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I. Non zittirò mai il mio canto, dal momento che la bella che desidero, alla quale mi sono dedicato con cuore leale, non vuole o non gradisce che io rimanga triste. E poiché supera in valore e bellezza tutte le signore (più) affascinanti, non devo trasgredire i suoi ordini in alcun modo, né l’ho mai fatto, né lo farò, né lo farei.
II. Benché si siano levati grandi strepiti da parte del mio signore, per chiedere alle città i suoi diritti e le sue tasse, egli si è tirato indietro troppo in fretta, di conseguenza la gente dice che ha paura di loro, perché si sono associate e hanno formato un’alleanza. Ma non dovrebbe temere i danni che potrebbero provocare (anche: che si leghino tra di loro), perché nessun laccio può restare illegalmente annodato, quando la giustizia lo slega.
III. Si può ben dire che se mi avessero ascoltato, non avremmo fermato questa guerra, una volta che le cose erano in corso. Invece da quando sono entrate Marsiglia e Avignone, noi ci stiamo muovendo nel peggior modo possibile, perché avremmo dovuto agire con più forza, invece abbiamo differito acquiescenti il pagamento dei mille marchi, mentre non avremmo dovuto permettere un solo giorno di ritardo.
IV. Ma mi rendo conto che questa faccenda sarà prontamente procrastinata, dal momento che è giunta voce dalla Francia che il mio signore ne sia talmente scoraggiato che tutti dicono che per questo motivo ha preso la croce e vuole fare il passaggio nella terra di Siria. Considerate se si comporta bene o a ragione: quello che perde vergognosamente qui vuole esigerlo dai Turchi.
V. Sono amareggiato e arrabbiato perché il mio scudo non si rivolge più spesso verso Arles; ma se aspetto che il conte si svegli, sarò un vero bretone, perché più subisce il disonore, più si umilia nei confronti di coloro dai quali gli viene l’onta. È per questo che non condividerò mai questo atteggiamento, a meno che non mi vengano restituite le rendite che sto perdendo.
VI. Se il mio signore vuole che io me ne stia in pace, lo prego, se gli aggrada, di permettermi di chiedere loro quello che sto perdendo, perché Alamano non è in Ungheria («Eldorado»).
I. I shall never silence my singing, since the lovely one I desire, to whom I have committed myself with a loyal heart, does not wish or like me to remain downcast. And since in worth and beauty she surpasses all charming ladies, I ought not to transgress her commands in any way, nor did I ever do so, nor will I or would I.
II. Although there has been a great deal of noise about my lord demanding his rights and dues from the cities, he has [too] readily held back from doing this; hence people say he is afraid of them because they are in league and have established a confederacy. But he ought not to fear the damage they could cause (also: their knotting together), for no lace can stay wrongfully knotted, as justice unties it.
III. It can be readily said that if I had been heeded, we wouldn’t have failed to take up this war, once matters were under way. But after that Marseille and Avignon became involved, and we acted in the worst way possible, for when we ought to have been making more strenuous efforts, we humbly deferred payment of the thousand marks; but we should not have allowed a single day’s delay.
IV. But I can see that this business will easily be postponed, as the rumour has come from France that my lord has become so downhearted about it that everyone says that he has taken the Cross as a result and wants to make the passage to the land of Syria. Consider whether he acts well or rightly: what he shamefully loses here he wants to demand from the Turks.
V. I am bitter and angry because my shield does not turn more often towards Arles; but if I wait until the count has woken up, I shall be a real Breton, for the more he accepts shame now the more he humbles himself towards those who bring him ignominy. This is why I should never adopt this attitude if I were not given back the rents I was losing.
VI. If it pleases my lord that I should remain in peace, I beg him, if it please him, to permit me to ask them for what I am losing, for Alamano is not in Hungary («Eldorado»).
9 fan 12 que silh 17 en fos en with second «en» crossed out 35 que despregutz 36 a letter appears to have been crossed out between «dreitz» and «bretos».
