THE GAY SCIENCE
"Li douz cossire
Qem don amors soven
Domnam fan dire
De vos maint vers plazem
Pessan remire
Vostre cors car e gen
Cui eu dezire
Mas qu non faz parven;
E sitot me deslei
Per vos ges nous abnei
Q'ades vas vos soplei
De francha benevolensa
Domna on beutaz gensa."
From a famous Canzo by GUILHELM DE CABESTAING.
"The sweet thoughts which love gives me often, Lady, makes me
sing of you many a pleasant song. Thinking, I gaze on your dear
and comely self, which I desire more than I allow to appear;
and although I seem disloyal for your sake, it is not you I
deny. For soon towards you I pray with true love, Lady, in
whom beauty is an ornament."
The more we see of cities and castles the more our ignorance chafes
us, gets in our way. Our few books were insufficient. There was but one
thing to do: call at the famous little bookshop in the Rue d'Agricole
at Avignon--which alluring city we made our axis of movement--and lay
in a store of enlightening literature.
The shop is now the property of the widow of the poet Roumanille, who
with Mistral and Théodore Aubanel founded at Avignon the celebrated
Félibres, that wonderful band of poets--Troubadours of the twentieth
century--who have produced a literature in the once despised Provençal
tongue, breathing forth all the spirit of their native land. Intense
love of that land, of its ancient language, its architecture, costume,
history, creeds, has been the inspiration of this brilliant group, and
perhaps no other outburst of song has ever been fuller than this is of
warmth, colour, joy, sorrow, and that indefinable quality we call poetry.
The little shop in the quiet Rue d'Agricole was classic ground,
associated with many an enthusiastic meeting, many a happy hour of talk
and friendship among this warm-hearted fraternity. It was easy to find
books, but not easy to select them. There were piles and piles of the
works of the Félibres, and this title is claimed by a goodly number of
writers not now limited to natives of Provence, but including Englishmen
and Americans; and women too, for this genial brotherhood welcomes the
sex worshipped by their minstrel forefathers, and every seven years a
woman receives the honour of being crowned Queen of the Félibres.
With the kind help of Madame Roumanille, a selection was finally made,
the hard task being to choose that which was likely to be really useful
to travellers passing through a hitherto unknown country. There were
books on every conceivable subject: the ethnology of the Midi, with all
its mystery of race and language; the Phœnicians, the Greek colonies,
the Celtic, Ligurian, and Gallic inhabitants, endless histories of the
Roman occupation from the time when that astounding people settled in the
south-east corner of France and called it _Provincia_, "the Province."
Archæology of course has a gala time of it in this thoroughfare of the
nations, and the treasures of art are innumerable. The list begins with
implements of the Stone Age. Provence in the Middle Ages and the days of
the troubadours of course is profusely treated. Architecture also fares
brilliantly. Besides the splendid classic remains at Arles, Nimes, St.
Remy, Orange, there are churches of a style such as can be found in no
other part of the world; a version of the Romanesque which is peculiar
to the South of France.
[Illustration: VIEW FROM ST. GILLES, CAMARGUE.
_By E. M. Synge._]
A literature of controversy swells in volume daily: the vexed question
as to the spot where Hannibal crossed the Rhone on his way through Spain
to Italy having set almost as many professors by the ears as the problem
of the exact position of the great Aurelian road, parts of which have
been destroyed. The geology and physical geography of the littoral has
occupied another set of savants, notably the well-known Lenthéric, who
treats with remarkable vividness what would seem a somewhat unpopular
theme: the changes in configuration of the land and the works of natural
engineering accomplished by the Rhone as it reaches the sea by its many
mouths. Amongst all these subjects it was necessary to make a choice;
and here Barbara came to the rescue. She wanted to know more about
the troubadours. The books we had brought with us had already awakened
interest in their romantic songs.
It soon became evident that unless we were prepared to make a serious
study of their works we must be satisfied with a general notion of the
civilisation which they may be said to have created. Our authorities
therefore had to be consulted judiciously and the temptation resisted
to saunter down all the alluring bye-ways that they offered. There were
so many other doors to open and curtains to raise if we desired to have
even a faint idea of the brilliant drama of this extraordinary country.
