GUILLEM DE CABESTANH.
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.’
Quel Guglielmo,
Che per cantar ha’l fior dei suoi dì scemo!
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:
Tot qan faz per temensa
Devez en bona fei,
Prendre neis qan nous vei.
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.
CANZO.
Lo jorn, qeus vi domna, premieramen,
Qant a vos plac qeus mi laissez vezer,
Parti mon cor tot d’autre pensamen,
E foron ferm en vos tut mei voler;
Q’aissim pausez, domna el cor l’enveja;
Ab un douz ris et ab un simpl’esgar,
Mi e qant es mi fezez oblidar.
Qel granz beutaz el solaz d’avinen
Eil cortes dit eil amoros plazer
Qem saubez far, m’embleron si mon sen,
Q’anc pois hora domna nol poc aver;
A vos l’autrei, cui mos fis cors merceja;
Per enantir vostre prez et onrar
A vos mi ren, q’om miels non pot amar.
E car vos am domna, tan finamen,
Qe d’autr’amar nom don’ amors poder;
Mas aizem da q’ab autras cortei gen,
Don cug de mi la greu dolor mover;
Pois quant cossir de vos cui jois sopleja,
Tot’ autr’amor oblit e desampar,
Ab vos remanh cui tenc al cor plus car.
E membre vos, sius plaz, del bon coven
Qe mi fezez al departir saber,
Don aic mon cor adonc guai e jauzen
Pel bon respeit en qem mandez tener;
Mout n’aic gran joi, s’era lo mals sim greja;
Et aurai lo, qan vos plaira encar,
Bona domna, q’eu sui en l’esperar.
E ges mals trags no men fai espaven,
Sol q’eu en cuit en ma vida aver
De vos domna qalaqom jauzimen;
Anz li mal trag mi son joi e plazer
Sol per aiso, car sai q’amors autreja,
Qe fis amans deu granz torz perdonar
E gen soffrir mals trags per gazanhs far.
Aissi er ja domna l’ora q’eu veja,
Qe per merce mi volhaz tan onrar,
Qe sol amic me denhez appellar.
_Translation._
The day when first I saw you, lady sweet,
When first your beauty deigned on me to shine,
I laid my heart’s devotion at your feet;
No other wish, no other thought were mine.
For in my soul you wakened soft desire;
In your sweet smile and in your eyes I found
More than myself and all the world around.
Your tender speech, so amorous, so kind,
The solace of your words, your beauty’s spell
Once and for ever have my heart entwined,
No longer in my bosom it will dwell.
Your worth to cherish it shall never tire.
Oh! then, your gentle grace let me implore;
My all I gave you, I can give no more.
So wholly, lady, is my heart your own
That love will not allow another’s love.
Oft when to gentle ladies I have flown,
Somewhat the burden of my pain to move,
The thought of you, the fountain of my bliss,
Has aye dispelled all other vain desires;
To you with tenfold love my heart retires.
Do not forget, I pray, the hopeful word
You granted me when last I saw your face;
My heart leaped up with pleasure when I heard
The joyful message vouchsafed by your grace.
In present grief my comfort still is this:
That when your heart to mercy is inclined
My ardent wish may yet fulfilment find.
Pride and unkindness have for me no sting,
As long as I may hope that in this life
One day from you may kindest message bring.
Grief turns to joy and pleasure springs from strife;
For well I know that Love has willed it so
That lovers should forgive the deadliest sin,
By deepest sorrow highest bliss to win.
The hour will come, O lady, well I know,
When from your yielding mercy I may claim
The one word ‘friend.’ I ask no other name.
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.