death of a lover and the birth of the polyphonic ballade ... · 1even before machaut a tradition of...

Volume XIX � Number 3 � Summer 2002The Journal of Musicology © 2002 by the Regents of the University of California

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Death of a Lover and the Birth of the PolyphonicBallade: Machaut’s NotatedBallades 1–5

E L I Z AB E T H E VA L E AC H

During the 14th century European culture be-came increasingly textualized. Indeed, the testimony of its manuscripttraces has been used to support compelling arguments for a large-scaleepistemological shift “from song to book” in which the previously oralperformance of texts, especially narrative poems, becomes pictured onparchment and can be read silently. Music’s close connection with therealities of physical sound has been seen to prompt an irrevocable late14th-century parting of the ways for poets and composers, fueled by the newly silent nature of poetry and the Book as an essentially visuallymediated performance space.1 In this context Guillaume de Machautcan seem the “last of the trouvères,” as if the tradition died with him.However, he in fact provides a point of contact between the visualpower of a scribal poetics and the sounding art of music.2 Arguably his

1 Even before Machaut a tradition of trouvère chansonnier compilations treatedscribal practice as a form of commentary rather than merely a means of transmission.Scribes were engaged in a creative act of ordering a manuscript so as to promote certainmeanings from the reading of different texts against one another. See particularly SylviaHuot, From Song to Book: The Poetics of Writing in Old French Lyric and Lyrical Narrative Poetry(Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press, 1987), 64–74, and chap. 7–8; see also Jacqueline Cerquiglini-Toulet, The Color of Melancholy: The Uses of Books in the Fourteenth Century, trans. Lydia G.Cochrane, ed. Stephen G. Nichols, Gerald Prince, and Wendy Steiner, Parallax: Re-Visionsof Culture and Society (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1997).

2The case for a strong division between sung and unsung poetry relies on a some-what monolithic interpretation of Eustache Deschamps’s categories musique naturele andmusique arti�ciele, and it is weakened by our lack of a complete picture of Machaut’s poet-composer contemporaries. There are no known surviving notated chansons for Jean de le Mote or for Philippe de Vitry, despite the citation of these two alongside Machaut in Gilles le Muisis’s Méditations (1350) as co-ranking poet-composers and the reference inLes règles de la seconde rhétorique to Vitry writing ballades, lais, and simple rondeaux. Names

the journal of musicology

use of music within books whose concern with visual and scribal mean-ings is palpable paves the way for the highly textualized aesthetic ofmuch late 14th- and early 15th-century music.3

In overseeing the assembly of a single-author codex, Guillaume deMachaut combines scribal and authorial authority and is thus able topromote even greater possibilities for interaction between his readersand his material. The evidence for Machaut’s “hand” (at least meta-phorically) in some of the surviving collected sources is suggestive (ifnot compelling) and has centered around MS A, whose prescriptive in-dex rubric reads: “Vezci lordenance que G. de Machau wet quil ait enson livre.”4 In addition the later collected sources (including A) areheaded by a Prologue announcing Guillaume as the author of the book’soeuvre and summarizing the main media which follow: illuminations,lyric, narrative, and music. Personi� cations of Nature and Amours arepictured visiting Machaut in turn, each offering him three children toaid him in his work. Nature and Amours speak in ballades—as Guillaumedoes in reply—their visits are illustrated, and the Prologue then closeswith a short narrative segment. Although there is no notated music,Musique is present both as a personi� ed “child” of Nature and as thechief topic of the discussion at the end of the closing narrative seg-ment.5 Love’s children embody the “matiere” of Machaut’s poetry withwhich Love bids Machaut praise ladies using the more technical gifts(“la practique”) represented by Nature’s children, who include Mu-sique. Nature speci� cally orders Machaut to order his work (the pun is inthe original), and he promises to obey,6 clearly placing a premium onthe meaningfulness of order within the book that follows. The Indexrubric indicates that Machaut himself exercised a reasonable degree of

are more likely to survive in literary manuscripts, and Machaut’s in� uence in terms ofbook-making has been much discussed with relation to nonmusical poets such as Frois-sart and Christine de Pizan; see James I. Wimsatt, Chaucer and his French Contemporaries:Natural Music in the Fourteenth Century (Toronto: Univ. of Toronto Press, 1991). However,for a survival of a composer’s Machaut-style self-consciousness as a poet well into the 15thcentury, see the comments on Busnoys’s persona and poetry in Paula Higgins, “Introduc-tion. Celebrating Transgression and Excess: Busnoys and the Boundaries of Late Me-dieval Culture,” in Antoine Busnoys: Method, Meaning and Context in Late Medieval Music, ed.Paula Higgins (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1999), 1–6.

3 For example, the sophisticated and highly textual music of the Chantilly codex,which provides the only two correct ascriptions of music to Machaut outside of the single-author collections (the two ascriptions in the 15th-century Villon manuscript, S-Sk Vu 22,being of poems only).

4 “This is the order that Guillaume de Machaut wants there to be in his book.” SeeLawrence Earp, “Machaut’s Role in the Production of his Works,” Journal of the AmericanMusicological Society 42 (1989): 461–503, which includes a facsimile of the Index of MS A.

5 See Lawrence Earp, Guillaume de Machaut: A Guide to Research, vol. 36, GarlandComposer Resource Manuals (New York: Garland, 1995), 203–5.

6 See the comments on “ordonner” in the Prologue, in Jacqueline Cerquiglini, “Unengin si soutil”: Guillaume de Machaut et l’écriture au XIVe siècle, vol. 47, Bibliothèque du XVe siècle (Genève: Slatkine, 1985), 15–21.

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concern for, and control over, the order; and it seems that this is theprimary way in which he redacted the collection.7

On the large scale the overall order of the narrative, non-musicallyric, and notated lyric sections is partly � xed by the last line of the Pro-logue, whose � nal rhyme announces the Dit du vergier.8 The dits withinthe narrative sections follow a more or less � xed order, as do the lyricsof the Loange des dames; the music section is subdivided into genre sec-tions whose relative order is � xed and within each of which the orderof individual lyrics is subject to relatively little change.9 To this extentthe overall order of the book may not be taken as a chronology sincenew ballades go in the ballade section, new virelais in the virelai sec-tion, and Le Jugement dou Roy de Navarre is placed to follow Le Jugementdou Roy de Behaigne, whose ruling it overturns. However, it has longbeen assumed that within genre sections the order is re� ective ofchronology, since later manuscripts have more items in each sectionand these are usually added at each section’s end. Ernest Hoepffner’simportant “growing collection” theory of chronology is, for the dits atleast, broadly convincing.10 The focus on chronology, though, avoidsanother, not mutually exclusive interpretation of order—in terms of itsrole in the construction of meaning for readers.

Daniel Poirion has drawn attention to proto-narrative sequences oflyrics in the Loange which are thematically and lexically linked, especiallythrough shared rhymes; Jacqueline Cerquiglini has expanded uponthis, noting that the Voir Dit illuminates a later part of the Loange; andYolanda Plumley has commented on some of the links among individ-ual Loange items, more of which are listed in Earp’s bibliographicguide.11 With respect to the music, Anne Walters Robertson has recently

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7 Earp, “Machaut’s Role,” argues that Machaut’s ongoing scribal-authorial role wasnot on the level of note-by-note redaction but speci�cally on the level of order. Althoughthe order of the Index is not carried out entirely in the manuscript, mainly on account ofpractical dif� culties (see idem, “Scribal Practice, Manuscript Production and the Trans-mission of Music in Late Medieval France: The Manuscripts of Guillaume de Machaut”[Ph.D. diss., Princeton Univ. Press, 1983]), the ideal that the Index embodies is still rele-vant to the discussion of meaning.

8 The � nal couplet rhymes “targier” / “dit dou vergier,” thus � xing Vergier—andthereby the narrative poems which it heads—at the opening of the collection proper. Theuse of rhyme words, like the use of anagrams, which Machaut also often employs, is a wayfor authors to prevent unwanted scribal redaction. Of those manuscripts which place theLoange � rst, i.e. before the narrative poems, all predate the inclusion of the Prologue ex-cept E. In E the Prologue is copied in the shortened form—the four ballades only—whichmeans it lacks the narrative text ushering in Vergier.

9 This feature is discussed in Earp, “Scribal Practice.”10 See Earp, Guillaume de Machaut, 189–94, and, for its extension to the music,

273–77.11 See the various comments found throughout Daniel Poirion, Le poète et le prince:

l’évolution du lyrisme courtois de Guillaume de Machaut à Charles d’Orléans (Grenoble: Allier,1965). Cerquiglini, “Un engin si soutil,” 32–49. Yolanda Plumley, “Intertextuality in theFourteenth-Century Chanson: Crossing Borderlines and Borders,” in Borderline Areas in


argued that the motet section’s order is signi� cant, re� ecting points onan underlying narrative whose ultimate source is found outside the collection; and Sylvia Huot has made a convincing reading of the se-quence of the lais and their program of illumination in MS C.12 In thispaper I shall examine a group of � ve ballades at the very opening ofthose set to music. All � ve are present in the earliest MS collection inan order which remains static in all the collected works MSS compiledin Machaut’s lifetime.13

Although the connections and meanings deriving from adjacencydo not cease after the � fth ballade, space will not permit the onwardconnections to be explored fully here; the sixth ballade convenientlyrepresents a signi� cant articulation, since its � rst-person lyric persona isfeminine.14 According to Wulf Arlt, the opening four ballades also pre-sent and solve various compositional problems, ultimately narrating aparallel (and equally � ctive) story of the creation of the polyphonic bal-lade.15 In addition, a strong musical link between B1 and B5 helps tomark the close of what I consider as a proto-narrative segment, onewhich is also “closed” in the sense that the lover of B5 expects only to die(an outcome represented, perhaps, by his temporary replacement witha feminine je in B6). Ballades 1–5 narrate one course that love can take:its concealment through fear of refusal, the burning of desire givingvoice to declaratory (sung) love poetry, the lady’s refusal, and the lover’sdeath. As is so often the case, Machaut’s success as a poet-composer correlates directly with his failure as a lover-protagonist.16

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Fourteenth- and Fifteenth-Century Music, edited by Karl Kügle and Lorenz Welker (Neu-hausen: Hänssler, in press) and Earp, Guillaume de Machaut, 64–67 and the listing for individual lyrics in chaps. 6–7. I am grateful to Yolanda Plumley for allowing me to see aprepublication copy of her article.

12 Anne Walters Robertson, Guillaume de Machaut and Reims: Context and Meaning inhis Musical Works (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, forthcoming). I am grateful toAnne Walters Robertson for allowing me to see a written copy of her 1998 AMS paper.Huot, From Song to Book, 260–72.

13 The order of B1–5 is also preserved in F–G (probably posthumous); B1’s open-ing position is even preserved in the otherwise differently ordered (posthumous) MS E—the only collected Machaut source to break up the opening � ve ballades.

