The troubadours

In no other language of Western Europe has the artistic development of poetical forms ever reached so high a degree of perfection as that to which it was raised by the troubadours. The craftsmanship of the poets and singers, the refinement of the audiences in appreciating beauties of rhyme and metre which the modern ear can scarcely realise, are the more astonishing, since the period of the poetry of the troubadours is comparatively a very early one, and since their civilisation in other respects shows the characteristics of the early middle ages. Through various favourable circumstances, the langue d’oc succeeded, first of all Romance idioms, in forming itself into a distinct and regular language, with strictly defined grammatical rules. The great number of final syllables of the same sound, which existed in the comparatively well preserved forms of declensions and conjugations, offered an immense quantity of rhymes; and this ease of rhyming, combined with the liveliness and sanguine temperament of southern Frenchmen, naturally gave rise to an early poetry. The primitive stages of this poetry have, as we know, disappeared; and we have lost in these popular songs, which undoubtedly existed, the most valuable material for the history of Provençal metrical art. The first troubadour, Count Guillem IX. of Poitou (1071-1127), appears as a finished poet, in full possession of all the refinements of Provençal metre, without any predecessor or previous document of lyrical poetry to account for his great accomplishments and experience. In fact, after him there is no important progress of metrical art; and, although several troubadours formed new stanzas and used difficult rhymes of their own, it may be said that, in the main, the first troubadour knew as much of the harmonious beauties of stanza and rhyme as the last—Guiraut Riquier, who died about two hundred years after the birth of Guillem.

This great stability of the metrical rules soon led to a desire of fixing them by a theoretical system; and we know of several attempts to perform this difficult task. The most important and voluminous work of this kind must be our guide in the maze of Provençal subtlety; though in many cases it is more difficult to follow the mediæval scholar through his confused definitions than to abstract the rules from the poems themselves. The author of ‘Las Leys d’Amors,’ as he calls his compilation, considered, in accordance with the notions of his time, that it was a sign of highest scholarship to accumulate the greatest possible amount of undigested knowledge, without taking the trouble of grouping his heterogeneous materials. He desires to show his familiarity with almost all the branches of human knowledge. Grammar and rhetoric, prosody and dialectics, the trivium and quadrivium, have been objects of his study; and his work is undoubtedly one of the most valuable exponents of mediæval scholarship. In fact, it may be called the aggregate expression of the literary ideas of his time and country, the more so as it can scarcely be said to have been written by one author only. In the middle of the fourteenth century (1356 is the exact date of the work), the time of the great troubadours had long passed away; and their pure language was yielding more and more to the influences of southern patois and the northern langue d’oïl. To oppose the further decline of the language and poetry, several institutions were founded by patriotic and cultivated men, who, however, being scholars rather than poets, could not revive the spirit of the troubadours. One of the most renowned of these societies, which resembled modern academies, named the ‘Seven Poets of Toulouse,’ commissioned their chancellor for the time being, Guillaume Molinier, to write, or rather to compile from the works of other scholars, and under their own supervision, a compendium of the rules of poetry. The result was ‘Las Leys d’Amors,’ which, founded entirely on the traditions of the troubadours, although written after their time, is of the greatest importance for the metrical analysis of their works. M. Gatien-Arnoult, keeper of the manuscripts of the Académie des Jeux Floraux at Toulouse, has published an accurate edition of the work from the manuscript belonging to that Academy.

Another mediæval work, which it will often be necessary to refer to, is Dante’s treatise ‘De Vulgari Eloquentia.’ His remarks on the measurement of verse and the construction of stanzas were originally meant to apply to poems written in his own language. But the affinity between the poets of the lingua di sì and those of the langue d’oc, and especially the great influence of the troubadours on Dante’s own metrical system,⁠[37] make it permissible to apply the rules laid down by the great Italian to the works of the Provençal poets.

