293.28(Gaunt-Harvey-Paterson)

Lanquan fuelhon li boscatge,
e par la flors en la prada,
m’es belh dous chant per l’ombratge
que fan desus la ramada
l’auzelet per la verdura;
e pus lo temps si melhura
elhs an lur joya conquiza.

II.

Ara perdon l’alegragge
pel frey e per la gilada,
mas ieu ai pres tal uzatge
totz jorns chant, qu’ara m’agrada,
e, fassa caut o freidura,
trastot m’es d’una mezura
amors e joys d’eyssa guiza.

III.

On plus n’ay melhor coratge
d’amor, mielhs m’es deslonhada.
Per qu’ieu no·m planc mon dampnatge?
Qu’aitals es ma destinada,
que joys e bon’ aventura
mi tolh un pauc de rancura,
que m’es ins el cor assiza.

IV.

Selha que·m degra messatge
enviar de ss’encontrada,
o tem bayssar son paratge
o s’es ves mi azirada,
o no vol o no endura:
ben leu orguelhs o non-cura
s’es entre nos entremiza.

Ges no·l sera d’agradatge
la merces qu’ieu l’ai clamada:
s’ieu lieys pert per son folhatge,
ieu n’ay autra espiada,
fina, esmerada e pura,
qu’aitals amors es segura
que de fin joy es empriza.

VI.

Per lieys am tot son linhatge,
e totz selhs que l’an lauzada,
quar anc no·m fes estranhatge,
mas quora.m vi, fon privada:
quar ieu l’am senes falsura,
ja no·m deu esser escura
d’aquo don tan l’ay enquiza.

VII.

Be·m tengratz per folhatura,
si be·m fai e mielhs m’ahura,
s’ieu ja m’en planc quar l’ay viza.

Text

Edition: Simon Gaunt, Ruth Harvey and Linda Paterson 2000; notes: Simon Gaunt. – Rialto 14.xii.2004.

Mss.

C (173r-v) Marcabru.

Critical Editions / Other Editions

Critical editions: Jean-Marie-Lucien Dejeanne, Poésies complètes du troubadour Marcabru, Toulouse 1909, p. 131; Simon Gaunt, Ruth Harvey and Linda Paterson, Marcabru: A Critical Edition, Cambridge, D. S. Brewer, 2000, p. 365.

Other edition: Carl Appel, Provenzalische Inedita aus pariser Handschriften, Leipzig 1890, p. 191.

Philological note

The only surviving copy of this song has no obvious errors, though a number of idiosyncrasies, some of which may derive from the scribe, others from the poet.

Metrics and music

Versification: a7' b7' a7' b7' c7' c7' d7' (Frank 376:16). Six coblas unissonans with one tornada of three lines. The same rhyme scheme is used in BdT 293.42.

General info

Criticism has focused on this song firstly as a so-called chanson de change (see Carl Appel, «Zu Marcabru», Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie 43, 1923, pp. 403-69, on p. 434; Ruth Harvey, Marcabru, pp. 154-158; Sarah Kay, Subjectivity in Troubadour Poetry, Cambridge1990, pp. 27-31; Erich Köhler, Sociologia della fin’amor, Padova 1976, pp.265-266; Christiane Leube-Fey, Bild und Funktion der «dompna» in der Lyrik der Trobadors, Heidelberg 1971, pp. 74-79), and secondly as a parody of Jaufre Rudel, particularly Lanquan li jorn son lonc en mai (BdT 262.2). Lanquan fuelhon seems, in its turn, to have elicited a reply from Bernart de Ventadorn’s Lancan fuelhon bosc e guarric (BdT 70.24) (see Gruber Jörn, Die Dialektik des Trobar, Tubingen 1983, pp. 133-35), while other songs by contemporary or near-contemporary poets may also be intertextually related (see Kay, Subjectivity, pp. 28-31 and 233 note 19; Maria Luisa Meneghetti, Il pubblico dei trovatori, Modena 1984, pp. 108-113; Fabrizio Beggiato, Il trovatore Bernart Marti, Modena 1984, p. 155, notes to lines 44-49 of poem IX). There are close textual parallels between this song and Jaufre’s Lanquan (Harvey, Marcabru, pp. 156-57 and Meneghetti, Il pubblico, pp. 109-111) and the two songs share the same rhyme scheme. Marcabru’s poem is a riposte to Jaufre: he demystifies Jaufre’s amor de lonh, showing it to be sexual and inconstant while masquerading as pure and true. Bernart de Ventadorn’s poem would then seem to re-assert the value of fin’ amor, vaunting Bernart’s constancy, though as Harvey notes (Marcabru, p. 242, n. 23), the chronology is uncertain. The style of Lanquan fuelhon is unusually limpid for Marcabru’s corpus. This may suggest that there are grounds for questioning C’s attribution, but if it is parody it shares an ideological agenda with the rest of the corpus.

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