14 The group of � ve ballades is thus not chosen on account of numerical signi� -cance, although � ve is a highly signi� cant number in the Voir Dit; see Cerquiglini, “Un en-gin si soutil,” 76–89.

15 See Wulf Arlt, “Helas! Tant ay dolour et peine: Machaut’s Ballade Nr. 2 un d ihreStellung innerhalb der Werkgruppe,” in Trent’anni di richerche musicologiche: Studi in onoredi F. Alberto Gallo, ed. Patrizia dalla Vecchia and Donatella Restani (Rome: Edizioni Torred’Orfeo, 1996), 99–101.

16 For a full discussion of this narrative stance in Le Dit dou vergier, Remede de Fortune,Le Dit de l’alerion and Le Voir Dit see Kevin Brownlee, Poetic Identity in Guillaume de Machaut(Madison: Univ. of Wisconsin Press, 1984), chaps. 2–3. Brownlee concludes that “the or-ganization of the Voir-Dit has consistently presented Guillaume as a successful poet despite his having been an unsuccessful lover” (156).

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An objection that could be made to the readings proposed here isthat the very homogeneity of the poetry—its basis in a widely sharedfund of topoi, lexical formations, and verse types—suggests that it wouldbe equally possible to construct a meaningful relationship between anytwo lyrics by Machaut, even if randomly chosen. Although this possibilityis easily envisaged, the factors that invite readers to make such connec-tions are in actuality fairly limited and depend on perceived authorial or scribal prompting.17 A clearly shared text between two lyrics—sharedrefrains and/or incipit lines, plus shared rhyme types—may serve as aperceived authorial prompt to connect lyrics, even those widely dispersed;indeed, shared texts connect two of the lyrics discussed here to poemsnot even present in this manuscript and actually by another author. Aperceived scribal prompt is provided by manuscript adjacency, particu-larly in the context of Machaut’s collected works manuscripts where order is a prominent theme, and the authorial persona himself is exert-ing scribal control. Such adjacency can even encourage the reading of contrasting poems against one another. The homogenous nature ofMachaut’s lyric poetry is anyway only apparent, especially with respectto aspects such as rhyme combination (usually in fact unique for anygiven combination of three rhymes), seemingly common phrases (rarelyare more than two successive words shared between any two lyrics), andlexical items (some words are undeniably common, but many poemsdeploy unusual vocabulary).

For the poems of the music section the meanings that adjacencycan create at all levels have an additional level of signi� cation, anothermeans of making connection: the music. Musical connections can rangefrom shared motivic units to shared or contrasting mensural schemes,similar rhythmic � guration, harmonic-contrapuntal resemblances, line,contour, tonal plan, length of sections and musico-poetic segmentation.These various aspects can also link seemingly dissimilar poetic texts ifthey are linked by being copied adjacently in the manuscript, and musiccertainly provides a further arena for the play of meaning in contiguous(visually paired) pieces: It can subvert poetic meanings, play games withversi�cation, and re-weight semantic elements—all additional weaponsin Machaut’s semiotic arsenal. This is poetry which takes place in time—its delivery is strictly controlled and manipulated by the poet.

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17 The ability for virtually any two lyrics to be read against each other meaningfullyis what enables scribes of lyric miscellanies to construct collections which are more thanmerely “random.” The point here is that, unless a connection is prompted by an author(through citation) or a scribe (through adjacent copying), it is unlikely to be pursued bya reader, however possible it may be. The latter prompt, however, remains a possibility forthe creative impulses of future scribes.

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Opening Gesture: Samours ne fait (B1)

The � rst ballade in the musical section of Machaut’s collectedworks, Samours ne fait (B1), brings the ballade section into being, be-cause its � rst-person lover is forced by the harshness of his sorrow to re-veal his love in a sung poem narrating the pain of his love’s prior con-cealment. Love thus generates the poem, a poem which appears only inthe music section. The harshness of the lover’s sorrow thus forces himspeci� cally to sing, and, as evinced by its visual presence in the book,forces him ultimately to notate on blank parchment his performance, a performance that initiates a whole output of polyphonic music bal-lades. These poetic beginnings are caused by—and parallel—the begin-ning of a courtly love relationship: The text of B1 brings us from thepoint at which the lover burns with love (but, through timidity, has sofar concealed his love from the lady), through revelation of his love(the song’s writing-as-performance), to the stage at which the lover’sstate now depends on the lady’s reaction (at the end of the “perfor-mance”). A refusal will kill him; this can be avoided if Hope causes Pityto act within the lady. If Pity fails and the lady refuses him, the lover willdie but will rationalize his death as sweet, since it comes from the ladyand from Love. In what follows I will explore both the way in which thefollowing four ballades lyricize moments in the narrative that B1 pre-dicts (ending in the expectation of death), and the manner in whichthis amorous failure is turned into a musico-poetic success. The texts(transcribed from MS C) and translations of all � ve ballades are givenin the Appendix.

Ballade 1, Samours ne fait, occurs only in the notated ballades. Itforms a � tting opening for the music ballade section in that it setsMachaut’s most common lyric verse form—the decasyllabic, seven-line,rhyme-royal stanza—in a unique musical manner, as the only “isorhyth-mic” ballade. The tenor is strictly isorhythmic and is organized into twodifferent rhythmic patterns (taleae), each setting an entire poetic textline. The � rst talea occurs twice in the A section (making four presenta-tions per stanza, as the A section is repeated). The second talea occurstwice in the B section and once in the refrain section, R. Since eachtalea statement is demarcated by rest-like section breaks, B1 is, uniquely,in seven separate musical sections—the most of any Machaut ballade.

In a manner far from standard for the ballades which follow it, B1exhibits modus-level rhythmic organization, ambitiously presenting afull spread of available ars nova note values (from minim to long) in its� rst tenor phrase (breves 1–5; see Ex. 1a).18 Both the presence of longs

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18 All musical examples represent the version of the song in the earliest source, MS C.

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and the repeating rhythms of the tenor challenge any genre expecta-tions based on genre norms exempli�ed by the ballades which follow it. To some extent, then, this ballade resembles a motet, although itstaleae are too long, their note values too diverse, there are two separatetaleae, and there is no repeating pitch sequence (color). Were the orderof the ballades seen as a re� ection of their relative chronology, B1might be considered Machaut’s � rst essay in polyphonic ballade form.It would present an early solution to the problem of structuring re-peated material within the polyphonic ballade, a form more extendedin Machaut than in his predecessors. Within such a narrative of “devel-oping technique,” B1 would appear to be an unsuccessful, never-to-be-repeated experiment. Strictly, though, the fact that it appears � rst inthe ordered section of 16 ballades in CI means only that B1 could havebeen anything from Machaut’s � rst to 16th essay in the form.19 Whilewe cannot know if it is indeed the earliest ballade, B1 musically thema-tizes the idea of a “� rst attempt” at ballade form. It makes a deliberatelycalculated gesture, appropriating value and order from the motet andtransplanting it “programmatically,” as Arlt says, onto the head of thesection of dance-derived song forms which lie at the heart of Machaut’smusico-lyric output.20 By not repeating this isorhythmic experiment—byin fact transforming this motet technique into the “song counterpoint”of B2 (see below)—B1 also illustrates a narrative of chronological musi-cal progress within the performance space of the codex.

Although the lover of B1 recounts how concealing his love from hislady has caused him to languish in sorrow, from the outset he addresseshis poem directly to her: “If Love does not by Her grace sweeten yournoble heart, lady, to which I am given, I am certain that it will cause me

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19 Elizabeth Keitel, working from the premise that the presence of modus signi� esolder pieces “translated” out of Petronian or Franconian notation, considers ballades 1–5(in which she detected no modus organization) to be later than 6–16 (in which moduswas clearly present); see idem, “A Chronology of the Compositions of Guillaume deMachaut: Based on a Study of Fascicle-Manuscript Structure in the Larger Manuscripts”(Ph.D. diss., Cornell Univ., 1976). The lack of modus in B1–5 is only apparent whenworking from Schrade’s edition; Ludwig detects modus organization in all these ballades(particularly strongly in B1). In addition it should be noted that elsewhere Machautspeci�cally uses notation to create a � ctional, quasi-narrative anteriority. In the musicallyrics of the Remede, for example, the move from ars antiqua values (modus) to ars novavalues (tempus) illustrates the “new art” of the lover after he has been instructed byHope, even though all the lyrics were probably written around the same time, speci�callyfor the Remede; see F. Alberto Gallo, Trascrizione di Machaut: Remede de Fortune, Ecu Bleu,Remede d’Amour, vol. 16, Memoria del tempo (Ravenna: Longo, 1999).

20 Wulf Arlt, “Aspekte der Chronologie und des Stilwandels im französischen Lieddes 14. Jahrhunderts,” in Aktuelle Fragen der musikbezogenen Mittelalterforschung: Texte zueinem Basler Kolloquium des Jahres 1975 (Winterthur: Amadeus, 1982), 229, and also UrsulaGünther, “Contribution de la musicologie à la biographie et à la chronologie de Guil-laume de Machaut,” in Guillaume de Machaut: Poète et Compositeur (Paris: Kincksieck,1982), 112.


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example 1. B1: Samours ne fait

JeSa

sui- mours

cerne

-

.

teinsfait

5

quilpar

misa

congrace

- venta

mo- dou

- rir- cir

.

DeVo

8

ma- stre

dofranc

- lourcuer

oudame

.

desa

13

- trequi

resui don

-- nes

fu - ses

2.1.

Ex. 1a Guillaume de MachautA Section

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example 1. (continued )

( )

T.

Ce

16

mest a - vis

T.

quil

20

me vient miex as - sez

T.

Par

24

vo re - fus

T.

tost

28 ( ) ( )

mo - rir ns de - port

T.

Quen

32

ma do - lour

T.

