RHYTHM.
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,
anz li mal trag mi son joi e plazer
sol per aiso, car sai q’amors autreja,
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
Perdut ai—e cobrarai.
Bordos biocatz are short verses which are mixed with others of greater
length, and form, if rhyming, a sort of echo; for instance:
El contrari far vol
E col.
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:
q’una domna s’es clamada de sos gardadors a me.[39]
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._:
_En sovinensa_
tenc la car’el dous ris
_vostra valensa_
el bel cors blanc e lis.
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:
Que fers de lansa
mays no m’acora;
que mi transfora
lo cor el cors
l’enveios mors
e verenos
coma poyzos
dels vilas motz,
quem fan jos votz
per maestria.
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:
De domnas m’es vejaire
que gran falhimen fan;
per so quar no son gaire
amat li fin aman.
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:
Tant ai mon cor plen de joja
tot me desnatura;
flors blanca vermelh’e bloja
m sembla la freidura.
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:
En aquel temps c’om era jais
e per amor fis e verais
cuendes e d’avinen escuelh.
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._:
Nos jove _ó_mne | quandiu que nos estam
de gran follía | per folledat parllam.
The following lines afford examples of the masculine cæsura:
E qui nos pais | que no murem de fam
cui tan amet | Torquator Mallios.
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:
donz fo Boécis | corps ag bo e pro.
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:
Qu’el era cóms | molt onraz e rix.
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._:
En autra térra | irai penre linhatge.
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._:
Vecvòs per miei l’estorn | lo vilh Draugo
lo paire don Girárt | l’oncle Folco,
or with feminine pauza and masculine ending of the verse:
Tan vos vei entrels vóstres | queus an cobrit,
or with both feminine:
E fan lor cavals córre | per la varena.
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:
Ja nus homs pres non dira sa razon
adrechament, si com homs dolens non;
mas per conort deu hom faire canson:
pro n’ay d’amics, mas paubre son li don.
Ancta lur es, se per ma rezenson
soi sai dos ivers pres.
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:
Pos als barós | enoja e lor peza
d’aquesta pátz | qu’an faita li dui rei;
while the lyrical pauza con accen greu occurs in the third stanza of the
same poem:
Cum aquésta | ni autra c’om li grei.
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:
Don mi remémbra | douza terra el pais,
and
En autra térra | irai penre lenhatge.
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:
Q’ieu non vólgra | qe fos ma cusina.
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.