Testo: Ruth Harvey, Rialto 29.iii.2004.

Mss.:  E 214 (Tenso), G 93r (no heading), L 67v (partimentz Peirol cxviiii), O 87 (La tenzon de peirols ede son seignor), Q 32v (tençon), T 77v (tenso), a1 602 (la tenzo de peirols e de son segnor). Base: L.

Critical editions: Adolf Kolsen, Trobadorgedichte. Dreissig Stücke altprovenzalischer Lyrik zum ertsen Male kritisch bearbeitet, Halle 1925 (Sammlung romanischer Übungstexte), pp. 50-52 (without L or T; retains order of stanzas in the MSS); Peirol, Troubadour of  Auvergne, ed. Stanley Collin Aston, Cambridge 1953, pp. 148-150 (= Kolsen, with English translation and the addition of some variants from L and T).

Versification: a7 b7 b7 a7 c5 c5 d5’ e5 e5 d5’ (Frank 608:3); ‘a’ -os, ‘b’ -ens, ‘c’ -atz, -atz, -en, -ers, ‘d’ -aire, ‘e’ -art, -art, -e, -or (the ‘a’, ‘b’ and ‘d’ rhymes are constant). Frank records four coblas singulars with two tornadas of three lines. We suggest the original version was composed of six coblas doblas, of which only four survive (the initial pair plus two isolated stanzas), and two tornadas. – Stanza order EGLOQTa1: I-1; II-2; III-*; IV-4; V-3; VI-*; VII-5; VIII-6. – As transmitted by the MSS, the versification of the song is irregular: stanzas 1 and 2 are coblas doblas, 3-4 are apparently coblas singulars, and the ‘e’ rhyme of the two tornadas corresponds not to that of the final stanza, but to that of the penultimate stanza. We agree with Aston (p. 184) that two full stanzas had been lost from the song and to Aston’s points we would add that the song treats explicitly only one of the two choices presented in stanza I, but the case for the domna who is easy to win, which it would fall to Peirol to make, is merely hinted at in the first tornada. These factors indicate that all Mss. ultimately derive from a defective archetype in which the original stanza-order had been reworked to preserve the regular alternation of speakers.

Note: Pillet-Carstens consider the seinher to be ‘probably’ Dalfi d’Alvernhe and Aston (pp. 10-11) appears to accept this suggestion, dating the partimen to the last decade of the twelfth century. This identification finds a degree of support in the order of pieces in this section of G, where, as has long been noted, a number of the partimens are grouped according to the identity of one of the participants (see Der Troubadour Cadenet, ed. Carl Appel, Halle 1920, p. 111 n. 37; Andrea Brusoni, «Problemi attributivi nel canzoniere di Gui de Cavaillon», Medioevo romanzo, 22, 1998, pp. 209-3, p. 214, n. 30. The numbering of pieces here is taken from the BEdT prepared by Professor Stefano Asperti): 175 Peirol - Gaucelm Faidit (366.17 = 167.23); 176 Peirol - Dalfi (366.10 = 119.2); 177 Peirol - a lord (366.30); 178 Dalfi - Perdigon (119.6 = 370.11).The sequence of pieces 175-78 may, however, be interpreted in different ways: either pieces 175-77 represent a Peirol grouping (a sequence also found in E; cf. Oa1 where BdT 366.17 = 167.23 is followed by BdT 366.30), or, if the ‘lord’ of 177 is assumed to be Dalfi, pieces 175-77 represent a Peirol grouping largely overlapping with a Dalfi grouping (pieces 176-78). The series of such groupings is not uninterrupted, however, and it may be significant that this section of G also contains the sequence of three sirventes in which (according to the forms of address preserved in G) Dalfi also participated (BdT 448.1a - 119.1 - 448.1: see Frank, I, p. xxvi, § 40; Ruth Harvey, «Textual transmission and courtly communities: the case of Baussan», Tenso, 17, 2002, pp. 32-55); but these songs occur later, following number 187. If Dalfi were indeed Peirol’s interlocutor in BdT 366.30, it is strange that Peirol did not simply address him as such. Peirol also exchanged coblas with Blacatz (BdT 97.8 = 366.25), although it seems unlikely that the lord of Aups is the Seinher engaged in this debate over the finer points of fin’amor, if only on the rather impressionistic grounds of tone.

[RH]

Foreword

BdT    Peirol