The troubadours

The balada is not to be mistaken for the ballad of modern parlance. It is, as its etymology indicates, a song serving to accompany the dance. This destination proves at once its antiquity and its popularity. There is little doubt that in some form or other the balada has subsisted from the times of Greek and Roman religious ceremonies down to our own days. In a country full of Southern beauty and Southern gaiety, its growth was a thing of natural necessity, like that of corn or wine. No political change or calamities could crush it. It survived the ravages of the crusaders in the thirteenth century, and the influences of ‘classical’ literature in the eighteenth. When Tristram Shandy entered the rich plain of Languedoc, the first thing he perceived was a lame youth whom Apollo had recompensed with a pipe, to which he had added a tambourin of his own accord, running sweetly over the prelude, and the reapers singing:

Unfortunately there is again little or no record of the earlier development of this charming branch of poetry. But traces of its spirit and grace remain in the few specimens transmitted to us through the medium of the Troubadours, and these bear, in the freedom and variety of their metrical treatment, the distinct mark of their affinity with popular models. It ought to be added that the baladas remaining to us are mostly by anonymous authors, which would tend to prove that the more celebrated and more dignified poets kept aloof from the unsophisticated species. On the other hand, some of the specimens show all the refinement and a good deal of the artificiality of Provençal versification. One of them, for instance, is written almost entirely in what is technically called rims dictionals—a curious metrical device, for an explanation of which the reader is referred to the technical portion of this book. A set rule for the structure of these dance-songs it would be difficult to find, but it appears that most of them have a few introductory lines by way of prelude, after which the stanzas themselves begin. The refrain also is not unfrequent, and would suggest the falling in of a chorus—the only sign, by the way, of the existence of that important musical component. For the artistic balada—differing in this essentially and significantly from the popular roundelay—is supposed to be sung and the accompanying dance to be performed by a single person. The idea of a dance en masse, or even in couples, verbally and mimetically addressing each other, seems excluded. Hence the subjective character of the poetry. By its contents the balada could not be distinguished from any other love-song. In some cases, indeed, its identification would be altogether difficult but for the heading in the MS., or the actual occurrence of the term balada in the poem itself, as found, for instance, in the charming song to be presently quoted. The exclamations ‘Let us sing,’ ‘Let us dance,’ which occur in modern opera and which establish at least some external connection between the two arts, are almost entirely wanting.⁠[13] And yet the Provençal balada is a dance-song in the most emphatic sense of the word. The secret lies in the rhythm, the metre. This, in most of the baladas, is graceful waving motion itself. In conjunction with the musical accompaniment the effect must have been of surpassing charm. As to the nature of this musical accompaniment an interesting passage may be found in the Leys d’amors. Speaking of the dansa the old Provençal writer asserts that it must have ‘a slight and joyous tune, not quite so long as those of the Vers or the Canso, but a little more lively, such as is suited for dancing, as the name indicates. But nowadays people use this tune very badly, for the singers hardly know how to get into a good dance rhythm. And as they are unable to do so, they have changed the tune of the dansa into the tune of the redondel, with their minims and the semi-breves of their motets.’ To us the melodious beauties indicated by these words are, it is to be feared, lost for ever. But even without this important aid, sufficient remains to connect the fall of the lines with the graceful harmonious action of the human body. This association of ideas is common amongst Southern nations; the Greek metrical terms arsis and thesis are derived from the lifting up and setting down of the dancers’ feet. But even in the literature of Teutonic nations songs occasionally occur which act on brain and feet as would the lively rhythm of a valse by Strauss or Lanner. I will mention only a single English specimen by way of illustration. In a ‘Mad-Song’ called the ‘Lady distracted with Love,’ originally sung in Tom D’Urfey’s ‘Don Quixote’ (first performed in 1694) and to be found in that author’s ‘Pills to purge Melancholy,’ especially the second division of each stanza appears to me a model of the dance-song in its northern transformation. It is supposed to depict the phase of ‘mirthful madness,’ and runs thus:—

But how infinitely more graceful than these lively verses is the soft gliding rhythm of the following Provençal stanzas!

‘Coindeta soi,’ ‘I am graceful, joyous,’ the lady begins,—

An attempt at translation in prose or verse would be as impossible as it would be superfluous. The charm lies in the music of the words. Moreover, the subject is by no means edifying. It is the ever recurring burden of Provençal poetry: a lady dissatisfied with her husband and openly calling for death to come and kill him soon in order that she may be united to her lover.

Essentially identical with the balada is the dansa, of which also several examples are found in the manuscripts. The difference which the Leys d’amors tries to establish between these and other variations of the dance-song are evidently pedantic quibbles, and, moreover, not borne out by the best models.