EARLY LYRICS.
[Sidenote: Early and Later Lyrics.]
The lyric poetry of the middle ages in France divides itself naturally
into two periods, distinguished by very strongly marked characteristics.
The end of the thirteenth century is the dividing point in this as in
many other branches of literature. After that we get the extremely
interesting, if artificial, forms of the Rondeau and Ballade, with their
many varieties and congeners. With these we shall not busy ourselves in
the present chapter. But the twelfth and thirteenth centuries are
provided with a lyric growth, less perfect indeed in form than that
which occupied French singers from Machault to Marot, but more
spontaneous, fuller of individuality, variety, and vigour, and scarcely
less abundant in amount.
[Sidenote: Origins of Lyric.]
[Sidenote: Romances and Pastourelles.]
Before the twelfth century we find no traces of genuine lyrical work in
France. The ubiquitous _Cantilenae_ indeed again make their appearance
in the speculations of literary historians, but here as elsewhere they
have no demonstrable historical existence. Except a few sacred songs,
sometimes, as in the case of Saint Eulalie, in early Romance language,
sometimes in what the French call _langue farcie_, that is to say, a
mixture of French and Latin, nothing regularly lyrical is found up to
the end of the eleventh century. But soon afterwards lyric work becomes
exceedingly abundant. This is what forms the contents of Herr Karl
Bartsch's delightful volume of _Romanzen und Pastourellen_[67]. These
are the two earliest forms of French lyric poetry. They are recognised
by the Troubadour Raimon Vidal as the special property of the Northern
tongue, and no reasonable pretence has been put forward to show that
they are other than indigenous. The tendency of both is towards iambic
rhythm, but it is not exclusively manifested as in later verse. It is
one of the most interesting things in French literary history to see how
early the estrangement of the language from the anapaestic and dactylic
measures natural to Teutonic speech began to declare itself[68]. These
early poems bubble over with natural gaiety, their refrains, musical
though semi-articulate as they are, are sweet and manifold in cadence,
but the main body of the versification is either iambic or trochaic (it
was long before the latter measure became infrequent), and the freedom
of the ballad-metres of England and Germany is seldom present. The
Romance differs in form and still more in subject from the Pastourelle,
and both differ very remarkably from the form and manner of Provencal
poetry. It has been observed by nearly all students, that the love-poems
of the latter language are almost always at once personal and abstract
in subject. The Romance and the Pastourelle, on the contrary, are almost
always dramatic. They tell a story, and often (though not always in the
case of the Pastourelle) they tell it of some one other than the singer.
The most common form of the Romance is that of a poem varying from
twenty lines long to ten times that length and divided into stanzas.
These stanzas consist of a certain number (not usually less than three
or more than eight) of lines of equal length capped with a refrain in a
different metre. By far the best, though by no means the earliest, of
them are those of Audefroy le Bastard, who, according to the late M.
Paulin Paris, may be fixed at the beginning of the thirteenth century.
Audefroy's poems are very much alike in plan, telling for the most part
how the course of some impeded true love at last ran smooth. They rank
with the very best mediaeval poetry in colour, in lively painting of
manners and feelings, and in grace of versification. Unfortunately they
are one and all rather too long for quotation here. The anonymous
Romance of 'Bele Erembors' will represent the class well enough. The
rhyme still bears traces of assonance, which is thought to have
prevailed till Audefroy's time:--
Quant vient en mai, que l'on dit as lons jors,
Que Frans en France repairent de roi cort,
Reynauz repaire devant el premier front
Si s'en passa lez lo mes Arembor,
Ainz n'en designa le chief drecier a mont.
E Raynaut amis!
Bele Erembors a la fenestre au jor
Sor ses genolz tient paile de color;
Voit Frans de France qui repairent de cort,
E voit Raynaut devant el premier front:
En haut parole, si a dit sa raison.
E Raynaut amis!
'Amis Raynaut, j'ai ja veu cel jor
Se passisoiz selon mon pere tor,
Dolanz fussiez se ne parlasse a vos.'
'Ja mesfaistes, fille d'Empereor,
Autrui amastes, si obliastes nos.'
E Raynaut amis!
