certain kinds of lyric poetry" to which Marshall refers properly include all troubadour songs, early and late, whether they forbid the jongleur to camjar lo ver or request that he improve it? This exactitude, this reverence for the "well-wrought Urn," for these "letters" and "texts," certainly is essential to our modern conception of lyric poetry. Nonetheless, we now have reason to doubt that the troubadours defined "lyric poetry" exactly as twentieth-century poets do. Marshall believes that written composition and purely written transmission allow us to reconstruct an authentic original text; underlying this belief are the assumption that such a text once existed and the hope that, like modern poets, the troubadours strove to perfect one original version and then, through written circulation, to claim it as inviolable literary property:
in so far as we can reconstruct the textual history of individual poets or songs, that history seems to be one of written texts, without interference (or with no demonstrable interference) from memorial transmission. So far
as we can now ascertain, written copies were in circulation virtually from the moment of composition and formed ultimately the basis for the manuscript collections which have come down to us. (Marshall 1975, 14)
Since, as a matter of fact, "demonstrable interference from memorial transmission" is evident not only in the quality of variants in the chansonniers but also in the testimony of the troubadours themselves, we should reexamine this reconstructed "textual history . . . of written texts." A crucial question in evaluating the poets' own ideas of a "faithful copy" is the extent to which their own use of writing, and of other methods of promoting literalism and fixing their words, made the exact letter of the text matter to them. As we shall see, the twelfth-century poets know about writing but show little sign of using it either to compose or to fix their texts. They occasionally use "fixative' rhyme schemes, but only 10 to 20 percent of the time. They frequently speak to the addressee as to a future reciter of the song, and they occasionally ask for the kind of emendation "in good faith" that will, if necessary, "improve" their lyrics.
Images of the Writing Poet
Evidence that the troubadours used writing as an aid in composing, recording, and transmitting their songs often poses interpretive problems, for it is far rarer than the evidence for memorizing "careers." There remains the possibility that even the more formally complex poems could have been composed in the author's head and then noted down afterward. This may be difficult for us to accept, in an era when the lyric is considered a form that aspires to perfection "to the letter." Ezra Pound, a modern poet who knew the labors of composition in exacting forms of rhymed and metered verse, could not imagine Bertran de Born other than as a writing poet. He suggests that when fact runs out we "try fiction," and envisions Bertran scribbling at a table on strips of parchment, swearing as he revises, "testing his list of rhymes," scratching and erasing quarrelsome words. Pound's vision comes complete with green eyes and a "red straggling beard."[15]
Ezra Pound's image of composition is borne out by some allusions in the works of the troubadours and undercut by others. Much of Gröber's (1877) evidence for the use of Liederblätter (individual song sheets) during composition comes from the time of Giraut Riquer, when written transmission had begun seriously to monumentalize in the permanent anthologies. The conclusion that pen and paper necessarily made it easier to
"test one's list of rhymes" may owe its credibility to what "seems" true to the modern vision (which lacks some of the medieval acuity in audition) of lyric poetry. Pound's description of Bertran is a self-portrait, and the green eyes and red beard are not the only features borrowed from the modern poet to fill in what we do not know about the medieval one.[16] As Gröber puts it, it seems inconceivable that paper and pen would not have "helped" in so complex an art: "The poetry and composition of the troubadours in no way seems to have been so easy that parchment and pen would not have provided a welcome aid to the fixing of their thoughts" (1877, 338).
Miniatures in the chansonniers often depict the Occitan poets writing, most often on a long scroll. The artist's conception does not distinguish between the poet composing verse on paper and the poet making a record of what he has composed. Sylvia Huot observes that in the trouvère MSS O, M, P, and W, "the scroll is an iconographic motif suggesting song as such—the lyric text, destined ultimately for oral performance. . . . The scroll as a visual image carried connotations of orality from its use as the medieval equivalent of the 'voice balloon': a figure held an unfurled scroll bearing the words that he or she was meant to be saying." The trouvère MS A, by contrast, depicts books (Huot 1987, 78–79). She also finds, in trouvère manuscripts, that "in every image of 'song making,' the song is represented by a scroll." While in one manuscript the scroll is inscribed with the opening line of the song being illustrated, in two others the figures holding the scrolls are not looking at them, and in two cases the scrolls are rolled up (p. 78). The manuscripts in Huot's study date from the end of the thirteenth century and later. Although these pictures of the scroll-using poet could have been influenced by the assumptions of the growing book culture for which they were painted, it is true that, executed so soon after the flourishing of the classical troubadour tradition, and many of them decades before its last revival, they may spring from factual knowledge of the poets' usage.[17]
The image of the writing troubadour is also validated by several allusions in the works of the poets. Jaufre Rudel's famous lines remain ambiguous:
Senes breu de pargamina
Tramet lo vers en chantan.
