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VII.
I. Anche se un tempo ho disdegnato l’amore, ora mi ha conquistato nobilmente, e io obbedisco interamente al suo comando, quindi il suo sostegno dovrebbe aiutarmi. E così fa, perché mi ha fatto mettere gli occhi su una [donna] tale per cui devo rendere grazie in eterno, semplicemente per il bello sguardo amoroso che colei che desidero mi ha elargito.
II. Eppure sono preda del timore e della paura che la speranza mi uccida per lo strazio che provo a causa di colei che amo profondamente e fedelmente, perché sento che il mio dolore diventa sempre più atroce, tanto che a letto non riesco a dormire; al contrario, mi capita di emettere molti sospiri, perché da quando ho visto le sue belle fattezze non ho più avuto alcun potere sui miei occhi.
III. Perché essi si volgono sempre rapidamente dove possono vedere la sua bella e gradevole persona, e lei sorride loro così dolcemente che non riesco a farli guardare altrove; ma se l’amore non li fa godere di lei, non vedo altro conforto che la morte: so che in passato il giovane Andrea di Francia non è stato più fortunato.
IV. Ma la mia signora per la sua clemenza dovrebbe offrirmi qualche soccorso, perché lei sa che non lo attendo da nessun altro; quindi sarebbe un grande onore per lei, se mi desse abbastanza ardimento da osare esprimerle il mio puro desiderio; perché quando la vedo mi dimentico completamente di supplicarla, tanto sono intimidito.
V. E non è andata meglio a Messer Golfier de Lastours, riguardo al messaggio che ha portato così coraggiosamente ai combattenti di Antiochia, per il quale ha reso ricchi molti poveri e poveri molti ricchi, rispetto a quanto è capitato a me, signora, riguardo a voi, quando mi avete detto che sarei stato felice.
VI. Così da allora ho dimorato tra gli amanti, pieno d’amore, in grande gioia e libero dal dolore; perché la vostra nobiltà mi fa ricco quando contemplo la vostra figura nel mio cuore – giovane donna che tanto desidero; così mi sembrerebbe giusto che il dono giungesse quanto prima.
VII. Messer Guido, possa Dio farvi tornare da laggiù dove siete per servirLo, perché qui voi rendete migliore chi ha più valore, e sapete come rendere buoni i cattivi.
I. While love was at some time displeasing to me, now it has conquered me nobly, and I obey its entire command, so its aid should come to help me. And so it does, for it has caused me to set my eyes on such a one for whom I have eternally to give thanks, simply for the fair loving expression which the one I desire bestowed upon me.
II. And yet I am seized by timidity and the fear that hope will be my death as I suffer for her whom I love deeply and faithfully, for I constantly feel my pain growing more grievous, so that in bed I cannot sleep; instead it befalls me to heave many a sigh, for since I saw her lovely features I have had no power over my eyes.
III. For they are always swiftly turning to where they can see her lovely, pleasing person, and she smiles so sweetly at them that I cannot make them gaze elsewhere; but if love does not make them enjoy her, I see no comfort for it but death: I know that in former times the youth Andrew of France was no more fortunate.
IV. But my lady through her clemency ought to bring me some assistance, for she knows that I expect it from no other; so it would be a greater honour for her if she emboldened me so much as to dare to express to her my pure desire; for when I see her I completely forget to beseech her, I am so timid.
V. And never did it so well befall Sir Golfier de Lastours with respect to the message he so boldly bore to the fighters at Antioch, from which he made many poor people rich and many rich ones poor, as it has to me, lady, with respect to you, when you told me I should be joyful.
VI. So since then I have dwelt among the lovers, full of love, with great joy and bereft of sorrow; for your nobility makes me rich when I contemplate your form within my heart – youthful lady whom I so much desire; so it would seem right to me that the gift should arrive henceforth.
VII. Lord Guy, may God let you return from over there where you are in order to serve Him, for here you improve the most worthy, and you know how to make base people good.
I. 3 totç sos comandamentç Ta1 4 a superfluous titulus above ‘qem’ T; sas T 5 que tal IK; si f. T; sis fal, the ‘l’ of ‘fal’ corrected from ‘i’ a1 6 dom D; laie g. D, qen g. T, len dei g. a1 7 pel] dun DT, del a1; bel omitted IK; seblant T 8 cen Ta1; fei cella T; son IK; enoios a1.
