BEATRICE DE DIE.
The only lady-troubadour of whose poems we possess a sufficient number
to allow of a fair judgment of her capability is the Countess Beatrice
de Die. She may also serve to illustrate the essentially subjective
conception of the art of poetry which marks the phase in literature
alluded to. The unvarying subject of her songs is the story of her love;
without this passion she would have remained mute. Her first song is the
embodiment of new-awakened happiness; her last a dirge over hopes dead
and lost.
‘The Countess de Die,’ says the old manuscript, ‘was the wife of Guillem
de Poitou and a good and beautiful lady; she became enamoured of Rambaut
of Orange, and wrote many fine poems of him.’ This Rambaut was the third
ruler of that name of the country of Aurenga or Orange, in the south of
France, from which the Dutch line of the house of Nassau derived its
name. The English cavaliers, by the way, were considerably out in their
etymological reckoning when they derisively squeezed the orange.
Rambaut is well known as the author of numerous poems, some of them
rather coarse in character. One of his songs is metrically curious by the
poet relapsing at the end of every stanza into a few lines of prose, in
which admirers of Walt Whitman will perhaps discover rhythm. In another
poem he gives an elaborate prescription for gaining the hearts and
bending the minds of women, quite in the spirit of the coarsest scenes
of the _Taming of the Shrew_. The apparent disagreement of the poet with
his own rules expressed in one stanza does not much alter the case in his
favour, neither can we consider his calling one of his lady-loves by the
nickname ‘my Devil’ a sign of refinement on his part. The exaggerated
and boldly uttered opinion of his own poetic power is an additional
unpleasant feature of Rambaut’s character. His songs to Beatrice de Die,
of which several remain, are marked by extravagant gallantry rather than
by true feeling. It may, for instance, be doubted whether the lady had
much reason to be pleased with compliments of this kind: ‘The joy you
give me is such that a thousand doleful people would be made merry by my
joy. And on my joy my whole family could live with joy without eating.’
The reader will notice the frequent repetition of the word ‘joy,’ which
occurs once in every line of the stanza. This is an instance of the
artificialities in which many troubadours, Rambaut of Orange foremost
amongst the number, took pride. A similar metrical contrivance is found
in another song by the same poet, most likely also addressed to the
Countess de Die. It is called the ‘_rim dictional_,’ and consists of the
combination, in the rhyming syllables, of two words which can be derived
from each other by either adding or deducting one or more syllables.
Thus, for instance, the feminine and masculine forms of the adjective
and participle; _at-ada_, _ut-uda_ stand in the relation of ‘dictional
rhymes.’ It is sadly significant to see that this silly contrivance has
been adopted by Beatrice de Die in the song which expresses the fulness
of her loving bliss. Perhaps it would be too bold to conjecture without
additional evidence that, in this as in so many cases, the teacher had
developed into the lover; but this sign of intellectual dependence is
at any rate highly characteristic. To give the reader an idea of the
sweetness of Beatrice’s metre and diction, I will quote one stanza of the
poem alluded to in the original.
Ab joi et ab joven m’apais
E jois e jovens m’apaia;
Qar mos amics es lo plus gais
Per q’ieu sui coindet’ e gaia.
E pois ieu li sui veraia
Bes tanh q’el me sia verais.
Qanc de lui amar nom estrais
Ni ai en cor quem n’estraia.
‘With joy and youth I am content; may joy and youth give me contentment!
For my friend is most joyous, therefore I am amiable and gay. And as I am
true to him, true he must be to me. For I do not withhold my love from
him, so neither can I think that he should withhold his from me.’
Unfortunately the serene sky of this happiness was soon to be
overclouded. We can distinctly recognise the mutual position of the
lovers. Count Rambaut, if he had at any time felt a serious passion for
Beatrice, soon got over that weakness. In vain he tries to hide his
apathy from the keen glance of the loving woman. She is appeased for
the moment by his grandiloquent vows of eternal devotion; but soon her
suspicion awakes again with renewed strength. Such are the feelings which
have inspired the admirable _tenso_ respectively ascribed to Rambaut and
Beatrice, but most likely composed by both of them in alternate stanzas
of reproach and excuse. The poet, taxed with indifference and fickleness,
explains that the rareness of his visits is caused by his fear of the
evil tongues and spies ‘who have taken my sense and breath away.’ But
the lady is little impressed with this tender care for her reputation.
