Bernart de Ventadorn & medieval Latin lyric on season for love

As the season changes from winter to summer, the earth pushes forth new life. This reality of nature has prompted lyric poets throughout the ages to associate springtime with love. Medieval cleric-scholars, however, learned dialectical reasoning — the practice of looking at propositions in different ways and arguing from different positions. Even the seasons and love can be considered from different perspectives. Apparently drawing upon the intellectual traditions of medieval dialectic and Latin lyric, the man trobairitz (troubadour) Bernart de Ventadorn personally interpreted spring in contradictory ways.

troubadour Guilhem de Montanhagol playing the lute

Poets sometimes felt themselves to be in harmony with spring. Writing in southern France early in the thirteenth century, the man trobairitz Guilhem de Montanhagol sang:

Now in harmonious spring,
when I see beautiful colors
of flowers in orchards and meadows,
and I hear little birds that sing
sweetly on every side,
I want in harmonies to make
a song composed so it will please
all those who are in love
and most of all my lady,
who gives me skill in song.

{ Ar ab lo coinde pascor,
Qan vei de bella color
Flors per vergiers e per pratz,
E aug chantar daus totz latz
Los auzeletz per doussor,
Vueilh far ab coindia
Chanso tal qe sia
Plazens als enamoratz,
E a midons majormen
Qe-m don’en trobar engenh. }[1]

As men commonly do, Guilhem de Montanhagol credited a woman for his skill. He also explicitly associated the harmony of spring with the harmony of his song. In medieval Europe, nature was commonly figured as a woman. Whether with his specific beloved woman, or with the earthly season of spring, Guilhem understood himself to be in tune with nature. So too was Bernart de Ventadorn when the woman he loved also loved him:

When woods and thickets put forth leaves,
and flowers and greenery appear
throughout gardens and meadows,
and birds, who have been sulking,
are gay beneath the foliage,
then I too sing and rejoice
and re-blossom and become green again
and put forth leaves following my nature.

{ Lancan folhon bosc e jarric,
e·lh flors pareis e·lh verdura
pels vergers e pels pratz,
e·lh auzel, c’an estat enic,
son gai desotz los folhatz,
autresi·m chant e m’esbaudei
e reflorisc e reverdei
e folh segon ma natura. }[2]

Bernart’s leaves figure the written pages of his love songs. In spring, the leaves of Bernart’s love-songs sprout as naturally as the leaves of trees.

A medieval Latin lyric from no later than about the year 1200 described spring as inspiring men to love. The lyric’s opening stanza and refrain emphasize change:

Winter solstice, hail, ice,
snow, stiffness from winter
recede; together the beauty
and grace of summer returns.
The southern zone’s
rage is made mild.
The wind is turned to a breeze,
the ocean’s squall is made calm,
the ship is ruled by the sailor
more relaxedly.

Serene is the air,
the breeze more healthful;
the seas abide,
the water becomes purer;
he who does not love now
is harder than iron.

{ Bruma, grando, glacies,
nix, rigor hiemalis
cedunt; redit species
et decor estiualis;
mitigatur rabies
plage meridialis.
Ventus in auram vertitur,
maris procella sternitur,
navis a nauta regitur
securior.

Serenus est aer,
aura salubrior;
marina resident,
fit unda purior;
qui modo non amet
est ferro durior. }[3]

Through the prophet Ezekiel, the Lord declared that he would remove from his people their hard hearts of stone and give them soft hearts of flesh. A man harder than iron is even more unnatural than a man with a heart of stone. He is incapable of love. Yet the love of this Latin lyric isn’t the insane love of Gallus. This love is serene and pure.

Bernart de Ventadorn imagined that he could transform a woman’s heart. The woman that he loved had a beautiful body, but she had a hard heart:

Her cruel heart, hard and bitter,
will be well-served by me,
until it’s softened completely
from fine words and compassion,
for I have learned in my reading
that constantly falling drops of water
striking a small spot
may pierce hard stone.

If one looks closely and sees
her eyes and throat, forehead and face,
he sees beauty so perfectly shaped
that nothing can be added or taken away.
Her slender body, straight and graceful,
is finely clothed, comely and gay.
No one can praise her so finely
as nature knew how to create her.