(J Rud 2/1, 29–30)
Without a letter of parchment I send the poem by singing.
These lines could indicate either that the usual way to trametre un vers did involve a written letter[18] or, on the contrary, that the lyric form, inscribed on the memory instead of on parchment, distinguishes itself from other kinds of permanent documents—deeds, contracts, or prose letters.
Guilhem IX complained that he had not seen any news:
De lai don plus m'es bon e bel
non vei mesager ni sagel.
(Gm IX 10, 7–8)
From the place that most pleases me, I see neither a messenger
nor a seal.
Jeanroy, I think, is right in translating sagel as metonymous: "une lettre scellée," a sealed letter.
As late as the composition of some of the longer razos, the biographers still hesitate between depicting written exchange with literate ladies and reporting exchange via a human envoy. The razo of a poem by Guilhem de Balaun (P.-C. 208, 1) is recounted in two manuscripts, and there is a telling discrepancy between two versions of the role of the go-between, Bernart d'Anduza, as he "transmits" to Guilhem's lady the song "Lo vers mou mercejan vas vos."[19] In H, Bernart carries a written copy of the poem: "Si·l portet lo vers escrit" (And he brought her the written poem). The equivalent action in R, however, runs to 150 words: Bernart rides to Balaun, where he interviews the poet; thence he goes to visit the lady "e comtet tota la razon de Guilhem a la dona" (and recounted the whole apology of Guilhem to the lady), whereupon he attempts to persuade her to pardon Guilhem, countering her objections. Both versions then proceed: "E la preget tan caramen . . ." (And he pleaded with her so preciously . . .). In H, "lo vers escrit" might itself be the prec, the plea; the biographer may even have considered it to be written in rimas caras (dear rhymes). In MS R, by contrast, the plea depends purely on the eloquence of Bernart d'Anduza, the go-between. The lady of R demands a song of apology from Guilhem, and the story requires that he deliver and perform it in person (Boutière and Schutz 1964, 328, no. 56). In this very vacillation we may find traces of the double transmission suggested by van der Werf—relying sometimes on parchment, sometimes on a memorizing carrier.[20]
The question of how commonly writing was used as an aid to composition is far from settled. A poem perhaps by Bernart Marti (its authorship is disputed by Peire d'Alvernhe, Marcabru, and Bernart de Venzac)[21 ]
mentions a peniers (Hoepffner: écritoire , writing box) in a context that suggests the joy of composition and the distraction from trouble afforded by poetry:
Non er mais drutz ni drutz no·m fenh;
Lo peniers ni jois no m'esjau.
("Belha m'es la flors d'aguilen,"
vv. 49–50, in Hoepffner 1929, 36)
I will nevermore be a lover, nor do I pretend to be one; neither
the writing box nor joy gives me pleasure.
Since the tornada is one of the most frequent locations for commentary on the song—its success, its worth as a finished product, its value to the poet, its destination—the author is certainly using "the pen" in metonymy for poetic composition. If he were referring to clerical labors, he could scarcely expect esjauzimen (enjoyment) on a par with what joy, the source of inspiration that subsumes and surpasses all forms of gaudium, might give him (Camproux 1965). With songs occurring in few manuscripts, one must allow for the possibility that one or more tornadas have been edited out by the compilers of the chansonniers or by their performing predecessors; still, this tornada by itself gives the appearance of an anti-envoi, a defiant substitute for the increasingly usual address to a named, beloved addressee, to whom the poet expresses his modest hope that his own sense of joy measures the poem's worthiness of its recipient. The passage might be loosely rendered, "I have no one to send this to, so I do not enjoy composing; I don't even enjoy joy ."