'Sire Raynaut, je m'en escondirai:
A cent puceles sor sainz vos jurerai,
A trente dames que avuec moi menrai,
C'onques nul hom fors vostre cors n'amai.
Prennez l'emmende et je vos baiserai.'
E Raynaut amis!
Li cuens Raynauz en monta lo degre,
Gros par espaules, greles par lo baudre;
Blonde ot lo poil, menu, recercele:
En nule terre n'ot so biau bacheler.
Voit l'Erembors, so comence a plorer.
E Raynaut amis!
Li cuens Raynauz est montez en la tor,
Si s'est assis en un lit point a flors,
Dejoste lui se siet bele Erembors.
* * * * * *
Lors recomencent lor premieres amors.
E Raynaut amis!
The Pastourelle is still more uniform in subject. It invariably
represents the knight or the poet riding past and seeing a fair
shepherdess by his road-side. He alights and woos her with or without
success. In this class of poem the stanzas are usually longer, and
consist of shorter lines than is the case with the Romances, while the
refrains are more usually meaningless though generally very musical. It
is, however, well to add that the very great diversity of metrical
arrangement in this class makes it impossible to give a general
description of it. There are Pastourelles consisting merely of
four-lined stanzas with no refrain at all. The following is a good
specimen of the class:--
De Saint Quentin a Cambrai
Chevalchoie l'autre jour;
Les un boisson esgardai,
Touse i vi de bel atour.
La colour
Ot freche com rose en mai.
De cuer gai
Chantant la trovai
Ceste chansonnete
'En non deu, j'ai bel ami,
Cointe et joli,
Tant soie je brunete.'
Vers la pastoure tornai
Quant la vi en son destour;
Hautement la saluai
Et di 'deus vos doinst bon jour
Et honour.
Celle ke ci trove ai,
Sens delai
Ses amis serai.'
Dont dist la doucete
'En non deu, j'ai bel ami,
Cointe et joli,
Tant soie je brunete.'
Deles li seoir alai
Et li priai de s'amour,
Celle dist 'Je n'amerai
Vos ne autrui par nul tour,
Sens pastour,
Robin, ke fiencie l'ai.
Joie en ai,
Si en chanterai
Ceste chansonnete:
En non deu, j'ai bel ami,
Cointe et joli,
Tant soie je brunete.'
So various, notwithstanding the simplicity and apparent monotony of
their subjects, are these charming poems, that it is difficult to give,
by mere citation of any one or even of several, an idea of their beauty.
In no part of the literature of the middle ages are its lighter
characteristics more pleasantly shown. The childish freedom from care
and afterthought, the half unconscious delight in the beauty of flowers
and the song of birds, the innocent animal enjoyment of fine weather and
the open country, are nowhere so well represented. Chaucer may give
English readers some idea of all this, but even Chaucer is sophisticated
in comparison with the numerous, and for the most part nameless, singers
who preceded him by almost two centuries in France. As a purely formal
and literary characteristic, the use of the burden or refrain is perhaps
their most noteworthy peculiarity. Herr Bartsch has collected five
hundred of these refrains, all different. There is nothing like this to
be found in any other literature; and, as readers of Beranger know, the
fashion was preserved in France long after it had been given up
elsewhere.
[Sidenote: Thirteenth Century.]
[Sidenote: Changes in Lyric.]
