Petrarch, in the fourth chapter of his ‘Trionfo d’Amore,’ in speaking of the love-poets of various nations, mentions the name of ‘William, who, by his song, shortened the flower of his days.’
This William is Guillem de Cabestanh the troubadour, and it is his story that I propose to tell the reader, following as closely as possible the quaint old biography contained in a Provençal manuscript of the Laurentian Library in Florence.
‘Sir Raimon of Rossilho,’ the old manuscript begins, ‘was a mighty baron, as you are well aware, and had for his wife the Lady Margarida, the most beautiful lady, as you know, of that time, and the most prized for all that is praiseworthy, and noble, and courteous. It so happened that Guillem de Cabestanh, the son of a poor knight of Castle Cabestanh, came to the court of Sir Raimon de Rossilho, offering to remain with him as his servant (vaslez de sa cort). Sir Raimon, who found him to be of fair and good countenance, bade him welcome, and Guillem remained with him, and so gentle was his demeanour, that young and old loved him well. And so much did he advance in favour that Sir Raimon wished him to be page to Lady Margarida his wife; and so it was done.
‘But as it frequently befalls with love, it now befell that Love was bent on besieging the Lady Margarida with his siege, and he kindled her thoughts with fire. So much was she pleased with Guillem’s demeanour, and his speech, and his countenance, that one day she could not withhold herself from saying, “Tell me, Guillem, if a lady were to show you semblance of love, would you dare to love her?” Guillem, who understood her meaning, answered frankly, “Certainly, lady, if I knew that the semblance were true.” “By St. John,” replied the lady, “a good and noble answer; but now I will test thee, if thou canst know and distinguish truth from falsehood.” When Guillem heard these words, he replied, “May it be as it pleases you.”’
The biographer goes on to describe how the thoughts thus enjoined upon Guillem by the lady rouse his soul from amorous reflection to desire; ‘and henceforth he became a servant to Love, and began to invent stanzas graceful and gay, and tunes and canzos, and his songs found favour with all, but most with her for whom he sang.’ Thus, once again, the flame of poetry was awakened by the fire of passion. ‘But Love,’ the manuscript continues, ‘who rewards the labours of his servants when it pleases him, now thought of showing himself grateful. He assails the thoughts of the lady with love and desire; night and day she cannot leave off thinking of the poet’s valour and beauty.’
‘One day the lady took Guillem aside, and spoke to him this wise: “Guillem, tell me, hast thou yet found out of my semblance if it is true or false?”[20] Guillem answered, “Lady, so God help me, from the hour I entered your service, no thought has entered my mind but that you are the best lady ever born, and the most truthful in word and appearance; this I believe, and shall believe all my life.”’
Thus the fateful knot of passion is tied between these two; and fate is rapid in its approach. ‘For soon,’ the story continues, ‘the tell-tales, whom God hates, began to talk of their love, and to guess by Guillem’s songs that he was of one mind with Lady Margarida. These went on talking high and low, till at last it came to the ear of Sir Raimon. He was ill pleased and hot with rage through having lost the friend he loved so well, and more because of the shame of his spouse.’
We expect to see the great baron crushing his faithless retainer in the first storm of indignation. But such is not his character. He is resolved to smite, but not till the guilty are convicted by their own words. With great discretion he refrains from questioning his wife, or from taking any further steps till he has seen Guillem without witnesses. One day when the poet is gone to hunt with the sparrow-hawk, Raimon follows him, secretly armed, but unaccompanied. He meets him in a lonely place, and the scene which passes between them is exceedingly characteristic of the men and of the time in which they lived. Guillem, on seeing the baron approach, at once recognises the danger of his situation. But he is too much of a courtier to show any embarrassment.
At first their conversation runs on indifferent matters, courteous inquiries and answers as to Guillem’s sport and the like. But presently Raimon’s self-control begins to desert him. ‘Let us leave off this talk now,’ he begins abruptly, ‘and answer me truthfully, by the faith you owe me, all that I am going to ask you.’
After some natural hesitation, Guillem submits to this comprehensive demand.
‘Tell me, then,’ asks Raimon, solemnly, ‘as you love God and your faith, have you a lady for whom you sing, and to whom you are bound in love?’
‘And how could I sing,’ William answers, ‘if Love did not bind me? Know, noble sir, that he has me wholly in his power.’
Raimon answered, ‘I willingly believe that without love you could not sing so well; but now I must know who is your lady?’
But to this Guillem demurs. Hitherto he has answered the questions of his master, as in duty bound; but here a higher duty intervenes, that of discretion in the service of love. In his excuse he quotes some lines of his brother poet Bernard de Ventadorn, to the effect that it is ‘a foolish and childish thing to reveal your love to a friend who can be of no service to you.’