Writing may not have been a necessary step in poetic creation, however. When Bernart de Ventadorn refers explicitly to sending a written copy of a poem for private reading, he implies that if he could have sent a messenger, he would not have bothered to write the words:
Pois messatger no·lh trametrai
Ni a me dire no·s cove
Negu cosselh de me no sai
Mais d'una re me conort be:
Ela sap letras et enten
Et agrada·m qu'eu escria
Los motz, e s'a leis plazia
Legis los al meu sauvamen.
(B Vent 17, 49–56)
Since I will not send her a messenger, and it is not fitting for me
to speak, I know no advice for myself. But of one thing I am
very glad: she knows letters and understands them, and I am
pleased that I might write the words, and if she likes, she may
read them for my salvation.
Bernart introduces the lady's literacy as if it were a great marvel, using a whole line just to create suspense for the news. We are not meant to be surprised that he can write, but only that her ability to read makes writing worthwhile. He implies that the written record will follow composition: the form of the verb (escria, subjunctive of escriure ) makes the act of writing potential rather than actual: it implies future possibility. There is no mention of noting down the tune (lo son ), but only the words—los motz being the standard phrase used to signify "the song I am now singing." Nevertheless one manuscript (G ) preserves a melody for the song, indicating that at some point it was "transmitted" by musical performance as well. Saber letras (to know letters), in this context, refers to literacy in the vernacular; that he speaks of writing down this very song and not a separate letter in Latin also finds confirmation in the fact that entendre nearly always has poetry as its object, whether used in the receiving sense (to comprehend) or in the creative sense (to design) (Schutz 1932). In a song whose subject is the lover's elaborate hesitation to communicate, the phrase trametre mesatge (send a message or messenger), taken together with the position of the stanza (preceding the tornada in all manuscripts that include it), spells out the motif of the envoi: "Go, my song."
Elsewhere Bernart speaks again of writing to the lady: "De l'aiga que dels olhs plor, / escriu salutz mais de cen, / que tramet a la gensor" (With the water that I weep from my eyes, I write greetings, more than a hundred, which I send to the most noble lady; 6, 49–51). The salut d'amor was at that period not an established lyric genre; Bernart calls his songs vers or chansos so this is not necessarily a case of sending off a song in writing. Nevertheless, the song is a sort of greeting. Although this is a metaphorical use of writing, "figures of speech" usually come about when the customs from which they derive are firmly enough established to be taken for granted. Writing to ladies would have to be customary in the first place before a topos about writing to them using tears for ink could become common.
Bernart treats writing, far from essential to his song, as a novelty; thus
it becomes a clever solution to the problem of the untransmittable song first posed by Guilhem IX:
Ren per autrui non l'aus mandar
tal paor ai c'ades s'azir,
ni ieu mezei, tan tem faillir,
non l'aus m'amor fort asemblar.
(Gm IX 9, 43–46)
I dare not send anything to her through another person, so
much I fear that she would immediately become angry, nor do
I myself dare to demonstrate my love strongly, for fear of
making a mistake.
One way or another, Guilhem's poem confesses (as its preservation attests) to its "publication," though the speaker has decided to keep his composition to himself.
The tornadas, for the most part, give the impression that songs are made to be sent off into the world and not hoarded. Giraut de Bornelh apparently views letters as the very antithesis of song; in despair, the speaker threatens to "turn to the profession of men of letters" if his poems continue to fail him in his personal life:
E no·m valran una mora
Sonet ni voltas ni lais
Ans me sui totz acordatz
Que viatz
Torn'al mester dels letratz
E·l chantar si'oblidatz.
(Gr Bor 39, 65–70)
And they will not be worth a beet to me, melodies nor trills nor
lays, but rather I have completely resolved that I would quickly
turn to the occupation of lettered men, and that the song be
forgotten.
The sadness of the idea that "the song be forgotten" reflects an observable antipathy toward "letters," despite a thirteenth-century biographer's implication that Giraut owned a library (Boutière and Schutz 1964, 57). For Rigaut de Berbezilh, to quit singing meant annihilation ("per tos-
temps lais mon chantar, / que de mi no·i a ren plus," I give up my singing forever, so that there is nothing left of me; R Berb 2, 14–15).