( )

lan

36

( )

- guir jus - qua la mort

B Section

R Section


to die from my sorrow or from being refused.” The lover reasons withhimself that death from refusal would be better than death from lan-guishing in his present “dure dolour,” since he would die comforted bythe knowledge that his lady would know of his love. And anyway, if hetells her perhaps Hope will cause her to take pity on him and offer him“confort.” In the � nal stanza he curses his present state of concealinglove as the worst of all, a state of which, as his � rst overt act of love ser-vice to the lady, the act of composing the poem effectively relieves him.The poetic presentation of the problem becomes its own solution. Thelover’s need to speak of love creates the poet, just as the musical natureof the setting makes him perform it as its own pre-history, and as an actof love service.21 The burning of desire generates poetry—as an alter-native to the other kind of generation which desire might prompt. InMachaut’s poetics such lyric performance, either actual or spatializedwithin a book, offers Hope as consolation to the lover in lieu of actual(and socially unacceptable or impossible) interaction with the dame.22

The sonorities of the ouvert and clos cadences in B1’s A section pro-vide (as often but not always in Machaut’s ballades) a tonal hierarchy,which is relevant to the other, less weighty articulations within the song.The lyric caesura of each decasyllabic poetic line (the fourth syllable) ismarked within the musical phrase by a held sonority. In the A sectionthese held sonorities are imperfect consonances which augur the ouvertand clos sonorities in that they involve the litterae b and d in two differ-ent solmizations which could resolve respectively to the ouvert sonoritya/e, or the clos sonority c/c, depending on whether the b is sung fa or mi(see Ex. 2a).23 In most ballades where the ouvert-clos hierarchy operates,

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21 In the Remede de Fortune the narrator composes a lai “selonc mon sentement” (ac-cording to my feelings) which his lady discovers and forces him to perform. In contrast toB1 the lai is not addressed directly to the lady and the lover vows to keep his love hidden.On being asked who wrote it, his inability either to lie or to reveal his own authorship—and thereby his love—causes the je to � ee into the garden where he meets Esperance; seeJames I. Wimsatt, William W. Kibler, and Rebecca A. Baltzer, eds., Guillaume de Machaut:Le Jugement du Roy de Behaigne and Remede de Fortune (Athens: Univ. of Georgia Press,1988), ll: 401–752.

22 See Douglas Kelly, Medieval Imagination: Rhetoric and Poetry of Courtly Love (Madi-son: Univ. of Wisconsin Press, 1978), 121–54; Brownlee, Poetic Identity, 37–63; and SylviaHuot, The Romance of the Rose and Its Medieval Readers: Interpretation, Reception, ManuscriptTransmission, vol. 16, Cambridge Studies in Medieval Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ.Press, 1993), 249–54. Among Machaut’s short lyric output there are relatively few poemsof concealment. The verb “celer” usually occurs with “servir” in the context of discretion,keeping a mutually declared love (between amant and dame) secret from others, ratherthan in the context of concealing love from the lady. However, this is exactly how the nar-rative of the Remede begins, where it is implicitly criticized. See n21, above.

23 The caesura of line 1 thus has a directed progression resolving to the secondary(ouvert-type) sonority a/e (m. 5), and the caesura of line 2 has a directed progression re-solving to the primary (clos -type) sonority c/c (m. 12). However, while the latter is reachedin an identical manner in the clos itself, the former is not an approach to a/e from the tworecta voces as found in the ouvert; see the discussion of the approach to a/e in B5 below.

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it continues to function for the second half of the ballade, the B sectionending with the ouvert-type sonority and the refrain ending resemblingthe clos. However, B1 has a different pair of sonorities forming its tonalhierarchy in its second half: Sonorities grounded by the tenor tone acontinue to function as secondary in the tonal hierarchy even here—lines 5 and 6 end with a sonorities—but the primary sonority in the hi-erarchy changes from the c/c unison of the clos to the G/g octave of the� nal cadence. The B section negotiates the shift, mediating betweenthese atypically diverse clos and � nal sonorities.24

It would be easy to employ a questionable teleological narrative ofever increasing tonal coherence and view the � nal resolution to G/g assymptomatic of a lack of tonal coherence in early works, as if B1 werewritten before Machaut worked out how to ensure such a thing byreusing the ouvert and clos sonorities at B section-end and � nal cadences,respectively, as became his standard practice later in his career. Such a reading is perhaps possible—despite the dif� culty inherent in de� ni-tions of “standard” and “later” when the arguments for chronologyseem so circular. However, the thematizing of chronology in this open-ing section makes it dif� cult to pin down a real chronology, since it mayall be part of the � ctional story of “how Guillaume de Machaut inventedthe polyphonic ballade” that the opening few songs also (pretend to)tell. Perhaps more importantly, B1 serves to summarize the two mostcommon ouvert-clos relationships in the ballades that it introduces (Ex. 2a).25 The � rst part of the ballade (using the � rst tenor talea) uses

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24 At the opening of the B section the c/c unison of the clos cadence is quickly ex-panded to an octave, c/cc (m. 17). This places the semitone in the cantus and the move-ment d-c in the tenor. Then this same tenor movement is used as the support for a semi-tone movement in the cantus from f to g at the caesura of the same line (mm. 18–19).This is the same semitone in the cantus that will be supported by an a-G movement in thetenor at the � nal cadence (mm. 38–39). The tenor comes around to this idea quiteslowly. It sounds initially as if there will be a G/g resolution at the opening of the sixthline (m. 25), but the tenor leaps up and reasserts c/g, the sonority which is repeated (butnot reached by directed progression) for the caesural word of line 6 (m. 27, in the threestanzas, respectively, “refus,” “uaut miex,” and “aim miex”—embodying the idea that a re-fusal would be preferable to continued concealment). The same sonority (c/g) is reachedbrie� y by directed progression within the ornamental melismatic passage which followsfor the � fth syllable of line 6 (m. 29), but the f is better resolved by the held G/g in m.30. In the refrain this sonority is reached for the � nal word “mort,” again after a tonalstruggle with the idea in the shape of a marked f in the cantus, m. 34, which does not re-solve to g but is itself part of a perfect sonority, b-mi/f .

25 This also happens in Dous amis (B6), more explicitly because it is a duplex bal-lade (i.e. there is no R section and the B section itself also has ouvert and clos endings).The ouvert and clos in the A section have tenor tones a third apart, those in the B sectionhave notes a whole step apart. B6, too, displays modus organization, with 12 minims to along. Like B1 and B5, B6 approaches its A-section ouvert sonority (D/a) from two differ-ently solmized thirds (in this case, one with �cta E and one with �cta G ). As the � rstfeminine-voiced song in the music ballades, B6 marks the end of the � rst proto-narrativeunit by starting something new, but these (among other) resonances with the outer mem-bers of the preceding � ve-ballade group provide continuity.


primary and secondary tonal terminations separated by a third. Theyare thus related by being the two differently “voiced” resolutions (voces)of the same two letter-name notes (litterae). By contrast, in having pri-mary and secondary tonal terminations on adjacent notes, the latterpart of the ballade (the other rhythmic tenor pattern) uses the otherrelationship common in ballades. As the new primary tone is “workedout” by expansion of the old one within the B section, and the sec-ondary tone (a) remains constant between the two sections, tonal “co-herence” of a different kind is arguably sustained. In not following thenormative procedure of having identical clos and � nal tones the balladealso aptly emblematizes the narrator wrestling with himself over his lovedeclaration. During the course of the A section he weighs the possibleoutcomes of his love, with the clos ending of each stanza presenting eachin turn—“refuses,” “confortes,” “celes” (he might be refused, he mightbe comforted, or he might keep his love concealed). In the refrain ofeach of the � rst two stanzas he has temporarily embraced the thoughtthat even death from refusal would be better than his non-life of lan-guishing. By the end of the third, as the music of the � nal stanza diesaway, we may assume that he has irrevocably decided to declare his lovebecause he has already performed the revelatory poem addressed tothe lady af� rming it. With the lover of B1 the audience awaits the out-come of revealing his love. Pity may act in her and she will grant “con-fort,” or she may grant only a refusal which will cause his death. Thefollowing four music ballades present the outcome of the revelationthat he performs.

472

example 2a. Ouvert and clos in B1

example 2b. Ouvert and clos in B2

End of B Section FINAL

fa

OUVERT

mi

CLOS

End of B Section FINAL

� cta mi

OUVERT

recta mi

CLOS

leach

An Overview of Ballades 1–5 and the Opening Loange Ballades

In the refrain text of Helas tant (B2), the narrator claims that theheart that would show no pity would be too cruel. The conditionaltense ending (“-oit”), which forms the rhyme of both refrain lines, de-picts a situation that has not yet arisen, as the lover waits and railsagainst what would be, for him, the worst outcome. Parting from hislady without joy, he is assailed by Desire who strives to put him to death:“De moy mettre a la mort” (line 3.3), a phrase echoing the last part ofB1’s refrain: “a la mort.” In the music ballades this phrase occurs onlyin these � rst two and helps to pair them. B2 introduces the key elementof the lady’s “sweet smiling look, that has pierced me so with anamorous arrow” (lines 2.4–6). The idea of the “pointure” of Love’s dartis also present in the next ballade, On ne porroit (B3), which is not ad-dressed to the lady and acts almost as an aside to the audience. Still thelover waits, and, having tried to encourage Pity in B2, he resorts in B3to avowing his love and praising the lady’s worthiness—but to no avail.By Biaute qui (B4) the lover has been refused and is beginning to lookto a future in which he sees his own death. The lady’s inherent goodqualities are paradoxically fatal when combined with refusal: She nowhas “a look to kill a lover” (line 1.6). B4’s is the � rst use of the word “re-fus” (refusal) since the lover of the opening ballade repeatedly consid-ered it as a possible response to his declaration of love. As B1 predicted,refusal will cause the lover to die (B4, refrain). B5 takes this narrative sequence to the rational conclusion predicted in the � rst ballade: Thelover embraces death as the best outcome.

As argued above, where two lyrics share a signi� cant amount oftext, this may be perceived as an authorial prompt to read them as con-nected. As the reductio ad absurdum of signi� cant shared text, certainmusic section ballades are duplicated in their entirety in the Loange desdames. While the fact of such duplication has been noted by moderncommentators, its possibility for inviting readers to construct meaninghas not been remarked. There is, however, some evidence thatMachaut himself expected readers to cross-reference their own read-ing in an injunction to his audience in the late poem, Le Voir Dit.26

473

26 The collected poems offer two further pieces of evidence that Machaut expectedhis readers to connect items from one part of the manuscript with another. First, as men-tioned above, the end of the Prologue introduces the following Dit dou vergier, embeddingits title integrally within the rhyme of the � nal couplet. This maintains the illusory anteri-ority of the Prologue, whose (fake) temporal position at the head of the codex, and its im-precation to the listening “dames,” creates the idea of Machaut’s book as a uni� ed romanbeing read by the author himself, who speaks as a performer within his work, even whenhe is silently contained within a book. Second, Huot notes Guillaume’s ironic referencein Navarre to having written “diverses matieres” (line 886) in “pluseurs manieres” (line


While explaining to his audience (“Mi signeur”) that the poem they areabout to hear is true and is written at the behest of his lady, the narra-tor adds:

Des autres choses vous diraySe diligemment les querezSans faillir vous les trouverezAveques les choses noteesEt es balades non chantees

As for the other things [other than the Voir Dit poem itself but writtenfor Toute Belle in the course of it], I tell you that if you seek them dili-gently, you will � nd them without fail with the notated things [musicsection] and the ballades not to be sung [Loange].27

Signi�cantly this speci� es the very two sections—the music section andthe Loange—which have the greatest amount of duplication betweenthem. The copying of the Voir Dit in its two principal sources also makesthis imprecation necessary, since the lyrics which are set to music arecopied therein as text only and rubricated “et y a chant”; these lyricscan then indeed be found set to music in the music section.28

I would like to suggest that because of the importance of order, theduplication of a lyric (here B3 as Lo7, or vice versa)29 directs the reader’s

474

885) which “se tout voloie regarder / —Dont je me vorray bien garder— / Trop longue-ment y metteroie” (If I wanted to look at all of it—which I would really like to avoid doing—it would take too long; quotation and translation from Huot, From Song to Book, 248). AsHuot comments, this implies both a pride at having written so many and varied thingsand a will to bind this diversity with an overarching authorial unity. This leads her to con-clude that C (which does not contain Navarre but is close to it in date) is the result of a“desire to put his works in order as the various manifestations of a particular poetic ego”(ibid., 248).

