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I. Ci sia ora guida e protezione Colui che guidò i tre re a Betlemme, perché la sua misericordia ci ha mostrato una via tale per cui [persino] i peggiori che lo seguiranno lealmente con cuore sincero arriveranno alla salvezza! Ma chi rimarrà qui a causa della terra o della ricchezza farà una grandissima pazzia, poiché io non considero affatto ricco [neppure] il più facoltoso se perde il senso del pudore e Dio (la speranza di salvezza) per scopi vili.
II. Considerate se fa una grave pazzia chi rimane: poiché Gesù disse veramente agli apostoli che lo si seguisse, e chi intendeva seguirlo lasciasse tutti i suoi amici e il suo ricco feudo! Ora è tempo che compiamo il suo comandamento, poiché chi muore laggiù (in Terra Santa) ha più che se vivesse, e chi vive qui ha una sorte peggiore che se morisse, poiché una vita meschina vale poco, e chi muore bene uccide la sua morte e poi vive senza tormento.
III. Chi si umilia davanti alla croce con cuore sincero, dalla croce riceverà umilmente il perdono; e con la croce nostro Signore, che ebbe sincera compassione del buon ladrone e rese pieno di dolore il malvagio, e perdonò Longino che si era pentito, cancella i torti e la colpa; e sulla croce recuperò quelli che perdeva, e patì la morte per la nostra salvezza: sarà maledetto chi non gli rende ricompensa.
IV. Chi conquista (lett. conquistasse) tutto quanto c’è di qua dal mare non ottiene nessun vantaggio, se manca di fronte a Dio o gli mente; infatti Alessandro, che possedeva tutto il mondo, non portò con sé nulla [quando morì] se non un sudario. Dunque è ben folle chi vede il bene e sceglie il male e lascia la gioia che non finisce notte e giorno per paura di perdere qualcosa di cui non ha più il controllo. Questi sono i falsi cupidi ignoranti la cui bramosia illude invano.
V. Non si vanti mai alcun barone di essere prode se ora non soccorre la croce e il sepolcro; perché con un’elegante armatura, con il pregio, con la cortesia e con tutto ciò che è bello e avvenente possiamo avere onore e gioia [anche] in paradiso. Considerate dunque che cosa potrebbe chiedere di più un conte o un re, se con azioni onorevoli potesse sfuggire all’inferno e al fetido fuoco ardente, dove molti malvagi vivranno sempre nel dolore.
VI. Chiunque rimanga qui per vecchiaia o per malattia deve donare il suo denaro a quelli che andranno: poiché fa bene chi [lo] manda, purché non rimanga per pavidità di cuore. Ah! Che diranno il giorno del Giudizio quelli che resteranno per ciò che non porta alcun guadagno quando Dio dirà: «Falsi, pieni di viltà, per voi fui ucciso e battuto duramente»? Allora [anche] il più giusto avrà paura.
I. Now may He who guided the three kings to Bethlehem lead and protect us, for His mercy has shown us the path by which [even] the worst who will follow Him loyally with a good heart will come to salvation. But whoever remains here because of land or wealth will commit great folly, for I certainly do not consider as wealthy [even] the richest man if he loses a sense of shame, and God (hope of salvation), on account of base intentions.
II. Consider whether the man who remains behind commits great folly: for Jesus truly said to the apostles that he should follow Him, and anyone who were to follow Him should abandon all his friends and his rich fief. Now is the time for us to carry out his commandment, because whoever dies there (in the Holy Land) has more than if he lived, and whoever lives here has a worse fate than if he died, for a base life is worth little, and whoever makes a good death kills his death and then lives without torment.
III. Whoever humbles himself before the cross with a good heart will humbly receive pardon from the cross; and with the cross our Lord, who had sincere pity on the good thief and made the wicked one sorrowful, and who forgave the repentant Longinus, destroys wrongs and felony; and on the cross He recovered those whom He was losing and suffered death for our salvation: anyone who gives Him no recompense will be wretched.
IV. If someone conquers (lit. were to conquer) all on this side of the sea, it is of no benefit to him if he fails God or lies to Him; for Alexander, who owned the entire world, took nothing with him [when he died] but a single shroud. So someone who sees the good and takes the bad, and abandons that joy which fails neither night nor day, for fear of losing something of which he never has control, is really mad. These are the false, greedy, ignorant people, whom greed deceives to no purpose.