[Illustration: FAÇADE OF CHURCH, SAINT GILLES.
_By Joseph Pennell._]
We used to seek some quiet spot in the garden on the Rocher du Dom
and read or talk as fancy dictated. Soon we found ourselves in a very
labyrinth of story and legend. Veil after veil was lifted and the events
of bygone days began to loom out upon the background that was still real
and sunlit before our eyes. The lie of the land, the personality of the
cities, the part that the castles had played in the romantic story, all
rose before us like some bright mirage. The very air seemed full once
more of Provençal song and dance: tenso, chanson, rondo, pastorella,
descort, ballada; and one could almost hear the twang of lute and ring
of voice as the wind swept through the ruined windows, or we caught the
hurrying swish and murmur of the Rhone. It was quite an excitement, in
turning over the leaves of some old volume to come upon the poems of
troubadours whose stories we had smiled or sighed over. For there was
almost always something pathetic about these bright figures of wandering
minstrels, with their fine dress, courteous manners, ardent temperament,
and too often a disillusioned and lonely end, sometimes fighting against
the hosts of Saladin, not seldom within the shadows of the cloister.
* * * * *
In thinking of this world of the troubadours, one must give one's
thoughts a longish tether and the imagination a touch of the spur, for
their journeyings were far and wide over the country, from the mountain
regions in the south-eastern districts of France to the farthest west
of Languedoc and the Dukedom of Acquitaine. There must stretch before
the mind's eye the whole beautiful region, sea-washed along its southern
boundaries, watered by splendid rivers, set with cities and ruins whose
names ring through the centuries; and away to the north the vision must
fade at its edges into sharp peaks, while vaguely beyond, on the verge of
the consciousness, must sweep back wave after wave of mountain country,
up and up in steeper and wilder masses to the towers and pinnacles of
the Alps.
But the real heart and centre of Troubadour-land is Provence, the region
east of the Rhone and south of the mountains of Dauphiny. It includes
the whole romantic hill-country on the spurs of the Maritime Alps; and
all along its shores to the east, the rocks cut clear and red into the
blue of that wondrous sea which has sung its soft and ceaseless song
through the tumult of all our civilisations and of all our dreams. And
beautiful among them has been the dream of Provence!
Much of the romance and beauty is the gift of the troubadours who taught
their countrymen--nay, all Europe--to see life with new eyes. For about
two hundred years they sang their songs; till they were silenced in the
thirteenth century by the Albigensian wars. They were a race of singers
and of lovers, for love was the principal theme and the main interest of
their lives. Their love-stories were invariably more or less unhappy, for
not only were the times disturbed and the dangers many, but the lovers
were seldom wise of heart or rich in knowledge of the art of life. And
so they were tossed on the sea of this rude age, on the sea of their own
wild jealousies and distrusts, and sorrow and disappointment generally
marked the end of the romance.
[Illustration: OUTSIDE THE CHURCH, SAINTES MARIES.
_By Joseph Pennell._]
The famous Rudel, hero of Rostand's "Princesse Lointaine" who fell in
love with the distant princess whom he had never seen, and journeyed
far over the sea to visit her, only to die in her arms almost on the
instant that he beheld her, was perhaps one of the least unfortunate of
the fraternity, for he never knew the bitterness of disillusion; never
frittered away his sentiment in little quarrels and misunderstandings,
never suffered the miseries of jealousy.
Soon the famous names began to call up to us a living personality
like that of a friend: Raimbaut de Vacqueiras, Bernart de Ventadour,
Pierre Vidal, Cadenet, Bertrand de Born, Guilhelm de Cabestaing, Pons
de Chapteuil.... And then the charming Countess of Die, the Sappho of
Provence whose voice "had the colour of Alban wine" according to her
modern biographer already quoted. The leaves of the volume were always
sharply arrested when we came upon her name.
In vain, it would appear, had she a beautiful voice and a beautiful
face, for she fell in love with that Provençal Don Juan, Count Raimbaut
d'Orange, who soon grew tired of her, as her sad songs relate.