Raimon accepts the plea, but he meets the move with one of equal skill.
‘Quite true,’ he says; ‘but I pledge my word that I will be of service to you, as far as lies in my power.’
Guillem, thus brought to bay, sees only one way to save himself from immediate destruction.
‘Know then,’ he exclaims, ‘that I love the sister of the Lady Margarida your wife, and I believe that she returns my passion; now you know all, and I pray you to assist me, or at least not to injure me.’
To this Raimon assents very readily, and to prove his zealous friendship, he proposes an immediate visit to the lady herself, whose husband’s castle (for she also, as a matter of course, is married) happens to be in the immediate neighbourhood. The feelings of Guillem, as the two ride along, may be imagined.
Before we follow them to the castle, let us for a moment look back on the scene we have just witnessed. Time: the latter half of the twelfth century; place: a lonely wood in the South of France; actors: two men moved against each other by jealousy, fear, revenge, the consciousness of wrong inflicted and received—the strongest emotions, in short, of which the human heart is capable. Yet note the calmness and refined courtesy of their manner, the neatness of repartee in a conversation where life and honour are at stake. Guillem, it must be remembered, is at the mercy of his antagonist. Instead of meeting him man to man, Raimon might have thrown his vassal into a dungeon, or wrung his secret from him on the rack. No one would have dared to interfere with the mighty baron, or to breathe suspicion on his wife’s honour. I fear, indeed, that an ordinary retainer would not have met with such considerate treatment at Raimon’s hands. But Guillem was a poet of reputation, who could not be dealt with in a summary manner. Hence the terms of equality which Raimon grants him as a matter of course; hence even the offer of assistance in his love affairs. For troubadours were privileged persons. Every one knew that the ladies worshipped by them, under various senhals, or pseudonyms, were frequently the wives of the greatest nobles of the land. Raimon himself is quite willing to acknowledge this poetic licence, as long as his own wife is not concerned. It, at any rate, speaks well for the genuine quality of the Provençal love-song, to see how both Guillem and his patron treat its origin from anything but real passion as a total impossibility. But whatever the reader may think of the morality of the principles alluded to, he must admit that they imply a refinement of manner and sentiment, somewhat at variance with the popular notion of the semi-barbaric state of early mediæval culture. But still stranger events are in store for us.
On their arrival at Castle Liet, Raimon and the poet are hospitably received by the noble Lord Robert de Tarascon and his wife, the Lady Agnes, sister of Lady Margarida. Raimon, whose friendly offers to Guillem the reader no doubt fully appreciates, takes an early opportunity of cross-questioning his sister-in-law on the delicate subject of her lover, without, however, mentioning a name. But the lady is equal to the occasion. She has seen by Guillem’s expression, that some mischief must be brewing, and, knowing of her sister’s attachment, she at once sides against the jealous husband. She admits having a lover, and, when asked as to his identity, names Guillem without a moment of hesitation, and much to the relief of Raimon. Her husband, when told of the intrigue, fully approves the lady’s conduct, and both combine, in various ways, to further convince Raimon of a guilty intimacy between Guillem and the lady of Tarascon. So well do they succeed, that on his return home Raimon goes at once to tell his wife of his discovery; much to the dismay of that lady, as the reader need not be told. Guillem is summoned before his indignant mistress, and denies his guilt; his innocence being confirmed by the statement of the lady of Tarascon. Margarida is satisfied, but nevertheless bids Guillem declare in a song that to none but her is his love devoted. In answer to this summons Guillem writes the celebrated canzo, ‘Li dous cossire qu’em don’ amors soven’ (The sweet longing that love often gives to me); one of the most beautiful and most impassioned lyrics ever penned, and, alas! his last.[21] For Raimon, when he hears the song, at once fathoms its meaning. His fury now is boundless, but once more he curbs it, to poison the sting of his revenge. He again meets Guillem in a lonely place, slays him, severs the head from the body, tears out the heart, and with these dreadful trophies secretly returns to the castle. The heart he has roasted,[22] and at dinner asks his wife to partake of it. After she has eaten he discloses the terrible secret and simultaneously produces the gory head of her lover, asking her how she liked the flavour of the meat. The lady’s answer is noble and of tragic simplicity. ‘It was so good and savoury,’ she says, ‘that never other meat or drink shall take from my mouth the sweetness which the heart of Guillem has left there.’ The exasperated husband then rushes at her with his drawn sword, and she, flying from him, throws herself from a balcony, and dies.
