Old Provenal Miscellany

Author(s): K. Lewent
Source: The Modern Language Review, Vol. 38, No. 2 (Apr., 1943), pp. 106-116
Published by: Modern Humanities Research Association
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 OLD PROVENCAL MISCELLANY1
1. TROUBADOURS AS PRECURSORS OF DANTE

In his poem Us noels pessamens (Gr. 355, 20), P. Raimon complains of the
injustice of his mistress who bade him come to her and then broke her promise.
He continues (11. 23-27):
Que qui non a vezat aver
24 gran be, plus leu pot sostener
afan; que tals es rics e bos
26 que 1 maltrag 1' es plus angoyssos,
quan li soven benanansa.

Cavaliere translates this passage, following Anglade in its interpretation: 'Chi

infatti non e abituato ad avere gran bene puo pih facilmente sopportare gli
affanni; che tale [uomo] e nobile e prode, a cui la sventura riesce piu angosciosa,
quando si ricorda della felicita.' The sense of this translation is not very clear,
but neither Jeanroy (Rom. 63, 111-14) nor Spanke (Litbl. 59, 187) made any
objection to that interpretation of the text, and what has been proposed by
Kolsen (Arch. 168, 260) is unsatisfactory.2 Indeed, how can a man be called
brave and noble, because misfortune appears more grievous to him through
remembering former happiness ? I think that the key to a right understanding
of the passage is afforded by tals (1. 25). This word, accompanied by a principal
clause, often has the sense, roughly, speaking, of a determinative pronoun
followed by a relative one and may be translated by 'many a person who' or
'the one who' (cp. Levy, S.W.B. viII, 11). So the semicolon after afan is to
be cancelled and to be replaced by one at the end of the line.3 I translate:
'For he who is not accustomed to have much luck, is more capable of suffering
misery than one who is noble and high in rank; for misfortune grieves the latter
more if he remembers (former) good fortune.'
It is only by interpreting the passage in this way that the sense of the last
two lines comes out clearly; they anticipate the famous lines of Dante's
Inferno (v, 121 ff.):
Nessun maggior dolore
Che ricordarsi del tempo felice
Nella miseria.

P. Raimon is not the only troubadour to express this idea. In the first stanza
of his poem Mout a poignat amors (Gr. 167, 39), Gaucelm Faidit complains of
1 Most of the following observations have been suggested to me by two recent editions of
troubadours: (1) Le poesie di Peire Raimon de Tolosa, ed. by Alfredo Cavaliere (Bibl. dell' Arch.
rom. I, 22), Florence 1936; (2) Podsies du troubadour Aimeric de Belenoi, ed. by Maria Dumitrescu,
Paris (Soci6et des Anciens Textes), 1935.
At any rate, Kolsen ought not to have objected to the expression a vezat aver, which he
changes into es vezatz d' aver, because it is seen in one of the poems of Gaucelm Faidit edited by
Kolsen himsel. The passage in question is discussed below.
8 Kolsen, too, proposes to put a semicolon there.

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 K. LEWENT 107

the cruelty of his lady, who has made him suffer for nearly ten years, whereas,
before that time, he had had many a pleasure. The last lines of that stanza
run thus:

Car plus es greus malanans 'a soffrir

a sel que a mains bens vezat jauzir.1

It is a striking fact that both these passages, expressing the same idea,
employ the same expression aver vezat faire ale. re, which, as far as I know,
has not yet been noticed in any other Proven9al text. It stands to reason that
this coincidence is not mere chance, one of the poets being likely to have
borrowed text and idea from the other. Which of them, however, has been the
other's model is difficult to say, because it is impossible to date either of the
poems.
What is certain, however, is that neither the two troubadours nor Dante
were the first to conceive that melancholy thought. It already occurs in
Boethius: 'In omni adversitate fortunae, infelicissimum est genus infortunii
fuisse felicem' (Cons. phil. II, 4) and in Thomas Aquinas: 'Memoria praeteri-
torum bonorum...in quantum sunt amissa, causat tristitiam' (Sum. theol.
In, ii, 36, 1). The two troubadours employed that idea, which they may have
learnt at school, in their usual reflective manner, depicting one of those fictitious
situations of distressed lovers in which the Provengal lyric is so rich. Dante
puts the words in the mouth of Francesca, and so they get something of the
truth and poetical reality of that most passionate scene in which they are
spoken. He makes Francesca add the words: e cio sa il tuo dottore; but it is
not only the 'doctor' (Vergil?) who knows that; it is Dante, too, who, exiled
from his town and home, was forced to eat the 'salty bread of other people'.
So we may give those words of Francesca, though uttered by an unfortunate
lover, a vaster meaning based on the poet's bitter personal experience and
written with his heart's blood. Sapienti sat!