V. Let no nobleman boast that he is valiant if he does not now help the cross and the sepulchre; for along with fine armour, with merit, with courtliness, and with all that is beautiful and pleasing, we can [also] have honour and joy in paradise. Therefore consider what more a count or a king could seek, if through honoured deeds he could escape hell and the stinking, raging fire where many miserable captives will live in sorrow for all time.
VI. Anyone who remains here due to old age or illness should give his money to those who will go: he does well who sends [it], provided that he does not remain behind because of a cowardly heart. Ah! On the Day of Judgment what will they say, those who stay behind for the sake of something unwise, when God says (lit. will say): «False man, full of cowardice, for your sake I was killed and cruelly beaten»? Then the most just will feel terror.
Critical apparatus:
Deviations from base. 15 nais e qui sai 22 anc 26 sufer* with the last letter illegible, nostro 43 com 45 chattiu 47 deu repeated 48 uai 54 li.
I. 2 bethelem L, besleem R 3 merce CR 4 quels R | pezor L, peiors R 5 que CR | la L | veiramen L 7 hi fai CLR 8 ges] pas R | ric CLR.
II. Qi uergoigna dieu per auol sen L 10 Guarditz C, Garda L 11 apolstols C 12 lon segues L, qils seguria L 15 car] E L | moc R | mais a que si C, nais e qui sai Da, mais ha qe se L, may val qi si R 16 qui] car R | uio L | piegz a] aperz Da 17 cauol R 18 mortz L | punctus after mort(z) DaLR | uio L.
III. 19 Quiaus L 20 naura C 21 delis C, de li L, delitz R | tort R 22 qui C, anc Da 23 Al L | felo L 24 longi C, longin L | qes R 25 en] ab L | saluet CR, selh R | pdia R 26 sufer* Da, receup L, sufri R, nostro Da | mortz L 27 malastruc R | es C.
IV. 29 si] qui R | neill L 30 allixandres L, alexandres R | que C | totz L 31 res R 32 quil CR | ven C, el mal CR 33 laissa ioy C, laissa lzoi L, laysa ioy R | que C 34 que C | mas CR 35 son] fan L | cobes L 36 enganna L.
V. 37 noys C | nuillz bar L | pros CLR 38 socort C 39 abgen L | ecorteszia L 41 poden or podem R 42 Eparadis L 43 coms CR, cons L | honrat faich L | punais L 45 chattiu Da | tos temps om. R.
VI. 46 homs R | qi L 47 deu repeated Da 48 que]qar L | fai C, uai Da, nai L, fay R 49 negligen CR, mescreszen L 50 farem L 51-52 inverted L 51 selhs C, sels R | res R | Desesperatz percho don nostria L 53 per] puos L | mort L | chatutz L | malamens R 54 hauran L | auer R | li DaL | uist R.
15. Da reading Car qui lai muor nais e qui sai vivia makes local but not global sense and C’s reading has been adopted here.
21. For another example of the form deli (R) see Marcabru (Marcabru: a Critical Edition, ed. Simon Gaunt, Ruth Harvey and Linda Paterson, Woodbridge 2000), XL, 10, IK variants.
25. CR salvet, perhaps facilior. Cobrar suggests the nuance of recovering one’s rightful property: for example the city of Jerusalem and the Holy Sepulchre were presented to the crusaders as God’s rightful property that had been unlawfully taken and therefore the crusading armies had a duty to reclaim it. Compare for example peire Vidal BdT 364.43, 37-40 (Peire Vidal: Poesie, ed. D’Arco Silvio Avalle, 2 voll., Milan 1960, vol. II, XXXII), Mas ieu per sobresforsar / Cug dels fellos mescrezens / En breu recobrar Suria / E Domas e Tabaria ‘But with great effort I think about shortly recovering Syria, Damascus and Tabaria from the villainous infidels’ (my translation); Elias Cairel BdT 133.11, 13-16 (Il trovatore Elias Cairel, ed. Giosuè Lachin, Modena 2004, XI), aissi faran crestiantat perir, / e degron mieills Turcs e paians aucir / e recobrar lo dreiturier repaire, / Jerusalem, e conqistar lo Caire ‘cosi distruggeranno la cristianità/ e dovrebbero piuttosto uccidere Turchi e pagani/ e riguadagnare la vera patria/ Gerusalemme, e conquistare il Cairo’. − Schultz-Gora (p. 171) was puzzled by what the poet had in mind in qe perdia, though he must in fact be referring to lost souls, or rather souls that were at risk of being lost.