Thus the marriage law is vindicated, and M. Alexandre Dumas’ sentence of tue-la carried out in a manner with which even that severe moralist could not but be satisfied. But Guillem’s contemporaries had not yet attained to this pitch of virtue. The news of the deed spread rapidly, and was received everywhere with grief and indignation; ‘and all the friends of Guillem and the lady, and all the courteous knights of the neighbourhood, and all those who were lovers, united to make war against Raimon.’ King Alfonso, of Aragon, himself invaded Raimon’s dominions, took from him his castles and lands, and kept him prisoner till death. All his possessions were divided amongst the relations of Guillem and of the lady—a somewhat unusual exercise of feudal jurisdiction, it would seem. The same king had the two lovers buried in one tomb, and erected a monument over them, just outside the door of the Church of Perpignan. ‘And there was a time,’ the biographer adds, ‘when all the knights of Rossilho, and of Serdonha, of Confolen, Riuples, Peiralaide, and Narbones, kept the day of their death every year; and all the fond lovers and all the fond lady-loves prayed for their souls.’
This is the story as rendered in the manuscript of the Laurentiana; and a beautiful story it is, told with exquisite skill, and with an artistic grouping of the psychological and pathetic elements for which many modern novelists might envy the obscure Provençal scribe. Boccaccio’s treatment of the same incidents, with changed names, in the thirty-ninth novella of the ‘Decameron,’ is greatly inferior to the present version. But this very finish of detail excites suspicions as to the historic truth of the extraordinary events so plausibly narrated. Further research into the matter confirms this suspicion. I have traced no less than seven different versions of Guillem’s life in the Provençal language preserved amongst the MS. collections of the libraries of Rome, Florence, and Paris. All these purport to be authentic biographies of the poet, and all agree in the main incidents of the story, differing, however, in details, and even in the names of the localities and persons concerned. The lady, for instance, is in some versions called Sermonda or Sorismonda, instead of Margarida. Other discrepancies and arbitrary additions tend to show that invention has been busy to embellish the tragic fate of a celebrated poet; and it has not been an easy task to divest the kernel of historic truth from later fictitious accumulations. I cannot enter here into tedious details, and must ask the reader to accept in good faith the results of what I may, without presumption, call a careful and patient investigation.
The historic identity of Guillem de Cabestanh, a celebrated poet of the fourteenth century, is sufficiently proved, and there is no intrinsic or external reason to doubt that he was enamoured of a married lady, and killed by her jealous husband. It is also by no means unlikely that the discovery was brought about by an unguarded expression in one of the poet’s songs, although this circumstance is not mentioned in the oldest and simplest version. The chronologically second version, on the contrary, lays great stress on this interesting fact, naming the fatal song—none other than the beautiful and popular canzo, ‘Li dous cossire,’ already referred to. Here, then, we discover the clue to the numerous romantic additions of the later versions, which could be made with the greater impunity, as the real circumstances of the story began to fade from the memory of men. For most of these additions are evidently invented with a view to connecting this particular song with the tragic fate of the poet—an idea by no means wanting in poetic beauty, although not borne out by the dry facts of history. The ingenious way in which this connection is attempted is particularly shown in one of the manuscripts where the actual passage of the song from which Raimon is said to have derived his knowledge is quoted. The words run:
In English, ‘All I am compelled to do by fear, you must accept in good faith, even if I do not see you.’ At first sight the suggestion seems plausible. The song, as we know, was written to account for Guillem’s apparent faithlessness, and to the jealous suspicion of the husband the allusion might seem plain enough. But it must be borne in mind that Raimon was not supposed to know to whom Guillem’s songs were addressed. After he had once found out that the poet spoke of his wife and to his wife in such a manner as is done in the canzo in question, the further discovery of any particularly suggestive passage was quite unnecessary. The idea of connecting a song treating of the ordinary incidents of a love-affair with the death of the poet is evidently an after-thought, although by no means an inappropriate one. The author of the version followed by me in the above shows the highest degree of inventive boldness by adding entirely new incidents (e.g., the visit to Castle Liet), and rendering verbatim long conversations, of which no cognisance could possibly have been obtained.
Regarding the most striking incident, that of the lover’s heart being eaten by the lady, it is true that all the versions contain it, but other circumstances tend to throw grave doubts on its historic reality. For the same fact is told with some modifications of the Châtelain de Coucy, a celebrated poet of Northern France, no less historical than Guillem himself, and nearly his contemporary. The independent recurrence in the course of a few years of the same extraordinary fact is intrinsically much more unlikely than the supposition that the story of the eaten heart was, in some form or other, popular at the time, and therefore connected with the life of one of their celebrated poets by both northern and southern Frenchmen. Students of the ‘History of Fiction’ are aware that the local and individual application of a popular story to a popular hero is a most common process, and readers of Dunlop’s excellent work of that name may remember that the incident of the eaten heart is by no means confined to the age or country of Guillem de Cabestanh. I should indeed not feel surprised if one of our comparative mythologists were to prove that the vulture gnawing the head or liver of the fettered Prometheus is at the bottom of it all.