2. A PASSAGE IN THE ALBIGENSIAN CHRONICLE

In the edition of that epic poem published by Paul Meyer, we read the
following lines (5192-94):
Entre massas e peiras e espazas, qui que. ls tir,
e destrals e guazarmas per lo chaple endorzir,
lor feiro la carreira e la plassa sortir.

The editor translates this passage thus: 'Par l'effort des massues, des pierres,
des epees, des cognees, des guisarmes, qui rendaient le carnage terrible, ils
(les Toulousains) leur firent vider la rue et la place.' We have two objections
to make to that interpretation. The first of them concerns the expression
Entre... e..., whose nature seems not to have been recognized by the French
scholar. It cannot mean 'par l'effort de', but it is that well-known entre... e...
1 Ed. Kolsen, Trobadorgedichte No. 11.

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108 Old Provencal Miscellany
which joins different subjects together.l So the subject offeiro (1. 5194) is not
the Toulousans, but all those substantives enumerated in the first two lines.
Thus the description of the battle proves to be of a stylistic fineness which is
not revealed in Meyer's translation. The battle is seen as an entanglement of
weapons and projectiles in violent movement, and it is the latter and not men
that seem to fight. The fighters themselves remain, as it were, anonymous. This
anonymity is further emphasized by the sentence qui que ls tir, in which we
find the second of the above-mentioned misinterpretations.
These words have found no place in Meyer's translation. The glossary gives
the following explanation: 'malgre tout, quoi qu'on fasse.' But how should
qui que-ils tir mean this? Probably, Meyer thought of tirar in the sense of
'to annoy'. But then, that verb would be an intransitive one, and .Is could
only be considered as an accusative with the function of the dative, which
may be the case in Old Provengal.2 The four words would then have to be
translated: 'whosoever may annoy them', but there would be no sense in
such a translation. On the other hand, tirar is often found in one of those
ready-made formulae in which the style of the Provengal poets abounds, for
the purpose of filling up their lines or finding easy rhymes. That formula
generally shows a form like this: (a) cui que (so) tir 'whomsoever this may
annoy', and it is probably something like this which Meyer had in mind. But
the text runs differently, and we have to follow it. So I think that qui que Is tir
cannot be interpreted otherwise than by 'whosoever may discharge (fling,
draw) them', the last word referring to all those weapons and projectiles named
in the first two lines.
Two objections can be made to this interpretation. The first question is
whether the verb tirar could be used in connexion with all those warlike
objects. I am inclined to think that this was possible for a poet who wished
to express himself in the shortest possible way and who was therefore forced
to find one single word for such a variety of actions, which, moreover, may be
considered as serving the same purpose. Besides, we may refer to Levy,
S.W.B. vIII, 236 'abschiessen' and Godefroy, x, 770a.
The second difficulty seems to me more important. All the substantives
enumerated in the first two lines are of the feminine gender, and the text ought
to offer las instead of .Is (=los). This objection would be irrelevant for the
first part of the chronicle, where .Is often occurs as the enclitic form of las.3
But can the author of the second part be charged with the same mistake?
There is perhaps another explanation possible. The substantive destrals was not

1 Th. Heinermann, "'Inter...et" und seine Fortsetzungen in den romanischen Sprachen,'

ZfrPh. L, 305-18.
2 Cp. Appel, Chrestomathie6 p. xiv; Levy, Arch. 143, 98; Schultz-Gora, Prov. Stud. p. 9, n. 23.
Also in the Crois Alb., e.g. 'E vuelh que ls o digatz' (1. 2969); 'mais no ls cal temer Frances'
(1. 4014).
8 Cp. Meyer's edition, vol. iI, p. cii.