{ Tan er gen servitz per me
sos fers cors, durs et iratz,
tro del tot si’adoussatz
ab bels dihz et ab merce.
qu’eu ai be trobat legen
que gota d’aiga que chai
fer en un loc tan soven
tro chava la peira dura.

Qui be remira ni ve
olhs e gola, fron e faz,
aissi son finas beutatz
que mais ni menhs no i cove,
cors lonc, dreih e covinen,
gen afliban, conhd’ e gai.
om no·l pot lauzar tan gen
com la saup formar Natura. }[4]

In De rerum natura, Lucretius described a little woman, who wasn’t beautiful, gaining a man’s affection through her works and ways acting like drops of water falling on stone.[5] Acting like drops of water is far from love like epic war. It’s a long, slow, tedious process for changing a person.

Men are commonly required to change themselves to be worthy of women. In contrast to the essential, unchanging character of a man harder than iron, Bernart pointed to what men want and how they act in relation to others:

When I see flowers, green grass, and leaves,
and hear the song of birds through the woods,
my joy, blended with others in my heart,
is doubled and reborn and flourishes and blossoms.
And it doesn’t seem to me that a man is worthy
if he doesn’t want to have love and joy now,
when all that lives is happy and rejoices.

{ Can vei la flor, l’erba vert e la folha
et au lo chan dels auzels pel boschatge,
ab l’autre joi qu’eu ai en mo coratge
dobla mos jois e nais e creis e brolha.
e no m’es vis c’om re poscha valer
s’eras no vol amor et joi aver,
pus tot can es s’alegr’ e s’esbaudeya. }[6]

Worthiness isn’t an essential characteristic like the hardness of stone or iron. Worthiness is a social valuation that depends on a person’s acts. Men historically have been taught that they should strive to be manly / virtuous according to gynocentric ideology. Men strive to be worthy under the men-abasing standards of courtly love, or they reject those standards and accept being socially judged as unworthy of love.

Nature doesn’t heed human claims about worthiness. The natural world’s continuing existence requires fecundity:

Visible earthly
abundance laughs.
Its appearance returns
to material things.
The warmth of spring’s west wind
is alluring to the procreated.
The morning dew is scattered,
the earth is released into birth,
pregnancy proceeds
more timely.

Serene is the air,
the breeze more healthful;
the seas abide,
the water becomes purer;
he who does not love now
is harder than iron.

{ Ridet superficies
terrene facultatis;
sua redit species
rebus materiatis;
Zephiri temperies
blanditur procreatis.
Ros matutinus spargitur,
in partum terra soluitur,
pregnacio progreditur
maturior.

Serenus est aer,
aura salubrior;
marina resident,
fit unda purior;
qui modo non amet
est ferro durior. }

Humans are material things. Those not made of iron aren’t inert. Men have some choice in love that affects their relations to spring:

When the green leaf unfolds
and the branch’s white flower blossoms,
with the sweet song of a bird
my heart goes rejoicing.
When one sees the trees flower
and hears the nightingale sing,
then he ought to rejoice well,
he who knew how to choose good love.
And I have chosen a woman
for whom I am bright and gay.

{ Can la verz folha s’espan
e par flors blanch’ el ramel,
per lo douz chan del auzel
se vai mos cors alegran.
lancan ve·ls arbres florir
et au·l rossinhol chantar,
adonc deu·s ben alegrar
qui bon’ amor saup chauzir.
mas eu n’ai una chauzida
per qu’eu sui coindes e gais. }[7]

A man’s particular choice of woman to love might turn out badly for him and negate the joy of spring:

The gentle season of spring
with its fresh greenery
brings us leaves and flowers
of diverse colors.
For that reason all lovers
are gay and singing
except for me, who laments and weeps,
for joy has not delighted me.

{ Lo gens tems de pascor
ab la frescha verdor
nos adui folh’ e flor
de diversa color,
per que tuih amador
son gai e chantador
mas eu, que planh e plor,
cui jois non a sabor. }[8]

Bernart even imagined spring as a good time for him to sing and die:

My delight is to sing in this month
when I see flowers and leaves appear,
and hear in the groves the sweet song
of the nightingale in morning and evening.
Then it’s fitting that I have consolation
in the one true joy that’s my heart’s hope,
for I know that in love I will surely die.