But whatever may be the historical value of the story related in the above, it throws a striking and abundant light on the manners and feelings of mediæval Provence. Here we see the idea of the unlimited power of love carried to its extreme consequences. Margarida, a noble lady, adorned, as is expressly stated, with all virtues and accomplishments, does not hesitate at inviting the courtship of her inferior in rank in the most unmistakable manner. But the narrator, and evidently his public with him, think that everything is sufficiently accounted for by an allusion to the unconquerable impulse of love.
And in the service of this love all means of defence, fair or foul, are thought permissible. Guillem betrays his kind master and benefactor, and afterwards, in order to save himself, calmly exposes the honour of a third person by an audacious falsehood. Raimon himself is quite willing to tolerate, or even to further, the poet’s intrigue with his wife’s sister; and the manner in which the lord and lady of Tarascon pay him back in his own coin displays the equally loose principles of those distinguished persons. The immediate discovery of the whole state of affairs on the part of the lady, moreover, betrays an acuteness of vision explainable only from personal experience of similar predicaments. When at last the long-abused husband discovers the intrigue, and takes cruel revenge, nobody seems to consider that he has been sinned against no less than sinning, and all true knights and lovers, the King of Aragon amongst them, hasten to punish the vile murderer, while the lovers are revered as saints and martyrs. Much as we may condemn the brutality of the husband’s revenge, or wish to excuse the fatal effects of irresistible passion, justice compels us to consider that the breach of the marriage vow was in this case aggravated by that of confidence, friendship, and fealty. But justice to a husband, as we know, was a thing unheard of in the code of Provençal gallantry—the very name was odious, and all but synonymous with criminal, or at least dupe. I do not, indeed, recollect a single instance amongst the numerous love-stories told in connection with the troubadours in which the object of passion was not a married lady; a strange point of affinity with the modern French novel to which I call the attention of those interested in national psychology. The final wedding-bells of English novels would be vainly listened for in Provençal fiction.
If this frivolous conception of sacred ties repels our æsthetical and moral feelings, we cannot, on the other hand, refuse our sympathy to a passion so pure and so intense as that reflected in the canzos of Guillem de Cabestanh. Only seven of his poems have been preserved to us, but these rank amongst the highest achievements of Provençal literature. In the whole range of international song I know of no sweeter lyric than Guillem’s ‘Lo jorn qu’eus vi domna premieramen,’ or that other canzo, which legend has connected with his death. The latter is also remarkable for its display of highest technical finish, while the remainder of Guillem’s songs are comparatively simple in structure, and contain few of those marvellous tours de force of rhyme and metre which most troubadours delight in.
Such artificialities of manner would, indeed, be ill adapted to the extreme simplicity of his theme, which is nothing but the deepest passion for one beloved object. There is in his poems no fickleness, no variation of mood, and if his literary remains were voluminous, the uniformity of his passion would pall upon us. As it is, this very monotony adds to the intensity of our impression. Guillem is a patient lover, a male type of the nut-brown maid. Everything he will suffer for his lady and from her; nay, he derives pleasure from his sufferings, as they have been inflicted upon him in the service of love, in her service. At first sight he has become her bondsman, she has bewitched him with a smile, taken his sense and his thought with a word of her mouth. Sometimes he fancies that he must have loved her before seeing her, and delights in the delusion of having been destined by God to serve her. For her, therefore, he will live, and his songs shall tell the world of her worth and of his passion.
This is the essence of Guillem’s songs. One of them only need be quoted here. It shows him in the attitude of a devoted lover. He had no other.
Several biographical facts may be gleaned from this song. First of all we meet with an allusion to the poet’s intercourse with other ‘gentle ladies,’ which shows a striking likeness to the lines previously quoted from Guillem’s most celebrated canzo. Margarida, it might be inferred, was not altogether free from a feeling of jealousy towards not one but several ladies, and both passages are evidently written by Guillem with a view to appeasing this ill-founded suspicion; a circumstance which throws still graver doubt on the fanciful connection of the first-mentioned lines with the incident at Castle Liet. Whether the temporary banishment alluded to in the present canzo has anything to do with these lovers’ quarrels remains undecided. But the poet’s complaints of cruelty tend to prove that the lady did not yield with the astonishing readiness implied by the biographer. Guillem, it appears, had to undergo a severe probation before the fatal gift of love was vouchsafed to him, and at the stage marked by the canzo the name of ‘friend’ is the highest boon to which he ventures to aspire. Well for him if that stage had never been passed.