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 K. LEWENT 109

only feminine, as Levy indicates in his Petit Dictionnaire, but occurred also as
masculine, in Old French at least, as is to be seen from Tobler-Lommatzsch II,
1784, 25. The passages of the Albigensian chronicle which show this word are
not decisive for either of the genders. But if we are permitted to attribute a
masculine destrals to the author of the second part of the chronicle, all is in
good order. This one masculine word would have allowed the poet to employ
* Is =los in spite of the rest of the words being feminine. Cp. 'C'onors e pretz,
larguess' e cortezia Son toz perduz, e sors la mala fes' Gr. 461, 249 (Kolsen,
Beitr. z. altprov. Lyrik, Bibl. dell' Arch. rom. I, 27, p. 228 and note p. 229).
There is, finally, another possibility of explaining this .Is without funda-
mentally changing the interpretation of the passage. In this los we might see
the fighters themselves and translate accordingly: 'whosoever may shoot on
them.' For this signification of tirar cp. Godefroy, x, 770b. At any rate,
whichever of the two explanations of los we may choose, the stylistic merit of
the passage as giving an impressive description of a fight in which the weapons
seem to be the real fighters, remains unchanged.

3. AiMERIC DE BELENOI AND ITALY-AUTHENTICITY OF SOME

OF HIS POEMS

The careful edition which Miss Dumitrescu published of Aimer

1935 was presented to the Societe des Anciens Textes as early as 19
probably the reason why she has not taken into consideration a ver
article of De Bartholomaeis concerning her poet, which appear
medievali n.s. iv (1931), 355-41: 'Poesie indebitamente attribuit
di Vaqueras II.' Even before him, Stronski, in his edition of
Marseilla, p. 132*, had suggested a thesis which the Italian scholar
without knowing Stroniski's observation, treated again and justifi
i.e. that Aimeric not only mourned Nuno Sanchez of Roussillon in
(Gr. 9, 1 =Dum. xII), but also, as is shown by the tornadas, ded
his poems Gr. 9, 7 (=Dum. III) and Gr. ,9, 14 (=Dum. vi). T
Aimeric's poems has not, it is true, overlooked Stronski's suggesti
refuses to adopt it. She declares (p. 12 note 4) the envoy of the sec
two above-mentioned poems to be apocryphal, because it is preserv
three manuscripts (CRS), and relegates it to the varia lectio. In No
other hand, she prefers the reading of AB, which offer n' Aimo, to
which have nimo=NNuno. In n' Aimo she sees Aimon, count of
brother to Beatrice, countess of Provence. I think that Miss
would not have clung to her opifiion if she had met with De B
arguments in time. Those arguments, which seem to me quite con
be backed by these two of which De Bartholomaeis did no
(1) Aimon is, as far as I know, named by none of the numerous tro

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110 Old Provendal Miscellany
went to Italy;1 (2) the Italian writer of MS. A(B), to whom the name of Nuio
must have been quite uncommon, may easily have been tempted to replace it
by that of Aimori, which was very frequent in the house of Savoy (cp. De
Bartholomaeis, p. 337).
So we are allowed to eliminate Aimon as a protector of our poet. If this is
true, 'we may further call in question whether Aimeric had any relations at
all with Italy. There seems to be one very strong argument against denying
them. In his poem Gr. 9,.21 (=Dum. xv), Aimeric names a great number of
Italian ladies.2 Now, Miss Dumitrescu is of opinion that Aimeric, in order to
make such a poem, must have been in relations with the Italian families to
which those ladies belonged. But this argumentation, seemingly so clear and
conclusive, is fallacious. For, with his poem, Aimeric only imitates one of
Albert de Sestaro (Gr. 16, 13): taking over into his own poem the rhyming
words of his model, he changes Albert's apparently misogynic attitude
into its very contrary. That is nothing but an ingenious play which could
have been enjoyed also by people living far from Italy, provided that Albert's
poem was known to them. That this was the case in the south of France is
proved by the fact that the poem is found also in MS. C. So the poet, who
amused his hearers with a parody of Albert's poem, need not necessarily have
known the ladies whom he glorifies and whose names he found in his model.
On the contrary, two little details which can be observed in Aimeric's poem
lead us to assume that our poet has never seen Italy: (1) It is very significant
that Albert, who was quite familiar with Italian life (see his poems Gr. 16, 1;
2; 6; 11; 13), names Conrad I of Monferrat 'en Colrat mon senhor', whereas,
in the corresponding verse, Aimeric calls him 'en Colrat lo senhor'. (2) In the
second tornada, Albert praises the same Conrad; in Aimeric's imitation, the
second envoy is missing.
So we think that De Bartholomaeis (Poesie provenzali storiche etc., cp.
Dum. p. 14, note 2) was absolutely right in reckoning Aimeric among the
troubadours who have never been in Italy, and Miss Dumitrescu herself is
compelled to state (p. 16) that, except for this poem, there are no proofs
whatevei of Aimeric's having personally known those Italian families.3
On this occasion, a word may be said about the attribution of some of the
1 Jeanroy, Po&. lyr. des Troub. I, 238 mentions him only in connexion with Aimeric.
2 It is this poem which Strofski (Fokgue de MareeiUa, p. 132*) has in mind when speaking of
Aimeric's treva. Though this word appears in the poem, forming even the rhyme of 1. 19, Strofski
ought not to have given it that name. The latter is borrowed from a poem of Guilhem de la Tor
(Gr. 236, 5a), which has that name and also praises Italian ladies. As Strofiski is, moreover,
mistaken in the number of the poem-he writes Gr. 9, 4 instead of 9, 21-Miss Dumitrescu has
not been able to identify it (p. 14, note 1).
3 Following Miss Dumitrescu Ruggieri (Arch. rom. xxi, 158) claims that Aimeric passed part of
his life at the court of Thomas I of Savoy. From there, he says, the poet's fame spread over
Italy and found an echo in Dante's Vulg. El. and in the Landreide. But there is, as we saw, not
the slightest proof of such a story of Aimeric in Savoy, and it is quite unnecessry to suppose it for
the purpose of showing the course which Aimeric's fame as a poet took. For Dante also praises
Bernard de Ventadorn, Bertran de Born, and Giraut de Bornelh, none of whom had ever had any
relations with Italy.