27 Daniel Leech-Wilkinson, ed., R. Barton Palmer, trans., Guillaume de Machaut: LeLivre dou Voir Dit (The Book of the True Poem), vol. 106, Garland Library of Medieval Literature(New York: Garland, 1998), 32, ll: 521–5 (translation mine).

28 This contrasts with the situation in the Remede, whose musical lyrics are only evercopied within the poem itself (except where they are transmitted outside the Machaut-only sources). Signi�cantly the lyrics of the Remede are then listed separately at the end ofMS A’s Index so as to resemble all the other musical lyrics, which are similarly listed indi-vidually by incipit (the Loange is just signaled en masse as “Les balades ou il na point dechant / Les chansons roiaus et les complaintes”). In MS E, however, the relevant music iscopied into the Voir Dit, as it usually is in those sources for the Remede that are notated. Edisplays several other editorial decisions which suggest that its editors were not expectingtheir readers to read different parts of the manuscript against one another. E’s editorsclearly had their own rationale for reordering (a rationale that would merit sympatheticmodern scholarly elucidation).

29Variant readings support the idea that lyrics were usually written for the Loange� rst before becoming part of the music section. This is perhaps re� ected in the fact thatit is the climactic poems of proto-narrative sequences in the Loange which tend to be setto music.

leach

attention towards a comparison of their contexts.30 In each place that a duplicated lyric occurs it partakes of a different order and takes its position within a different, often proto-narrative, context. Focusing thediscussion through the duplicated lyric, these contexts may be readagainst one another for a fuller perspective on the courtly situation ineach individual case, creating greater complexity within the textualpolyphony of Machaut’s work as a whole. The third ballade of the � vemusic-section ballades outlined here, On ne porroit (B3), also occurs inthe opening sequence of the unsung Loange (as Lo7), where its earlypositioning mirrors that in the music section.31 Lo7 is part of an initialsequence of 11 ballades in the Loange. The � rst three Loange balladesexplore the theme of timidity; the � rst two speci� cally use the possibil-ity of refusal as a reason for not declaring love.32 The fourth and � fthLoange ballades are the � rst to address the lady directly, and they af� rmthe lover’s love, as if making the very declaration of which the lover wasafraid in the � rst three Loange ballades. The progress of these � rst � veLoange ballades is thus an ampli� cation of that contained neatly withinB1 of the music section. The other six items in the � rst 11 ballades ofthe Loange are then arranged in two subgroups of three, each with a

47547530 There are three strands of evidence, either from compilers or users of manuscripts

—both of whom are, in different ways, readers—that the reception of Machaut’s manu-scripts supported his expectation. First, the copy of Plourez dames (B32=Lo229) in Vg’sLoange is missing its third stanza. A marginal note whose lacunae indicate an early date(before the volume was trimmed for binding) reads “<uo>us trouueres le tiers / < >r. Enbalades notees / En la oublie cy,” explicitly directing (other) readers to the completecopy of the same ballade in the music section. Second, the second and third stanzas (textresidua copied as prose) for the notated ballades in Vg have superscript letters added atthe start of each poetic line to facilitate the understanding of their verse structure or toaid their possible copying into text-only sources. (There is some evidence of the use ofmusic sources as exemplars for text-only copies. Earp has argued that Pa copies from E;see idem, Guillaume de Machaut, 115–18. My own observations have led me to believe thatsome of the Machaut lyrics in I are also copied from E.) Some of those lyrics which areduplicated in the Loange have not been so marked but rather carry an X in the margin,which may indicate an awareness on the part of the superscript scribe that they are to befound already laid out as verse in the Loange. Although this is not entirely consistent, it iscertainly suggestive. Third, the two posthumous manuscripts G and E attempt to removeduplication by pruning the Loange, although, again, this is not consistently carried out.This negative evidence suggests that later editors were not interested in the creation ofmeaning through duplication, just as they did not value the meanings created throughMachaut’s authorial ordering (both sources also reorder items within sections—G a little,E radically). Nevertheless, it proves that they were alert to duplication per se and thus wereaware of the wholeness of Machaut’s book.

31 With one exception, the relative order of lyrics from the � rst 24 music ballades(the total number in C), which are duplicated in the Loange, is the same in both sections.The exception is Dame comment (B16), which occurs after Amours ne fait (B19) in theLoange. In addition, two poems from the early part of the Loange (Lo15 and Lo39) are setto music in the music ballades in later expanded versions (as B37 in A M G and B35 inVg B A M (unnotated) G E, respectively).

32 See Poirion, Le poète et le prince, 543n127.


ballade also duplicated in the music section at its center (see Fig. 1).The � rst 11 Loange ballades thereby form an amorous isomorph, albeitmore extended, of the � rst � ve ballades in the music section, sharingone text directly (Lo7=B3) and including another that comes slightlylater in the early music ballade collection (Lo10=B9).33

The third music-section ballade, On ne porroit, is the center of agroup of � ve in the music ballade section; as the seventh ballade of theLoange, the same text is the center of a subgroup of three ballades con-nected by shared rhyme types. It shares its verse structure with both ofthe Loange ballades which frame it; it shares its refrain rhyme (“-our”)with the preceding ballade (Lo6) and its incipit rhyme (“-ier”) with theone following (Lo8; see Fig. 2). Lo6 has a small but signi� cant lexicalresonance with Samours ne fait (B1), which also has the same versestructure. In Lo6 the narrator wishes rather to die from the sorrow (dela dolour) with which Desire in� ames (en�ame) his heart (lines 2.5–7R).In B1 the lover says, “I am sure that I will die from my sorrow (De madolour)” (1.3–4) and laments “alas! now [my heart] is so in� amed (en-�ames) with love” (3.5). Of all the ballades in C (both sung and un-sung), only Lo6 and B1 use the verb “en� amer” (to in� ame), bindingtogether with lexical tightness the opening of the two main ballade col-lections within Machaut’s book.34

In what follows I will offer a brief analysis of the workings of each ofthe ballades in the opening music-section sequence, referring to theirinterface with the Loange where appropriate.

Too cruel would be the heart that would show no pity: Helas tant (B2)

Although its mensural organization is similar to that in B1, B2 isnot isorhythmic. Nevertheless, as Wolfgang Dömling points out, it hasseveral passages whose underlying contrapuntal dyads are the same,pinpointed in most cases by clear repeated rhythmic � guration in thecantus part (boxed on the version of B2 given as Ex. 3 and labeled

476

33 The Loange sequence (Lo1–11) starts, before declaring love, with three balladesabout the lady rather than addressed to her. Balancing this, the opening music ballade se-quence (B1–5), after declaring love (and being refused), ends with three ballades simi-larly about the lady, rather than addressed to her.

34 Lo6’s links with Jaim miex (B7) are even more extensive but irrelevant to the present discussion. Cf. Lo6 lines 2.1–2 and B7 lines 2.1–2; Lo6 line 3.4 and B7 line 2.3.B7 shares a verse structure and two rhymes with B3 (=Lo7), but this would not be enoughto promote this level of lexical similarity. The harshness of the lady chronicled in musicballades B7 and B8 is part of a proto-narrative sequence which follows the one being out-lined here.

leach

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478

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leach

A1–3).35 In a thorough analysis of the song’s contrapuntal and motivicaspects, Wulf Arlt contends that B2 participates in a “narrative” con-cerning the compositional process of the new ballade form, whichMachaut illustrates by example within the � rst four music ballades. B1’scounterpoint appropriates the isorhythm of motets which, as Dömling’swork showed, typically vary the sonorities at analogous places in eachrepeat of the tenor talea, often by having a differently arranged, non-congruent repetition pattern for its color. B2 inverts this to give “songcounterpoint” in which the same underlying dyadic contrapunctus recurs,but not within a repeating rhythmic structure and speci� cally varying,in terms of their mensural placement, rhythm and length, those ele-ments that contrapunctus diminutus treatises call the “� owers” of music—notes outside the contrapunctus.36

The two main sections of B2 are paralleled by their similar open-ings, which both derive from the � gure labeled X in Example 3. FigureX provides the chief means of formal terminal articulation throughoutthe ballade and occurs at all line ends. In most cases, the cantus breveof X is ornamental with respect to a directed progression in the under-lying contrapunctus. Thus an entire breve, rhythmically imperfected byonly a minim, separates the essential cantus notes of the tension (im-perfect) and resolution (perfect) sonorities. The note of the imperfectsonority in the directed progression is especially short (usually aminim or imperfect semibreve), decreasing the sounding of the actualtension sonority. However, the ornamental note itself makes an imper-fect sonority and may be considered as extending the “seeking for per-fection” that the short note of the cadence’s actual imperfect sonoritybegan.37 In short, that which is ornamental, that which is imperfect, istemporally (if temporarily) dominant. That the tenor has resolved to

479

35 For the repeated contrapuntal dyads, cf. breves 27–30, 48–51, and 11–14; seeWolfgang Dömling, Die mehrstimmigen Balladen, Rondeaux und Virelais von Guillaume deMachaut: Untersuchungen zum musikalischen Satz, vol.16, Münchner Veröffentlichungen zur Musik-geschichte (Tutzing: Schneider, 1970), 70–71, and Armand Machabey, Guillaume de Machault130?–1377: la vie et l’œuvre musical, Bibliothèque d’études musicales (Paris: Richard-Masse,1955), I:19–20. For the cantus � guration and a thorough analysis, see Arlt, “Helas! Tantay dolour et peine.”

36 See Arlt, “Helas! Tant ay dolour et peine” and Daniel Leech-Wilkinson, “Contrapunc-tus Diminutus and Prolongation,” paper read at the Thirteenth Annual Conference onMedieval and Renaissance Music (Nottingham 1985), available at http://www.kcl.ac.uk/kis/schools/hums/music/dlw/cdp.htm.

37 See David E. Cohen, “ ‘The Imperfect Seeks its Perfection’: Harmonic Progres-sion, Directed Motion, and Aristotelian Physics,” Music Theory Spectrum 23 (2001): 139–69, for justi� cation of the idea of directed motion in terms of Aristotelian thought at thistime. In the case considered here (as, I would argue, with most cases in the early 14thcentury), the sense of expectation does not stray beyond two adjacent tenor notes of the contrapunctus. See Elizabeth Eva Leach, “Counterpoint and Analysis in Fourteenth-Century Song,” Journal of Music Theory 44 (2000): 45–79, for some instances of longer-range action for imperfect sonorities, especially those involving �cta notes.


