English translation [LP]

I. The lord who created heaven and all that earth and sea enclose came to receive death and passion for our salvation as soon as He saw He was losing His people. And He arose from the dead on the third day and straightway went to Hell to save us, out of true mercy.
II. Just as He gave us healing and for this yielded His body up to torture, He asks us all to follow Him unswervingly in regard to the wicked Saracens’ usurpation of His rightful inheritance, for the voice of heaven cries out to us: «Arise, and if you die, come to [receive] mercy!», and anyone who does not believe me does not desire it.
III. He rightly calls on all of us, for our sins are bitter, and the one who destroyed Pharaoh the king can truly raise us up. Let us follow Him as the clergy instruct us, and anyone who dies will be able to say to Him confidently: «You died for me, true God, and I have died for You».
IV. And anyone who lives, without fail, will be enfeoffed with a glorious, honourable reputation and will be saved more securely than Jonas who came forth from the fish, who had been destroyed for the wrong he had done to the Lord. Let us abandon folly, and let us follow God who helps anyone who believes in Him, [and] leads the sinner to mercy.
V. I urge King Philip and Lord Otto, and King John as well, to make peace among themselves and pursue the pardon, and serve Holy Mary whose Son has lost the lordship of Syria, from the county of Tyre to the kingdom of Egypt.
VI. Let all of us go, the powerful rulers and the great barons and the valiant knights and the sergeants – and support will be needed – for God summons us; because if anyone remains behind here, his company will be Hell: the one who abandons God goes to Hell, and will have Hell’s mercy.
VII. Henceforth the noble and the valiant and the ardently brave will be recognised by their swift, capable blows; now the just and the brave will show who they are, for Our Lord, who does not forget, summons and selects the armed warriors who are virtuous, and abandons the wicked of base faith, and wishes to lead the brave to mercy.
VIII. The song will make its way to Syria and the Cross whereon God ransomed us, and to the Holy Sepulchre in the place where a man goes if he wishes to obtain mercy.
IX. Profeta, go and make your way to Germany, where merit holds its course, to the lord who safeguards and preserves it better than Jews do their faith.

Italian translation [CP]

I. Il Signore che formò il cielo e tutto quanto comprende la terra e il mare, venne in terra per la nostra salvezza a ricevere morte e passione appena vide che perdeva la sua gente. E risuscitò da morte il terzo giorno, e andò prontamente all’Inferno per salvarci, per vera misericordia.
II. Cosi come ci diede la guarigione e abbandonò il proprio corpo al tormento, ci chiede che, nella spoliazione che fanno di lui i felloni saraceni, lo seguiamo tutti, senza depistare, perché la voce del cielo ci grida: «Sorgete e venite, morti, nella mia misericordia». E non la vuole [la misericordia] chi non mi crede.
III. Tutti ci chiama con ragione, perché sono ‹tanto› aspri i peccati, e ci può accadere realmente ciò che annientò il re Faraone. Seguiamolo così come dice il clero, e colui che morrà potrà dirgli senza angoscia: «Tu moristi per me, vero Dio, ed io sono morto per te».
IV. E chi vivrà sarà senza dubbio insignito di onorato pregio valente, e sarà salvato in modo più sicuro di Giona che uscì dal pesce, il quale era perito per il torto che aveva verso il Signore. Abbandoniamo la follia e seguiamo Dio che aiuta chi ha fede in lui, ‹e› conduce i peccatori alla misericordia.
V. Al re Filippo e ad Ottone e parimenti al re Giovanni raccomando che si accordino fra di loro e perseguano il perdono, e servano Santa Maria, il cui figlio perde la signoria di Siria, dalla contea di Tiro fino al regno di Egitto.
VI. I potenti e i grandi baroni, e i prodi cavalieri e i fanti – l’incoraggiamento sarà necessario –, andiamo tutti che Iddio ci sprona! Perché se qualcuno rimanesse, l’inferno sarà la sua compagnia. Chi lascia Iddio va in Inferno, ed ivi avrà la sua ricompensa.
VII. Ormai i nobili ed i prodi ed i coraggiosi pieni d’ardore si riconosceranno dal ben ferire prontamente. Ormai si mostreranno i giusti ed i prodi, che il nostro Signore – che non dimentica – eccita e sceglie i buoni armati; e lascia [il Signore] i malvagi di cattiva fede, e vuole menare i prodi alla misericordia.
VIII. La canzone andrà verso la Siria, verso la Croce con la quale Dio ci redense, nel santo sepolcro, nel luogo dove va chi vorrà acquistare misericordia.
IX. Profeta, va e tieni la tua strada verso la Germania, dove il pregio non devia, e va dal signore che lo conserva e lo salvaguarda più di quanto i Giudei non fanno con la loro fede.

