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Dance Song or “Chant du Guet”? The Espingadura of Cerveri, Called de Girona

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Kurt Lewent*
Affiliation:
New York, N. Y.

Extract

In Romania LXXVII (1956), 66 ff. Irénée Cluzel has re-edited three of the Catalan troubadour's poems composed in a more popular vein. It is with the second of them (No. 3 of M. de Riquer's edition, Barcelona, 1947) that we are going to deal here.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1960

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Footnotes

*

References: Pet. Dict.: Emil Levy, Petit Dictionnaire provençal-français, Heidelberg, 1909. S.W.B.: Emil Levy, Provenzalisches Supplement-Wörterbuch, 8 vols., Leipzig, 1894–1924. P.-C: Pillet-Carstens, Bibliographie der Troubadours, Halle, 1933.

References

1 M. de Riquer reads with the MS: espigan and espigaran. Mr. Ouzel's correction is certainly justified.

2 With the form he gives his poem, he fulfills almost all the metrical requirements of a dansa; see my re-edition of Cer-veri's dansa in SP, LI (1954), 516 ff., especially p. 517, where those requirements are enumerated.

3 According to Schultz-Gora, Prov. Elementarbuch §123, the nominative plural masc. of the definite article li drops its i before a word beginning with a vowel. Grandgent, in his Outline §118, says that li “frequently elides” its vowel before another vowel. Apparently the rule given by Schultz-Gora was not observed strictly. Indeed, one reads, for example, in Appel's Chrestomathie (6th ed.), p. 32 (Chanson d'Antioche) the following Alexandrine line: “E Breton forsenat e tuh li Angevi.”

4 I cannot, however, agree with the way he connects the first line of the refrain “A la plug'e al ven iran,” intercalated in the lines of the stanzas, with the context of the latter. He translates: “Les amis iront dansant à la pluie …” and “Je vois l'Enfant joyeux et chantant à la pluie … et les fleurs et les oiseaux qui chantent.” I doubt that the “friends” will be very eager to dance in rain and wind, nor are the birds very likely to sing in such a weather or a man to walk in the garden for his pleasure.

5 Mr. Cluzel does not fail to mention that the verb espingar also occurs in Daude de Pradas' A uzels Cassadors, 1. 785.I am afraid that this is the only passage, besides Cerveri's poem, where the verb is attested and that Levy, not having any other example, simply followed Raynouard, who quotes, from Daude's work, only the four words espingan entro que venga, rendering it by “épiant jusqu'à ce qu'il vienne.” So Levy's hesitation is not surprising; for who would dare to base an interpretation on four words separated from their context? Unfortunately, the passage of the Auzels Cassadors (11. 784–791) is far from clear. In the résumé which precedes the text of his edition, Professor Schutz does not take care of the 1. 785, although his glossary renders espingar by “to spy” without any shade of doubt. At my request, Professor Gunnar Tilander, from his vast knowledge of medieval hunting, gave me an explanation of the situation Daude wanted to describe. He is of the opinion that, in that situation, there is no room or opportunity for spying and that, if one keeps the version of the base manuscript, espingar could only mean “to spring,” with the extended meaning of “to move, to walk rapidly.” My warmest thanks go to Professor Tilander for his great helpfulness.

6 See Tobler-Lommatzsch, iv, 55 and 56; cf. Provençal gaich (gait) and gacha (gaita), Raynouard, Lexique Roman (Paris, 1836–45), iii, 416 and Levy, IV, 8.

7 So in the three albas in Appel's Chrestomathie Nos. 53–55 and the Old French specimen of the genre starting with Gaite de la tor and analyzed by Jeanroy, in Les Origines de la poésie lyrique en France, 2nd ed., Paris 1904, p. 79; see also the same author's La Poésie lyrique des troubadours (Toulouse-Paris, 1934), ii, 292 ff.