{ Bel m’es qu’eu chan en aquel mes
can flor e folha vei parer,
et au lo chan doutz pel defes
del rossinhol matin e ser.
adoncs s’escha qu’eu aya jauzimen
d’un joi verai eu que mos cors s’aten,
car eu sai be que per amor morrai. }[9]

Men have long been systemically sexually disadvantaged. Men’s deaths should matter. A kind-hearted woman can save a man from dying.

The fecundity of nature depends on men’s manhood put into action through men’s fully human spirit. Change depends in part on men:

The flat plain of
the field erupts,
a natural progression,
not artificial.
Manhood is material,
yet the actor is spiritual.
To divine art is left
that from a thornbush a flower is born,
from a flower is produced a fruit
even sweeter.

Serene is the air,
the breeze more healthful;
the seas abide,
the water becomes purer;
he who does not love now
is harder than iron.

{ Eminet planicies
camporum coequalis,
naturalis series,
non artificialis,
virtus est materies,
artifex spiritalis.
Arti divine linquitur
quod flos de spina nascitur,
de flore fructus proditur
suavior.

Serenus est aer,
aura salubrior;
marina resident,
fit unda purior;
qui modo non amet
est ferro durior. }

Bernart described his love as not depending on the season:

I have never considered the season,
nor when flowers appear, nor when they vanish,
nor when grass sprouts at the fountain’s edge,
but whenever came to me
a rich joy of love,
for me that was such a beautiful start
that I believe those moments reign.

{ Anc no gardei sazo ni mes
ni can flors par ni can s’escon
ni l’erba nais delonc la fon,
mas en cal c’oras m’avengues
d’amor us rics esjauzimens,
tan me fo bels comensamens
qu’eu cre c’aquel tems senhorei. }[10]

Bernart was willing to sing at the coming of winter:

When across the plain I can see
leaves fall from the trees,
just before the cold spreads
and the gentle season disappears,
I like that my song be heard,
for I haven’t sung for more than two years,
and it’s right that I make amends.

{ Lancan vei per mei la landa
dels arbres chazer la folha,
ans que·lh frejura s’espanda
ni·l gens termini s’esconda,
m’es bel que si’ auzitz mos chans,
qu’estat n’aurai mais de dos ans,
e cove que·n fass’ esmenda. }[11]

He even imagined that his joy was able to change the season for him:

My heart is so full of joy,
that all seems to me changed.
White, red, and yellow flowers —
that’s the frost to me.
With the wind and the rain
my fortune grows
so that my fame increase and rises
and my songs improve.
I have a heart so full of love
and joy and sweetness
that ice seems to me like flowers
and snow like greenery.

I can go without clothing,
naked beneath my shirt,
since fine love protects me
from the freezing north wind.

{ Tant ai mo cor ple de joya,
tot me desnatura.
Flor blancha, vermelh’e groya
me par la frejura,
c’ab lo ven et ab la ploya
me creis l’aventura,
per que mos pretz mont’ e poya
e mos chans melhura.
Tan ai al cor d’amor,
de joi e de doussor,
per que·l gels me sembla flor
e la neus verdura.

Anar posc ses vestidura,
nutz en ma chamiza,
car fin’ amors m’asegura
de la freja biza. }[12]

Yet Bernart also experienced love apart from time very differently:

Time comes and goes and returns
by days, by months, by years,
and I, alas, know not what to say,
for my longing is always one,
it is always one and never changes.
For I want and have wanted one woman,
from whom I’ve never had joy.

{ Lo tems vai e ven e vire
per jorns, per mes e per ans,
et eu, las ! no·n sai que dire,
c’ades es us mos talans.
ades es us e no·s muda,
c’una·n volh e·n ai volguda,
don anc non aic jauzimen. }[13]

Love implies difficulties, especially for men. Whether in season or out of season, men reason and worry about love.

Like Bernart de Ventadorn, the medieval Latin lyric connects seasons and the passing of time to the poet’s personal love circumstances. Medieval Latin poetry forthrightly declared men’s natural appreciation for lovely young women’s bodies. A lovely young women — Juliet or another —  is like the sun to men. In trobairitz song, a man typically loves a woman of higher status than he. That oppressive cultural convention of men-abasing courtly love appears in this Latin lyric of spring’s coming:

Green again the fir becomes,
and I become green again.
The mid-day sun burns,
but from this I don’t heat up.
A young woman’s likeness
creates the sun that warms me.
Anxious love troubles me,
a regal young woman touches me,
me!, who have not known such things.
Alas, I suffer.