Text: Pulsoni 1994. – Rialto 15.vi.2014.

Ms.: E 52 (Peire daluernhe).

Critical editions: Rudolf Zenker, Die Lieder Peires von Auvergne, Erlangen 1900, p. 147 (Unechte Gedichte); Carlo Pulsoni, «Lo senher que formet lo tro (BdT 323,22) e alcune considerazioni sul corpus poetico di Pons de Capduelh», Quaderni di Romanica Vulgaria, Studi provenzali e galeghi 89/94, pp. 81-116.

Other editions: Vincenzo De Bartholomaeis, Poesie Provenzali storiche relative all’Italia, 2 voll., Roma 1931, De Bartholomaeis 1931, vol. I, p. 199 (on Zenker).

Versification: a8 b8 b8 a8 c8’ c8’ d8 d8 (Frank 577:232), -o, -en, -ia, -e; seven coblas unissonans and two four-line tornadas. The versification is identical in all respects to that of a canso of Po Chapt, BdT 375.19 (the model for the other pieces), and three songs of Bertran Carbonel, BdT 82.9, 82.18 and 82.22.

Notes: Refuting previous attempts to date the sirventes to shortly before the battle of Bouvines in 1214, Pulsoni (pp. 96-107) places it after the coronation of Otto IV as Holy Roman Emperor in 1209 and before Frederick II laid claim to the Empire at the end of 1211 or the beginning of 1212. He relates it more specifically to events unfurling in 121l, noting that at the end of the summer the recently-crowned king of Acre John of Brienne accepted a five-year truce with Sultan al-Adil which would come into force in July 1212, in the meantime sending repeated messages to the Pope urging him to proclaim a new crusade to coincide with the truce’s end. Pulsoni suggests that in the period between John’s coronation on 3 October 1210 and the truce established by him in 1211-1212, which anticipated mass participation in a crusade in 1217, an unknown troubadour, wrongly identified with Peire d’Alvernhe by ms. E, composed the sirventes in order to incite the major European rulers to put an end to their fratricidal wars and direct all their energies towards the reconquest of the Holy Land. – Line16: the line could also be understood as «and let no-one speed there if he does not believe me». – Lines 19-20: Pulsoni translates «e ci può accadere realmente ciò che anientó il re Faraone», but sel must refer to a person and PD gives sorzer < surgere as «v. a. ‘élever, relever; faire sourdre; exalter, louer; v. n. se lever, se relever; ressusciter; naître, se produire; v. réfl. se lever, se relever». The sense is that God is powerful enough both to cast down the pagan enemy and to raise sinners up from the depths of their sins. – Line 22: Pulsoni translates fadia as ‘angoscia’. – Line 26: Pulsoni translates cazatz as ‘insignito’ (‘honoured’). For the sense ‘enfeoffed’ see PD, cazar. The term suggests the lord-vassal relationship between God and crusader, the latter’s «holding» being spiritual, of course. – Line 59: the text should read el loc to correspond to Pulsoni’s translation «nel luogo». – Line 61: Profeta is a jongleur. – Line 62: Pulsoni (p. 103, n. 15) rejects De Bartholomaeis’s hypothesis that the song is addressed to Frederick II: «infatti i grandi reganti europei vengono sempre nominati individualmente facendo risaltare la loro incura per sponarli maggiormente all crociata (vv. 33-34)». He argues that the «lord» in the tornada is some minor nobleman whom it is hard to identify: conceivably Otto von Bolentauben, count of Hennenberg and Anhalt, who lived in Syria for many years where in 1206 he married Beatrice, daughter of Joscelin III (or IV), seneschal of Jerusalem.

[LP, CP, lb]

BdT    Peire d’Alvernhe

Songs referring to the crusades