After the twelfth century the early lyrical literature of France
undergoes some changes. In the first place it ceases to be anonymous,
and individual singers--some of them, like Thibaut of Champagne, of very
great merit and individuality--make their appearance. In the second
place it becomes more varied but at the same time more artificial in
form, and exhibits evident marks of the communication between troubadour
and trouvere, and of the imitation by the latter of the stricter forms
of Provencal poetry. The Romance and the Pastourelle are still
cultivated, but by their side grow up French versions, often adapted
with considerable independence, of the forms of the South[69]. Such, for
instance, is the _chanson d'amour_, a form less artfully regulated
indeed than the corresponding canzon or sestine of the troubadours, but
still of some intricacy. It consists of five or six stanzas, each of
which has two interlaced rhymes, and concludes with an _Envoi_, which,
however, is often omitted. _Chansonnettes_ on a reduced scale are also
found. In these pieces the alternation of masculine and feminine rhymes,
which was ultimately to become the chief distinguishing feature of
French prosody, is observable, though it is by no means universal. To
the Provencal _tenson_ corresponds the _jeu parti_ or verse dialogue,
which is sometimes arranged in the form of a Chanson. The _salut
d'amour_ is a kind of epistle, sometimes of very great length and
usually in octosyllabic verse, the decasyllable being more commonly used
in the Chanson. Of this the _complainte_ is only a variety. Again, the
Provencal _sirvente_ is represented by the northern _serventois_, a poem
in Chanson form, but occupied instead of love with war, satire,
religion, and miscellaneous matters. It has even been doubted whether
the _serventois_ is not the forerunner of the _sirvente_ instead of the
reverse being the case. Other forms are _motets_, _rotruenges_,
_aubades_. Poems called _rondeaux_ and _ballades_ also make their
appearance, but they are loose in construction and undecided in form.
The thirteenth century is, moreover, the palmy time of the Pastourelle.
Most of those which we possess belong to this period, and exhibit to the
full the already indicated characteristics of that graceful form. But
the lyric forms of the thirteenth century are to some extent rather
imitated than indigenous, and it is no doubt to the fact of this
imitation that the common ascription of general poetical priority to the
Langue d'Oc, unfounded as it has been sufficiently shown to be, is due
in the main. The most courageous defenders of the North have wished to
maintain its claims wholly intact even in this instance, but
probability, if not evidence, is against them.
[Sidenote: Traces of Lyric in the Thirteenth Century.]
[Sidenote: Quesnes de Bethune.]
[Sidenote: Thibaut de Champagne.]
It has been said that the number of song writers from the end of the
twelfth century to the end of the thirteenth is extremely large. M.
Paulin Paris, whose elaborate chapter in the _Histoire Litteraire_ is
still the great authority on the subject, has enumerated nearly two
hundred, to whose work have to be added hundreds of anonymous pieces. It
would seem indeed that during a considerable period the practice of song
writing was almost as incumbent on the French gentleman of the
thirteenth century as that of sonnetteering on the English gentleman of
the sixteenth. There are, however, not a few names which deserve
separate notice. The first of these in point of time, and not the last
in point of literary importance, is that of Quesnes de Bethune, the
ancestor of Sully, and himself a famous warrior, statesman, and poet.
His epitaph by a poet not usually remarkable for eloquence[70] is a very
striking one. It gives us approximately the date of his death, 1224; and
the word _vieux_ is supposed to show that Quesnes must have been born at
least as early as the middle of the twelfth century. He took part in two
crusades, that of Philip Augustus and that which Villehardouin has
chronicled. His poems[71] are of all classes, historical, satirical, and
amorous, some of last being addressed to Marie, Countess of Champagne;
and his Chansons are, in the technical sense, some of the earliest we
possess. Contemporary with Quesnes apparently was the personage who is
known under the title of Chatelain de Coucy, and whose love for the Lady
of Fayel resulted in an interchange of very tender and beautiful verse;
the poem known as the lady's own is one of the very best of its kind.
Long afterwards lover and lady became the hero and heroine of a romance,
which has led some persons to throw doubt upon their historical
existence, and the Lady of Fayel has even been deprived of her poem by a
well-known kind of criticism. Of more importance is Thibaut de
Champagne, King of Navarre, who is indeed the most important single
figure of early French lyrical poetry. He was born in 1201, and died in
1253. His high position as a feudal prince in both north and south, the
minority of St. Louis, and the intimate relations which existed between
the King's mother, Blanche of Castille, and Thibaut, made him the mark
for a good deal of satirical invective. There is a tradition that he was
Blanche's lover, the only objection to which is that the Queen was
thirty years his senior. Thibaut's poems have been more than once
reprinted, the last edition being that of M. Tarbe[72]; this contains
eighty-one pieces, not a few of which, however, are probably the work of
others. The majority of them are Chansons d'Amour, of the kind just
defined. There are, however, a good many Jeux-Partis, and a certain
number of nondescript poems on miscellaneous subjects. There is more
reason for the common opinion which attributes to Thibaut the marriage
of the poetical qualities of northern and southern France, than the mere
fact of his having been both Count of Champagne and King of Navarre. His
poems have in reality something of the freshness and the individuality
of the Trouveres, mixed with a great deal of the formal grace and
elegance of the Troubadours. The following may serve as an example:--
Contre le tens qui desbrise
Yvers, et revient este,
Et la mauvis se desguise,
Qui de lonc tens n'a chante
Ferai chanson. Car a gre
Me vient que j'aie en pense
Amor, qui en moi s'est mise.