28-29. The tense sequence here (conditional I conqueria and present ten) does not appear to be attested in Arne-J. Henrichsen, Les Phrases hypothétiques en ancien occitan. Etude syntaxique, Bergen 1955, though the sense is clear enough. The closest analogy seems to be of the type farias/farias (p. 50), E Karles disz li, si rendria Narbona ni·s volria batejar, qu’el li daria Girona e barssalona e .II. tantz de terra qu’el non avia (Philomena, 1523-1525). For the nuance compare Frede Jensen, Syntaxe de l’ancien occitan, Tübingen 1994, § 545: «Dans le système hypothétique exprimant un fait futur considéré comme éventuel, la principale se met d’habitude au conditionnel I, la conditionelle à l’imparfait de l’indicatif, mais il n’est pas rare de voir le présent de l’indicatif se substituer au conditionnel. Reflétant une certaine vivacité de style, cet emploi envisage l’action non comme le résultat éventuel d’une condition, mais comme ayant déjà eu lieu: fis drutz no·s deu tarzar, si messatge·lh venia (B. de Born 39,9), avec deu pour deuria; per que, s’eu dizia, cui am e dezir pert (G. de Bornelh 38,23) avec pert pour perdia».
34. Another possible translation of don non a mais bailha could be ‘something of which he only has the trusteeship’, however one might in this case expect the definite article to be used.
37-45. Wilhelm Meyer-Lübke, «Zu Pons von Capduelh», Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie, 40, 1920, p. 231 disagrees with both Napolski’s and Schultz-Gora’s editing and interpretation of this stanza, which he translates as: ‘keiner soll sich seiner Tüchtigkeit rühmen, wenn er nicht am Kreuzzeug teilnimmt; denn mit den Rittertugenden des Friedens können wir das Paradies erwerben, wieviel mehr noch, wenn man mit grossen Waffentaten die Hölle vermeidet’ (‘No-one should boast about his ability if he does not take part in the crusade; for as we can win paradise with the knightly virtues of peace-time, how much more [could one do so] if one avoids hell with great deeds of arms)’. He argues that this would not be strong enough to motivate ‘the slackers’ to take the cross as it implies that all knights will go to heaven if they perform good deeds; participation in the crusades would make them even more worthy of paradise, but is not a prerequisite for salvation. Meyer-Lübke changes the punctuation of the stanza and takes qe pros sia to be relative to bars whilst also adding a comma after monumen:
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Jamais no·s gab negus bars qe pro sia |
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s’ar non socor la crotz el monumen, |
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c’ab gent garnir ab pretz ab cortezia, |
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et ab tot cho q’es bel et avinen, |
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podem aver honor e jauzimen |
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en paradis. |
He takes the sense to be: ‘kein Ritter, der etwas auf sich hält, soll damit prahlen, dass wenn er auch nicht am Kreuzzug teilnimmt, wir ja mit der Erfüllung unserer gesellschaftlichen Verpflichtungen schon das tun, was uns zukommt, wir also ein Anrecht auf das Paradies haben’ (‘no knight who thinks anything of himself should thereby boast that even if he does not also join the crusade, we are still doing what befits us through the fulfilment of our social duties, so are therefore entitled to paradise’).
49. CR negligen: Levy (PSW V, 386) translates as ‘schuldig, der im Unrecht ist, der Unrecht thut, der sich vergangen hat’ and Raynouard (LR IV, 309) ‘négligent, paresseux, indifferent, blâmable’. However a ‘guilty’ heart should be a reason to go on crusade and receive the indulgence. It is more likely that a ‘cowardly’ heart in Da (regcregen) would cause people to remain behind rather than risk the dangers of the crusade. This idea is supported by the use of choardia in 52.
