Untitled

234 MEDIEVAL SONG
(la the year when the knights are weary of action and the bold accomplish no
feat of arms, the ladies go tourneying to Laigni. The tournament being sworn,
the Countess of Crespi and the Lady of Couci say that they want to know what
the blows are like which their lovers strike for them. They summon the ladies
throughout the world to bring all hither. When they have come into the field
they let themselves be clad in armour and assemble before Torchi. Yolande de
Caflli comes first into the lists, Marguerite d'Oysi hastens towards her to joust,
Amisse the bold goes to snatch her bridle.)
There is an even greater economy of material in the following
example by Conon de Bethune, a contemporary and relative of
Huon d'Oisy:
I L'autre
Bx.95 1
ier a-vint en eel au-tre pa -is Cuns che-va-liers ot u-
Tant que la da - me fu en son bon pris Li a s'amour es - con -
- ne dame a - me
-dite et ve
-
) 11: Jj ^
- e -
Puiz fu unsjours que le li dit: A - mis,
Me-nezvous ai .
par pa ro - lemainz dis;
^
Or est Fa - inour coun - eu - e et mous - tre- h J> J^ 1) J ^^
-e,
Dore en a - .vant se - rai TO de - vis.
(The other day it happened in yonder foreign land that a knight loved a lady .
As long as she was at the height of her worth she refused and denied him her
*
love. Then came a day when she said to him : Friend, I have led you on by words
for many a day; but now love is known and made manifest, from now on I shall
be at your service.*)
Allied to forms of this extremely simple type are the songs which
indulge in the repetition of formulas, but with less rigidity, e.g. the
following chanson de croisade, sung by a lady whose dear one is in
Palestine, where the refrain repeats the opening melody of the verse.
The author is Guiot de Dijon:
Paris, Bibl. Nat. fr. 844, fo. 45 (Beck, fo. 42).