480

Tenor

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leach

481


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B Section

R Section


the relevant note of its perfect resolution but the cantus has “overshot”heightens the sense of expectation, both for singer and listener. It maybe thought properly to depict the pain of the poem’s je lover. The onlynoncadential use of the � gure X (at breve 44, labelled X0 in Ex. 3)uniquely has the breve as its contrapuntally important note, being thecantus note of a tension sonority. This emphasizes the refrain word“cruel,” which is additionally emphasized by the cantus being at thelower end of its range and, most signi� cantly, below the tenor. That thisdepicts baseness causing pain in Machaut might be inferred from thesimilar setting of the word “vipere” in the � rst phrase of a slightly laterMachaut ballade, Une vipere (B27). The charge of cruelty is what thelover urges the lady avoid by having pity on him.38

Like B1, B2 uses the ouvert-clos protocol to structure its tonal termi-nations, with primary importance given to F5 (sonority of the clos and � -nal endings) and secondary importance to G5 (the ouvert; see Ex. 2b).39

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38 The point immediately before the refrain section in any ballade is often one ofmaximum motivic, contrapuntal, and rhythmic density. In Helas tant (B2) the end of theB section in the cantus has two similar breve-minim rhythmic � gures in close proximity.The � rst is that described here at breve 44, setting “cruel” (X0), the second is at breve 46.They are separated by homorhythmic movement (M SB M SB) in both voices (breve 45)—the only appearance of such a minim-rich � gure in the otherwise slow-moving tenor.

39 The clos ending of B2 is wrongly transcribed by both modern editions. In themanuscripts, the tenor clos ending is simply a two-note ligature, B-L, the � rst note ofwhich is G. Both Ludwig and Schrade interpret the breve G of the ligature as cueing theclos from the G long at the end of the ouvert ligature (breves 25–26 in the ouvert ending).However, once the directed progression disguised by the cadential rhythmic � gure is


T.

53

cuers qui

T.

57

pi - tie nen a - roit

X

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In B2, however, the ouvert-clos protocol extends throughout.40 B2’s verysmall tenor range (a sixth—the narrowest of Machaut’s ballades) sup-ports the sense of a tonally coherent plan created from the internal de�nition of certain tones based on their contrapuntal relationship. Ouvert- and clos-type sonorities occur at structurally signi�cant points,usually � agged on the musical surface by cadential rhythmic �gure X.The first occurrence of X marks the end of the � rst musical phrase(breve 6). This initial phrase sets only the � rst word of the poem—anexclamatory “helas.” Among the musical ballades in the earliest col-lected source, this word occurs only in the � rst two, making the rhetoricof its musical prominence—and its incipit placement—especially signif-icant in promoting the opening two ballades of the music section as apair.41

In summary, the second music ballade depicts the anguished waitof the lover for his lady’s response. He attempts to forfend the worst ofthe outcomes depicted in the � rst ballade—“too cruel would be theheart that would show no pity,” he reasons, but the music lingers farlonger over “cruel” than over “pitie.” The musical setting forms a com-positional complement to B1, a song-like “iso-harmonic” version of B1’smotet-like isorhythm. The strict working of the ouvert-clos tonal protocol,in tandem with the narrow tenor range and the amount of repetition inunderlying sonorities, increases the sense of expectation, allowing agreater possibility for its exploitation. The chief articulative rhythmic � gure, X, effects a delay in the resolution of underlying directed pro-gressions. This prolongs the sense of waiting and lessens the sense of

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recognized, the G of the clos ligature can be seen to cue the clos from the tenor G in breve24. This corresponds to a similar progression at breves 58–59, making the clos moreclosely resemble the � nal cadence, as the relatively tight use of the ouvert-clos protocol inthis ballade would anyway suggest.

40 Important tertiary sonorities in B2 are based on the tenor note a. In abstract con-trapuntal terms these three tenor goal tones relate together both by concatenation (a/cor a/f resolving to G/d and G/g, respectively, and G/b or G/e resolving to F/c and F/f, re-spectively) and by differently voiced litterae (F to a and vice versa using the dyad of the lit-terae G and b and varying the vox of b). Concatenation from a to G is presented � rst inbreves 4–5 with a varied vox of b linking resolutions from a to F in breves 7–9. The note aforms a link between the ouvert and clos tones; when the third G/b is sung with b-fa it pro-ceeds to an a/a unison resolution which concatenates to G/d (using c as in the ouvert).When the same third is sung with b-mi, it resolves directly to the clos sonority of F/c.

41 The B section is in two segments separated by a musical section break (as in B10,B11, and B12). The � rst sets line 5 (breves 27–35) and focuses almost entirely on the ou-vert tenor tone G. It contains the �rst explicit concatenation from G to F (a realization ofthe contrapuntally abstracted ouvert-clos link). However, it ends with the interval 6-5 overthe tenor tone a, using the cadential rhythmic � gure in the cantus, which here, uniquely,does not ornament a directed progression (breves 34–35). That the one example of thisrhythmic � gure to end on a lacks a directed progression epitomizes a’s tertiary status as aterminal pitch.


arrival and achievement at eventual resolution, thereby depicting con-trapuntally the inner contradiction between the clarity of the lover’spresent situation and the insecure conditional tense of the lady’s poten-tial pitying response.

Because I love the �ower of all creation: On ne porroit (B3=Lo7)

Several aspects differentiate the third ballade, On ne porroit (B3,Ex.4), musically from the pair of ballades which precede it in the musicsection. It is the � rst ballade to explore minor prolation; it has a � nalsonority based on the �cta pitch B ; it does not use the ouvert-clos proto-col to structure any of its internal tonal focuses—in fact, the ouvert end-ing contains an imperfect sonority rather than a perfect one; and nei-ther does the song use the two different recta solmizations of the note bto change contrapuntal direction.42

Resolutions to G and D are important throughout B3’s A section.However, the ouvert is an imperfect sonority, and the eventual clos ca-dence is to B /b-fa, a tenor tone entirely absent from the rest of the Asection but one which the second half of the ballade then establishes asthe principal tonal termination within the ballade as a whole.43 In theclos, the cadence to B /b-fa (which is not a directed progression) setsthe second of the b-rhymes, “� our.” The � rst B sonority of the B sectionis at the end of line 5, also an “-our” rhyme word, “ualour.” Althoughthere are no more “-our” rhymes proper, the � rst B sonority to be em-phasized by a directed progression, at the caesura of line 6 (m. 16) inthe � rst stanza, sets the word “amours.” The connection in terms of contrapuntal sonority between this “amours” (not a rhyme word) andthe b-rhymes “ualour” and “� our” emphasizes the vocal sonority of theinternal rhyme. This is emphasized further in the refrain, whosecaesural articulation, also cadencing to B /b-fa, sets the word “� our ” inevery stanza (m. 20).

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42 If there is a tenor tone of secondary importance in B3, it is arguably D. The B sec-tion ends with the sonority D/d, which is also the sonority at the end of the � rst musicalphrase (m. 3), where it initially sets the caesural word “porroit”—resonating with B2’sconditional tense refrain rhyme. The progression in m. 3 is a non-directed one from G/b-fa to D/d, a cadence that forms the clos and � nal cadences of the following ballade Biautequi (B4) with which B3 is paired. D is also the tenor tone of the resolution at the end ofB3’s � rst line (and musical section) in m. 5. However, G sonorities are also important:B3’s opening sonority is G/d. The return to the opening sonority within the second line(mm. 7–8) is effected by a striking augmented cantus leap from G to c . The � rst directedprogression of the B section is also to G/d (m. 14), after which there are no further impor-tant G sonorities, as the tonal picture shifts from a focus on G and D to a focus on D and B .

43 Cf. the similar position of D/d sonorities in Je ne cuit pas (B14=Lo175 as Je ne croypas), another text that is duplicated in the Loange; see Elizabeth Eva Leach, “Love, Hopeand the Nature of Merci in Machaut’s Musical Ballades Esperance (B13) and Je ne cuit pas(B14),” French Forum (in press).

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On ne porroit (B3) has the � rst example of the rhyme “-our,” themost common rhyme overall in the music ballades, and one whichmight be de� ned as the “amour” rhyme, since this word is almost oblig-atory as a rhyme word in ballades with this rhyme type.44 In the rhymeroyal verse form of B3, the b-rhyme occurs three times per stanza, eachtime in a musically prominent place, and at least once in both halves ofthe ballade form: the ouvert and clos endings of the A section, and at theend of the � rst poetic line in the B section. Excepting the very � rst b-rhyme, all of the “-our” sounds in the � rst stanza rest on the eventualterminal sonority B /b-fa, including two caesural words (mm. 16 and20), the second of which is present in all stanzas (boxed and labeled Yin Ex. 4).

Figure 2 shows that the poem which precedes the third balladewhen copied in the Loange has exactly the same verse structure, includ-ing a feminine refrain rhyme, and the use of “-our” as its b-rhyme. Themusic of the third ballade in the music section would therefore have a similar effect in marking the “-our” rhyme with the B /b-fa sonority if sung to the words of either of these poems. But this good � t goes beyond mere rhyme words; Lo6 too has an internal “-our” word, in fact“Amours,” at the caesura of its refrain line (which would fall, as theequivalent “� our” does in Lo7, in m. 20 of B3).45 Whether or not it isaccepted that these two texts could both be sung to the same music(something which the Voir Dit suggestively supports as a possible prac-tice), the musical setting of On ne porroit (B3=Lo7) brings out similarities

485

44 The “-our” (amour) rhyme permeates both the Loange items preceding Lo7 (Lo2,3, 4, 5, 6) and the music ballades following B3 (B5, 6, 7, 17, 9, 15, 20, 22, 24). The ideaof love, or the personi�ed deity Love, are present in all music ballade texts in MS C, ex-cepting the central cluster B10, B11, B12, and the direct male-female dialogue of thechace, B17. It is worth noting that M20, at one stage functioning to close the sequence ofmotets (and thus to lead into the songs, headed by the ballades), has a motetus textwhich is mono-rhymed in the “-our” rhyme; see Thomas Brown, “Another Mirror of Lovers?Order, Structure and Allusion in Machaut’s Motets,” Plainsong and Medieval Music 10(2001): 121–34.