In the fifth chapter of his treatise Dante defines the limits of the length of a verse in this way: ‘Nullum adhuc invenimus carmen in syllabicando endecasyllabum transcendisse nec a trisyllabo descendisse.’⁠[38] By trisyllabus and endecasyllabus he means lines, or carmina, as he calls them, which in reality may consist of no more than two and ten syllables. For in Italian poetry feminine rhymes are so predominant in number that Dante does not think it necessary to take into consideration the small minority of masculine rhymes, and counts the last short syllable of the feminine rhyme even in those few cases where in reality it does not exist. The ‘Leys d’Amors,’ according to its national view, follows a totally different principle of measuring verse. It first states the difference between masculine and feminine rhymes, calling the former accen agut, and the latter accen greu. Then it counts the syllables of each verse really existing, neglecting, however, the last short syllable if the verse ends with a feminine rhyme. An example will best show the difference of the two systems. Of the two following lines,

the first consists actually of ten syllables, the last of which has the metrical accent. This, therefore, the ‘Leys d’Amors’ would call a ‘bordo de x. syllabas con accen agut.’ The second line, though actually containing eleven syllables, it would call a ‘bordo de x. syllabas con accen greu.’ Dante, on the other hand, would call both verses endecasyllabi, not taking any notice of the rime tronco in the first. The ‘Leys d’Amors,’ therefore, differs widely, and even more than might at first appear, from Dante, in saying that the shortest verse possible is that of four, and the longest possible that of twelve, syllables. For what Dante calls a trisyllabus may be, as we have seen, in reality a line of two syllables; and the ‘bordo de quatro syllabas’ of the ‘Leys d’Amors’ may consist actually of five syllables. Verses shorter than four syllables, according to the ‘Leys d’Amors’ are permissible only in the form of bordos empeutatz or biocatz. By bordos empeutatz are meant the different parts of a verse divided by a middle rhyme, such as

Bordos biocatz are short verses which are mixed with others of greater length, and form, if rhyming, a sort of echo; for instance:

These limits, however, are too narrow, at least in one direction. In one of the poems of Guillem IX. of Poitiers there is a line consisting of no less than fifteen syllables, and therefore by far exceeding the number allowed by Dante or the ‘Leys d’Amors.’ This verse displays, notwithstanding its great length, a certain rhythmical beauty, which, considering the rarity of effects of that sort, makes it all the more remarkable. In the first stanza of the poem it runs thus:

The extreme in the other direction is reached by the troubadour Marcabrun, who has verses of one syllable only, such as Ay, and Oc.

Between these extremes, verses of all lengths may be found now and then in the poetry of the troubadours; but nevertheless a preference for certain forms is visible. Dante’s views on the subject, which, on the whole, may fairly be applied to Provençal verse, are contained in the following sentence: ‘Pentasyllabum [viz., carmen, i.e. line] et eptasyllabum et endecasyllabum in usu frequentiori habentur, et post hæc trisyllabum ante alia: quorum omnium endecasyllabum videtur esse superbius tam temporis occupatione quam capacitate sententiæ, constructionis et vocabulorum.’ This, rendered by Provençal terms, means that verses of four, six, and ten syllables (con accen agut), and next to them those of two syllables, are most in use, but that the finest of all is the decasyllabic line. It may be useful to illustrate this rule by a few examples. The bordo of two syllables, as has been shown, is allowed only in bordos biocatz or empeutatz, and cannot form an independent foundation for a stanza. Of much greater importance is the verse of four syllables. The troubadours appreciated its graceful and easy fall, and used it with predilection. The beautiful poem of Guillem de Cabestanh, ‘Li douz cossire,’ the finest of his, perhaps of all, Provençal canzos, is founded on this verse. Here it occurs with feminine rhyme only, in connection with the verse of six syllables, e.g.:

The ‘Leys d’Amors’ quotes a poem, very likely invented for the occasion, where the stanza consists entirely of this verse. Here it occurs in both forms, with accen agut and accen greu. Notwithstanding a certain monotony, it is impossible to deny the merits of harmonious beauty and lyrical pathos to a stanza like the following:

The verse of six syllables has been used by Bernard de Ventadorn for the stanza of one of his best canzos, where it occurs alternately with accen greu and agut:

