XXV - Estornel, cueill ta volada

Summary

2 MSS: C (174^v) Marcabru (C Reg. Marc e bru), E (154) Marcabru

Stanza order

Our edition follows the order of the eight stanzas in E. C follows the same order but lacks stanza VIII.

Analysis of the manuscripts

Unlike C, E contains both XXV and XXVI. In addition, E’s transmission of XXV is fuller than C’s which has eight fewer lines, one clearly missing (5) and the remainder (78–84) plausibly so. Both MSS have errors (though different ones) at the rhyme in 11, and possibly another in 15. Apart from the missing 5, C is defective in 70; E contains isolated errors in 2, 48, 68, 69, 79. Apart from its fuller transmission, E appears to have better readings in 35 and 70. There are various irregularities in rhyme, sometimes together with metrical irregularity. E 2, 11 violate both rhyme and metre, and E 21, 48 the rhyme. But CE both have matinada in 15 where the rhyme demands -ia. C is hypometric in 70, E in 78.

Versification of XXV and XXVI

a7’ a7’ a7’ b7’ c3 c3 c3 c3 c3 c3 b5’. Frank, Répertoire, 84, incorrectly records the final ‘b’ as 7’. Rhymes ‘a’ and ‘b’ are constant, ‘c’ singulars, Billy (Architecture, p. 103) notes their high proportion of ‘permutations particles’. Rather than repeating the rhymes of the last full stanza, both tornados have a new ‘c’ rhyme. Mölk (Trobar dus, p. 21) considers Marcabru probably to have been the first troubadour to have allowed himself this ‘metrical licence’ as he terms it, though the notion of licence is inappropriate at a period when usage is not yet fixed.

Meneghetti (‘Uno stornello’, p. 49) points out differences of line length between the estomel poems and Peire d’AJvemha’s ‘Rossinhol, el seu repaire’ (PC 323.23), the absence of tornados in the latter, and Peire’s use of coblas unissonans without further complexity, (For Peire’s versification, see Frank, Repértoire, 378,1: a7’ b7 a7? b7 c3 c3 d5’ c3 c3 d5’, no tornado.) She describes the versification of Marcabru’s poems as upside-down zagalesc (see her schema on p. 50), comparing it to that of ‘In hoc anni circulo’, a poem in a mixture of Latin and Occitan transcribed in Saint-Marrial-de-Limoges in the late eleventh or early twelfth century (see below). She notes that in both poems there is a fixed rhyme in -ia.