We were delighted to come upon the following truly disconsolate canzo,
for it seemed to bring us in touch with the poor lady:--
"A chantar m'er de so qu'ieu no volria
Tant me rancur de lui cui sui amia;
Car ieu l'am mais que nuilla ren que sia:
Vas lui n'om val merces ni cortesia,
Ni ma beltatz ni mos pretz ni mos sens,
C'atressi'm sui enganad' e trahïa
Com degr'esser, s'ieu fos desavinens."
This was translated into French prose as follows:--
"Le sujet de mes chants sera pènible et douleureux. Hélas!
J'ai à me plaindre de celui dont je suis la tendre amie; je
l'aime plus que chose qui soit au monde; mais auprès de lui,
rien ne me sert, ni merci, ni courtoisie, ni ma beauté, ni
mon mérite, ni mon esprit. Je suis trompée, je suis trahie,
comme si j'avais commis quelque faute envers lui."
The Countess goes on in the same strain at some length. Raimbaut, it
appears, was very popular with the ladies of his brilliant world, but
the poetess reminds him that he ought to know who "best loves him and
is true withal." But no appeal moves him--to Barbara's great annoyance.
The account of this gentleman's hardness of heart called forth many
exclamations, as I read verse after plaintive verse. How any lady could
have set so much store on so coarse-grained and worthless a person as the
Count of Orange was difficult to understand; but as Barbara conclusively
pointed out, she had fallen in love with him for some unfathomable
reason best known to the Laughing Gods. But it was very annoying, all
that waste of emotion and suffering. We found ourselves almost as much
troubled over it as if it had happened to some friend whose infatuation
one had tried in vain to cure with arguments and pure reason.
It was a strange, emotional world that we were wandering in, and as the
books with which we were trying to find a clue to the puzzle took opposite
views of the manners and ideals of the age, it was not a little baffling.
To find our way was like trying to get out of a labyrinth. Often an author
would insist that these ardent canzos were merely conventional exercises
in the style of the day and meant nothing personal. But the theory would
not stand investigation. Hueffer, in his book on the troubadours, says
of these singers:
"Frequently they may, and in some cases we positively know they
did, mistake gracious condescension for responsive love--it was
the privilege of high-born and high-minded women to protect
and favour poetry, and to receive in return the troubadour's
homage."
[Illustration: THE CHURCH OF LES SAINTES MARIES AT NIGHT.
_By Joseph Pennell._]
The fact seems to be that there was perfect social freedom for the forming
of romantic friendship between troubadours and ladies on the foundation
of artistic sympathy, and this was the relation really aimed at and taken
for granted. It was scarcely a friendship as one now understands the
term, because the attitude of the troubadour was necessarily (according
to the theory) one of extreme homage and devotion, in which the element
of romantic love might or might not mingle. But it was modern friendship
with that devotional attitude in addition.
One of the most striking characteristics of the age is its
"young-heartedness," the quality that every true knight and lady was
expected to show. The festivals, the dancing, the prevalence of song
and gaiety were all an expression of that youth of the spirit which
belongs to certain epochs, races, and individuals, and is by no means
incompatible with a profound seriousness of thought and of outlook.
It proceeded, doubtless, from the great vividness of the life, and the
immense impetus of thought and emotion that produced and was produced
by the new ideals.
"So true it is," says John Addington Symonds, "that nothing lives and
has reality for us but what is spiritual, intellectual, self-possessed in
personality and consciousness. When the Egyptian priests said to Solon,
'You Greeks are always children,' he intended a gentle sarcasm, but he
implied a compliment; for the quality of imperishable youth belonged
to the true Hellenic spirit, and has become the heritage of every race
which partook of it."
There was a characteristic Charter issued to the "King of Youth" at
one of the many festivals or celebrations which set the whole land
of Provence dancing and rejoicing. And there was also _l'Abbaye de la
Jeunesse_, a sort of club which every town, big and little, is said to
have possessed, the members choosing a chief of the group annually, to
lead their gay processions and inspire their songs and festivals.