Arnaut Daniel shows signs of a very curious attitude toward writing. Here above all we might test the modern assumption that complex verse forms could not be composed without pen and ink—that is, we might test it if only the evidence were unambiguous. The vida (Provençal biography) states that Arnaut's famous style, his "maniera de trobar en caras rimas" (manner of composing in dear rhymes), is something he "took up" (pres ) only after he "abandoned letters." This might mean that he had merely given up Latin, the better to devote himself to the enrichment of his native language; the cultivation of "letters," however, was not an obstacle to trobar in the first place:
Et amparet ben letras e delectet se en trobar. Et abandonet las letras, e fet
se joglar, e pres una maniera de trobar en caras rimas.
(Boutière and Schutz 1964, 59)
And he learned letters well and enjoyed himself by composing poetry. And
he abandoned letters, and became a jongleur, and took up a style of
composing in difficult rhymes.
However we may interpret this, Arnaut appears to have developed a reputation for giving up writing in favor of performance. The vida may represent an effort to synthesize two conflicting images of Arnaut—one of a brilliantly literate poet, the other of a poet so brilliant that he had no need of letters.
In one poem, Arnaut makes a statement that sounds very much like a defense of illiteracy, and may have seemed just that to his biographer:
Ben conosc ses art d'escriure
que es plan o que es comba.
(Arn D 4, 41–42)
I know well without the art of writing what is flat and what is a
hill.
Since plan, in addition to its geographical sense (plain), is one of Arnaut's terms for a particular style he favors (it describes the refinement of words, their "planing" and polishing), this passage may have been understood as a boast about the poet's ability to make poetic distinctions, to triar los motz without writing them down. If this could be taken as an autobio-
graphical statement (and I am not convinced that it can), then Arnaut styles himself as the exception to the rule, one who, like the lightning calculators of mathematics, dazzled his contemporaries by "doing it all in his head" while others labored with their pens.
The author of the famous anecdote introducing Arnaut's song "I've never had her but she has me" ("Anc yeu non l'aic") apparently wishes to give a similar impression. The entire razo creates an awesome idea of Arnaut's powers of memory: his own songs "non son leu ad aprendre" (are not easy to learn), but the song in question was made by a poet who claimed to compose "en rimas pus caras q'el" (in rhymes more precious than he [Arnaut used]; Boutière and Schutz 1964, 63). The narrator draws a humorous contrast between the difficulty experienced by the jongleur in memorizing his own song and the ease with which Arnaut "la va tota arretener, e·l son" (memorized it, including the melody).
As Arnaut's razo suggests, even the author of a song normally took considerable pains to memorize it, at least if he planned to perform it himself. Marcabru says, in what is probably an allusion to the poem-as-lawsuit (cf. R. H. Bloch 1977, 171–176), that he needs to practice his affar three times before making it public:
E dei me tres vetz doctrinar
Mon affar anz que si' auzit.
(Mcb 8, 44–45)
And I have to teach myself my case three times before it may
be heard.
If the jongleur competing against Arnaut made a record of his song, he certainly did not intend to rely on it on the day the king would judge it. The razo affords a glimpse of this process of memorization:
Lo joglars fes son cantar leu e tost; et els non avian mas detz jorns d'espazi,
e devia·s jutgar per lo rey a cap de cinc jorns. Lo joglars demandet a·N
Arnaut si avia fag, e·N Arnautz respos que oc, passat a tres jorns; e no·n
avia pessat. E·l joglars cantava tota nueg sa canso, per so que be la saubes.
E·N Arnautz pesset co·l traysses isquern; tan que venc una nueg, e·l joglars
la cantava, e·N Arnautz la va tota arretener, e·l so.
(Boutière and Schutz 1964, 62)
The jongleur made his song easily and quickly; and they had had only the
space of ten days, and [now] the king was to judge at the end of five days.
The jongleur asked Arnaut if he had finished, and Arnaut answered, "Yes,
three days ago"; and he had not thought of anything. And the jongleur
sang his song all night long so that he would know it well. Arnaut consid-
ered how be might mock him, until there came one night, and the jongleur
sang it, and Arnaut memorized the whole thing, including the melody.
