New Site Announcement: Over the past several years, the METS team has been building a new website and new digital edition, in collaboration with Cast Iron Coding. This next phase of METS' editions includes improved functionality and accessibility, an increased focus on transparency, and conformity to best practices for open access and digital editions, including TEI markup. We are currently in a "soft launch" phase in which we will monitor the new site for bugs and errors. We encourage you to visit our new site at https://metseditions.org, and we welcome feedback here: https://tinyurl.com/bdmfv282

We will continue to publish all new editions in print and online, but our new online editions will include TEI/XML markup and other features. Over the next two years, we will be working on updating our legacy volumes to conform to our new standards.

Our current site will be available for use until mid-December 2024. After that point, users will be redirected to the new site. We encourage you to update bookmarks and syllabuses over the next few months. If you have questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to contact us at robbins@ur.rochester.edu.
Robbins Library Digital Projects > TEAMS Middle English Texts > Oton de Granson: Poems > 49. Balade: «Je n’ay riens fait qu’Amours ne m’ait fait faire»

49. Balade: «Je n’ay riens fait qu’Amours ne m’ait fait faire»

GRANSON, 49. BALADE:«JE N'AY RIENS FAIT QU'AMOURS NE M'AIT FAIT FAIRE»: EXPLANATORY NOTES

ABBREVIATIONS: A: Lausanne, Bibliothèque Cantonale et Universitaire, MS 350; B: Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, f. fr. 1727; C: Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, f. fr. 1131; D: Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, f. fr. 24440; E: Barcelona, Biblioteca de Catalunya, MS 8, Catalan, 1420–30; F: Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, f. fr. 2201; K: Lausanne, Bibliothèque Cantonale et Universitaire, IS 4254; N: Brussels, Bibliothèque royale Albert 1er, MS 10961–10970, c. 1465; P: Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania, Van Pelt Library, MS Codex 902 (formerly Fr. MS 15), 1395–1400; 100B: Les Cent Ballades; Basso: “L’envol et l’ancrage”; BD: Chaucer, The Book of the Duchess; Berguerand: Berguerand, Duel; Boulton: Song; Braddy: Braddy, Chaucer and Graunson; Carden: “Le Livre Messire Ode d’Oton de Grandson; CA: Gower, Confessio Amantis; DL: Guillaume de Machaut, Dit dou lyon; DLA: Guillaume de Machaut, Dit de l’alerion; FA: La fonteinne amoureuse; FC: Wimsatt, French Contemporaries; GW: Granson, Poésies, ed. Grenier-Winther; LGW: Chaucer, The Legend of Good Women; PA: Froissart, Paradis d’Amour; PF: Chaucer, The Parliament of Fowls; Piaget: Grandson, Vie et poésies, ed. Piaget; PL: Guillume de Machaut, Poésies Lyriques; Poirion: Poirion, Poète et prince; TC: Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde; RR: Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun, Le Roman de la rose; VD: Guillaume de Machaut, Le livre dou voir dit.

This poem forms a pair with 50, each employing the same refrain (nearly; see note to 49.30), and the second containing the woman’s response to the lover’s complaint in the first. The two appear in sequence in three of the four copies in which they occur (on manuscript F, see the note to 50 below), but not in manuscript A, which we use as our base. As model for this exchange, one might cite the ballade double in Machaut’s Louange des dames (PL, 1:41–42, number XXVI; Louange des dames, p. 105, number 214) or the sequence of three ballades with the same refrain among his ballades notées (PL, 2:543–45, numbers IX–XI), in both of which, however, the lover and his lady offer mutual affirmations of affection.

1–2 Ay my! quel mal, quel ennuy, quel doleur, / Quel grant meschief, quel soussy ne quel pene. Poirion (p. 249) cites these lines for their similarity to Froissart’s Espinette amoureuse, line 3828, and Christine de Pisan’s Balade V, lines 1–2 (Œuvres poétiques, 1:5).

30 Je n’ay riens fait qu’Amours ne me fait faire. The change of tense in the third occurrence of the refrain is without precedent, but it is confirmed in all four manuscript copies of the poem, and it is the form that is taken up by the lady in her response in 50.


 

GRANSON, 49. BALADE: «JE N'AY RIENS FAIT QU'AMOURS NE M'AIT FAIT FAIRE»: TEXTUAL NOTES

 


