The following observations make no claim to either profundity or finality, but attempt to improve on the texts and translations currently available, to comment on their metres (some rudimentary information being given in Appendix A), and to offer a few conjectures concerning authorship. This last question has interested Du Fay scholars, who generally allow him to be the author at least of Salve flos/Vos nunc: whereas Laurenz Liitteken denies him all else, David Fallows writes that ‘Some at least of his song and motet texts are likely to be by him’, singling out Salve jlos for the first-person reference at the end of the motetus; Alejandro Enrique Planchart, having pointed out that Du Fay's literary talent in Latin was recognised at school with a copy of Alexandre de Villedieu's Doctrinale, would give him some others as well. In principle, a composer may write his own text, like Machaut; or collaborate with a poet, as Du Fay evidently did with Périnet in Ce moys de may, and one Nicholas with one William in Argi vices; or be given a text to set by a patron or employer, as when Du Fay was sent texts from Naples on the fall of Constantinople, presumably including 0 tres piteulx, de tout espoir fontaine (OO vi, no. 10).
