11. CR em desaizinet men [mon R] p. Mölk (p. 557) observes that this permits the reconstruction e dessaisiner, presumably on the basis of dessaisine (AND ‘diseisin, tortious dispossession of another from a freehold, etc’; Godefroy, LR, ‘formalité à l’aide de laquelle on opérait l’aliénation d’un héritage’; compare PD desazimen). He notes that the OF verb deschaser ‘déposséder’ is well attested, as is Occitan descazar, but there is no other attestation of desaizinar in Gallo-Romance, which led Jeanroy to propose dessaisoner ‘abandonner’. ‘Même dans le cas où il aurait raison (les parallèles qu’il cite ne sont pas sûrs), il n’en résulte pas que ce mot serait le mot authentique’ (p. 558). The expression Gaucelm employs here suggests a dispossession both geographical and metaphorical (the lady’s ‘land’ is also her person).

12-13. V’s rhyme-word retorner is likely to be an eyeskip error arising from retornier two lines later (in all mss.), and the line si que gi n’i ous retorner a rewriting. This renders the next line (ni sai no m’a s’amor requis) suspect. All previous scholars follow CR, which read as follows: C per o tan luenh nos fai aler / que samor no nay sai requis, R por on tan luenh nos fai aler / que samor non (or nom) a sa requis. – Crescini (1909-1910, p. 66) translates ‘Perció tanto lontano ci fa andare, che l’amor suo non ho qui richiesto’, with footnote ‘Non ha il poeta richiesto l’amore di sua donna qui, ossi nel paese dove esulte si trova e scrive, tant’è da lei lontano.’ But as Lewent argues, nos cannot mean ‘us’ in this context, and suggests emending nos to no·m: Pero tan luenh no·m fai aler / que s’amor non aia requis. He states that the introduction of a subjunctive is required for the sense, but that this means getting rid of sai, found in all mss. His solution is to convert the line to French, which will allow non to drop out and sai to return (p. 228); but then the single syllable no·m would become ne me in French, so pero, unknown in French, would have to become mais, giving Mais si loin ne me fait aler / que s’amor n’aie çai requis, ‘Aber so weit kann sie mich nicht gehen heissen, dass ich nicht auch hier um ihre Liebe geworben hätte’, i.e. ‘mag sie mich auch noch so weit verbannen ich habe hier nicht aufgehört, um ihre Liebe zu werben’. The emendations and contortions needed here are unsatisfactory, especially as we do not know whether occitanisms were in the original text or at what stage they entered the tradition. Mouzat prints poruec (a French translation of pero) tant loing ne-m’ fait aler / que s’amor n’aïe sa requis and translates ‘pourtant elle ne me fait pas aller si loin que je n’aie requis [et mendié] son amour en deça, [avant le départ]...’, remarking ‘sa, lire ça, en deça’. Mölk ignores Mouzat and adapts Lewent’s proposal, making s’amor nominative, Que s’amor/s/ ne m’ait ça requis, hence ‘Mais elle ne me fait pas aller si loin que son amour ne m’ait attaqué ici’. He gives no examples but this sense is given in PD. Lewent had said that the French negative particle ne has been replaced by the Prov. particle non which led to the replacement of a mais ‘présumé authentique’ by a two-syllable Provençal adversative. ‘La conjecture de Lewent, par moi modifiée, ne me convainc pas entièrement parce que tous les manuscrits présentent les lettres n-o-s-. Mais je n’ai pas encore de proposition meilleure’ (Mölk, p. 558). – While it may seem natural to want to emend nos in 13 to nom (no·m), is it really unacceptable to think of the lady actively distancing herself from the lover, since it is she who is creating the distance (9-10)? I have preferred to retain the CR reading, as well as their s’amor as a direct object. R’s second no with a tilde above can legitimately be interpreted as no·m, and it is easy to see how C’s non can be the result of a misinterpretation of an abbreviation sign. If it is accepted that Gaucelm is intending to make his song sound French – and the strong links existing between his verse form and the trouvère lyric tradition reinforce the idea that he is composing for a largely French audience – it seems acceptable to give the French form of the necessary subjunctive, ait, as does Mölk. I interpret literally ‘yet she does not make herself so distant that she does not here exact from me love for her’, in other words ‘however much she distances herself from me, she still compels me to love her here’.

33. V’s merci, repeated in 37, may be an error.

34. For scansion the last two words must elide.

46. Ms. cil could in theory be Occitan or French nom. m. pl. or French nom. m. sg., but the sense requires it to be an object pronoun, hence the emendation to cel, referring to pretz in the previous line; note that in v. 42 the ms. has i for e in mene. I take mia to be an intensifier, equivalent to mica, and i to refer to the idea of the lady having mercy, which it is clumsy to translate. For scansion mia would need to elide with oblié.