Abbreviations: A: Lausanne, Bibliothèque Cantonale et Universitaire, MS 350; B: Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, fr. 1727; C: Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, fr. 1131; D: Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, fr. 24440; E: Barcelona, Biblioteca de Catalunya, MS 8, Catalan, 1420–30; F: Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, fr. 2201; G: London, Westminster Abbey Library, MS 21; H: Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, fr. 833, c. 1500; J: Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, fr. 1952; K: Lausanne, Bibliothèque Cantonale et Universitaire, IS 4254; L: Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, Rothschild MS I.I.9; M: Carpentras, Bibliothèque Inguimbertine, MS fr. 390; N: Brussels, Bibliothèque royale Albert 1er, MS 10961–10970, c. 1465; O: Karlsruhe, Badische Landesbibliothek, MS 410, c. 1430; P: Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania, Van Pelt Library, MS Codex 902 (formerly Fr. MS 15), 1395–1400; Q: Berne, Burgerbibliothek da la Bourgeoisie, MS 473, 1400–40; R: Turin, Archivio di Stato, MS J. b. IX. 10; S: Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, fr. 24404; T: Besançon, Bibliothèque Municipale, MS 556, 1826; V: Carpentras, Bibliothèque Inguimbertine, MS 411; W: Brussels, Bibliothèque royale Albert 1er, MS IV 541, 1564–81; Y: Turin, Biblioteca Nazionale e Universitaria, MS L.II.12.

For each poem, we provide the following:

Other editions: The location of the poem in the editions of Grenier-Winther (GW) and Piaget.

Base MS: The manuscript from which our text is taken, using the sigla listed on this page.

Other copies: The other manuscripts in which the poem appears, with the line numbers for excerpts.

Selected variants: Most of the notes record the editors’ emendations. A small number (for instance, regarding the titles) record alternative readings when we did not emend the base text. We do not, however, provide a complete list of variants, for which one may consult Grenier-Winther’s edition. Each note consists of a line number, a lemma (the reading from our text), the manuscript source for the reading that we have chosen, selected readings from other manuscripts; and the reading from the base manuscript when it was rejected. If no manuscript source is listed following the lemma, the adopted reading is the editors’ conjecture.

Other comments on the text, as required.

GW41, Piaget p. 237.
Base MS A. Other copies: F, L, Q.

Title Balade. So F, L. Q: Aultre Balade. A: lacks.

 

 






5




10





15




20





25




30
 		 49. Balade: «Je n’ay riens fait qu’Amours ne m’ait fait faire»

Ay my! quel mal, quel ennuy, quel doleur,
Quel grant meschief, quel soussy ne quel pene,
Seuffre et fera dosreenavant mon cuer
Pour vous que j’ay, sans pensee villainne,
Plus amé que autre chose mondainne,
Et loiaument servie main et soir
Selon mon sens. Et se par non savoir
J’ay fait pourquoy vous pensez le contraire,
Ce me poise, mais, pour vous dire le voir,
Je n’ay riens fait qu’Amours ne m’ait fait faire.

Vous me blasmez que j’ay fait grant longueur
D’aler vers vous, et m’estiez cy prouchainne,
Mais se me fist Amours, que la rigueur
Des mesdisans, qui ont trop grant alainne,
Craingnoie trop fort. Sy ay bien dure estrainne,
Quant pour si pou je me voy decevoir,
Et a autrui lez doulz biens recevoir
C’om m’a tolus, dont je ne me puis taire.
Car puis le temps que ma dame en fut hoir,
Je n’ay riens fait qu’Amours ne m’ait fait faire.

Qu’en puis je mais, se je me plains et plour
Que j’ay ainsy sans achoison certainne
Perdus lez biens, le plaisir, la doulssour
Que je cuidoye avoir comme demainne?
Or estez vous de bien grant durté plainne
Qui me laissez pour autre amy avoir
Et jurez que voz beaulx yeux veoir
Ne pourroient riens sans moy qui vous puet plaire.
Et sy n’est pas pour moy, qu’a mon pouoir,
Je n’ay riens fait qu’Amours ne me fait faire.
 		 49. Ballade: “I have done nothing that Love didn’t make me do”

Alas! What hurt, what trouble, and what sorrow,
What great hardship, what care, and what pain
My heart endures, and will from now on
For you, whom I, without base thought,
Have loved more than anything else in this world
And loyally served, both morning and evening,
As best I knew how. And if unknowingly
I have done anything for which you think the opposite,
This troubles me, but to tell the truth,
I have done nothing that Love didn’t make me do.

You blame me that it took me a long time
To come to you, and you were close nearby,
But Love made me do this, for I feared too greatly
The harshness of slanderers, who draw too deep a breath.
Thus I have quite hard luck
When for so little I see myself deceived,
And I see another receive the sweet rewards
That were taken from me, on which I cannot be silent,
For since the time that my lady was their heir,
I have done nothing that Love didn’t make me do.

What more can I do, if I complain and weep
That I have thus, without any real reason,
Lost the rewards, the pleasure, and the sweetness
That I believed to have as my own?
But you are full of great harshness,
Who abandon me to take another lover
And swear that your fair eyes could not see
Anything other than me that can please you.
And yet it is not my doing, for within my power,
I have done nothing that Love doesn’t make me do.
 		 (t-note)

(see note)






























(see note)
 

 


Go To 50. Balade: «Je n'ay riens fait qu'Amours ne me fait faire»