English translation [RH]

I. Friend Sir Arnaut, a hundred ladies of rank are going to the Holy Land and are halfway there, and they are unable to complete their voyage or to return directly home by any means but through you, namely on condition you let out a fart from which such wind will arise that the ladies will be saved. Will you do this or not? For I should like to know.
II. Lord Count, it is my habit always to be a defender of the ladies in matters of love. Although letting out a fart is not to my liking I will do so, for were I not to I should be found sorely wanting towards the fair sex. And I assure you that if they would not be saved by any other means, then after the fart I would completely shit myself in the attempt.
III. Friend Sir Arnaut, what you say is ill said because of the great reproach you will receive from the crew which is to transport so many fair and comely creatures to the land of Syria by arse-wind.
IV. Lord Count, it is a hundred times better I should let out the fart than that so many lively and agreeable creatures should come to grief through misguided principle, for I can wash myself clean, however much I may have shat myself.

Italian translation [lb]

I. Amico Arnaud, cento dame di alto lignaggio stanno andando in Terra Santa e sono già a metà strada, ma non possono portare a termine il loro viaggio né tornare indietro in nessun modo, a meno che voi non facciate un peto che produca un tale vento che porti le dame alla salvezza. Lo fareste o no? Mi piacerebbe saperlo.
II. Signor conte, sono uso prendere sempre le difese delle dame in materia d’amore. Per quanto fare un peto non mi aggradi, lo farei, perché se non lo facessi verrei gravemente meno al mio dovere verso il gentil sesso. E vi assicuro che se non potessero arrivare a destinazione con alcun altro mezzo, per fare il peto mi cagherei anche addosso dallo sforzo.
III. Amico Arnaud, parlate stoltamente, poiché ricevereste un grande biasimo dall’equipaggio a voler trasportare tante gentili e graziose creature in terra di Siria con un vento di culo.
IV. Signor conte, è cento volte meglio che io faccia il peto piuttosto che tante leggiadre e incantevoli creature soffrano a causa di una stupida creanza. Perché io posso sempre lavarmi dopo essermi smerdato.

Text: Ruth Harvey, Rialto 7.iii.2014.

Mss.: A 181r (lo coms de rodes. En arnautz), [was in B, index, among tensos (Lo coms derodes . e Narnautz)], C 390v (partimen den arnaut edel coms berenguier de proensa), D 146r (lo coms de proensa), I 159r (Amics narnautz e seingner emcoms), K 145v (Amics narnautz et seigner encoms), N 288r, O 83 (la tenzo del comte eden narnaut), T 280v (stanza I only as last of three stanzas under the rubric Coblas esparsas), VeAg 20v (Partimens), a1 592 (la tenzo del conte e darnaut).

Critical editions: Le poesie del trovatore Arnaut Catalan, ed. Ferruccio Blasi, Florence 1937, p. 45 (uses ACDIOTa1 and Henri Pascal de Rochegude, Le Parnasse occitanien, Toulouse 1819, with A as base); Irenée Cluzel, «Princes et troubadours de la maison royale de Barcelona-Aragon», Boletin de la Real Academia de Buenas Letras de Barcelona, 27, 1957-1958, pp. 321-373, on p. 337 (based on VeAg; French translation).

Other editions: Jean-Marie D’Heur, Troubadours d’oc et troubadours galiciens-portugais. Recherches sur quelques échanges dans la littérature de l’Europe au moyen age, Paris 1973, p. 131 (text Cluzel, French translation); Martin de Riquer, Los trovadores: historia literaria y textos, 3 voll., Barcelona 1975, vol. III, p. 1353 (text Blasi, Spanish translation); René Nelli, Ecrivains anticonformistes du moyen-âge occitan, 2 voll., Paris 1977, vol. I, p. 240 (text Rochegude, slightly modified, French translation); Pierre Bec, Burlesque et obscénité chez les Troubadours: le contre-texte du moyen âge, Paris 1984, p. 154 (text Blasi, French translation).

Versification: a10’ b10’ a10’ b10’ c10 c10 c10 b10’ (Frank 368:2), -age, -ia, -en. Two coblas unissonans and two four-line tornadas. The verse-form, like that of BdT 238.2 and a number of other Occitan pieces, derives from the OF chanson De bone amour et de leaul amie by Gace Brulé (Gace Brulé, trouvère champenois, ed. Holger Petersen Dyggve, Helsinki 1951, Poem XXV; RS 1102): see Stefano Asperti, «Contrafacta provenzali di modelli francesi», Messana, 8, 1991, pp. 5-49 at pp. 35-44.

Note: Though C is the only ms. which identifies the first interlocutor as Berenguer, it has been generally accepted that he was Count Raimon Berenguer V of Provence (1209-1245), not, as A and B indicate, the count of Rodez. Raimon Berenguer V is praised and named as one of the judges of the partimen between Guilhem de Montanhagol and Sordello (BdT 225.14, 73-75): see Thierry Pécout, Raymond Bérenger V (1209-45). L’invention de la Provence, Paris 2004, pp. 173-174. An Arnaldus Catalanus who is very probably the troubadour is attested among Raimon Berenguer’s courtiers in 1241: see Fernand Benoît, Recueil des actes des comtes de Provence appartenant à la maison de Barcelone (1196–1245). Alphonse II et Raimon Berenguer V, Monaco and Paris 1925, p. 427, no. 349; Blasi 1937, p. ix, n. 6; Pécout 2004, pp. 172; and the note to the tenso of Vaquier and Catalan (BdT 459.1 = 110.1) in Ruth Harvey and Linda Paterson, The Troubadour Tensos and Partimens: A Critical Edition, 3 voll., Cambridge 2010, vol. III, p. 1276. The present tenso would date from some time between 1219 and 1245.

[RH, lb]

BdT    Coms de Proensa    Arnaut

Songs referring to the crusades