9-11. I follow Salverda de Grave’s emendation in 9. His translation «Quoique mon seigneur eût annoncé avec beaucoup de bruit qu’il allait réclamer des villes ses droits & sa part (de leurs revenus)» implies a confrontational tone, where Bertran would be accusing Charles of bombast and vacillation. However, it is uncertain that the source of the brutz was Charles himself, and although the initial de is somewhat ambiguous, the fact that Charles is not presented as the active subject of the clause suggests rather that the source of the brutz is impersonal (compare lo ressos and tug dizon, 26 and 28). The tone of leu (11) is problematic as it could be taken more or less neutrally («quickly», «easily») or censoriously «with a lack of proper consideration, frivolously»). I interpret the tone in these lines and elsewhere to be diplomatic while getting the point across. Compare Stefano Asperti’s well-judged assessment in «Sul sirventese “Qi qe s’esmai ni·s desconort” di Bertran d’Alamanon e su altri testi lirici ispirati dalle guerre di Provenza», in Cantarem d’aquestz trobadors. Studi occitanici in onore di Giuseppe Tavani, ed. Luciano Rossi, Alessandria 1995, pp. 169-234, on p. 177: «Bertran critica il proprio signore non come un oppositore o avversario, ossia come partecipe di una fazione contrapposta, ma in quanto la posizione che occupa fra i seguaci del conte gli permette di dissentire e di obiettare, talora anche attraverso una lieve ironia», and p. 210: «la sua critica muove però sempre dall’interno della cerchia dei “fedeli” del Conte, cioè non esalta mai il partito opposto, e fa ricorso all’ironia, non al vilipendio o alla denigrazione». – For the meaning of razos here compare see SW, VII, 60, faire r. ‘bezahlen’, the examples of rendre r. ‘Rechnung, Rechenschaft ablegen’, and the many legal nuances in Niermeyer, s.v. ratio, including ‘legal title’, ‘claim’, ‘property’, ‘co-owner’s share in a joint estate’, ‘due attaching to a tenement’.
12. Salverda de Grave rightly adjusts the word division.
13-16. In 14 Bertran is playing on the ideas of nozar ‘to knot’ and nozer ‘to harm’. The correction to the otherwise unattested nozamens made by Salverda de Grave, following SW, V, 433, is unjustified. For the form las for ‘bond, tie’ in 15, compare SW, IV, 333 latz, the last example (.I. rezol de seda de las d’amors). These are perhaps an echo of Matt. 16: 19, «Et quodcumque ligaveris super terram, erit ligatum et in caelis; et quodcumque solveris super terram, erit solutum et in caelis», Peter (as first pope) being given the power by Christ to tie up and untie.
18. Aurell misunderstands nos as referring to Bertran himself and his co-citizens of Arles: «Il s’en prend ainsi aux habitants de la ville du delta qu’il considère comme ses concitoyens à en croire la première personne du pluriel qu’il emploie pour les exhorter» (p. 159). This is surely wrong: Bertran is directing his exhortations to Charles, and in 17-19 he is reproaching the count and his supporters, of which the troubadour is one, for weakness in the face of the communes. In other words, Bertran advised Charles not to give up at an early stage; now that Marseille and Avignon are involved, instead of reinforcing the count’s claim to his rights, his side has settled for postponing any decisive action. Nos in 21 can hardly mean the Arlésiens. – For remaner see PD «r. (en, per alcun) être empêché, ne pas avoir lieu (par la faute, par la volonté de qn.)», and compare Marcabru, BdT 293.22, 13-15, Mas en cels de lai es romas, / ad ops d’Espaigna e del Vas /en devetz ben l’afan sofrir and the note.
19. For the flexional «irregularity» at the rhyme, discussed by Salverda de Grave, compare Ruth Harvey and Linda Paterson, The Troubadour Tensos and Partimens: A Critical Edition, 3 voll., Cambridge 2010, vol. I, pp. xxii-xxvi. Alternatively, son could be a misreading of sg. fon.
20-21. Aurell translates as «mais, à partir du moment que Marseille et Avignon étaient engagées, nous avons fait...», which does not take account of the initial e of 21 or the syntax.
23-24. Salverda de Grave marcxs, mistakenly. He does not translate umilmens. – For the likely circumstances of this debt postponement see the general note above.
25. On the basis of OF Salverda de Grave translates «cette affaire sera...facilement réparée», interpreting the stanza (which would otherwise be nonsensical) as ironic. Levy (SW, VII, 288, 3) adds: «Vgl. auch Du Cange, retinere 2 “sarta tecta aedium tueri, aedificia reficere, reparare; gall. entretenir, alias retenir”. Aber r. kann doch wol [sic] nur “in Stand halten” bedeuten, was hier nicht passt. Cor. revengutz? Vgl. ibid. 5, 59: Mas tot o revenra lieu, Sol li fag non syan grieu». That retengutz may be erroneous is perhaps also suggested by the repetition of the rhyme-word at 11. But Levy’s solution also depends on the resort to irony, which seems strained. One might postulate a scribal error for remazutz (compare 18), but the simplest solution is to keep the MS reading and interpret ‘postponed’: compare La nuech vai e·l jorns ve / ab clar cel e sere / e l’alba no·s rete, / ans ven belh’e complia (L’œuvre poétique de Falquet de Romans, troubadour, ed. R. Arveiller and G. Gouiran, Aix-en-Provence, 1987, XIII, 12-15), «l’aube ne diffère pas». Despite Levy’s hesitation over this example (SW, VII, 288, 6) «se r. “sich zurückhalten, zurückbleiben”? oder “zögern”?»), these editors evidently saw the translation as unproblematic. Compare many examples on COM of retenir meaning «to hold back», though I have found no others used in a temporal sense under rete or retengutz.