Bien m'a droit son dart gete.
Douce dame, de franchise,
N'ai je point en vos trove:
S'ele ne s'i est puis mise
Que je ne vos esgarde,
Trop avez vers moi fierte.
Mais ce fait vostre biaute,
Ou il n'i a pas de devise,
Tant en i a grand plante.
En moi n'a point d'astenance
Que je puisse aillors penser,
Pors que la, ou conoissance
Ne merci ne puis trover.
Bien fui fait por li amer;
Car ne m'en puis saoler.
Et quant plus aurai cheance,
Plus la me convendra douter.
D'une riens sui en doutance,
Que je ne puis plus celer,
Qu'en li n'ait un po d'enfance.
Ce me fait deconforter,
Que s'a moi a bon penser
Ne l'ose ele desmontrer.
Si feist qu'a sa semblance
Le poisse deviner.
Des que je li fis priere
Et la pris a esgarder,
Me fist amors la lumiere
Des iels par le cuer passer.
Cil conduit me fait grever:
Dont je ne me soi garder:
Ne ne puet torner arriere
Mon cuer; miex voudrait crever.
Dame, a vos m'estuet clamer,
Et que merci vos requiere.
Diex m'i laist pitie trover!
[Sidenote: Minor Singers.]
[Sidenote: Adam de la Halle.]
Besides Thibaut there are not a few other song writers of the thirteenth
century, who rise out of the crowd named by M. Paulin Paris. Some of
these, as might be expected, are famous for their achievements in other
departments of literature. Such are Adam de la Halle, Jean Bodel, Guyot
de Provins. There are, however, two, Gace Brule and Colin Muset, who
survive solely but worthily as song writers. Gace Brule was a knight of
Champagne, Colin Muset a professed minstrel. The former chiefly composed
sentimental work; the latter, with the proverbial or professional gaiety
of his class, drew nearer to the satirical tone of the Fabliau writers.
His best-known and most usually quoted work describes the different
welcome which he receives from his family on his return from
professional tours, according to the success or ill-success with which
he has met. Two other poets, Adam de la Halle and Ruteboeuf, are far
more prominent in literary history. Adam de la Halle[73] bore the
surname 'Le Bossu d'Arras,' from his native town, though the term
hunchback seems to have had no literal application to him. His exact
date is not known, but it must probably have been from the fourth to the
ninth decade of the thirteenth century. His dramatic works, which are of
signal importance, will be noticed elsewhere. But besides these he has
left some seventy or eighty lyrical pieces of one kind or another.
Adam's life was not uneventful; he was at first a monk, but left his
convent and married. Then he proved as faithless to his temporal as he
had been to his spiritual vows. He lampooned his wife, his family, his
townsmen, and, shaking the dust of Arras from his feet, retired first to
Douai and then to the court of Robert of Artois, whom he accompanied to
Italy. He died in that country about 1288. The style of Adam de la Halle
varies from the coarsest satire to the most graceful tenderness. Of the
latter the following song is a good specimen:--
Diex!
Comment porroie
Trouver voie
D'aler a chelui
Cui amiete je sui?
Chainturelle, va-i
En lieu de mi;
Car tu fus sieue aussi,
Si m'en conquerra miex.
Mais comment serai sans ti?
Dieus!
Chainturelle, mar vous vi;
Au deschaindre m'ochies;
De mes grietes a vous me confortoie,
Quant je vous sentoie,
Ai mi!
A le saveur de mon ami.
Ne pour quant d'autres en ai,
A cleus d'argent et de soie,
Pour men user.
Mais lasse! comment porroie
Sans cheli durer
Qui me tient en joie?