One other quaint and humane institution which this singular country
boasted was the "Hospice des Mal-Mariés," but except the arresting title
nothing seems to have survived in the uncertain records.
The quality of young-heartedness and that other beautiful attribute that
the French call "politesse du coeur" belonged essentially to this land
and epoch.
Of course among the golden threads some very black ones are interwoven:
traits of horrible treachery and barbarity standing out violently
amidst the texture of beauty that the finer spirits were weaving for
the ennobling of all human life; but these traits were survivals of a
former set of traditions and of the instincts which these had created.
"Quand l'Auroro, fourrado en raubo di sati
Desparvonillo, san brut, las portos del mati."[9]
These lines might well describe the historical moment of the new birth.
Love was then held to be "the ultimate and highest principle of all
virtue, of all moral merit, of all glory," and it produced--that is
when it was of the genuine kind demanded by chivalry--a state of "happy
exaltation of the sentiment and charm of life." This age seems to have
invented--or reinvented--the "joie de vivre" and the "joy of love."
It is remarkable that the language of the troubadours had two forms of
the word _joy_: _joi_ and _joia_; _joi_ being used for an expansive and
energetic state of happiness, _joia_ for the passive, reposeful form of
the sentiment.
While the troubadours were carrying everything before them in Provence
and Italy, the minnesingers were plying their romantic trade in Germany;
that is late in the twelfth century; but the Gay Science had spread from
Provence to the other countries, the troubadours visiting foreign Courts
and giving lessons in their art.
This outburst of poetry is described by M. Fauriel as
"the result of a general or energetic movement in favour of
social restoration, of an intense enthusiasm of humanity
reacting on every side against the oppression and the
barbarity of the epoch. The same sentiment ... impelled them
to seek and to find a new type and new effects in the other
arts, particularly in architecture. Thence arose palaces and
churches...."
It is not a little strange and satisfying to realise that the strong wave
of sentiment of which one is conscious in all great architecture was in
the Middle Ages the same that produced the magnificent flight heavenwards
of the human imagination in all that regarded life, its problems and its
relationships. M. Fauriel, on the subject of the freedom of chivalrous
love, writes:--
"The exaltation of desire, of hope, of self-sacrifice by which
love manifests itself and in which it principally consists,
could not have any moral merit nor could it become a real
incentive to noble actions except on certain conditions. It
was to be perfectly spontaneous, receive no law except its
own, and could only exist for a single object."
"A woman," he continues, "could only feel her ascendancy and dignity,
as a moral being, in relations where everything on her part was a gift,
a voluntary favour, and not in relations where she had nothing to refuse."
As an example of the darker threads we may take the career of Guilhelm
de Cabestaing, the unfortunate author of the famous canzo, a fragment
of which is printed at the head of the chapter. He is one of the most
prominent figures in troubadour history. He celebrated the charms of
Berengaria des Baux, but his real love was for the wife of the Count of
Rousillon, a ferocious person who suspected the troubadour's passion and
set to work to entrap him by questions as to the state of his heart.
Guilhelm, seeing his danger, admitted that he was seriously in love,
but with the wife of another seigneur.
"Ah!" said the Count, pretending great sympathy, "I will help you in
your suit; we will go at once to the castle of the fair lady."
Guilhelm had reluctantly to go, dreading the worst; but the lady,
realising the situation, played up to the part, acknowledging her love
for Guilhelm, and the Count's suspicions were thus allayed, but only
to be aroused again by the canzo ("lou douz cossire") which Sermonda
asked her lover to write to assure her that his faithlessness was only
apparent. The gruesome end of the story, the treacherous slaying of the
troubadour, the serving up of the heart at table to the wife, and her
suicide on hearing the ghastly truth, illustrates too well the darker
side of the life of the epoch.
[Illustration: FARM IN PROVENCE.
_By Joseph Pennell._]
Pons de Chapteuil was a troubadour whose story greatly interested us,
partly because of the romantic idea of the two mountain-set castles, one
the home of Pons, at Chapteuil, near Le Puy, the other that of Alazais of
Mercoeur, about twenty-five miles distant, "as one would measure across
the mountains of Auvergne," says Justin Smith in his charming account
of the story.