45 This emphasis on Love as the cause of all things worth praising in ladies is clear.The narrator’s emotions are due to Love, these emotions cause songs, and these songspraise Love by praising ladies, something which Machaut will make retrospectively ex-plicit when he af� xes the Prologue on to the front of the collection in MS A. In fact, the penultimate line of Lo6’s � rst stanza is “A mon pooir de cuer de corps dame,” identi-cal in its pre-caesural part to the refrain text of Machaut’s reply to Love in the Prologue—“a mon pooir tant com je viveray.” This text would be emphasized if sung to the music ofB3 by its occurrence in m. 16 (equivalent to where “Sen loe amours” is emphasized inB3). The second part of the refrain of this fourth Prologue ballade, “tant com je vivray,” isused as a signi� cant quotation in the ballades of C (a theme I explored more fully in apaper, “Authorial Self-Representation at the Mid-Point of Machaut’s Music Ballades,” pre-sented at the Medieval and Renaissance Music Conference, Oxford 2000). The text “amon pooir” is not common in Machaut’s short lyrics, occurring only in Lo6, V9, B17,Lo230 (post-C), and the fourth Prologue ballade.


486

example 4. B3: On ne porroit

Tenor

CarOn

ilne

napor

riens- roit

enpen -

T.

liser

4

ane

resou

- pro- hai

- chier- dier

T.

AinsMiex

6

estquen

parcel

- fai- le

- teque

etjaim

soude

-

T.

ver ein� ne

8

- nea -

T.

10

- mour � our

Y2.1.

Guillaume de MachautA Section

Ouvert Clos

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with one of its adjacent ballades in the Loange (Lo6) which might oth-erwise pass unnoticed.46 These formal and musico-poetic similaritieswith the ballade which precedes B3 in the Loange are important, be-cause on a purely lexical level B3 as Lo7 has much closer verbal ties tothe ballade which follows it, Lo8 (see Fig. 2).47

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46 The performance of different texts to the same music is suggested in the Voir Dit;see Leech-Wilkinson, ed., Guillaume de Machaut, 715, notes for ll. 607–8, which concernpossible singing of the text of Amours ma dame (Lo229) to the music of Plourez dames(B32). Machaut talks about these as songs in the plural, but only the latter appears in themusic section. See also ibid., 720n6, which concerns the singing of Toute Belle’s virelai, Jene me puis saouler, to the music of Machaut’s earlier virelai; and p. 724 (before l. 1846),which notes a rubric indicating “chant” for a rondeau which does not have a setting inthe music section but has a similar structure to Sans cuer dolens (R4) and might thereforebe sung to its music.

47 In the last two lines of B3’s � rst stanza the narrator vows “Sen loe Amours dumbleuolente pure / Quant iaim la �our de toute creature” (Therefore I praise Love with ahumble will because I love the � ower of all creation). This is the � rst time in the Loangethat the lady is compared to a � ower, and Tout ensement (Lo8) immediately picks up and


T.

De

13

quan - quil faut a da-me de va - lour

Y

Sen lo a - mours

Y

dum - ble vo-len- te

T.

pu

17

- re Quant jaim la � our

Y

de tou - te cre - a -

T.

tu

21( )

- re

B Section

R Section


B3 introduces to his �ction of “how Guillaume de Machaut inventedthe polyphonic ballade” the “� rst” use of minor prolation, the � rst useof an extended closural passage shared between the second ending ofthe A section and the end of the refrain—so-called “musical rhyme”—and the introduction of an “auto-intertext” with his own Loange. As Arltnotes, B3 also acts as a homage to another poet, Jean de le Mote, in us-ing as its start the � rst line of the � rst of the lyric insertions in Jean’s LiRegret Guillaume.48 Once it is noted that B4 too cites Li Regret Guillaume,their mutual reference to de le Mote con� rms and furthers the alreadystrongly contrastive musical pairing of B3 and B4.

Having been refused I shall die for love: Biaute qui (B4)

As Hoepffner recognized in 1911, the � rst inserted ballade inJean’s poem (written in 1339), that performed by Lady Débonnaireté,shares its incipit, all three rhymes, and a contrasting refrain with B3.Previously unnoticed, however, is the poetic connection between Li Re-gret Guillaume and B4, whose refrain line is identical to that of Jean’seighth interpolated ballade, that performed by Lady Maniere.49 In hisrewriting of both ballades, Machaut transposes Jean’s feminine-voicedballades lamenting a dead Guillaume into masculine-voiced ballades.Given that Machaut’s lyric je is also usually called Guillaume, they per-haps give a wry hint of his own impending death as a lover.

488

nuances this in its � rst line: “Tout ensement que la rose a lespine” (In the same way thatthe rose has thorns . . .). Lo8’s second stanza opens with “Sen loe Amours qui a par sa doc-trine / moy et mon cuer si tres bien assene / Que iaim la �eur . . . / De tous les biens”(Therefore I praise Love who by her teaching has so well favored me and my heart that Ilove the � ower . . . of all goodness). The following three Loange ballades (Lo9–11) arealso a set, again centered on a ballade that occurs in the music section, Dame ne regardespas (B9=Lo10).

48 Cited in Arlt, “Helas! Tant ay dolour et peine” and originally noted by ErnestHoepffner, “Die Balladen des Dichters Jehan de le Mote,” Zeitschrift für romanische Philolo-gie 35 (1911): 153–66.

49 The shared refrain between Maniere’s ballade in Li Regret Guillaume andMachaut’s B4 is not noted in Earp, Guillaume de Machaut; see Aug. Scheler ed., Li RegretGuillaume, Comte de Hainaut: Poème inédit du XIVe siècle, (Louvain: J. Lefever, 1882), 63–69,especially the ballade at lines 2044–61. Jean de le Mote’s poem tells of a dream-vision inwhich the narrator enters the traditional locus amoenus, complete with birdsong and aspringtime re-greening of the trees. He hears the sound of musical instruments andtraces them to a castle high on a pointed and fearful crag. A lady at the window of thecastle allows the narrator to peer through a keyhole. He sees a room of 30 ladies, each ofwhom personi�es a virtue and comes in turn to lament the death of their lord, Guil-laume. Each lament begins as narrative verse in octosyllabic rhyming couplets but termi-nates with a lyric—a three-stanza ballade. When all 30 are done, the narrator awakes andtells his dream to his (i.e. Jean’s) own mistress and the dedicatee of the poem, the Queenof England, Isabelle of Hainault, the daughter of the dead Guillaume.

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Although both ballades’ citation of ballades from Li Regret Guil-laume is the most compelling link, several musical connections also fur-ther the pairing of ballades 3 and 4. The opening of the musical settingof Machaut’s fourth music ballade, Biaute qui, takes elements from theopening of the third ballade and redeploys them within an entirely dif-ferent tonal scheme (Exs. 5a and 5b show musical points of compari-son between the middle and end parts of the A sections of this pair).Just as B4 uses musical material similar to that of B3 for different ends,its similar poetic subject—the praise of a peerless lady—is also “recom-posed” in that the narrative context is different; the lady has now re-fused the lover and is described as being “strange” towards him. Therhetorical revelation of this strangeness is achieved in a striking melismawhich closes the A section and evokes strangeness in seven ways. First,uniquely for Machaut’s ballades, it uses coloration to � x tenor notes attheir imperfect values. Second, the tenor therefore becomes synco-pated, making the dissonance handling “archaic.”50 Third, the cantushas an extensive descending melodic sequence—in fact a third recom-position of an element from B3 (Ex. 5c). Fourth, uniquely in B4, theouvert and clos tenor tones are the same, D, rendering the ouvert-clos pro-tocol perforce inoperable. Fifth, the � nal cadence is not a directed pro-gression (non-directed � nal cadences are only “usual” in pieces endingon B -b-fa, like B3).51 Sixth, the closing cantus melisma gives the great-est musical weight in the ballade to the b-rhyme (“estrange,” “loange,”“se vange,” “estrange,” “change,” “san ge”), a rhyme that is unique inMachaut’s lyric output. And � nally, the verse form is also unique: Thefairly ordinary rhyme scheme—ababccdD—has octosyllabic lines forrhymes a–c but decasyllabic d-rhyme lines for the last two lines.

Overall, the lexis of the poem is similarly unusual among Machaut’slyrics, with many words occurring only here.52 Many of the other keywords besides “estrange” and its rhymes are also brought out by the mu-sical setting. The B section clearly and syllabically sets whole text linesto each musical phrase, in the � rst stanza outlining the disparity be-tween the lady’s appearance and good qualities—which are passive—and her active, ill effects upon the lover. The description of her “two

489

50 This term is from Carl Dahlhaus, “ ‘Zentrale’ und ‘periphere’ Züge in der Disso-nanztechnik Machauts,” in Aktuelle Fragen der musikbezogenen Mittelalterforschung: Texte zueinem Basler Kolloquium des Jahre 1975 (Winterthur, 1982), 281–85; cf. Arlt (“Aspekte derChronologie”), who lists three ways in which ‘strange’ is illustrated: the sequence, the col-oration, and the dissonance caused by syncopation.

51 Again, this strange element in B4 serves to link it with B3.52 Words such as “diverse,” “response,” “marrastre,” and “appere” are unique here;

others, such as “revel” and “vange,” occur in only one or two other Machaut lyrics. Thetwo words in common in B4 and B3 are “dangier” and “refus,” which between them sum-marize the narrative shift between the two lyrics.


490

T.

6( )

reEn2

Corps- vers

4 dignemoy

T.

3

enpen

liser

ane

resou

- pro- hai

- (chier)- (dier)

end of lines 1/3

B4

B3

example 5. Musical elements of B3, recomposed in B4

a. Comparison of B4 mm. 6–7 and B3 mm. 3–5

T.

16

ge

T.

napor

2

riens- roit

caesura of lines 1/3 and end of � rst musical phrase

B4

B3

clos

b. Comparison of B4 mm. 16–17c and B3 mm. 2–3

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faces”—a welcoming exterior covering a more sinister interior—makesher resemble the traditional description of Fortune:53

B4, lines 1.5–7Simple uis a cuer daimantresgart pour tuer un amant.samblant de ioie et response desmay.

(A soft face with an adamant heart, a look (perfectly suited) to kill alover, an appearance of joy and a response of discouragement.)

The iambic rhythm, note length, and succession of sonorities in themusical setting bring out the word “samblant” to emphasize the lady’sdeceptive appearance. This is given additional emphasis in that it chimeswith the clearly audible c-rhyme of the preceding two lines. The c-rhymeis the � rst masculine rhyme-type of the song, and its musical presenta-tion is similarly “hard,” with syllabic declamation around a high g fol-lowed by a leap down at the end of the phrase, terminated by two semi-breve rests. “Samblant” is sung to a melodic segment which mimics theopening of the closing melisma of A and R, and line 7 paraphrases thismelodic course (Ex. 6). At this same point in the second stanza, the Bsection enumerates those things which have brought the lover to thepoint of dying for love, ending with “refus”—the key to the amorous sit-uation here.

