Bertran de Born

Bertran de Born (1140s – by 1215) was a baron from the Limousin in France, and one of the major Occitan troubadours of his time. He composed love songs (cansos) but was better known for his political songs (sirventes). He was involved in revolts against Richard I and then Phillip II. He married twice and had five children. In his final years, he became a monk.

Quotes

• Domna, puois de mi no us cal,
  E partit m'avetz de vos, &c.
  • Lady, since you care nothing for me,
    And since you have shut me away from you
    Causelessly,
    I know not wnere to go seeking,
    For certainly
    I will never again gather
    Joy so rich, and if I find not ever
    A lady with look so speaking
    To my desire, worth yours whom I have lost,
    I’ll have no other love at any cost.
  • Canso, st. 1 (tr. Ezra Pound)

• Be m play lo douz temps de pascor
  Que fai fuelhas e flors venir;
  E play mi quant aug la baudor
  Dels auzels que fan retentir
    Lor chan per lo boscatge;
  E plai me quan vey sus els pratz
  Tendas e pavallos fermatz;
    E plai m' en mon coratge,
  Quan vey per campanhas rengatz
  Cavalliers ab cavals armatz.
  • The beautiful spring delights me well,
      When flowers and leaves are growing;
    And it pleases my heart to hear the swell
      Of the birds' sweet chorus flowing
        In the echoing wood;
    And I love to see, all scattered around,
    Pavilions, tents, on the martial ground;
        And my spirit finds it good
    To see, on the level plains beyond,
    Gay knights and steeds caparison'd.
  • Canso, st. 1 (tr. Thomas Roscoe)

External links

• J. C. L. Sismondi, tr. Thomas Roscoe, Historical View of the Literature of the South of Europe, vol. 1 (1823), p. 141

• Edgar Taylor, Lays of the Minnesingers and Troubadours (1825), p. 228

• Ezra Pound, "The Canzon" in Poetry: A Magazine of Verse, vol. 7, no. 3 (December 1915), p. 143