However well suited in this case to the sentimental purposes of the troubadour, this verse is hardly fit to be used by itself in longer stanzas. There is a certain ‘entre deux’ about it, which deprives it of the graceful ease of shorter metres, without giving as an equivalent the grandeur of, for instance, the decasyllabic line. Its effect is much finer where it occurs combined with other verses in a stanza, as, for instance, in another poem of Bernard de Ventadorn, where it is found in connection with the verse of eight syllables, both showing accen greu:

This is at the same time one of the few examples where the octosyllabic verse is used in lyrical Provençal poetry. Dante, in consequence of its rarity, does not even mention it. But it is nevertheless of great importance, being the favourite metre of the romance. The two most important Provençal romances, ‘Flamenca’ and the ‘Roman de Giaufre,’ are written in it, as is also a novelette by Raimon Vidal, the author of a Provençal grammar. The first lines exhibit him as a ‘laudator temporis acti,’ after the manner of the later troubadours:

The octosyllabic verse with accen agut is more often found in lyrics than that with accen greu. In epic poetry both occur promiscuously.

Of all the different verses the most important both in lyrical and in epical poetry, in Italian, French, and Provençal, is the endecasyllabus, or verse of ten syllables. The variety of different forms in which it occurs, and of purposes for which it is used, make a short account of its origin and development almost necessary. This variety is effected by the manifold ways in which the cæsura, one of the few relics of ancient metrical art, is used. The ‘Leys d’Amors’ says: ‘E devetz saber que en aitals bordos la pauza es la pauza en la quarta syllaba; e ges no deu hom transmudar lo compas del bordo, so es que la pausa sia de VI. syllabas el remanen de quatre, quar non ha bella cazensa.’ The pauza here spoken of is the cæsura, effected by a stronger accent being given to a certain syllable of the verse, and by a short rest which the voice naturally takes afterwards. This rest or pause may also be filled up by a short unaccentuated syllable which is not counted. In this case the pauza is feminine, or with accen greu: otherwise it has accen agut. As has been seen, the ‘Leys d’Amors’ lays down that the cæsura must be after the fourth syllable; and this indeed is the rule in lyrical poetry, from which that work takes all its examples. But the endecasyllabus occurs in much older documents in the langue d’oc and langue d’oïl, namely, in the old popular epic; and to this it is necessary to refer in order to give a full account of its development. The oldest poetic monument in the Provençal language is a fragment of what seems a long didactic poem, and is commonly called ‘Boethius,’ because the parts of it which remain treat of an episode in the life of that author. Boethius, we may here recapitulate, a Coms de Roma, and one of the wisest and most religious men of his age, has been thrown into prison, on a false pretence, by his enemy the Pagan emperor Teirix. In his misery, Philosophy, the heroine of Boethius’s work ‘De Consolatione Philosophiæ,’ comes to comfort him. She appears to him under the form of a beautiful maiden, the daughter of a mighty king. In the hem of her raiment are wrought the Greek characters Π and Θ as symbols of ‘la vita qui enter es’ and ‘la dreita lei.’ In the middle of this description the manuscript breaks off, and leaves no indication of what was to follow. The time of this interesting document is, as Diez has shown by linguistic reasons, not later than about 960; and its great age adds to its value for metrical purposes. The metre is essentially the same as in all French poems of the Charlemagne cycle, viz., the decasyllabic; and it is used in very nearly the same way. In both languages it was the rule to give the fourth syllable of each verse the strongest metrical accent, and thus to effect after this syllable the cæsura or ‘pauza de bordo’ which has been explained above. ‘Boethius’ has only verses con accen agut; and therefore to avoid monotony most of the pauzas are with accen greu, so that generally each line has eleven syllables, e.g.:

The following lines afford examples of the masculine cæsura:

In a few cases, the second part of the verse contained one syllable less than usual, generally after a feminine pauza, which, as it were, covered this want, for instance:

In these cases it might almost be supposed that the cæsura had been left out by neglect. But this supposition is disproved by the fact that also after a pauza con accen agut the second half of the verse is shortened in the same manner, a phenomenon which can be explained only from the effect of the interval after the accent on the fourth syllable. An instance of this is the line:

