English translation [RH]

I. Now that I have seen the river Jordan and the Holy Sepulchre, I give thanks to you, true God who are lord of lords, for having so graciously pleased to show me the holy place where you were truly born; this fills my heart with joy, for had I been in Provence for the last year, the Saracens would not be calling me ‘John’.
II. Now may God give us a good passage and fair wind, and a good ship and good pilots, since I wish to speed back to Marseille, for truly (for a long time?) I was His [man] overseas: Acre and Tyre, Tripoli and the sergeant-brethren, and the Hospital and the Temple and King John I commend to God, and the waters of Roland.
III. For England has poor compensation for King Richard; there used to be a good king and good lords of France with its flowers, in Spain another worthy king, similarly in Monferrat a fine marquis, in the Empire a praiseworthy emperor. As for those who are there now, I know not how they will behave.
IV. Dear Lord God, if you acted according to my way of thinking you would take care who you make into emperors, and who you make kings, and to whom you grant castles and towers, for the richest hold you at nought. For in former times I know the emperor took many an oath from which he is now trying to extricate himself, just like the Gascon you saved from trouble.
V. Emperor, Damietta awaits you, and night and day the White Tower mourns for your eagle which a vulture has cast down from it: cowardly is the eagle taken by a vulture! In this you receive shame, and the sultan honour, and beyond the shame all of you suffer the damage of our religion being greatly put at risk (heading for the rocks?).

Italian translation [lb]

I. Ora che ho visto il fiume Giordano e il Santo Sepolcro, vi ringrazio, vero Dio, che siete signore dei signori, perché nella vostra misericordia vi è piaciuto di mostrarmi il santo luogo dove siete veramente nato; questo riempie il mio cuore di gioia, perché se fossi stato in Provenza nell’ultimo anno, i Saraceni non mi chiamerebbero “Giovanni”.
II. Ora Dio ci conceda una buona traversata e un vento favorevole, e una buona nave e buoni timonieri, perché voglio tornare in fretta a Marsiglia, perché davvero (a lungo?) sono stato il Suo uomo oltremare: raccomando a Dio Acri e Tiro, Tripoli e i fratelli sergenti, e l’Ospedale e il Tempio e il re Giovanni, e l’acqua di Orlando.
III. Davvero l’Inghilterra ha un misero risarcimento per il re Riccardo; ci sono stati in passato un buon re e dei buoni signori in Francia con i suoi fiori, in Spagna un altro re valoroso, similmente in Monferrato un buon marchese, nell’Impero un encomiabile imperatore. Quanto a quelli che ci sono adesso, non so come si comporteranno.
IV. Caro Signore Dio, se voi agiste secondo il mio modo di pensare, fareste attenzione a chi fate imperatore e a chi fate re, e a chi concedete castelli e torri, perché i più ricchi non vi considerano per nulla. Infatti so che nei primi tempi l’imperatore ha fatto molte promesse dalle quali ora sta cercando di liberarsi, proprio come il Guascone che traeste d’impiccio.
V. Imperatore, Damietta vi aspetta, e notte e giorno la Torre Bianca piange per la vostra aquila che un avvoltoio ha cacciato da essa: vile è l’aquila che è vinta da un avvoltoio! In questo (modo) subite un’onta, e il sultano ne ha un onore, e oltre all’onta voi tutti subite il danno della nostra religione che è posta in grave rischio (punta verso gli scogli?).

Text: Ruth Harvey, Rialto 30.ix.2013.

Mss.: C 106v (peirols), R 88r (89 in old numbering; peirols; blank staves above stanza I).

Critical editions: Vincenzo De Bartholomaeis, Poesie provenzali storiche relative all’Italia, 2 voll., Rome 1931, vol. II, p. 11 (text Raynouard with emendations; Italian translation); Stanley C. Aston, Peirol, Troubadour of Auvergne, Cambridge 1953, p. 161 (text De Bartholomaeis; English translation).

Other editions: François Juste Marie Raynouard, Choix des poésies originales des troubadours, 6 voll., Paris 1816-1821, vol. IV, p. 101 (= C); Carl August Friedrich Mahn, Die Werke der Troubadours, in provenzalischer Sprache, 4 voll., Berlin 1846-1886, vol. II, p. 9; Raymond T. Hill and Thomas G. Bergin, Anthology of the Provençal Troubadours, New Haven 1941, p. 154 (= Mahn); T. Hill and Thomas G. Bergin, Anthology of the Provençal Troubadours, 2nd edition enlarged by Thomas G. Bergin, 2 voll., New Haven 1973, vol. I, p. 169 (= Aston); Francesco Piccolo, Primavera e fiore della lirica provenzale, Florence 1948, p. 180 (text mainly Mahn, Italian translation); Jean-Lucien Gandois and Paul Porteau, Peirol, troubadour d’Auvergne, Clermont 1955 (special issue of Revue d’Auvergne, t. 69, nos. 3-4), p. 53 (Aston’s text with modifications to 11, 13, 28, 33, French translation); Alfred Jeanroy, Anthologie des troubadours, XIIe-XIIIe siècles, édition refondue, textes, notes, traductions par Jürgen Boelcke, Paris 1974, p. 292 (text Aston, French translation); Martin de Riquer Los trovadores: historia literaria y textos, 3 voll., Barcelona 1975, vol. II, p. 1123 (text Aston, no variants, Spanish translation); Carlos Alvar, Textos trovadorescos sobre España y Portugal, Madrid 1978, p. 242 (st. III: text Aston, translation Riquer); Frede Jensen, Troubadour lyrics. A bilingual anthology, New York 1998, p. 372 (based on C, English translation).

Versification: a10 b10 b10 a10 a10 c10 c10, (Frank 495:4), -en, -ors, -an. Five coblas unissonans. The versification, including rhyme-endings, is wholly modelled on a canso of Aimeric de Peguillan (BdT 10.27), The Poems of Aimeric de Peguilhan, ed. William P. Shepard and Frank M. Chambers, Evanston 1950, p. 150 (dated by BEdT to before 1213, probably c. 1200).

Note: The piece was composed after the fall of Damietta on 30 August 1221 (line 29), and sometime during the summer of 1222, when John of Brienne, king of Jerusalem (the rey Johan of 13) left Acre for the West to raise future aid for his kingdom.

[RH, lb]

BdT    Peirol

Critical apparatus and textual notes    Dating and historical circumstances

Songs referring to the crusades