The cantus melisma that closes the A section in B4 occurs again toform the entire R section, excepting the � rst two breves, although the

491

53 Cf. Il mest avis (B22), lines 2.4–6: “De mentir est sa plus grant honnour / Cest unmonstre enuelope / De bon eur plein de maleurte” (For lying is her greatest honor. Sheis a monster enveloped in good luck but inside full of malevolence).

example 5 (continued)

c. Comparison of B4, cantus mm. 10–13 and B3, cantus mm. 13–15

Cantus B4

10

[ an-]

Cantus B3

De

13

quan - quil faut a da - me de va - lour Sen


tenor is initially different. The placement of the text syllables, too, isnoticeably more different than is merited by the extra two syllables thatthe refrain line has compared to lines 1 and 3. In the A section themelisma emphasizes the eighth syllable, the stressed part of the femi-nine b-rhyme “-ange,” the unique and strange rhyme whose words arecentral to the meaning of the poem. In the refrain, the melisma givesweight to the � fth syllable, the causative “que,” leaving the listenerguessing as to what his lady’s refusal has caused the lover to do, untilthe important last section of text is presented, almost syllabically, in the� nal cantus phrase: “pour amer morray” (to die for love).54 Death forlove comes to this sequence in the music ballades when the � fth bal-lade � nally ful� lls the prediction of the � rst and af� rms that even dyingfrom refusal would be better than languishing and dying from conceal-ing love.

492

54 See also Wolfgang Dömling, “Aspekte der Sprachvertonung in den Balladen Guil-laume de Machauts,” Die Musikforschung 25 (1972): 301–7. When this same phraseuniquely occurs in another place in Machaut’s lyrics, also the end of a refrain, in Lo37 Hegentil cuer, the last two lines of the last stanza claim “Il mest auis que douce mort aray /Puis que pour uous et pour amer morray” (It is my opinion that I shall have a sweet death/ when for you and for loving I shall die).

example 6. Comparison of B4 lines 7 and 8 (part)

[Cantus]

Tenor

Sam

24

- blant de joie et res - pon - se des

( )

- may

[Ca.]

T.

mis

28

que

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Death as a Gift of Love: Riches damour (B5)

A list of opposites was applied to the lady in B4. The lover of B5 ap-plies one to himself, complaining that he is rich in having so much loveto give, but beggarly for lack of a lady who will accept it; he is poor inHope, but adorned with desire. From the refrain it is clear that thelover has been refused but continues to love: All these contradictionscome to pass “Quant ma dame me het et ie laour” (because my ladyhates me and I adore her). As in B4, the full import of the refrain is de-layed until the (bitter) end. The refrain melisma occurs on the word“dame,” leaving the listener waiting to hear what it is that his lady doesto explain the extremes of his state that the stanza has already outlined.The conclusion of the lover in B5 is that which the � rst music balladepredicted: that, because dying for love comes from the lady, it is thusbetter than dying from languishing having not declared love:

B1, lines 1.5–7 B5, lines 3.5–7Ce mest auis quil me uaut miex assez Et samour uuet que ie doie fenirpar uo refus tost morir sans deport Pour li amer ce sera mon millourquen ma dolour languir iusqua la mort. Quant ma dame me het et ie

laourB1: It is my opinion that it is better to die joyless soon because of your re-fusal than to languish in my sorrow until I die.

B5: And if Love requires that I must die for love of her, then that would bebest, since my lady hates me though I adore her.

The � fth ballade expresses at the end of its � nal stanza the conclusionpredicted at the end of the � rst stanza of the � rst ballade—this lover’send was in his beginning.

Shared musical material links B5 and B1, re� ecting the fact that B5is the narrative completion of a situation set up by the performance ofB1 (see Ex. 7). Ballades 1 and 5 are the only two ballades in which thesonority a/e is reached as a resolution of both b-fa/d (two recta pitches)and from the unusual dyad b-mi/d (one �cta pitch). The two situationsinvolving d are similar. They both occur early in the A section, aftervery similar opening phrases, emphasizing the same word—“amour(s).”They also both represent an unusual approach to the eventual ouvert-type sonority which, in the ouvert itself and elsewhere, is more normallyapproached from two recta pitches, b-fa and d. Both ballades mark thetenor b-mi with a hexachordal sign in all sources, implying that this, in combination with the counterpoint, should be enough to achieve thedesired cantus �cta pitch. However, in B5 the progression is more obvious—in the manuscripts, if not in the edition—because three sources,

493


494

exa

mpl

e 7.

Com

pari

son

of t

he

open

ings

of B

1an

d B

5

T.

JeSa1 3

sui

-m

ours

cer

ne-

tein

sfa

itqu

ilpa

rm

isa

con

grac

e -vie

ntam

o-

dou

--

T.

Plei

nsR

i1 3

1

de-

ches

doda-

lour

-m

our

etetdimen

-se-di

-te

us-

ans

dada-

i-

mi

-e

-e

Lon

gPo

2 4de

-vr

esm

erde

s-

cy-p

oir

B1

B5

’Am

our’

b-m

i/d#

reso

lvin

gto

a/e

leach

including A (the one most closely associated with Machaut) and C (theearliest and arguably also fairly close to Machaut), mark hexachordalmi signs ( ) in both the tenor and the cantus.55 That B5 has a hexa-chordal sign in both parts in its earliest source, and its text has thesingers singing the correct solmization syllable ‘mi’ on d, whereas B1has neither, suggests that B5 was at least written down earlier than B1,and probably therefore composed before it. This would support my ear-lier hypothesis that the � rst music ballade is a deliberate opening ges-ture which, like the Prologue, was fashioned retrospectively.56

In B1 this d moment is followed by a more normal cadence to thesame sonority (a/e) from the two recta pitches—the kind of approachthat will eventually be found in the ouvert cadence. This connects con-trapuntally across the line break into the opening of poetic line 2 (mm.7–8, Ex.1). In the � rst stanza the tenor’s “re-softening” of the note bfrom the caesura of line 1 to the opening of line 2, together with theanalogous cantus movement from an unusual �cta pitch back to the rectapitch set, accompanies the plea that Love sweeten the lady’s noble heart(adoucir) to prevent her from refusing him. In the narrative context ofthe following four ballades, this hope is a vain one, and B5’s openingreuse of the strange d , with the tenor forced into the hard hexachordto sing b -mi in a tenor part clearly based on F, seems to con� rm musi-cally that such softening has not occurred.

Like B1 and B2, and unlike B3 and B4, B5 is organized tonally bythe ouvert-clos protocol (Ex. 8). It has an ouvert tone of a and a clos toneof F, which suggests, in the abstract, that the litterae G-b might resolvetwo different ways, depending on the vox of b. And indeed, the � rst di-rected progression comes at the end of the � rst musical phrase to theprimary sonority F5, setting the four pre-caesura syllables of line 1(mm. 1–7; Ex. 8b). As mentioned above, this is very similar to the open-ing phrase of B1 (Ex. 8a).57 The same word—“amour(s)”—links them,

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55 See Elizabeth Eva Leach, “Counterpoint as an Interpretative Tool: the Case ofGuillaume de Machaut’s De toutes �ours (B31),” Music Analysis (2000): 329–31, for a fullerexposition.

56 The use of two different voces of the same litterae to approach the same sonority(as opposed to two different sonorities) is something B1 and B5 share with B6, which ap-proaches D/a from E /G and E/G , as well as resolving the same litterae as recta pitches toF/F.

57 In B1, however, F5 was of only tertiary importance, whereas in B5 it representsthe primary terminal sonority, perhaps symbolizing the actualization of one of the threeoutcomes of the situation in B1—death through refusal. It is interesting to note that thesame three tones—F G and a—are used in both Helas tant (B2) and Riches damour (B5)but their hierarchy is different, established through the choice of ouvert and clos tonesand not by any pre-extant systematic relationship between them. B5’s ouvert ending is notitself the result of a directed progression but can be seen as an expanded version of theexpected resolution tone a . By contrast, the G/b imperfect sonority in the clos must be


and in the � rst stanza of B5 the repeat of the A section places “dolour”at this same place—the caesura of line 3. In B5’s � rst stanza, measure 6thus pre� gures both tonally and in terms of the “-our” rhyme the � nalrefrain phrase (“me het et ie laour”), the text phrase which explainswhy the A-section music explicitly equates love and sorrow by makingtheir internal rhyme musically prominent.

Conclusion

Machaut’s � rst � ve music ballades outline a cogent narrativeprogress from the declaration of love to death from refusal. The sheerrelease of pent-up emotional energy which the (visual or aural) perfor-mance of B1 enacts generates its own narrative ful� llment. This narra-tive culminates in the expectancy of the lover’s death in B5, a deathtemporarily rati� ed by the appearance of a new, feminine voice in B6. I should say here that I am not viewing the work speci� cally as a “songcycle” avant la lettre, a recipe for a performance that would have beenstaged as such—although such an interpretation cannot be ruled out.Instead, the book itself represents a performance space which can holdmeanings generated from individual sounding realizations of individualsongs, whether or not they replicate the book’s order. In this sense, realperformances represent the generalized semantic � eld, the langue,against which the book’s individual utterance, or parole, may be under-stood. And each type of performance, whether temporal (aural) or spatial (visual), produces a fund of intertexts for the other. Those read-ing the book would have heard these songs performed; those perform-ing the songs would have seen these songs in place within the book.

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sung with b-mi and resolves to F/c. As had been the case with the use of the imperfectsonority b/d in Helas tant (B2), the other possible resolution—with b-mi, resolving to c/c—does not occur until the B section. Also as in B2, a tertiary tenor tone supports the resolu-tion of directed progressions—in B5, G/g. The avoidance of G/g sonorities (through de-scending F s) in both Samours ne fait (B1) and Helas tant (B2) is made good in B5 byseveral musical phrases which start from G/g, and by line 5 which ends with it. The B sec-tion ends with the minor prolation cadence rhythm—M SB M (Br)—ornamenting the in-tervals 6-5 over the note a in the tenor. Ending the B section with an ouvert-type sonorityis typical, but this one is not the resolution of a directed progression. The refrain sectionbegins with the sonority G/g which is the resolution of a/f. If the f in m. 43 is sung mi,this makes the end of the B section a “fake” repose, whose perfect sonority is in fact notpart of the contrapunctus, merely serving to connect the explicative refrain text (begin-ning with the conjunction “Quant”) with the correct degree of suspense to the body ofeach stanza. Cf. Jaim miex (B7) and De desconfort (B8), where the sonority ending the Bsection constitutes a similar fake repose. This is most obvious to modern eyes in B8,where it involves no �cta realization on the part of the singer, but otherwise the contra-puntal situations are identical in all three ballades (B5, B7, B8).