8 See section on “Versification.”

9 Aguiló and Alcover Moll are not in full accordance concerning the nature of Cat. espingar. Aguiló glosses:“sonar la gralla, la tenora etc., qualsevol instrument de veu aguda” and gives this example: ja espinga la gralla. For him, then, espingar is a transitive verb, while Alcover-Moll consider it to be intransitive, rendering it by “llançar un so o sons molt aguts” and offering the following example: “Las manxas y las llenguetas hi espinga van ab més furia.” They furthermore do not associate the verb with the idea of playing a musical instrument. It would seem that Alcover-Moll indicate the basic meaning of espingar; but this does not preclude the possibility that the verb has been occasionally used with reference to musical instruments, as in the above quoted example from Aguilô, in which, by the way, the subject may be gralla and the verb, consequently and in accordance with Alcover-Moll's statement, intransitive. The origin of espingar is, according to Alcover-Moll, onomatopoetic. If this is correct, there could not be any connection between this verb and that used by Cerveri, which I claim means “to dance,” unless it is assumed that the poet, borrowing from French the word esp(r)-inguer “to dance,” identified it with the almost homonymous Catalan verb, possibly with this understanding, that the latter could be said of certain high-pitched instruments used for producing dance music. Whatever the origin and basic sense of Catalan espingar may be, it could not be connected se-mantically with a Provençal verb espingar, allegedly meaning “to spy.”

10 Cf. the poetical genre of the estampie (Prov. estampida), derived from Germanic stampjan, likewise a dance song (Tobler-Lommatzsch, iii, 1349–50). Stampjan as well as springan denotes a vivacious movement.

11 See Tobler-Lommatzsch, iii, 1257,1. 34.

12 Cerveri himself has made such poems. No. 6 is a dança-balada, No. 7, a sirvenles-dança, both of them with a refrain. But it is noteworthy that their hybrid forms are indicated in their titles.

13 MS Sg offers 104 poems of Cerveri; ours is No. 100.

14 Often enough the manuscripts do not make a difference between the accusative and the nominative of a noun. But then it generally is the accusative that takes the place of a nominative (see tornada I,1. 3 of our poem: los maritz for li marit), and it would certainly be very hard to find another example for such an outspoken nominative as l'enfans being used as an accusative.

15 Diccionario crítico etimologieo de la lengua castellana (1954), ii, 997.

16 There are, however, other derivatives of enfan with per- tinent meanings: enfanson “gentilhomme” (Levy, S.W.B., ii, 486 and Pet. Dict.), enfanta “jeune fille” (ib.), enfanteta “jeune fille” (Pet. Dict.), enfanteza “enfance, jeunesse” (Pet. Dict, and Raynouard, Lex. Rom., iii, 279), enfantina “jeune fille” (Pet. Dict.). Furthermore, with aphesis of en-'.fantin “jeune homme” (Pet. Dict.) and fantina “jeune fille” (S.W.B., iii, 412, and Pet. Dict.). For Prov. enfanta one may compare Catalan infanta, for which Alcover-Moll (vi, 653) offers an example where the word is applied to the Holy Virgin: “Deu havia presa cam humana en una infanta verge.” See also Ivan Pauli, “Enfant, garqon,” “fille” dans les langues romanes (Lund, 1919), p. 31.

17 We face here the tropos of the youth with the wisdom of an old man; see Ernst Robert Curtius, Europöische Liter aim uni lateinisches Miltelalter (Bern, 1948), pp. 106 ff., and note 18.

18 In 1. 17 of the same poem he says: Anc horn no vi metge de son joven Tan belh, tan bo, tan conoissen.“

19 See Chambers, p. 19, and note, p. 148.

20 Aimeric is not the only one to call Frederick a “child.” Medieval chronicles speak of him as infans or puer A puliae, and Philippe Mouskes, on the occasion of Frederick's coronation, says:

Quar tout li baron qui la erent
l'enfant de Pulle couronnerent.

One of the chroniclers explains this epithet thus: “Infans Apuliae appellatur, quia juvenis erat,” which would seem to indicate that infans and juvenis were used as synonyms, in the vernacular as well, of course. See Du Cange, IV, 351, from which all the quotations of this note are taken.

21 It is surprising that the glossary lists neither enfan nor enfansa in the meanings that interest us here.

22 Neuphil. Milteil. xxxix (1938), 237 ff., and note to 1. 14 (p. 251).

23 Die Verwendung des romanischen Futurums als Ausdruck eines sittlichen Sollens (Leipzig, 1919), pp. 250 ff. He also speaks of the stage directions mentioned above.