Serene is the air,
the breeze more healthful;
the seas abide,
the water becomes purer;
he who does not love now
is harder than iron.

{ Revirescit abies
et ego reviresco;
estuat meridies,
set non ob hoc calesco;
virginis effigies
fert solem quo tepesco.
Me Venus angit anxia;
me virgo tangit regia,
me qui non novi talia:
heu pacior.

Serenus est aer,
aura salubrior;
marina resident,
fit unda purior;
qui modo non amet
est ferro durior. }[14]

If the regal young woman literally touched the man without his consent, today that would be regarded as sexual harassment, if she were he and he were she. Yet this lyric from the more liberal and tolerant medieval period turns on the man not having previously encountered a hot woman. For many men, encountering a hot woman doesn’t occur as regularly as spring. A young man’s first experience of this nature can bewilder. Men actually are not dogs.

Temporal patterns of nature and social constructions of gynocentric society have long shaped love relations between women and men. Bernart de Ventadorn and other men trobairitz who sung in southern France in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries drew upon sophisticated medieval Latin thought and love lyric. Love is a natural, regular action like the spring in the eternal cosmos. Yet as medieval thinkers understood, for persons in all the specificity of their particular incarnations, love is complicated and full of contradictions.

*  *  *  *  *

Read more:

Notes:

[1] Guilhem de Montanhagol, “Now in harmonious spring {Ar ab lo coinde pascor}” st. 1, Old Occitan text from Corpus des Troubadours, English translation from Paden & Paden (2007) p. 201. From Toulouse in southern France, Guilhem de Montanhagol flourished from 1233 to 1268. He was a precursor to the “sweet new style {dolce stil nuovo}” that influenced Dante and the expression of gyno-idolatry.

[2] Bernart de Ventadorn, “When woods and thickets put forth leaves {Lancan folhon bosc e jarric}” st. 1, Old Occitan text from Corpus des Troubadours, English translation adapted from Nichols (1965) p. 108 (song 24). English translation of the whole poem by James H. Donalson. Here’s a recording of the Troubadour Art Ensemble performing this song.

Bernart de Ventadorn was active from about 1150 to 1180 in southern France. He thus followed in the prior troubadour tradition of Guillaume IX, Cercamon, Jaufré Rudel, and Marcabru. Despite voluminous conjectures, little is securely known about Bernart’s life. He probably was associated with the court of Ventadour. That’s in the Limousin dialect district. Bernart’s patron Lord Eble headed an important troubadour school. Nichols (1965) pp. 14-5.

[3] Incipit “Winter solstice, hail, ice {Bruma, grando, glacies}, st. 1a and refrain, Latin text from Moser (2004) p. 228, my English translation, benefiting from that of id. pp. 228-9. Subsequent quotes from this poem cover the whole poem sequentially and are similarly sourced.

“Bruma, grando, glacies” survives only in the Bekynton Anthology (Oxford, Bodleian Library, Add. A 44 (S.C. 301510)), written in the first quarter of the thirteenth century. Rigg cites the poem as Bekynton no. 46, xiii. Rigg (1992) p. 146. The Bekynton Anthology is an “anthology par excellence” of Anglo-Latin works. Rigg dates the compilation of the Bekynton Anthology to c. 1200. Id. p. 152. Individual poems may have been composed significantly earlier. Moser cites “Bruma, grando, glacies” as Wilmart 48; it’s “one of four erotic lyrics clustered together on the last two folios of the booklet (fols. 70-71).” Moser (2004) p. 227.

Peter Abelard’s Yes and No {Sic et non} exemplifies medieval questioning with contrasting perspectives. Sic et non presents 158 leading questions, with patristic quotes supporting alternate answers of yes or no. Students apparently were to take up and debate those questions. Peter Abelard, the husband of Heloise of the Paraclete, wrote Sic et non about 1125.

“Bruma, grando, glacies” is “almost a commentary on the idea of the Natureingang {nature opening}.” This poem is “a beautifully constructed, compressed little sequence with a relatively long refrain, moving from image to image and idea to idea in careful order.” Moser (2004) p. 227.