"Really it seems a little strange and eerie," he exclaims, "the romance
between these two castles in the sky--a little like a love-affair between
the Jungfrau and the Finsteraarhorn."
The story was tender and bright and sad, as love-stories are apt to be,
and very characteristic of the time. First the admiration and sympathy and
the necessary adoration, then the taking fire of two generous natures;
for this time the hero of romance is one to claim our admiration as a
noble follower of the laws of chivalry.
"It was his pleasure to defend the weak of every sort, to be
brave, true, faithful, liberal, and always to stand for the
right."
Alazais had been married, probably by her father or her feudal over-lord,
to Count Ozil de Mercoeur, for whom she made no pretence of any feeling,
not even of esteem. It was evidently a _mariage de convenance_, as most
marriages were in those days, and the love of the Countess of Ozil for
her neighbour across the mountains at least did not rob the Count of
her affections, since he had never possessed or apparently desired them.
"In essential womanliness," says Justin Smith, "and in the graceful arts
of social intercourse, we may think of her as the equal of any lady we
have met.... Courtliness was her abiding principle, the true courtliness
which consisted in ... graceful speech, in avoiding all that could
annoy others, and in doing and saying everything that could make one
loved." The mutual attraction of these two, the same writer continues,
"penetrated by the fire of two ardent natures, came to be love, as the
rich flow of the grape, changing its quality insensibly, acquires in
time the sparkle, the bouquet, and the passion that make it wine."
Taking into consideration the times in which they lived, one would
suppose that fortune favoured these two, and that for once one should
have a nice cheerful story to console us for the many sad ones.
But no; Pons must needs harbour doubts of the sincerity of Alazais, and
so he determined to test her by the time-honoured device of exciting
jealousy. He therefore proceeded to devote himself ostentatiously to
another lady, expecting a "burst of passionate anger" from Alazais.
But that lady, one is glad to learn, disdained reproaches and kept a
dignified silence. After all, she seems to have argued, Pons was not
bound to devote himself to her or to continue to do so if he were tired
of it.
So Pons, much astonished and chagrined, "became uneasy," as we are told,
"quitted the lady of Roussillon, and returned to pray for pardon." But
Alazais apparently thought that trying experiments upon a person one
professes to love was somewhat inconsequent, and she intimated that she
preferred not to receive Pons. He sent her a song, explaining his conduct.
"Ah, if you ask what urged me to depart," it begins (although, in fact,
Alazais had never asked anything of the kind, much to the troubadour's
annoyance)--
"'Twas not inconstancy nor fickleness;
It was a wish conceived of love's excess,
To try the test of absence on your heart.
How grieved I, how regretted, when to me
That you were touched nor word nor token proved!
But think not that you're free although unmov'd:
From you I cannot, will not severed be!"
But Alazais replied never a word. His influence over her seemed to
have been entirely lost. Pons then "employed three ladies to plead his
cause," and they entered so warmly into the undertaking that finally they
succeeded. So Pons made another song, very joyous this time, swearing
that "henceforth he will keep strictly to the path of love, without
deviating a hair's-breadth."
But in the midst of this new-found happiness Alazais falls ill and dies.
Barbara was much aggrieved. I scarcely liked to read her the end: how
Pons wrote a piercing lament, saying he would close his heart and rend
his strings, and
"Die tuneless and alone,"
a resolve which he actually carried out. He became a member of one of
the military brotherhoods of the day, and died fighting in the Third
Crusade.
This story, however, sad as it is, is among the most attractive of the
troubadour romances, because the characters of Pons and Alazais were,
on the whole, a near approach to the chivalric standard for men and women.
"When Pons" (to quote Justin Smith once more) "rode out of the lists,
bearing his lady's glove in triumph, he felt a joy quite fresh in the
experience of mankind."
This is, after all, a big fact, and it disposes once and for ever of
the depressing doctrine that there is nothing new under the sun. If the
twelfth century produced a new and beautiful fact in human history, so
can the twentieth.