II. 10 lesper DT 11 lei DIK; q’am] can D; delcor T 12 sint grauiar T, sen greua a1; mos T, ma a1 13 tan qen leich [leit a1] DIKa1, tant qenlanuoc T; redormir D, ren dormir Ta1 (‘ren’ in T unclear) 14 mauenc T; mainz DT 15 cant D; sa D, las with the ‘l’ written over an erased ‘z’ a1 16 no T; de montar p. D; uogll T.
III. 17 se v.] louir T 18 vezon] uei T; cor D 19 tant] can D; e lai gardon t. d. a1 20 nol IKT 21 elamors D; nois D, non a1; me a1 22 non written above expunctuated ‘ven’ a1 23 canc] qe a1 24 fon] fet with ‘o’ written above expunctuated ‘et’ a1; nandrieu T; los A; ros ATa1.
IV. 25 The large initial ‘e’ has not been written, but a small ‘e’ for reference is visible F; emdegraben f. T 26 ma dompna] la bella a1; superfluous titulus above ‘mn’ of ‘domna’ T; son omitted T 27 quel IK; saup K; qeu a1; no l’aten] no i | la ten K, nonai talen T 28 percel T; siria a1 29 fasia i I; enardir] donors T 30 que IK; fin omitted a1; qe mon corage lauses dir F; the line written interlinearly a1 31 oblido D.
V. 33 anc ongle fer T; Tors] tons D 34 non] na D 36 antiocia T; als] al T 37-38 donfeis mainta gient epaubreçir (seven syllables missing; the scribe has written this as one line and left a blank space between ‘enpaubrezir’ and v. 39) T 39 dompna] don T 40 cames i. D; qan dissest qieu estes i. with the ‘st’ of ‘dissest’ a correction over ‘t’ (Bertoni) a1.
VI. 41 p. qui D; entres D, entrals T 42 aistat T 43 abcran (? the ‘a’ unclear) gaug sestotç turmen T 44 caisin T, si me a1; ricor T; c. te ric ricors D 45 cors] cor DI 46 giouen T; missing D 47 missing T 48 dos] dous or ‘dons’ a1; cungioi medeges uenir deuos T.
VII. 49 seigner DIKT; dieu T 51 sai] ai m. liplus T 52 sabetz] sabç (?) T.
24. The mss. divide between ros and tos for the descriptor of Andrieu de Franssa; both Kolsen and Cura Curà, who accept ros, give D as the only ms. with tos, though it is also in IK. For this romance character see W. Hugh Field, «Le roman d’Andrieu de Fransa: état présent d’un problème avec une hypothèse basée sur un fragment dans le Chansonnier N», Revue des langues romanes, 82, 1976, pp. 3-26; Martín de Riquer, Guillem de Berguedà, 2 voll., Abadía de Poblet 1971, vol. I, pp. 174-176 (who suggests that tos may be the correct reading); François Pirot, Recherches sur les connaissances littéraires des troubadours occitans et catalans des XIIe et XIIIe siècles, Barcelona 1972, pp. 537 and 613; Frank M. Chambers, Proper Names in the Lyrics of the Troubadours, Chapel Hill 1971, pp. 45-46. Since two troubadour allusions to this hero, who died for love without declaring it to the object of his desire, refer to him with the diminutive Andrivet (BdT 249.2, 27: see Ruth Harvey and Linda Paterson, The Troubadour Tensos and Partimens: A Critical Edition, 3 voll., Cambridge 2010, vol. II, pp. 822 and 826) or Andrevet (BdT 85.1, 24: see Frank M. Chambers, «The ensenhamen-sirventes of Bertran de Paris», Mélanges de linguistique et de littérature romanes à la mémoire d’István Frank, Sarrebrücken 1957, pp. 129-140, on pp. 131 and 135), a reference to his young age is highly plausible, and none of the other references to the fictional Andrieu de Franssa (or de Paris) contains such an epithet. In addition, despite the existence of a troubadour named Guiraudo lo ros, red hair commonly has negative connotations, so might not be an obvious feature to choose for a hero: see for example Marssilis lo ros in the Canso d’Antioca (The ‘Canso d’Antioca’: an Epic Chronicle of the First Crusade, ed. Carol Sweetenham and Linda Paterson, Aldershot 2003, v. 584 and the note on p. 292), and see Paul Meyer, «Fragment d’une chanson d’Antioche en provençal», Archives de l’Orient latin, 2, 1884, pp. 467-509, on p. 506, n. 25: «Roux est toujours une épithète défavorable au moyen-âge; c’est la qualification habituelle de Renard»); also Peire Vidal, BdT 364.21, 41-44, Que·l cor ai tan fello / Vas liei qu’anc mala fos; / Quar per un comte ros / M’a gitat a bando (Peire Vidal, Poesie, ed. d’Arco Silvio Avalle, 2 voll., Milan and Naples 1960, vol. I, pp. 95-96).