Transforming a heart of stone into a heart of flesh is a recurring metaphor in the bible. Ezekiel 36:216, Ezekiel 11:19, Jeremiah 31:33, Hebrews 8:10, 2 Corinthians 5:17.

[4] Bernart de Ventadorn, “Conort, now I know for sure {Conortz, era sai eu be}” st. 5-6, Old Occitan text from Corpus des Troubadours, English translation adapted from Nichols (1965) p. 85 (song 16). English translation of the whole poem by James H. Donalson.

[5] Dripping water is an ancient metaphor. See, e.g. Proverbs 19:13, 27:15-6. Ovid’s books were well-known to troubadours. Scholars have speculated that Bernart’s reading of the dripping water piercing a stone is from Ovid, Epistulae Ex Ponto 4.10.5. The context in Ovid, however, is permission to return from political exile, not gaining personal love from a beloved. The context in Lucretius appropriately relates to gaining personal love. De rerum natura, however, isn’t otherwise attested in twelfth-century France.

[6] Bernart de Ventadorn, “When I see flowers, green grass, and leaves {Can vei la flor, l’erba vert e la folha}” st. 1, Old Occitan text from Corpus des Troubadours, English translation adapted from Nichols (1965) p. 164 (song 42). English translation of the whole poem by James H. Donalson.

Bernart in this song seems to be repenting an earlier affair with another woman. Scholars have declared that courtly lyric suspends time and doesn’t allow for desire to be fulfulled:

As has often been suggested, the perpetual tension of desire in the courtly lyric is a fundamental structuring principal of the poetic form itself, which would presumably collapse were that desire to be satisfied. Troubadour poetry is founded upon the suspension of time just as it is founded on the suspension of desire. As in Bernart de Ventadorn, the time comes and goes, moving around the yearning lover as a stream moves around rocks, never involving him in it.

Moreau (2009) pp. 43-4. Those claims are exaggerated. Bernart dialectically analyzes his love’s relationship to time as well as fulfilled desire. On fulfilled desire in a song of Bernart, see “Now give me your advice, my Lords {Era·m cosselhatz, senhor}” discussed in note [3] in my post on women and men debating sex in medieval French lyric. Medieval courtly Latin lyric describes a woman saving a man from lovesickness and the joy of medieval sex more generally.

[7] Bernart de Ventadorn, “When the green leaf unfolds {Can la verz folha s’espan}” st. 1, Old Occitan text from Corpus des Troubadours, English translation adapted adapted from Nichols (1965) p. 152 (song 38). English translation of the whole poem by James H. Donalson and by A. S. Kline.

[8] Bernart de Ventadorn, “The gentle season of spring {Lo gens tems de pascor}” st. 1, Old Occitan text from Corpus des Troubadours, English translation adapted from Nichols (1965) p. 123 (song 28). English translation of the whole poem by James H. Donalson.

Guillaume IX similarly lamented his choice of love after a joyful spring opening:

With the sweet beauty of the new season
the woods leaf out, and the birds sing,
each one in its language
to the measure of a new song;
then it is well for a man to enjoy
what he most desires.

{ Ab la dolchor del temps novel
foillo li bosc, e li aucel
chanton, chascus en lor lati
segon lo vers del novel chan;
adonc esta ben qu’om s’aisi
d’acho don hom a plus talan. }

“With the sweet beauty of the new season {Ab la dolchor del temps novel}” st. 1, Old Occitan text from Moreau (2009) p. 44, English translation from Paden & Paden (2007) p. 25 (song 5). Here are translations by Leonard Cottrell, James H. Donalson, A. S. Kline, and Alan M. Rosiene.

In the first stanza of “Ab la dolchor del temps novel,” the Old Occitan word latin refers vernacular Romance languages. With respect to Latin literature, Cottrell observed of Guillaume IX, Duke of Aquitaine: “The Duke stole tunes of Latin songs used at the Abby of St. Martial in nearby Limoges and set to them his own rhyming vernacular words.”

[9] Bernart de Ventadorn, “My delight is to sing in this month {Bel m’es qu’eu chan en aquel mes}” st. 1, Old Occitan text from Corpus des Troubadours, English translation adapted from Nichols (1965) p. 69 (song 10). English translation of the whole poem by James H. Donalson.

