Previous scholarship and to a certain extent dating has revolved around the rhyme-word marchis (v. 3). Crescini (1909-1910, p. 72) first suggested that li marchis (V) referred to Boniface of Montferrat and the Fourth Crusade, printing e nos atant dont li marchis (‘e ci attende dunque il marchese’), and understanding Boniface to be waiting in Constantinople for help from the crusaders who did not follow him there. Meyer rejected this on the grounds, firstly, that this intrusion of Boniface into a stanza about love is ‘bien peu naturelle’, secondly, that Crescini’s proposed restoration of the text (e nos atant dont li marchis) ‘s’éloigne beaucoup de la leçon fournie à peu près unanimement par les trois mss.’, and finally, that it is ‘d’un provençal bien contestable’ (this third argument in fact having little weight given the linguistic situation outlined under ‘Analysis’, above). He suggests E nos atendon (or E nos atendent) li marchis = ‘et nous attendons la fête de mars’, linking marchis to French marcesche (God. marsesche), the feast of the March Virgin (the Annunciation), translating ‘et que la fête de Mars nous attend’, but adducing no supporting examples. Jeanroy is similarly unconvinced by Crescini’s version, considering a reference to Boniface unlikely in the middle of ‘une banale description du printemps’, and remarking that marchis is in ‘le plus mauvais des trois manuscrits’ (a questionable view of the tradition, see ‘Analysis’ above), and rightly indicating all the manuscript versions indicate a plural verb. He admits that he has been unable to restore the noun, ‘qui a manifestement été estropié par les trois manuscrits’, though suggests mauvis in a note: ‘la mention de cet oiseau étant fréquente dans les descriptions de ce genre; le mot, inconnu au provençal, a pu embarrasser les scribes méridionaux’. Crescini (Vincenzo Crescini, «Per la canzone francese di Gaucelm Faidit», in Atti del Reale Istituto veneto di scienze, lettere ed arti, 70, 1911, pp. 267-273, on pp. 267-271) rejects Meyer’s proposal and abandons his own first idea, now suggesting that marchis in V = marchois and may derive from marechois, and understanding attendre as a synonym for invitare, giving the sense ‘e c’invitano i prati’. Oskar Schultz-Gora, «Zu Gaucelm Faidit Gr. 167, 50», Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen und Literatur, 146, 1924, pp. 249-252 (p. 250), states incorrectly that Jeanroy also rejected this in his 1911 review. Kolsen briefly states (p. 164) that ‘li marquis, deren Kreuzheer Gaucelm angehörte, sind der Markgraf Bonifaz von Monferrat und Graf Balduin’, but as Lewent remarks (p. 230), it is unthinkable that Gaucelm should refer to Baldwin as a marquis. He also rejects a further suggestion of Kolsen (p. 164, n. 1), E nos a tant duich lo marquis, ‘und uns Bonifaz so weit gebracht hat’, on the grounds that Gaucelm is in Syria and Boniface is in Greece, though in fact it is uncertain whether Gaucelm ever reached the Holy Land (Elias d’Ussel’s statement in the bantering BdT 136.3 that Gaucelm spent all his money on visiting the Sepulchre could be ironic), and he could be at some intermediate stopping-point such as Zara or Corfu. – In responding to Crescini’s idea that ‘the meadows are inviting us’, Schultz-Gora (p. 250) highlights a difficulty he perceives with atendre, which is that it is alien to troubadour style to have the inanimate meadows ‘waiting’ or ‘inviting’ an animate direct object, even if the scholar could imagine a troubadour saying something like ‘the heart awaits joy’ or ‘joy awaits me’. Following up on Jeanroy’s note he tentatively suggests the possibility of an original e vos a tant dous’ilh mauvis. Mouzat finds all previous proposals implausible: ‘Nous croyons fermement avec P. Meyer que dans une ouverture printanière un marquis n’a rien à voir. Une attente de la part des croisés ou autres seigneurs nous paraît déplacée aussi et probablement erronée. Aussi ne retiendrons-nous pas non plus: e nos atendons el margis = ‘et nous attendons au rivage (margis = marge de la mer, rive)’. He follows Meyer’s suggestion that marchis may be linked to the month of March, and makes his own that there may have been scribal confusion between ‘avoir’ and ‘être’, ‘a et est, ou encore at, ad au lieu de est’, and prints et nos est tant dous li marchis, ‘et l temps (l’époque de mars) nous est si doux’ (p. 409). This relies on too many guesses. – Mölk (p. 559) proposes e nos atendent les marcis, ‘et nous attendent les mercis’, interpreting marcis as a phonetic variant of mercis, meaning ‘récompense, faveur de la dame’. A difficulty with this is that one would expect the nominative plural of the noun not to have the -s inflection, and it is unclear whether he recognises this when he states in his commentary ‘La signification du mot (au singuler) serait, dans la chanson de Gaucelm, «récompense. faveur de la dame», signification attestée en français, en provençal, d’ailleurs aussi en latin médiévale (merces)’. But if the subject is singular this rules out atendent. – Mölk writes that it would be hard to find an analogy to the construction found here where atendre has an inanimate subject and a personal direct object pronoun, but argues that if necessary one could have recourse to V’s atendon, a 1st p. pl. verbal form found in western France. This second hypothesis would require an emendation of li to les or los, despite the testimony of all three mss (e nos atendon les/los mercis). But in any case the expression seems strained in the absence of other examples of the plural mercis in such a context. In addition, the idea that the courtly lover can somehow be expecting such favours, rather than having to beg for them, is surely alien to the courtly tradition and indeed the rest of the song. The German scholar is at a loss to explain how the manuscripts came to read marchis / margis, but cites a colleague’s recommendation ‘dans le cas d’un texte heureusement rétabli per divinationem, de ne pas se faire des cheveux blancs’ (p. 559). However, this expedient is unnecessary if the manuscript reading li marchis is actually to be trusted. Why make a facilior assumption that Gaucelm cannot have done more than produce ‘une banale description du printemps’? A spring opening is often, naturally enough, the prelude to military and indeed naval enterprise, an obvious example being Bertran de Born’s A vei la coindeta sazos / que aribaran nostras naus (ed. Gérard Gouiran, L’Amour et la guerre: l’œuvre de Bertran de Born, 2 vols, Aix-en-Provence, 1985, no. 36, 1-2, p. 714, and compare no. 37, p. 732, 1-10, Be·m platz lo gais temps de pascor [...] Qan vei per compaignas rengatz / Cavaliers e cavals armatz). If Gaucelm does not go on to compose a political poem he does, clearly, evoke the crusade in the second stanza. As for the verb, it is not hard to see how any of the different manuscripts readings (a tant dout C, atendent R, atendon V) could have arisen from an imperfectly formed or damaged aten donc, giving e nos aten donc li marchis (‘and so the marquis is waiting for us’), or e no s’aten donc li marchis (‘and so the marquis is not delaying’: see PD v. refl. ‘attendre, différer’ and Pero tro al dimars s’aten, in Flamenca (Les Troubadours, ed. René Lavaud and René Nelli, 2 voll., Bruges and Paris, 1960, 1966, vol. I, v. 5720, and AND, atendre1, v. refl., 1, ‘stand, wait’ and 2, ‘wait, delay’). The use of atendre with an inanimate subject and a human object is not in fact a problem: see qu’en aost t’aten lo vas, BdT 173.4, 44, Les Poésies de Jausbert de Puycibot, ed. William P. Shepard, Paris, 1924, p. 13; Adonc sab o li Turx, qe batalha l’aten, The ‘Canso d’Antioca’: an Epic Chronicle of the First Crusade, ed. Carol Sweetenham and Linda Paterson, Aldershot, 2003, v. 290; Emperador, Damiata.us aten, Peirol, BdT 366.28, 29; and where both subject and object are inanimate, Anc hom non vi tans cavalliers / aissi ferir menudamen, /que us colps autra non aten, Flamenca, vol. I, vv. 7974-76. – Pace previous scholarly consensus, this opening is likely to relate to the specific circumstances of the song’s production and performance, at a time when Gaucelm is on his way eastwards in the company of French crusaders. The fact that his song has such a French flavour implies that he is writing for a French audience; and the fact that his lady has made him make a sea crossing places him in a marine environment. The details of Gaucelm’s sea travels at the time of the Fourth Crusade are not known, but he could be at some stopping point between Italy and the Holy Land; it is wrong to assume that he is in Syria (as does Crescini, 1909-1910, p. 71). – However, the second interpretation, e no s’aten donc li marchis (‘and so the marquis is not delaying’) – Boniface is eager to set sail now the spring has arrived – may be the facilior option here. The first, e nos aten donc li marchis (‘and so the marquis is waiting for us’), is more interesting. When might Boniface be waiting for Gaucelm and his companions? Not, as Crescini thought (1909-1910, pp. 90-91), when the marquis was in Constantinople. But in Corfu, he and other leaders, desperate to prevent the break-up of the army, managed to persuade the would-be deserters ‘to remain with the army until Michaelmas, on condition the others would duly swear on the Holy Gospels that from that time onwards, at whatever time they might be required to do so, they would, in all good faith and without any double-dealing, provide them with sufficient ships in which to go to Syria within a fortnight of their making such a demand’, whereupon all boarded ship and sailed on the even of Pentecost 1203 (see Geoffroy de Villehardouin, La Conquête de Constantinople, ed. Edmond Faral, 2 voll., Paris, 1938-1939, vol. I, §§ 113-119 and the translation by Margaret R. B. Shaw, Joinville and Villehardouin: Chronicles of the Crusades, Harmondsworth, 1963, pp. 55-57). Boniface had certainly been waiting for the waverers.