28. Salverda de Grave does not translate n’, which must just refer back to the previous idea, hence my translation «as a result». It seems preferable to translate irascutz as ‘downhearted’ rather than ‘angered’ (compare PD iraiser, ‘s’irriter, se fâcher; s’affliger’, irat ‘irrité, fâché; attristé, affligé’): it is not obvious why anger should impel Charles to go on crusade, whereas if he is pessimistic about finding a solution to the problem of the cities then crusading could be seen by Bertran as a diversion. Perhaps the closest to the sense is ‘fed up’.
29. suria: not ‘pays de Tyr’ (Salverda de Grave).
31-32. In other words, he thinks he can win land and resources in the East to make up for losses at home.
34. Pleonastic en: see Frede Jensen, Syntaxe de l’ancien occitan, Tübingen 1994, § 676.
35. Salverda de Grave prints en tro (35). Since this line offers the only attestation of despregutz, the word division is probably misleading. Levy (SW, II, 160) wonders whether entro should be emended to tro and despregutz to desperegutz, but there is no need for emendation beyond word division: compare the forms cited in SW, III, 260.
36. «To be a real Breton» means «to wait forever (for the return of King Arthur)».
39-40. Mahn reads aitals (39) correctly; Salverda de Grave prints aital without commenting on this, though notes «le cas oblique sens», apparently confused. – Mahn expands the penultimate word of 40, no with an abbreviation mark, to non; Salverda de Grave prints no.m as a correction. – For the imperfect indicative of the hypothetical si clause linked to a future in the main clause, «where it may serve to produce a stronger impression of actuality», see Jensen, Syntaxe, § 555.
41-43. Salverda de Grave follows Mahn’s misreading (nesteia) of nestia in 41 and «corrects», and Mahn’s reading sui in 43. The force of these lines is that if Charles won’t provide an opportunity for Bertran to resort to arms (see 33-34) to reclaim his rights, he should at least allow him to send a request for compensation. The tone seems diplomatic and supplicatory rather than ironic.
44. Hungary was frequently associated in the Middle Ages with vast wealth: see particularly Levente Seláf, «Gaucelm Faidit en Hongrie, ou l’aventure orientale des troubadours», in Gaucelm Faidit: amours, voyages et débats, Moustier Ventadour, 2010, pp. 37-55, on pp. 44-46 and Ruth Harvey, «Le contexte des “performances” des troubadours», Actes du IVe Congrès International de l’AIEO (Vitoria-Gasteiz, 22-28 août 1993), ed. Ricardo Cierbide Martinena, 2 voll., Vitoria-Gasteiz 1994, vol. I, pp. 113-125, on pp. 116-117.
Edition, english translation and notes: Linda Paterson; italian translation: Luca Barbieri. – Rialto 5.i.2013.
C 266v (bertran dalamano 266r).
Critical edition: Jean-Jacques Salverda de Grave, Le Troubadour Bertran d’Alamanon, Toulouse 1902, p. 27 (following Mahn’s transcription).
Other editions: François Juste Marie Raynouard, Choix des poésies originales des troubadours, 6 voll., Paris 1816-1821, vol. IV, pp. 220-224; Carl August Friedrich Mahn, Die Werke der Troubadours, in provenzalischer Sprache, 4 voll., Berlin 1846-1886, vol. III, p. 144.
Versification: a10 b10 a10 b10 c10’ d10 d10 c10’ (Frank 421:3), -utz, -os, -ia, -ens. Five coblas unissonans and one four-line tornada. Twelve other pieces have the same verse-form, including six cansos; two pieces (BdT 87.2, BdT 461.38, a sirventes by Bertran de Puget and an anonymous cobla) also have the same rhymes.
The sirventes was composed between April 1247 and August 1248, before Charles of Anjou sailed for the Holy Land with his brother Louis IX on 25 August 1248, and after April 1247 when the great Provençal communes of Arles, Avignon and Marseilles formed an alliance under Barral of Baux in opposition to French rule.