33-34. The verb pres is impersonal: see SW, VI, 514, 22 ‘subjektlos “ergehen, bekommen”’. Kolsen (p. 71) and Cura Curà (p. 24) identified Golfier de las Tors with the overlord of Bertran de Born and brother of Agnes, wife of Bertran’s brother Constantin, but as Gouiran notes in his edition of BdT 80.37 (L’Amour et la guerre: l’œuvre de Bertran de Born, ed. Gérard Gouiran, 2 voll., Aix-en-Provence 1985, vol. I, p. 33), there is no shortage of men named Golfier de las Tors in the twelfth century. In fact Uc de Pena’s Golfier is almost certainly the man of that name whose heroic exploits during the First Crusade are celebrated in the Canso d’Antioca (see the Sweetenham-Paterson edition, pp. 10-11 and 343). La Gran Conquista de Ultramar (ed. Louis Cooper, 4 voll., Bogotà 1979, vol. II, 5-10) recounts how he was sent as a messenger to summon Godfrey of Bouillon at the battle of Doryleaum, a crucial factor in the success of the battle because the contingents had been split.
Edition, english translation and notes: Linda Paterson; italian translation: Luca Barbieri. – Rialto 24.vii.2014.
A 167v (Hugo depena), D 80v (vgo de pena), F 42r (vgo de penna), I 140v (no rubric), K 126v (no rubric), T 175r (Guillem ademar), a1 345 (enuc de penna).
Critical editions: Adolf Kolsen, Trobadorgedichte: dreissig Stücke altprovenzalischer Lyrik, Halle 1925, p. 66 (a mixture of A and a1 with no reference to IK); Giulio Cura Curà, «Le canzoni del trovatore Uc de Pena», Critica del testo, 10, 2007, pp. 9-45 (text of A, Italian translation).
Other editions: François-Juste-Marie Raynouard, Choix des poésies originales des troubadours, 6 voll., Paris 1816-1821, vol. V, p. 221 (stanza I only); Carl August Friedrich Mahn, Die Werke der Troubadours, in provenzalischer Sprache, 4 voll., Berlin 1846-1886, vol. III, p. 343 (stanza I only).
Analysis of manuscripts: AIK are the only manuscripts to transmit all 52 lines: F contains v. 1 and stanza IV only; a1 lacks the tornada, while D lacks v. 46 and T v. 47 and seven syllables in vv. 37-38. Apart from vv. 7 and 27 in the twin mss. IK there are few common errors to aid in ms. classification. However, in addition to the missing elements it is clear that DTa1 are unsuitable as base, D containing various individual errors (6?, 11, 15, 16, 19), T even more (3, 4, 12, 13 (+1), 16, 17, 25 (+1), 26 (-1), 27 (+1) and so on), while a1 contains some individual errors in 8, 15, 24, 30 (-1) and numerous idiosyncratic readings (6, 12, 19, 21, 22, 23, 26, 27, 40 and so on). A requires the least intervention; I have preserved the hiatus in 13, which may have been in the common source and given rise to intervention in the other manuscripts, and have not resorted to IK in 49, where A shows signs of ‘improvement’, since the meaning is little affected, but have done so in 24 both for los, which is clearly erroneous, and ros for the reasons given in the note.
Versification: a8 b8 b8 a8 c8 c8 d8 d8 (Frank 577:221), -ors, -en, -ir, -os. Six coblas unissonans and one four-line tornada. The versification is of a very common type though no other piece has the same rhymes.
Seign’en Gui (v. 49) is probably to be identified as Count Gui IV of Forez, who took part alongside Frederick II Hohenstaufen in the crusade of 1228, in which case the tornada would date from after Frederick sailed from Brindisi to Cyprus on 28 June 1228 and before he arrived back in Brindisi on 10 June 1229, and the rest of the song from the same time or earlier.