Canchonnete, chelui proie
Qui le m'envoya,
Puis que jou ne puis aler la.
Qu'il en viengne a moi,
Chi droit,
A jour failli,
Pour faire tous ses boins,
Et il m'orra,
Quant il ert joins,
Canter a haute vois:
_Par chi va la mignotise,_
_Par chi ou je vois_.
[Sidenote: Ruteboeuf]
Ruteboeuf (whose name appears to be a nickname only) has been more
fortunate than most of the poets of early France in leaving a
considerable and varied work behind him, and in having it well and
collectively edited[74]. Little or nothing, however, is known about him,
except from allusions in his own verse. He was probably born about 1230;
he was certainly married in 1260; there is no allusion in his poems to
any event later than 1285. By birth he may have been either a Burgundian
or a Parisian. His work which, as has been said, is not inconsiderable
in volume, falls into three well-marked divisions in point of subject.
The first consists of personal and of comic poems; the second of poems
sometimes satirical, sometimes panegyrical, on public personages and
events; the third, which is apparently with reason assigned to the
latest period of his life, of devotional poems. In the first division
_La Pauvrete Ruteboeuf_, _Le Mariage Ruteboeuf_, etc., are
complaints of his woeful condition; complaints, however, in which there
is nearly as much satire as appeal. Others, such as _Renart le
Bestourne_, _Le Dit des Cordeliers_, _Frere Denise_, _Le Dit de
l'Erberie_, are poems of the Fabliau kind. In all these there are many
lively strokes of satire, and not a little of the reckless gaiety,
chequered here and there with deeper feeling, which has always been a
characteristic of a certain number of French poets. Ruteboeuf's
sarcasm is especially directed towards the monastic orders. The second
class of poems, which is numerous, displays a more elevated strain of
thought. Many of these poems are _complaintes_ or elaborate elegies
(often composed on commission) for distinguished persons, such as
Geoffroy de Sargines and Guillaume de Saint Amour. Others, such as the
_Complainte d'Outremer_, the _Complainte de Constantinople_, the _Dit de
la Voie de Tunes_, the _Debat du Croise et du Decroise_, are comments
on the politics and history of the time, for the most part strongly in
favour of the crusading spirit, and reproaching the nobility of France
with their degeneracy. 'Mort sont Ogier et Charlemagne' is an
often-quoted exclamation of Ruteboeuf in this sense. The third class
includes _La Mort Ruteboeuf_, otherwise _La Repentance Ruteboeuf_,
_La Voie de Paradis_, various poems to the Virgin, the lives of St. Mary
of Egypt and St. Elizabeth of Hungary, and the miracle play of
_Theophile_. Ruteboeuf's favourite metres are either the continuous
octosyllabic couplet, or else a stanza composed of an octosyllabic
couplet and a line of four syllables, the termination of the latter
being caught up by the succeeding couplet. In this the _Mariage_ is
written, of which a specimen may be given:--
En l'an de l'incarnacion,
VIII jors apres la nascion
Jhesu qui soufri passion,
en l'an soissante,
qu'arbres n'a foille, oisel ne chante,
fis je toute la rien dolante
que de cuer m'aime:
nis li musarz musart me claime.
or puis filer, qu'il me faut traime;
mult ai a faire.
deus ne fist cuer tant de pute aire,
tant li aie fait de contraire
ne de martire,
s'il en mon martire se mire,
qui ne doie de bon cuer dire
'je te claim cuite.'
envoier un home en Egypte,
ceste dolor est plus petite
que n'est la moie;
je n'en puis mais se je m'esmoie.
l'en dit que fous qui ne foloie
pert sa saison:
sui je mariez sanz raison?
or n'ai ne borde ne maison.
encor plus fort:
por plus doner de reconfort
a ceus qui me heent de mort,
tel fame ai prise
que nus fors moi n'aime ne prise,
et s'estoit povre et entreprise,
quant je la pris.
a ci mariage de pris,
c'or sui povres et entrepris
ausi comme ele,
et si n'est pas gente ne bele.
cinquante anz a en s'escuele,
s'est maigre et seche:
n'ai pas paor qu'ele me treche.
despuis que fu nez en la greche
deus de Marie,
ne fu mais tele espouserie.
je sui toz plains d'envoiserie:
bien pert a l'uevre.