Of course, here the question is not one of the ordinary troubadour versus the superior one—Arnaut's challenger is depicted as very nearly his equal, someone whose song was good enough to become a permanent part of Arnaut's repertory. We are meant to be astounded by the jongleur's speed, and then still more in awe of Arnaut's. The whole ten days allowed by the king would not ordinarily have sufficed; the five days in which the jongleur composed his song seemed "easy and quick" work to the narrator; Arnaut escalates the boast by claiming that he composed his song in two days. The jongleur practiced for long hours, perhaps every night for the remaining five nights, to assure that he would not forget his own composition; Arnaut learns it perfectly (tota ) by ear in one night. If the jongleur's hare runs a mile in three minutes, Arnaut's ox runs it in thirty seconds.
I shall have more to say about this razo and its place in Gröber's theory of the autograph songbook. I believe that the razo makes a better case for oral, memorizing composition than for written composition. But before we address the question of Liederbücher, it would be well to learn as much as possible from the poets about their techniques for assuring faithful transmission without writing.
Memory and the Singer
A fascinating reference to the act of memorization occurs at the end of Peire d'Alvernhe's "Bel m'es quan la roza":
Chantador, lo vers vos fenis:
Aprendetz la comensansa.
(P d'Alv 13, 36–37)
Singers, I end for you my song: learn the beginning!
These lines do more than affirm the moral value of the sententiae expressed in the first stanza. Whether Peire is addressing hired singers, like the two Giraut de Bornelh reportedly brought with him to assist in performance, or simply an audience of amateur singers, he appears to be asking that they practice singing the beginning of the song immediately after
they hear the end. He wants them, in short, to "take it from the top." Set next to this passage, Bernart de Ventadorn's request that Garsio "sing and carry" his song appears less redundant than it otherwise might:
Garsio, ara·m chantat
ma chanso, e la·m portat
a mo Messager
(B Vent 6, 61–63)
Garsio, now sing my song to me, and [then] carry it for me to
my Messenger
It is not at all surprising that a poet, before sending his song off to its destination by way of a jongleur, would like to know how it will sound when it gets there; he might even be expected to supervise the jongleur as he practiced until he got it right, as even Arnaut Daniel's talented competitor had to practice. The poet thus makes himself, for the first time, a part of the audience; he will hear his song in other voices many times afterward.
Peire d'Alvernhe's signal toward la comensansa (the beginning) may point to another key to memorization. The first stanza of a song carries with it a whole set of unspoken rules, a decorum, which the song establishes for itself and then follows. Rhyme, well known as a powerful mnemonic, makes its entrance here, and the poem's metric scheme also sets up in the exordium a pattern from which the rest, with greater or lesser determination, follows in a prescribed form. The dependence of the whole development of a song on its beginning was well known, for the troubadours readily applied the maxim "All's well that begins well" to their own work:
Ab joi mou lo vers e·l comens,
et ab joi, reman e fenis;
e sol que bona fos la fis,
bos tenh qu'er lo comensamens.
Per la bona comensansa
mi ve jois et alegransa
e per so dei la bona fi grazir,
car totz bos faihz vei lauzar al fenir.
(B Vent 1, 1–8)
The poem begins with joy and begins it, and with joy it stays
and ends; and if only the end may be good, I hold that the be-
ginning will be good. Through the good beginning come joy
and happiness to me, and therefore I should praise the good
end, for I see that all good actions are praised when they are
finished.
Eugen Cnyrim cites dozens of examples of this motif of continuity from "comensamens . . . al fenir" (1887, 35), and in most cases the more general meaning of the proverb can appropriately be understood as a comment on songs as well. A "recreant" from the verse form he has begun will author a defective poem:
Eu dic lo ver aissi cum dir lo solh
Qui ben comens e poissas s'en recre
Melhs li fora que non comenses re.
(Cnyrin 1887, no. 329 [Peire Vidal])
I speak the truth as I am accustomed to speak it: whoever be-
gins well and afterward becomes disloyal to it, it would be
better for him if he had begun nothing.