Here the verse consists of only nine syllables. The metre in ‘Boethius’ could therefore vary from nine to ten or eleven syllables. This variety was even greater in other poems, where the feminine rhyme occurs together with the feminine pauza, so as to bring the length of the verse to twelve syllables, e.g.:

The hiatus in the cæsura, as is evident from this and many other examples, was not considered a fault; and the first vowel was certainly pronounced. This seems to mark the transition to the more modern French heroic verse, the Alexandrine, which was not used in the old chanson de geste. In epic poetry also the position of the cæsura after the fourth syllable is almost universal. But there are some exceptions to this rule. In ‘Girartz de Rossilhon,’ the most important popular epic of the langue d’oc, the pauza del bordo occurs always after the sixth syllable, e.g.:

or with feminine pauza and masculine ending of the verse:

or with both feminine:

The same form of the decasyllabic verse is also found in some northern French epics, as in ‘Audigier,’ a later parody of the old heroic chanson de geste. The equal flow of this verse did not make it adaptable for the formation of stanzas; and there was the less occasion for such formation in the older epic poetry, as the rhyme or assonance remained unchanged through a great number of verses. This explains the tirade monorime which is the characteristic of the popular in contrast to the artificial epic. To break the monotony of this metre, however, many of the popular joglars introduced after a certain number of decasyllabic verses a shorter line, a bordo biocatz according to the expression of the ‘Leys d’Amors,’ which at the same time by its rhyme formed a transition to the following tirade. An instance occurs in the first part of the chronicle of the Albigeois, while in the second the shorter line is without any rhyme—one reason more for believing that the two parts were not both written by the same author, Guillem de Tudela. Moreover, lyric poets used a kind of tirade monorime intermixed with shorter verses, such as is found in the song by which Richard Cœur de Lion beguiled the hours of his imprisonment in Germany. The first stanza of this song may be quoted as an example of this form:

The word ‘pres’ recurs at the end of each of the shorter verses, and forms a sort of burden. The same song also exists in French, and the latter seems indeed to be the original version.

It would lead us too far to follow the traces of the decasyllabic verse through the Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese languages. In Italy the position of the cæsura was not fixed by strict rules as in the langue d’oc and langue d’oïl; sometimes there are two accents and corresponding pauzas on the fourth and seventh or eighth syllables, and sometimes only one on the sixth. The cæsura in the decasyllabic metre which occurs in the canzos and sirventeses of the troubadours, is different from that in the tirade monorime of the popular epic. It has been seen that here in case of a pauza con accen greu the first part of the verse, and therefore the whole verse, became one syllable too long. The stricter metrical rules of lyric poetry did not admit of such liberties. Hence, if the lyrical cæsura is masculine, the chief accent is on the fourth syllable; if it is feminine the chief metrical accent goes back to the third syllable, and the fourth, which in epic poetry is always strongly accentuated, becomes weak. The masculine lyrical cæsura, which shows no difference from the epical, is found, for instance, in the beginning of Bertrand de Born’s sirventes:

while the lyrical pauza con accen greu occurs in the third stanza of the same poem:

The epical cæsura in its feminine form is found very seldom in the poetry of the troubadours. Two of the rare instances occur in a canzo of Guillem de Cabestanh; and there the case is the more remarkable, as the epical and lyrical pauzas appear intermixed. The two verses are:

and

In both cases the epical pauza might be got rid of by a slight alteration, which, however, is not confirmed by the authority of any manuscript. In the first case, ‘membra’ might easily be written instead of ‘remembra,’ by which means the epical cæsura would become lyrical; and in the second case the a of ‘terra’ might be supplied by an apostrophe, by means of which the pauza would altogether disappear. In the last stanza of the same poem, as preserved in several manuscripts, is found the only example in lyrical poetry of the second hemistich being shortened after the feminine pauza, which, as has been seen above, occurs several times in ‘Boethius.’ The line is this:

But the difficulty is not serious; for this and other reasons, metrical and philological, prove that the stanza is a spurious addition of a later ignorant scribe. This instance shows how important a knowledge of metrical rules is for the critical editing of a Provençal author.