Though he has less of the 'lyrical cry' than some others, Ruteboeuf is
perhaps the most vigorous poet of his time.
[Sidenote: Lais. Marie de France.]
There is one division of early poetry which may also be noticed under
this head, though it is sometimes dealt with as a kind of miniature
epic. This is the _lai_, a term which is used in old French poetry with
two different significations. The Trouveres of the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries made of it a regular lyrical form. But the most
famous of its examples, those which now pass under the name of Marie de
France, are narrative poems in octosyllabic verse and varying in length
considerably. It is agreed that the term and the thing are of Breton
origin; and the opinion which seems most probable is that the word
originally had reference rather to the style of music with which the
harper accompanied his verse, than to the measure, arrangement, or
subject of the latter. As to Marie herself[75], nothing is known about
her with certainty. She lived in England in the reign of Henry III, and
often gives English equivalents for her French words. The _lais_ which
we possess, written by her and attributed to her, are fourteen in
number. They bear the titles of _Gugemer_, _Equitan_, _Le Fresne_, _Le
Bisclaveret_, _Lanval_, _Les Deux Amants_, _Ywenec_, _Le Laustic_,
_Milun_, _Le Chaitivel_, _Le Chevrefeuille_, _Eliduc_, _Graalent_ and
_L'Espine_. Mr. O'Shaughnessy has paraphrased several of these in
English[76]; they are all narrative in character. Their distinguishing
features are fluent and melodious versification, pure and graceful
language--among the purest and most graceful, though decidedly Norman in
character, of the time--true poetical feeling, and a lively faculty of
invention and description. After Marie there was a tendency to
approximate the _lai_ to the Provencal _descort_, and at last, as we
have said, it acquired rules and a form quite alien from those of its
earlier examples. There is a general though not a universal inclination
to melancholy of subject in the early lays, a few of which are
anonymous.
* * * * *
_Note to Third Edition._--M. Gaston Paris has expressed some surprise at
my remarks on metre (p. 63). This from so accomplished a scholar is a
curious instance of the difficulty which Frenchmen seem to feel in
appreciating quantity. To an English eye and ear which have been trained
to classical prosody the trochaic rhythm of, for instance, the
Pastourelle quoted on p. 65, is unmistakable, and there are anapaestic
metres to be found here and there in early poems of the same kind.
Indeed, all French poetry is easily scanned quantitatively, though the
usual authorities protest against such scansion. Voltaire, it is said,
took Turgot's hexameters for prose, and the significance of this is the
same whether the mistake, as is probable, was mischievous or whether it
was genuine.
FOOTNOTES:
[67] Leipsic, 1870.
[68] See note at end of chapter.
[69] This miscellaneous lyric for the most part awaits collection and
publication. M. G. Raynaud has given a valuable _Bibliographie des
Chansonniers Francais des XIII'e et XIV'e siecles_. 2 vols., Paris,
1884. Also a collection of _motets_. Paris, 1881.
[70] Philippe Mouskes. This is it:
La terre fut pis en cest an
Quar li vieux Quesnes estoit mors.
[71] The best edition is in Scheler's _Trouveres Belges_. Brussels,
1876.
[72] Rheims, 1851.
[73] The most convenient place to look for Adam's history and work is
_Le Theatre Francais au Moyen Age_. Par Monmerque et Michel. Paris,
1874. There are also separate editions of him by Coussemaker, and more
recently by A. Rambeau. Marburg, 1886.
[74] By A. Jubinal. 2nd edition. 3 vols. Paris, 1874.
[75] Ed. Roquefort. 2 vols. Paris, 1820. The first volume contains the
lays; the later the fables, which have been noticed in the last chapter.
Later edition, Warnke. Halle, 1885. Marie also wrote a poem on the
Purgatory of St. Patrick. Three other lays, _Tidorel_, _Gringamor_, and
_Tiolet_ have been attributed to her, and are printed in _Romania_, vol.
viii.
[76] _Lays of France_, London, 1872.