XXXIV - Hueymais dey esser alegrans

Summary

2 MSS: C (176^r-v) Marcabru (C Reg. marc e bru), R (5^r) marc e bru

Analysis of the manuscripts

There is little discrepancy between the two MSS, though there is a tornada in R that repeats the last three lines of stanza VII. There are minor variants in lines 5, 7, 12, 14, 26, 30, 46 and 49, and copying errors in lines 10 and 32 in R. The two MSS offer different rhyme words in lines 19 and 21, but in neither case is it possible to determine with confidence which MS is correct; see the notes. There is little to choose between the two MSS, though JR. would require correction, whereas C does not.

Versification

Frank, Repértoire, 405,5: a8 b8 a8 b8 c8 d8 c8; seven coblas unissonans. Lines 14 and 21 may repeat the same rhyme-word; see also the note to line 19. There is a tornada in R that repeats the last three lines of stanza VII.

Previous scholarship

Appel, ‘Zu Marcabru’, pp. 416–17, 443; Gaunt, Troubadours, pp. 61–62 and 68–69; Gruber, Diakktik, pp. 140-41; Harvey, Marcabru, pp. 89-90, 149-50; Huchet, littérature, pp. 84–85; Kendrick, Game, pp. 38–39; Lewent, ‘Beiträge’, p. 440; Pirot, Recherches, pp. 146–47; and Riquer, Chansons, pp. 336–37.

Scholars have concentrated on the identification of the Lord Cabreira of line 46 (see ‘Dating’). Otherwise critics have used the poem, as a source of quotations to illustrate Marcabru’s views on women, husbands and morality, as if tacitly agreeing with Dejeanne’s remark: ‘c’est encore une satire sur le meme theme’ (p. 234). However, ‘Hueymais’ is a witty composition evincing wry humour and play.

Dating

This poem can be approximately dated if the identification of Lord Cabreira in line 46 with Guerau III Pone de Cabrera is correct (see Pirot, Recherches, pp. 146–47; but also ‘Dating’ of XII). Guerau was born before 1136 so the poem is unlikely to have been written before the late 1140s, given Guerau was still a minor in 1145. If Cingolani’s redating of the ensenhamen ‘Cabra juglar’ to 1196–98 is correct (see ‘Sirventes-ensenhamen’; compare Pirot, Recherches, whose dating is 1145–59), then the Lord Cabreira addressed here cannot be the author of the ensenhamen, who was almost certainly Guerau IV, Guerau III having died in 1160–61.