[10] Bernart de Ventadorn, “I have never considered the season {Anc no gardei sazo ni mes}” st. 1, Old Occitan text from Corpus des Troubadours, English translation adapted from Nichols (1965) p. 55 (song 5). English translation of the whole poem by James H. Donalson.

[11] Bernart de Ventadorn, “When across the plain I can see {Lancan vei per mei la landa}” st. 1, Old Occitan text from Corpus des Troubadours, English translation adapted from Nichols (1965) p. 115 (song 26). English translation of the whole poem by James H. Donalson.

[12] Bernart de Ventadorn, “My heart is so full of joy {Tant ai mo cor ple de joya}” st. 1, 2.1-4, Old Occitan text from Corpus des Troubadours, English translation adapted from Nichols (1965) p. 171 (song 44). English translation of the whole poem by James H. Donalson and by A. S. Kline.

The troubadour Raimbaut d’Aurenga described a similar subjective change of season in “Now the flowers gleam in reverse {Ar resplan la flors enversa},” full English translations available by A. S. Kline, trobar, and Paden & Paden (2007) pp. 64-5 (song 23).

[13] Bernart de Ventadorn, “Time comes and goes and returns {Lo tems vai e ven e vire}” st. 1, 2.1-4, Old Occitan text from Corpus des Troubadours, English translation adapted from Nichols (1965) p. 130 (song 30). English translation of the whole poem by James H. Donalson and by A. S. Kline.

Discussing time in Bernart de Ventadorn’s songs, Stainton declared:

In the phenomenon of spring the lover can find whatever correlative he requires: joy, pain, or both simultaneously.

Stainton (1977) p. 204. Bernart’s approach seems to me more intellectually serious than finding whatever he sought. He seems to have deliberately considered the seasons and love in the medieval dialectical tradition.

Troubadours are commonly imagined to be itinerant minstrels. Bernart de Ventadorn, in contrast, was a highly sophisticated, learned poet:

there are many aspects of Bernart’s poetry which give the impression that Bernart is an intellectual rather than a lyric poet. The feeling of intellectual density does not come merely from the finesse with which Bernart succeeds in using rhetorical devices …. It springs even more from the substitution of poetry for nature as the metaphorical identification for love in Bernart’s poems.

Nichols (1965) Introduction, p. 24.

[14] For Juliet as the sun, Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet 2.2.3. In translating the last two verses of the final stanza of “Bruma, grando, glacies,” I’m grateful for help from an expert in Latin philology and love.

[images] (1) Guilhem de Montanhagol playing the lute. Illuminated initial from Collection of songs of the troubadours, containing their lives {Recueil des poésies des troubadours, contenant leurs vies}. Painted in the thirteenth century. On folio 124r of manuscript Bibliothèque Nationale de France (BnF) MS. 854. (2) Video of performance of Bernart de Ventadorn’s song “Lancan vei per mei la landa” by Grupo Vocal Nuba (Miguel Ángel Jaraba, Milena Fuentes, Xurxo Ordóñez, Bill Cooley). From album Aliénor: Música en la corte de Leonor de Aquitania {Music at the Court of Eleanor of Aquitaine}, released 2014. (3) Video of performance of Bernart de Ventadorn’s song “Tant ai mo cor ple de joya” (first stanza) by Zefiro Torna on Tears Of Joy: English Lute Songs and Secular Music, released 2011.

References:

Moreau, John. 2009. “The Perversion of Time: Jealousy and Lyric in The Romance of Flamenca.” The Modern Language Review. 104 (1): 41-54.

Moser, Thomas C. 2004. A Cosmos of Desire: the medieval Latin erotic lyric in English manuscripts. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Nichols, Stephen G. 1965. The Songs of Bernart de Ventadorn: complete texts, translations, notes, and glossary. Studies in the Romance Languages and Literatures, no. 39. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

Paden, William D., and Frances Freeman Paden, trans. 2007. Troubadour Poems from the South of France. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer.

Rigg, A. G. 1992. A History of Anglo-Latin Literature, 1066-1422. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Stainton, Albert. 1977. “The Time Motif in the Poetry of Bernart de Ventadorn.” Neuphilologische Mitteilungen. 78 (3): 202-214.