Rigaut de
Berbezilh
(fl.
Troubador Verse
In a jewel I rejoice, in her
So fine, no other's felt my intent!
When I'm with her I dumbly stutter,
Cannot utter my words well meant,
And when we part I seem drowned,
Loss of all sense and reason suffer.
All the ladies a man saw ever
Compared to her aren't worth a franc!
When on earth the shadows gather,
Where she rests, all is brilliant.
Pray God I'll soon with her be wound,
Or watch her as she mounts the stair.
I startle and I shake and shiver
Awake, asleep, on Love intent,
So afraid that I might wrong her,
I don't dare ask for what I meant,
But two or three years' service downed,
Then she'll know the truth I offer.
I live nor die, nor am made better
Nor feel my sickness though intense,
Since with her Love I want no other,
Nor know if I'll have it or when,
For in her mercy does all abound,
That can destroy me or deliver.
It pleases me when she makes me madder,
Makes me muse, or in gaping rent!
It's fine if she plays the scorner
Laughs in my face, or at fingers' end,
For, after the bad, the good will sound,
And swiftly, should that be her pleasure.
If she wants me not, I'd rather
I'd died the day my service commenced!
Ah, alas! So sweet she did murder
Me, when she gave her Love's assent,
And tied me with such knots around,
That I desire to see no other.
All anxiously I delight in her,
For whether I fear or court her then
Is up to her; or be false or truer,
Trick her, or prove all innocent,
Or courteous or vile be found,
Or in torment, or take my leisure.
But, who it may please or who astound,
She may, if she wants, retain me there.
Say I: scarce courteous is he crowned,
The man who shall of Love despair.
Rigaut de Berbezilh (fl. 1140-1163)
Rigaut, also Richart or Richartz, de Berbezilh, also Berbezill or Barbesiu, French: Rigaud de Barbezieux, Latin: Rigaudus de Berbezillo, was of the petty nobility of Saintonge. He was a major influence on the Sicilian School and is quoted in the Roman de la Rose. The Planh below was previously attributed, by Pound and others, to Bertran de Born.
Si tuit li dol e? lh plor e? lh marrimen
If all the grief and woe and bitterness
The pain, the harm and all the misery
Yet heard of in this grievous century
Were set together, they would seem but light
Against the death of the young English king.
He leaves worth clouded, and youth dolorous,
The world obscure, shadowed and in darkness,
Void of all joy, full of despair and sadness.
In pain and sadness, full of bitterness
Are left behind the courteous soldiery,
The troubadours, the subtle minstrelsy,
In Death they find a foe of greater might,
Who's taken from them the young English king,
That made the freest hand seem covetous.
There are no more, nor were in past excess
Of this world, the tears to drown such sadness.
Relentless Death, so full of bitterness,
Well may you boast now the most knightly
Chevalier you have taken, best of any,
For there is nothing worthy of delight
That belonged not to this young English king;
If it pleased God, it were better for us
That he should live than many of the rest
Who offer us no joy but grief and sadness.
From this pale world, so full of bitterness
Love flies, his deceits must be taken lightly,
Nothing is his indeed but pains us swiftly;
And less than yesterday is each day's light.
All saw themselves in this young English king
Who of the world was the most virtuous;
Gone is his body, amorous in finesse,
Leaving us pain, and discord, and great sadness.
He whom it pleased in all our bitterness
To come to earth to raise us from misery,
And died His death, to bring us victory,
Him do we ask, of mercy, Lord of right
And of humility, that the young English king
He please to pardon, if pardon be for us,
And with honoured companions grant him rest,
There where there is no grief, nor any sadness.
Note: The young English king was the charismatic Henry Plantagenet (1155-1183) an elder brother to Richard Coeur de Lion, and twice crowned king in his father Henry II's lifetime, a Capetian custom. He predeceased his father, and so never wielded power, dying of dysentery while on campaign in the Limousin.