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In parallel with the lover’s amorous progress, there is a poetic andmusical progress as the poet-composer poses and solves problems of for-mal organization within the � rst four ballades which, as Wulf Arlt sum-marizes, focus on motet-like isorhythm, song-like rhythmic/contrapuntalstructure, poetic citation, and coloration, respectively.58 In part because ofthe newly discovered link to Jean de le Mote in B4, I have extended thisto encompass a group of � ve opening ballades. These may be viewed asconsisting of two clear pairs capped by B5, which completes the cyclethrough narrative ful� llment and deliberate musical links with B1. Inmy reading, the third ballade also “introduces” minor prolation and is,importantly, a site of “auto-intertextuality” with the Loange, which I readas engaging in mutual signifying play with the music ballades as awhole. Ballades 1–5 in the music section and ballades 1–11 in theLoange jointly explain the beginnings of a lyric poetry whose very suc-cess as poetry to some extent depends of the failure of its � rst-personspeaker in the ostensible object of his poem, being a lover. In this,Machaut continues to negotiate the tension between his privileged sta-tus as poet of love and his less privileged social status on account of hisnon-noble rank. His je lover has no social right to success and yet has aduty both to write poems on command and to lend them � rst-personemotional authenticity.59 Thematizing the act of composing ballades, asthe � rst � ve ballades in the music section do in parallel with the failureof his love’s progress, collates his poetic success with his musicalprowess. In seeming to sing of love he is in fact envoicing textuality it-self, making authorial capital out of his social disadvantage in the econ-omy of courtly loving.

Royal Holloway, University of London

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58 See Arlt, “Helas! Tant ay dolour et peine,” 114.59 See Cerquiglini-Toulet, The Color of Melancholy, 31–42.

OR

fa

OUVERTfa

CLOS

mi

example 8. Ouvert-clos protocol in B5


ABSTRACT

This article examines a group of � ve ballades which stand at thevery opening of those set to music in the Machaut manuscripts. The im-portance of manuscript order to arguments about chronology has ledto the neglect of order’s role in the construction of meaning. Whilethey are ostensibly individual lyric items, Machaut’s � rst � ve music bal-lades collectively outline a very cogent narrative, from the je -lover’s declaration of love to his death from refusal. In parallel with such anamorous progress, there is a poetic and musical progress as the author-ial persona of the poet-composer poses and solves problems of formalmusical organization, ultimately narrating a parallel (and arguablyequally � ctive) story of the creation of the polyphonic ballade. The du-plication of one of these � ve ballades within several of the centralMachaut sources is viewed as an invitation to read parallels between theopening � ve ballades in the music section and the opening 11 balladesin the music-less lyric section, the Loange des dames. Between them, theopenings of these sections explain the emotional and professional situ-ation of a writer whose very success as a poet-composer almost requireshis je’s failure as a lover-protagonist.498

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B1 B2

Samours ne fait par sa grace adoucir. Helas tant ay doleur et peinne.uostre franc cuer dame a qui sui donnes. dame quant de uous me depart.Ie sui certeins quil mi conuient morir. Sans ioie que soies certeinne.de ma dolour. ou destre refuses. qua po que le cuer ne me part.Ce mest auis quil me uient miex assez. Se* demeinne mon dueil a partpar uo refus tost morir sans deport. si grant que trop cruel seroitquen ma dolour languir iusqua la mort. li cuers qui pitie nen aroit.

Car sa uous puis ma dolour descouurir Car toute dolour mest procheinneespoir quen uous pour moy sera pites sans auoir ioie main ne tartEt se refus mocist bien uueil fenir teinne Quant la grant doucour mest lonEt de la mort seray tous confortes De uostre douls riant regart

Pour uostre amour puis que uous le sarez Qui naure dun amoureus dartSi me uaut miex a uous querir confort Ma si. que trop crueus seroitQuen ma dolour languir iusqua la mort. Li cuers qui pitie nen aroit.

Ne ce nest pas uie deinssi languir Et quant uo biaute souuerainecom ie langui car ie sui embrases ne uoy grief desir par son artCouertement dun amoureus desir De moy mettre a la mort se peinneQui en mon cuer sest longuement celes* Car il esprent mon cuer et lartHelas or est damer** si en� ames Et dune dolour le repartQua uous aim miex dire quel mal ie port Tele. que trop crueus seroitQuen ma dolour languir iusqua la mort. Li cuers qui pitie nen aroit.

10a 10b 10a 10b 10b 10c 10C 8’a 8b 8’a 8b 8b 8C 8Ca –ir; b –es/ez; c –ort a –einne; b –art; c –oit

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Appendix: Texts and Translations

*Lines 3.3 and 3.4 reversed in C.**Later sources have ‘damour’ which losesthe pun on ‘amer’ (bitter/loving).

*Written twice in C, once at the end ofone line and again at the beginning ofthe next; the former is correct.


If Love does not by Her grace sweetenyour noble heart, lady, to which I amgiven, I am certain that it will causeme to die from my sorrow or from being refused. It is my opinion that it is better to die joyless soon becauseof your refusal than languish in my sorrow until I die.For if I can reveal my sorrows to you,Hope in you will take pity on me; andif refusal killed me, I gladly wish todie, and in death I shall always becomforted by my love of you, sinceyou know of it. Then I would ratherseek comfort from you than languishin my sorrow until I die.It is not a life to languish like this, as I languish, for I burn secretly with anamorous desire which in my heart haslong concealed itself. Alas! Now it (myheart) is so in� amed with love/ bitter-ness that I would much rather tell youwhat ill af� icts me than languish in mysorrow until I die.

B3On ne porroit. penser. ne souhaidiermiex. quen celle que iaim de � ne

amour.Car il na riens en li a reprochierains est parfaite et souuerainne. � our.De quanquil faut a dame de ualour.sen lo amours dumble uolente pure.quant iaim la � our de toute creature.

Si nen puis mais se ie laim et tiengchier

car il nest maus, tristece ne dolourQui se peust en mon cuer herbergierAins sui toudis en ioie et en badourNeis de penser a sa � ne doucourPreng soustenance et douce norretureQuant iaim la � our de toute creature.

Alas! I have such sorrow and pain,lady, when I part from you without joy,that you may be certain that my heartnearly breaks. When I am alone I feelmy sorrow so much that too cruel wouldbe the heart that would show no pity.For all sorrow is near to me, and I haveno joy, day or night, when far from meis the great sweetness of your sweetsmiling look, that has pierced me sowith an amorous arrow that too cruelwould be the heart that would show no pity.And when I do not see your sovereignbeauty, Grievous Desire, by his art,takes pains to put me to death; for heseizes my heart and burns it and � lls itwith a pain so great that too cruelwould be the heart that would show nopity.

B4Biaute qui toutes autres pere.enuers moy diuerse et estrange.

Doucour � ne a mon goust amere.corps digne de toute loange.Simple uis a cuer daimantresgart pour tuer un amant.samblant de ioie et response desmay.Mont a ce mis que pour amer morray.

Detri dotri que moult comperebel acueil qui de moy se uangeAmour marrastre et non pas mereEspoir qui de ioie mestrangePoure secours desir ardantTriste penser cuer souspirantDurte. desdaing. dangier. et refus quayMont a ce mis que pour amer morray.

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Et quant ie uif en si plaisant dangierque mon cuer maint en si noble

seiourEt ie la serf sans muer ne changierTres loyaument de toute ma uigourCertes moult doy amer leure et le iourQue ie senti lamoureuse pointure*Quant iaim la � our de toute creature.

10a 10b 10a 10b 10b 10’c 10’Ca –ier; b –our; c –ure

It would not be possible to think of,nor to wish for anything better thanshe whom I love with noble love, forthere is nothing in her that can be reproached, but rather she is the perfect and sovereign � ower of allthat is necessary in a lady of worth.Therefore I praise Love with a purehumble will, because I love the �ower ofall creation.I cannot help it if I love her and holdher dear, for there is no ill, sadness,or sorrow that could dwell in myheart, but rather I am always in joyand gladness born of thinking of her� ne sweetness. I take sustenance andsweet food, because I love the �ower ofall creation.And because I live in such pleasantdomination that my heart stays insuch a noble lodging and [because] Iserve her without changing or alter-ing, most loyally and with all mystrength, [then] certainly I must lovethe hour and the day when I felt theamorous puncture, because I love the�ower of all creation.

Si uueil bien qua ma dame apperequelle ma ioie en dolour changeEt que sa belle face clereMe destruit tant de meschief san geEt que gieu nay reuel ne chantNeinssi com ie sueil plus ne chantPource quamour. / Mi oueil. et son

corps gayMont a ce mis que pour amer morray.

8’a 8’b 8’a 8’b 8c 8c 10d 10Da –ere; b –ange; c –ant; d –ay

Beauty, the peer of all others, towardsme inconstant and strange, � ne sweet-ness, to my taste bitter; a body worthyof all praise, a soft face with anadamant heart, a look (perfectlysuited) to kill a lover, an appearanceof joy and a response of discourage-ment have brought me to such a pointthat I will die for love.A delay in saying “yes” for which I paydearly, Fair Welcome who avengeshimself on me, Love a stepmotherand not a [true] mother, Hope whoestranges joy from me, lack of help,burning desire, harshness, disdain, rebuff and the refusal that I have received have brought me to such a pointthat I will die for love.So I want it to be clear to my lady thatshe transforms my joy into pain, andthat her beautiful clear face destroysme. So much misfortune do I feel thatI have no sport, revel nor song, norcan I sing any more, because Love, myeyes and her fair body have brought meto such a point that I will die for love.

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*‘pasture’ in C (music section); correctionfrom C’s Loange (in line with reading in allother sources).


B5Riches damour et mendians damie.poures despoir et garnis de desir.Pleins de dolour. et diseteus daie.long de mercy familleus de merir.Nus de tout ce qui me puet resioir.sui pour amer. et de mort en paour.quant ma dame me het et ie laour.

Nil nest confors de ma grief maladie.qui me peust de nulle part uenir.Car une amour cest en mon cuer

norrie.Dont ie ne puis ioir ne repentirNe uiure lie. ne morir ne garirNe bien auoir fors morir a dolourQuant ma dame me het et ie laour

Mais le uoloir de si douce anemieUueil humblement et liement souffrirCar grant honnour mest par li ottroieContre son gre quant ie laim et desirEt samour uuet que ie doie fenirPour li amer. ce sera mon millourQuant ma dame me het et ie laour.

10’a 10b 10’a 10b 10b 10c 10Ca –ie; b –ir; c –our

Rich with love but lacking a sweet-heart, poor in hope but abounding in desire, full of grief but bereft ofsuccour, estranged from mercy,starved of regard, deprived of every-thing that could cheer me am I be-cause of love, and in fear of death,since my lady hates me though I adore her.Nor is there comfort for my grievousmalady to be obtained anywhere, for a love there is in my heart that I canneither enjoy nor relinquish; I cannotlive happily nor die, nor recover; nogood can I have but to die in sorrow,since my lady hates me though I adore her.But the will of such a sweet enemy Iwish humbly and cheerfully to en-dure, since great honor is granted meby her—against her will—when I loveand desire her; and if Love requiresthat I must die for love of her, thenthat would be best, since my lady hatesme though I adore her.*

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* I would like to thank Charles Hepplestonfor providing literal translations thatinformed my initial engagement withthese texts. Those given here, while aidedby his, have been shaped to my own purpose.

death of a lover and the birth of the polyphonic ballade ... · 1even before machaut a tradition of...

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