Go To 13. Balade: «A ce plaisant premier jour de l’annee»

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.

1 d’amor. Both Piaget and GW preserve the manuscript reading de mort [of death] instead of the emendation adopted here, d’amor [of love].

4amis. Amis can be used in Middle French to mean simply “friend,” as at 23.1, 39.12, 46.8, or 70.45, but in contexts involving the lover’s relation with his lady, it generally means one who has been accepted as a lover, as opposed to amant, one whose love may be but is not necessarily returned. As such, it also occurs in the feminine form amie (e.g., in 23.13, 48.27, and 77.391–93). If they did not sound too juvenile, we might have used “boyfriend” and “girlfriend” in the translation. Since the only other choice in English appears to be “lover,” the distinction from amant and the implication of reciprocity are lost. Exactly what is implied by the don d’ami (literally, the “gift of or from [a] friend”), here and in 78.991 and 1613, is somewhat more elusive. The closest to this expression that we are aware of in Machaut occurs in a ballade in which he refers to the “don d’amie,” in the feminine, where the sense is evidently “the gift of (having a) (girl)friend” (PL 1:101, number XVCI; Louange des Dames, p. 87, number 146; line 6). In Granson’s use, the don d’ami appears instead to be the lady’s acceptance of the lover as her “boyfriend” as in 46.27–28; hence our punctuation and our translation, “the gift of ‘lover.’”

7 le festu est rompu. La paille est rompue, the modern equivalent of this expression, is still recognized by older speakers of French as meaning “our friendship is at an end.” Godefroy (Dictionnaire, s.v. festu) also provides “l’engagement est annulé” (roughly, “the deal is off”).

10 corps. On corps [person], see the note to 2.9.

12–13 En maudiray Desir qui m’a surpris, / Quant Doulx Espoir m’a son arc destendu. The relation between Hope and Desire is one of the recurring themes in Machaut’s dits amoureux. For Machaut, however, Hope typically constitutes the antidote to Desire rather than its cause, as in these lines. See Kelly, Imagination, pp. 130–50.

15–16 Tristam . . . Yseult. Tristam (or Tristan) and Iseult are the hero and heroine of one of the best-known French romances, the earliest surviving versions of which, by Béroul and Thomas of Britain, date from the mid twelfth century. Granson makes two direct references to them, here and in 18.17–18. In Le Livre Messire Ode, he makes two further references to Palamedes, Tristam’s rival for Iseult’s love; see the note to lines 78.1758–66 below. As in the case of the other figures that he names, it is not necessary to suppose that Granson was directly familiar with any of these earlier texts: the stories themselves were already well known and the names frequently cited. Machaut, for instance, cites Tristam and Lancelot together as examples of true lovers in DL, line 1321;Le Jugement du Roi de Navarre, lines 2841 and 2957; and Le Confort d’Ami, line 2803.


 

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, 13th century (16th century addition); 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.

GW13, Piaget p. 300.
Base MS A. No other copies.

1 d’amor. A: de mort.