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 K. LEWENT 11

poems that are given in the manuscripts under Aimeric's name. There is first
Gr. 392, 26 (=Dum. xix). The great majority of the manuscripts attribute it
to Raimbaut de Vaqueiras, only CPS to Aimeric. Already in 1893, Schultz-
Gora (Die Briefe des Trobadors R. de V. etc. p. 17) denied it to Raimbaut, and
generally provengalists have followed his opinion. 1ater on, Stronski and
De Bartholomaeis connected it with Nuno Sanchez, the envoy showing that
mysterious senher n' Imo, this time even without the variant n' Aimo. Here,
again, it is advisable to read the nimo of the manuscript as nuno =Nuio.
Miss Dumitrescu does not do so, prepossessed by the idea that there must have
been relations between Aimeric and the court of Savoy. Thus she deprives
herself of one of the most solid arguments in favour of Aimeric's authorship.
That which she gives instead is not very conclusive. Following a suggestion of
Stronski (Folquet de Marseilla, pp. 125* and 130*), she claims that the writers
of Provengal manuscripts, hesitating between a well-known and a less-known
author, often attribute a poem to the former. This argument was good in
Stroniski's case; for there, the copyists had to choose between Folquet de Marseilla
and Folquet (Falquet) de Romans, authors bearing the same name. It cannot
be good in our case, where a confusion of Aimeric and Raimbaut was not
possible. As, therefore, such an identity of names cannot have been the
reason why the manuscript writers were induced to an erroneous attribution
of our poem, there must have been another source for that mistake. It can,
in my opinion, only be found in the fact that the second tornada names a
certain Beatrix. Now it was and it is widely known that Raimbaut had
intimate relations with a lady of that name. The lady of our poem is, it is true,
not that of Raimbaut, but proven9alists know on what futile grounds author-
ships have been established by medieval scribes.
Another poem whose authenticity needs discussion is the Descors, Gr. 9, 20
( = Dum. xi). The editor seems to be quite sure of Aimeric's authorship, though
she herself utters two doubts regarding it. The first of them is that this poem
would be the only one among Aimeric's that makes allusions to epic heroes
(p. 21); the second that it is dedicated to a certain na India, whose name is
connected with Aimeric de Pegulhan rather than with Aimeric de Belenoi
(cp. p. 21, note 2 and Bergert, Die von den Trob. gen. u. gef. Damen, pp. 32-3).
To these doubts we may add that MS. C, the only one that has preserved our
poem, is not very trustworthy in its attributions, a fact which the editor herself
emphasizes on p. 40. Finally, the poem shows all sorts of grammatical and
stylistic incorrectnesses (cp. 11. 7, 37, 54, 64), which Aimeric carefully avoids in
his other poems.1 All these arguments taken together, I am of opinion that
the Descors is not to be attributed to Aimeric de Belenoi.