Theorists of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries confirm the view that the comensamen was the determining element in the song, firmly establishing its decorum; however, they tend to play down the form and insist instead on thematic continuity:
E garda be que, en axi com començaras raho en amor, que en aquella
manera matexa la fins be e la seguesques.
("Doctrina de Compondre Dictatz," In Marshall 1972, 95)
And be careful that in the same way as you begin the statement about love,
in that same way you should finish it and follow it through.
E si ell comensa chanson
Deu continuar sa razon
En aysi con le comensa
Si ell no vol farfallensa.
Car may mi play e agrada
Razos ben continuada
Que mot qan alcus los entresca
Ab rimas e entrebesca.
("Doctrina d'Acort," vv. 737–
744, in Marshall 1972, 51)
And if he [a poet] begins a song, he should continue his argu-
ment just as he began it, if he does not wish to make a mistake.
For I am more pleased and delighted by an argument with
good continuity than by stanzas when someone braids them
together and interweaves them with rhymes.
The troubadours of the classic period (ca. 1170) are not especially cooperative in this rule of thematic continuity, and Bernart de Ventadorn provides Raimon Vidal with an example of "razons mal continuadas ni mai seguidas" (an argument with poor continuity and in poor sequence; Las razos de trobar, in Marshall 1972, 22).
Yet whether one emphasizes the form or the material, it is clear from all this that once one obeys the order "Aprendetz la comensansa" (Learn the beginning), the task of memorization is half done: "La meitat del fait tenc per faita / qui de be comensar se traita" (I hold that half the deed is done if a man takes care to begin well; Cnyrim 1887, no. 320). At least, as long as the cantador sings something in the same form as the first stanza, no one can tell whether he has forgotten the exact words he was taught, or whether the song is "improving" or "worsening" (si melhura/si pejura ).
The certainty that the rhyme scheme makes all the difference in the aptitude of a song for memorization can be illustrated with an extreme, almost contrary, case. Peire Vidal challenges Alfonso II of Aragon to memorize a poem with seventy-four rhymes in -atz:
Tant me platz jois e solatz
D'omes onratz, per qu'ieu fatz
Tal chanso viatz,
Bons reis, que prec qu'aprendatz.
E si·m demandatz:
"Tan soven per que chantatz?"—
"Quar es enuegz als malvatz
E gaugz a nos envezatz."
(P Vid 4, 1–8)
I am so pleased with joy and the conversation of landed men—
that is why I make such a fast song, good king, which I beg
you to memorize. And if you ask me, "Why do you sing so
often?"—"Because it is an annoyance to the wicked, and a
pleasure to us enviable people."
Unless the king had a far more prodigious memory than his status as part-time troubadour would imply, Peire's request that he learn such a song might appear to be a joke. How could the king possibly remember in what order the stanzas came? Knowing well Alfonso's fondness for his songs, Peire pretends to anticipate annoyance on the king's part: "What! Are you singing again?" But the poet's reply forestalls any expression of displeasure with his tongue twister: "Only bad people dislike my songs."
Learning the comensansa may have been a great aid to memory, but sustaining the pattern it set, at least one poet admitted, could overtax the memories of those destined to learn it. Berenguer de Palazol, who comes close to belittling the musical and literary talents of those to whom he has dedicated his song, makes us appreciate by contrast the compliment Peire Vidal's poem in -atz paid to Alfonso's capacities. Berenguer takes it for granted that Count Jaufre and his wife will want to learn his song, and therefore he attempts to accommodate it to them, cutting it short before it becomes too cumbersome for them to learn:
Aissi fenira ma chanso
E no vuelh pus longa sia
que pus greu la·n apenria
mo senher, e siey companho
lo coms Jaufres, que Dieus ampar.
(B Pal 6, 33–37)
Thus my song will end, and I do not want it to be longer, for
my lord would learn it with more difficulty, and [so would] her
companion the Count Jaufre—may God protect him.
The presence of the word greu (heavy, difficult) here—really far more frequent than clus (closed) as an opposite to leu (light, easy) in stylistic programs—may serve to remind us of the vital importance of audience, and of transmission by members of the audience, in shaping this body of poetry. The danger, all too evident in Berenguer's compliment to his sponsors, is that the poet may limit himself unreasonably, never allowing himself to surpass the amateur.