50-51. Levy (PSW VIII, 462, 16) cites Schultz-Gora’s [1906] translation «um dessentwillen was nichts abwirft, keinen Gewinn bringt...Das Wörterverzeichnis, S. 185: “triar: auslesen, abwerfen, Gewinn bringen”. Dieser Sinn des Wortes ist mir nicht bekannt». Levy also notes Diez’s translation (1829, pp. 159-160) «‘Ach, was wird vor dem Weltgerichte sagen, Wer pflichtvergessen nicht von dannen zieht’ vielleicht muss man per bis tria auf Dieus beziehen: “Gott, der keinen Unterschied macht”». He then cites the Cort d’Amor in Constans’ edition of 1881, asking «Ist der Sinn von triar in diesen beiden Belegen vielleicht an Nr. 6 anzuschliessen: per cho que ren no·n tria, weil er (Gott) nichts von ihnen gewinnt, keinen Gewinn aus ihnen zieht?» Neither Schultz-Gora’s nor Diez’s attempt is satisfactory. Levy gives the following possible meanings of the conjunction per so que (PSW VII, 670, 14-17): ‘weil; dadurch, dass; damit; vorausgesetzt dass; unter der Bedingung dass’. Of these, ‘in order that, provided that, if only’, can be ruled out as they induce the subjunctive, see Jensen 1994, §§ 613, 617, 747. I take the sense to be ‘unwise’: compare Matthew Bardell’s translation (La Cort d’Amor: A Critical Edition, Oxford 2002, p. 119) as ‘undiscerning’.
Edition, english translation and notes: Lauren Mulholland; italian translation: Luca Barbieri. – Rialto 11.v.2015.
C 120 (pons de capduelh), Da 184v-185r (Ponz de capdoill), L 66r-67r (Pontz de cabduoill), R 12 (pos de capduelh).
Critical editions: Max von Napolski, Leben und Werke des Trobadors Ponz de Capduoill, Halle 1879, pp. 49-50 (on Da with changes of graphy); Oskar Schultz-Gora, Altprovenzalisches Elementarbuch, Heidelberg 1906, pp. 156-158 (on D with C reading at 49).
Other editions: François-Juste-Marie Raynouard, Choix des poésies originales des troubadours, 6 voll., Paris 1816-1821, vol. IV, p. 90 (on C); Carl A. F. Mahn, Die Werke der Troubadours, in provenzalischer Sprache, 4 voll., Berlin 1846-1886, vol. I, pp. 354-356 (= Raynouard); Erhard Lommatzsch, Provenzalisches Liederbuch, Berlin 1917, pp. 133-135 and 361-362 (on Napolski, with minor variations); Mario Pelaez, «Il Canzoniere Provenzale L», Studj romanzi, 16, 1921, pp. 5-206 (diplomatic edition of L), on pp. 93-94; Saverio Guida, Canzoni di crociata, Parma 1992, p. 226 (on Napolski; Italian translation).
Analysis of manuscripts: There are no common errors to assist in classifying the mss. and no apparent archetype errors. L has isolated readings, particularly 51 and 52, and a significant number of errors (2, 9, 12, 19, 25, 46, 48, 49, 53). Variants also suggest a further division CR - Da (notably the similarities in CR at 3, 25, 49, 54 [adoncx]). Despite several errors in Da (15, 22, 26, 43, 45, 47, 54) it has been chosen as base due to its superior readings at 25(?) and 49. There are also errors in C (10) and R (2, 15, 26, 45, 46, 54). Napolski based his edition on Da and this edition varies little from his although the graphy has not been changed as extensively. Base: Da.
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Versification: a10’ b10 a10’ b10 b10 a10’ a10’ b10 b10 (Frank 297:8), -ia, -en; six coblas unissonans of nine lines. A similar form is used in a sirventes composed by Pons de la Garda (BdT 377.2) circa 1210-1226, and Frank Chambers, «Two Troubadour Lyrics», Romance Philology, 30, 1976-1977, pp. 134-144, on p. 139, notes that «a crusade song of Pons de Capdoill (375.2: Ar nos sia capdels e garentia) has the same pattern and the same rhymes, but in reverse oder oder (ia, en), so that the masculine and feminine endings do not correspond. It is possible that this song may have been the inspiration for the present “sirventes”, if not its actual metrical model and the source of the melody».
It is difficult to know when this lyric was composed as it contains no references to historical events or figures. Diez (Friedrich Diez, Leben und Werke der Troubadours; ein Beitrag zur näheren Kenntnis des Mittelalters, Zwickau 1829; enlarged edition Leipzig 1882, p. 214) believed that the three crusading lyrics were composed at roughly the same time, and Lewent (Kurt Lewent, «Das altprovenzalische Kreuzlied», Romanische Forschungen, 21, 1905, pp. 321-448 on p. 352) to an extent supports this hypothesis, arguing that the timelessness of the piece suggests it may be the earliest of his three crusade songs.