‘No thanks do I owe you,’ she says, ‘for refusing to see me when I send
for you, because of the harm I might suffer through it. And if you
take greater care of my welfare than I do myself, you must forsooth be
over-loyal; more so than the Knights of the Hospital.’ Only by the most
extravagant promises of amendment is the poet able to gain from the lady
the qualified concession: ‘Friend, I will trust you so far, so that I
find you true and loyal to me at all times.’
A second song of the countess marks a further stage of this unfortunate
amour. The poet now has dropped the mask; the lady is deserted—deserted
for another love. The sight of her misery is pathetic, although, perhaps,
less dignified than would be the silent pride of a noble-hearted woman.
But pride is strange to the heart of poor Beatrice. Her desire is not to
upbraid, but, if possible, to regain, her truant lover; and nothing she
considers beneath her dignity that may accomplish this sole desire of her
heart. Abject flattery of her lover and even the praise of her own beauty
are resorted to by her with a naïve openness which, somehow, makes us
forget her utter want of dignity. There is about her poem the true ring
of simple pathos, which I have tried to retain as far as possible in the
subjoined rendering of three of the stanzas:
CANZO.
A chantar m’er de so qu’eu no volria
Tant me rancur de lui cui sui amia;
Car eu l’am mais que nuilla ren que sia:
Vas lui nom val merces ni cortezia,
Ni ma beltatz ni mos pretz ni mos sens;
C’atressim sui enganad’ e trahia
Com degr’esser, s’eu fos dezavinens.
Meraveill me cum vostre cors s’argoilla
Amics vas me per qu’ai razon quem doilla.
Non es ges dreitz c’autr’amors vos mi toilla,
Per nuilla ren queus diga nius acoilla.
E membre vos cals fol comensamens
De nostr’amor; ja dompnedeus non voilla
Qu’en ma colpa sial departimens.
Proeza grans, qu’el vostre cors s’aizina,
E lo rics pretz qu’avetz m’en ataina.
C’una non sai, loindana ni vezina,
Si vol amar vas vos no si’ aclina:
Mas vos, amics es ben tant conoissens,
Que ben devetz conoisser la plus fina;
E membre vos de nostres partimens.
_Translation._
It is in vain, this silence I must break;
The fault of him I love moves me to speak.
Dearer than all the world he is to me;
But he regards not love nor courtesy,
Nor wisdom, nor my worth, nor all my beauty—
He has deceived me. Such my fate should be,
If I had failed to him in loving duty.
Oh, strange and past belief that in disdain
Your heart, oh friend, should look upon my pain;
That now another love should conquer you,
For all that I may say, that I may do!
Have you forgotten the sweet first communion
Of our two hearts? Now sorely would I rue
If by my guilt were caused this last disunion.
The noble worth, the valour you possess,
Your fame and beauty add to my distress.
For far and near the noble ladies all,
If love can move them, listen to your call.
But you, my friend, whose soul is keenest-sighted,
Must know who loves you, and is true withal.
And ah! remember now the troth we plighted.
The reader need hardly be told that this touching appeal proved in vain.
We have another song of Beatrice, in which she deplores the final loss
of her friend. It is remarkable that even now no word of anger escapes
her lips. She blames herself for a reticence of feeling which, if she had
possessed it, might have averted her fate. This is the first stanza of
the plaintive ditty:
Ah, sadly, sadly do I miss
A knight of valour once mine own!
To all at all times be it known,
My heart was his—was only his.
Foolishly my secret keeping,
I hid my love when he was near;
But in my heart I held him dear,
Day and night, awake and sleeping.
And here we must take leave of the beautiful Beatrice de Die. She is not
without interest from a psychological point of view, and represents the
literary capabilities of her class by the intensely subjective character
of her work, which is the immediate outgrowth of her feeling.