Berenguer was not proposing an unusual task to the Count Jaufre. It is fairly common, in the final lines of poems of the period, for poets to recommend that the addressee learn their songs—and they do so, for the most part, without exhibiting quite so awkwardly any fears about the re-
cipient's power of memory. Peire Rogier makes the request explicitly in two of his eight preserved songs. In "Tan no plou ni venta," he imposes a time limit (like the ten-day limit imposed for Arnaut Daniel's contest), asking in two tornadas that the lady learn his poem before Christmas:
Peir Rogier per bona fe
tramet lo vers denant nadal
a sidons que·l fai vivre.
Clama li per gran merce
qu'aprenda·l vers denant nadal
s'ab joy de lui vol vivre.
(P Rog 2, 64–69)
Peire Rogier in good faith sends the poem before Christmas to
his lady, who makes it live. He begs her as a great favor that
she learn the poem before Christmas if she wishes to live with
the joy of it.
An addressee who could double as a performer, and hence as a retransmitter, would indeed "make a song live," since she would expand its renown by the number of her acquaintances, who might in turn learn the song from her.
In "Ges non puesc. . . ," Peire makes a slightly greater demand on the recipient's sense of responsibility toward the song: he asks that she first learn it and then send it on ("have it conveyed") to a second lady:
Mon Tort-n'avetz mant, s'a lieys platz
qu'aprenda lo vers, s'el es bos
e puois vol que sia trames
mon Dreit-n'avetz lai en Saves:
Dieu sal e guart lo cors de liey.
(P Rog 6, 57–61)
To my You're-wrong I send instructions that if she likes [and] if
it is good, she might learn the song, and then I wish it to be sent
to my You're-right there in Savès: may God save and keep her.
Peire is not the only poet to cultivate the idea of transmission as a sort of relay, with the poem passed from hand to hand (or voice to voice) like the Olympic flame. Guilhem IX introduced the relay, as (at least for us) he introduced so many things:
Fait at lo vers, no say de cui;
e trametrai lo a celui
que lo·m trametra per autrui
enves Peitau,
que·m tramezes del sieu estui
la contraclau.
(Gm IX 4, 43–48)
I have made the song, about I don't know whom, and I will
send it to someone who will send it for me through another
person over to Poitou there, so that he can send me from his
box the counterkey.
The possibility that the addressee in Poitou (MS E, Anjou MS C ) in sending la contraclau would be sending another poem is supported by the fact that many of the senhals naming poems' recipients have been shown to designate other poets. A skilled poet, in fact, would be a likely choice for a retransmitter in the process of relay. Poems sent via a first jongleur to a recipient named Joglar (performer) or Messager (messenger) or Drogoman (interpreter) are almost certainly expected to be sung again, until the song is publicly known.
Invitations to learn songs by heart can often be detected even when they are not phrased quite so boldly as Peire Rogiers's. Rigaut de Berbezilh, famous for his shyness,[22] softens the practical, professional request—that Miels-de-dompna memorize and perform "Lo nous mes d'abril"—by weaving it into a subtle comparison:
e li ausel son chantador,
qu'atendut an en parvensa
lo pascor.
Miels de dompna, atretal entendensa
aten de vos . . .
(R Berb 6, 3–7)
and the birds are singers, for they have awaited, it seems, the
springtime. Miels-de-dompna, I await/expect from you a com-
parable understanding . . .
It is Rigaut's special invention, the forerunner of the Italian conceit, that he introduces the vehicle of his metaphor in an extensive, descriptive sweep and then modulates it. In some poems he gives the vehicle an un-
expected twist, changing the proverbial to the original—like his lion, which, by its roar alone, wakes its cub from death. In the present case, he splits a single vehicle between two tenors: himself and the lady. The fact that the poet compares himself to the birds as well, using the same verb, atendre, does not interfere with the first comparison; instead, it gives the sequence of words atretal entendensa / aten de vos an uncanny compactness. The speaker waits, like the birds, for the lady to show entendensa like that of the birds. Other troubadours' frequent efforts to involve the addressee directly in the diffusion of their songs, some of which have been brought forward here, make it plausible that Rigaut might like to share the role of chantador with Miels-de-dompna.