1 It is characteristic of the purity of Aimeric's grammatical attitude that, in his poem Gr. 9, 21
(= Dum. xv), the above-mentioned imitation of Albert's Gr. 16, 13, he does not imitate the gram-
matical mistakes which he found in his model, though he builds up his poem with the same
rhyming words.

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112 Old Provencl Miscellany
In other cases, I am inclined to defend the authenticity of a poem against
the decision of the editor. She thinks (pp. 25-6) the attribution of Gr. 9, 16
(=Dum. xx) to be erroneous because (1) the two manuscripts which offer it
(CR) place it at the end of Aimeric's poems, (2) the form of the stanza em-
ployed by the poet is uncommon in Aimeric. To the first argument we may
reply that, in a series of poems, one must necessarily be the last. Moreover,
Miss Dumitrescu herself contests the validity of that argument for Gr. 9, 13
( =Dum. v) and Gr. 9, 1 ( = Dum. xII); cp. pp. 20 and 21, note 2. The second of
the editor's doubts concerns the form. This form is extremely simple: abba cca,
and its simplicity fully agrees with the metrical habits of Aimeric, who prefers
such plain forms. But, says the editor, the stanza is indivisible, whereas all
the other poems of undoubted attribution show bipartite stanzas. I doubt
this latter statement to be true for Dum. vIII (Gr. 9, 17) and Dum. xIx
(Gr. 392, 261). But even supposing it to be true, are we authorized to banish
a poem from an author's poetical work on the ground of such an insignificant
fact? The editor further argues that, in his other poems, Aimeric never repeats
in the second part of a stanza the rhymes he has employed in the first. Well,
that may be true for bipartite stanzas, where there are really two parts. But
if the stanza offers a whole and indivisible structure and thus contains no first
and second parts, as is the case here, how could the poet observe that
would-be rule? So, unless more serious arguments are found against Aimeric's
authorship, and though the attributions of MS. C may not be beyond all
doubts, this poem ought to be reckoned among the genuine songs of our poet.
These considerations concerning the form lead us to a more general remark.
We possess about twenty poems of Aimeric, rather a small number. Does this
small number of poems give us a right to establish for the poet a certain metrical
system and to assert that such and such of his poems cannot be his because
of their form? Cannot the poet have sometimes made an exception to his
metrical habits or to what we think to have been such? These doubts may be
applied to another of Aimeric's poems, Gr. 9, 5 ( = Dum. xvI), which the editor
denies to him for metrical reasons. It is attributed to our poet by MSS. EJKN,
to G. Aymar by C. The poem offers rather a complicated form, not unsimilar
to that of Arnaut Daniel's sextine and, especially in the first stanza, some rare
words such as branda, braus, branc, brecs, etc. These are indeed phenomena
uncommon in Aimeric's other poems, as far as we know them. But why should
not the poet have made an experiment in trobar clus,2 too? The editor,
however, alleges that Guillem Ademar, to whom the poem is attributed by
MS. C and who is, in her opinion, to be reckoned among the 'obscure' trouba-
dours, is the real author of our poem. But that argumentation is rather
1 The editor, it is true, places this poem among those of doubtful attribution; but, in reality,
she thinks it to be authentic (see above).
2 In spite of its artificial form and the rarity of some of its words, the poem offers no special
difficulties to our comprehension.

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 K, LEWENT 11

dangerous. We may convert it and say that the scribe of C, which contains
nearly all the poems of Guillem Ademar, has been induced to attribute the
poem to that author just because it reminded him of Guillem's manner. Here
again, I should refrain from contesting the authenticity of the poem for mere
formal reasons and against the testimony of four to one manuscripts. Appel
evidently was of the same opinion; for, in the last edition of his Chrestomathie,
he still offers the poem under Aimeric's name.