24 See Lerch, pp. 124 ff.

25 See Lerch, p. 140, on the occasion of a passage from a troubadour poem.

26 This example is not listed in Kolsen's glossary.

27 “… by making every wrong advice be kept away (from him).”

28 “I see many knowing people use their knowledge badly.”

29 The name of this poet appears in different forms; we choose that used in Pillet-Carstens' Bibliographie.

301 do not think that Cerveri here has the reader rather than the hearer in mind.

31 Paul Meyer translates: “Là vous auriez ouï en ce jour maints cris de la gent étrangère qui y était assemblée.” He does not take care of the word denan(f) nor does E. Martin-Chabot in his edition (Paris, 1921), Vol. I (the only one published), p. 215.1 think it means “in front (of you).” The poet makes his audience a witness of the tumult in the camp. Denan is used the same way in two passages from “Jaufre” (ed. Breuer): “Et ella, can lo vi denant” (“in front of her”), “Dis li: Cavallier, que faras? (1. 5236) and E'l reis a 1'aiga demandada, Ez uns corns la l'a aportada, E quatre duc teng-ron denan (‘held in front of him‘) una conca d'aur entrenan” (1. 9781). Brunei follows in his edition another manuscript, which reads in the second passage tengro'l denant. This changes the construction.

32 Sc., in order to help me with my lady.

33 The word aip occurs three times in Daude's poems with the meaning “mauvais destin, malheur” not otherwise attested.

34 The question whether this tornado is really apocryphal, as the editor claims, need not interest us here.

35 Especially if we consider that, not infrequently, an adverbial adjunct logically referring to the subordinate clause is found in the principal clause. So de mon joy would here qualify ço quyfan, not play.

36 The spelling of this verb and its derivatives is mostly with rr, but one r is found often enough. Levy, S.W.B., v, 130 offers two examples, one each under Nos. 4 and 5. In

37 Joseph Morawski, Proverbes français antirieurs au XVe siècle (Paris, 1925), No. 1927.

38 See W.-H. Maigne d'Amis, Lexicon manuale ad scriptores mediae et infimae latinitatis (Paris, 1886), p. 205: “bibliothèque” and “meuble ou lieu à serrer les armes”; J. F. Nier-meyer, Mediae latinitatis Lexicon Minus (Leiden, 1954), p. 60: “archives” and “arsenal.”

39 Forcellini adds to his Latin definitions of murix the German translation “Fussangeln.”

40 It is doubtful, though not impossible, that Cerveri had such a larger space in mind when composing his espingadura. At any rate, in the two other poems where he used the word armari, in M. de Riquer's ed. No. 34,1. 19 and No. 87,1. 5, it meant a chest, which contained jewelry in the rst case and the poet's songs in the other.

41 The logical order of words in these two lines would, of course, be: “Que los maritz an un armari on van.” Why did the poet not arrange them in this grammatically correct and logically clear form? There were several reasons for his not doing so. First, van and an as the rhyme words had to stand at the end of the lines. Second, the poet might have given the first line the form: que los maritz an, the second line this form: un armari on van. But then the second line would have one syllable too many. There seems only one way of satisfying prosody as well as strict grammar, viz., to read: “C'un armari an / Los maritz on van.” However, we could imagine that the poet wanted to avoid the enjambment. He made use of it in others of his poems, but ours is a kind of folk song (or an imitation of one), and in such poems every line generally represents a syntactical and spiritual unit. Indeed, the rest of our poem follows this rule.

42 The editor, putting a question mark after Amors, considers the second line to be a question. I think this interpretation erroneous.

43 For the interpretation of the four lines one may compare my re-edition of Guilhem Peire's poem in Shidia philologica et litteraria in honorera L. Spitzer (Bern, Francke), 1958, pp. 275–296.

44 This “For” is somewhat vague, as is often the case with causal conjunctions. It seems to indicate the reason for the poet's being pleased that the young people enjoy the dance, not disturbed by those who spurn that joy by staying indoors.

45 The word armory is, of course, not to be taken in the sense it has today; it has been chosen, in default of a more appropriate translation, because of its etymological and phonetic affinity with the Provençal word.