4. THE PSEUDONYM OC-E-NO

It is well known that Bertran de Born has given special,names to the three
sons of Henry I of England. That invented for Richard Caeur-de-Lion was
Oc-e-No. The origin and meaning of this name has not yet been found. Appel,
in his monograph on this poet (Bertran von Born, Halle, 1931), p. 68, note 1,
takes into consideration the possibility that, by giving Richard that name, the
poet might have intended to reproach him with fickleness. But Appel is not
inclined definitely to adopt that explanation. Indeed, it would have been
strange if the poet h'ad given his liege lord such a disrespectful name. Moreover,
passages like this (Gr. 80, 2= Appel 26; vII, 1-3):
Ges de n' Oc-e-No no m plane,
qu' ieu sai qu' on lui non resta
la guerra ni no s' alenta,

in which Bertran praises his master for doing what the poet liked above all,
i.e. making war, show that the name cannot have contained any shade of
blame.
Now, some lines of Aimeric (Gr. 9, 12=Dum. iv, 11. 41-43) are perhaps
suitable to throw some light upon the matter:
Del nostre rei me plagra d' itraguo
que, per son sen, disses d' oc o de no,
aissi cor pretz o requier et honransa.

The expression dire d' oc e de no, for which the editor gives a literal translation
without explaining it either in a note or in the glossary, evidently means 'to
show the right conduct'. The expression can easily have taken on that sig-
nification by passing through this other: 'to say yes and no at the right moment
and remain firm in one's resolution'. Raynouard, Lex. Rom. iv, 357, quotes
our passage together with one of Daude de Prada's 'Cardinal Virtues': 'Ab fe
et ab religion Deu gardar son hoc e son non'. Here, too, a good and firm
attitude is demanded in religious matters. Daude's words induce us to see
the origin of the expression in the famous passage of Saint Matthew 5, 37:
'Est, est: non, non: quod autem his abundantius est, a malo est.' From the
ecclesiastical atmosphere it has probably penetrated into secular use. If, then,
the explanation given here for the expression dire d' oc e de no is true, we can
see in a man who is called 'Yes-and-No' one who says 'yes' and 'no' when
either of them is in its place, one who does the right thing at the right moment
M.L.R.XXXVII 8

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114 Old Provencal Miscellany
and does it without hesitation. This interpretation of Richard's pseudonym
would excellently fit the reputation of a man to whom his contemporaries gave
the surname of Lionheart, though the portrait which modern historians have
made of him may differ rather greatly from that drawn by the Middle Ages.

5. LADIES LEARNING AND PROPAGATING THEIR TROUBADOURS' POEMS

In the last stanza of Gr. 355, 7 (= Cav. vi), P. Raimon says (11. 50 ff.):
A mon Ereubut prec e man
c' a la pro comtessa prezan
fassa ma chansonet' auzir.

In this Ereubut, Cavaliere sees a minstrel. Anglade (Ann. du Midi 31/2, 166),
though not with full certainty, has preceded him in this opinion, and Bertoni
(Trovatori d' Italia, p. 14, note 2) speaks of Ereubut as of a poet and friend of
Peire, or even of a minstrel. The text seems to justify these opinions. Who else
but a minstrel, if not the author himself, could sing the poet's song to the
countess? But this passage cannot be examined without another of the same
poet, who says in Gr. 355, 9 (=Cav. vII), 11. 1-4:
No m puesc sufrir d' una leu chanso faire,
pois precx e mans n' ai de mon Ereubut,
qu* apres 1' afan e-1 trebaill c' ai agut
coven c' ab ioi m' esbaudey e m' esclaire.

Here, Cavaliere himself is of opinion that the pseudonym Ereubut refers to the
poet's lady, and the text does not seem to admit any other interpretation. But
is it conceivable that a poet should have employed the same name to designate
alternately a minstrel and the beloved lady? Why, then, did Cavaliere hesitate
to see that lady in the Ereubut of the first passage, too? Did he take offence
at the poet's naming two ladies at once, Ereubut and the countess? If he has
had this doubt, it can be regarded as irrelevant after Scheludko's article ' ber
den Frauenkult der Troubadours' in Neuphil. Mitteil. xxxv, 1-40, in which
that scholar (especially pp. 15 ff.) has shown that, in the poems of the trouba-
dours, we often find two women's names, one that of the beloved lady, the
other that of the poet's protectress. But Cavaliere does not express any doubt
about this matter. Are we then to suppose that he was induced to think
Ereubut a minstrel by that exhortation addressed to Ereubut to 'make the
countess hear his poem'? But there is another passage in Peire's poems
(Gr. 355, 3 =Cav. ii, 11. 41-3) which contains a similar exhortation:
Mon Diaman, que tenc car,
vuelh de ma chanso pregar
qu' a Toloza la. m retraya.

Who is hidden behind that pseudonym Mon Diaman? Cavaliere says, very
cautiously (p. 11): 'nome del personnaggio cui la canzone e commessa.' But
can such a name be anything else but the senhal for the beloved lady? So, the

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 K. LEWENT 115

two passages lead us to believe that P. Raimon really wish

be propagated by his lady.1
It is not P. Raimon alone who asked his lady such a servic
Sestaro, Gr. 16, 12 (Kolsen, Dicht. der Trob. p. 92), v, 3 says

E sos gens cors douz e cars, francx e bos...

... aya de mi membransa,
sivals d' aitan que mas chansos aprenda
o al per menss que, si l plai, las entenda.

Here, the lady is only to 'learn' the poems, perhaps with a

or singing them to others. This intention seems to be expre
of Gaucelm Faidit, Gr. 167, 60 (Kolsen, l.c. 171, note 1), the
unfortunately corrupted and incomplete. Having praised his
stanza, the poet says in the first of the tornadas:

En loc d' amic tramet ma chanson gaya

.. .3 lai, que no m' en posc aizir,
ans cau tener per apenr' e per dir.

I believe that lai in the second of these lines indicates the belo
often the case in the songs of the troubadours. Much clearer is
passage from a poem attributed to Arnaut de Marueil, Gr. 3
p. 161), stanza vii:
A Miramons, qu' es de tot fin pretz claus,
n' anatz prezens,
avinens
chans valens,
que us aprenha
ma dona, quar eslir
sap be e 1 mielhs chauzir
qu 'a benestan covenha.

Here, at least, the lady is to learn the author's poem. Another troubadour,

A third passage might be pleaded here. In Gr. 355, 9 (=Cav. vm), the poet says (11. 85 ff.):
Et ab ma chanzon,
enanz c' alhors an,
m' en vau lai de cors
on Tois e Pretz reigna;
e vuel que 1' apregna
cobletas viulan
e pois en chantan
de qual guiz' om la i deman.
Who is the person that is to learn his song? Cavaliere thinks the poet himself; but then the latter
would not have said uuel que 1' apregna (with the same subject, 'I', for vuel and apregna), but.
la vuel aprendre. So I formerly thought of writing qu' d' apregna (el' =the lady) with commas after
both apregna and chantan. But since Jeanroy (Rom. 63, 113) made this ingenious correction,
i.e. to see in Cobletas the name of a minstrel who is to learn that poem-Spanke, later on, had the
same idea (Litbl. 59, 188)-I am no longer so sure of the correctness of my interpretation, and we
had better not make use of this passage in the discussion of what occupies us here.
' Kolsen has changed this al per mens into altramens; this correction is unnecessary (see Appel,
Litbl. 38, 398).
3 Here Kolsen supplies the words Que devon, which I do not understand.
Kolsen corrects into car.
8-2

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116 Old Provencal Miscellany
Giraut de Bornelh, makes us understand that his lady sings other poets' songs
(Gr. 242, 40=Kolsen, 47, 11. 109 if.):
Ges amors (mais no lh pes!)
no m' es vis, ben egalh
c' om dezir e badalh
e viva consiros
e qu' ela chan
d' altrui dolsas chansos.1

From all these quotations we can, I think, conclude that troubadours asked
their ladies, either really or fictitiously, to serve as intermediaries between
themselves and their public, to play, as it were, the part of propagators of
their poetical glory. So there is nothing astonishing in the lines quoted in the
beginning of this chapter: P. Raimon asks his lady, concealed under the name
of Ereubut, to bring his poem to the ears of the countess his protectress. We
therefore believe that the two Ereubuts in Peire's poems designate the same
person, i.e. the lady of the poet.2
K. LEWENT
NEW YORK

1 For the first three lines see my explanation in Zum Text der Lieder des G. de B. (Bibl. dell' Arch.
Rom. I, 26, p. 67). For the last line, Kolsen (i, 299, note 3) gives this interpretation: 'that, in
her love-songs, she thinks of (she loves) other men'. I should rather say: 'that she sings songs
of others', whom, thus, she prefers to the poet.
2 This is also the opinion of Bergert, Die von den Trobad. genannten etc. Damen, Halle, 1913, p. 117.

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