Panurge and The Confidence Man
Third-world Joyce
Staying at Home
Snapping Lovely Necks
Square Ibsen
Who was Humbert Humbert?
Aucassin et Nicolette
Two Misreadings
Medieval Minimalism
 

Panurge and The Confidence Man

John Holbo on "The Confidence Man"

Third-world Joyce

Staying at home

Text of "Walden" / Maupertuis / The French geodeticists / Histoire du Docteur Akakia / The History of Dr. Akakia / Samuel König / The real Dr. Akakia / What is "akakia"?  / Poincare's "The Value of Science" / Modern Library Science Series

Snapping Lovely Necks

Tess of d'Urbervilles
 

Billy Budd

Square Ibsen

Who was Humbert Humbert?

Three of Saba's "fanciulla" poems

Aucassin et Nicolette

Footnotes

[1] “Biax estoit et gens et grans at bien tailliés de ganbes et de piés et de cors et de bras.” Dufournet, II, p. 44. References below are to Dufournet.

Mason flattens out the strangeness, producing generic XIXc archaizing prose: “Fair he was and pleasant to look upon, tall and shapely of body in every whit of him” (pp. 1-2). It is for reason of this kind that I cannot recommend his translation.

[2] Auerbach, pp. 239-240, talks about the clumsy language of some of the old chronicles, which lacked ways of subordinating elements to make graceful sentences and paragraphs. In A&N elements are roughly linked together with et, que, si, or car, sometimes with no apparent regard for the strict meaning of the word.

[3] “Nicolette me douce amie que je tante aime” or “Nicolette o cler vis”, passim. (“Cler vis” = “Pimple-free complexion”?)

[4] Nicolette: “Se vos peres fait demain cerquier ceste forest et on me trouve, que que de vous aviegne, on m’ocira”. Aucassin: “Certes bel douce amie, j’en estoroie molt dolans.” XXVI, p. 124.

[5] “Qui que demenast joie, Aucussins n’en ot talent.” XX, p. 102.

[6] “Mameletes durs qui li souslevoient sa vesture ausi con ce fuissent deus nois gauges” XI, p. 80.

The present French word for the walnut is simply “noix”, as in Latin. “Walnut” in the Germanic languages means “foreign nut” (i.e., Gaulish or Roman nut – the contrast is said to be with hazelnuts). “Nois gauges” in A&N also means “foreign or Gaulish nut” (Bourdillon p. 97). This is presumably an example of a Frankish survival in a French Romance dialect.

[7] “Encore je mix que je muire ci que tos li pules me regardast demain a merveilles”. XVI, p 90. Later she lists the wild beasts, being eaten by which would be preferable to being burned at the stake: “Mais, par diu de maïsté / encor aim jou mix assés / que me mengucent li lé / li lïon et li sengler / que je voisse en la cité.” XVII 94

The Vocabulary of Aucassin et Nicolette

Estor “the fury of battle” -- from the Frankish sturm.

Franc, “French / Frankish” also signifies nobility and excellence. In some contexts it just means “free”.

Saisne,“Saxon” here means “pagan” – a memory of Charlemagne’s war against the pagan Saxons more than three centuries earlier. (Trivia: less than a century later the Mongols would encounter Saxons in Eastern Europe, whom they called Sesut).

Paiien “pagan” means "Muslim". Muslims called Christians pagans too; subtle theology was not what drove the religious wars.

Dix, doux creature: “God, sweet creature”, XVI, p. 91. (A hitherto unknown heresy – The Created God.)

Sains et saus, “safe and sound”, p. 175 n. 7.

Enfant, caitif, mescine, literally “child, slave, wretch” have much broader meanings than the modern words, and in context can refer to almost anyone in a weak or inferior position.

Two Misreadings

I

Pastor que con tus silbos amorosos
me despertaste del profundo sueño;
tú, que hiciste cayado de ese leño
en que tiendes los brazos poderosos

vuelve los ojos a mi fe piadosos
pues te confieso por mi amor y dueño
y la palabra de seguirte empeño
tus dulces silbos y tus pies hermosos.

Oye, pastor, pues por amores mueres
no te espante el rigor de mis pecados
pues tan amigo de rendidos eres.
Espera, pues, y escucha mis cuidados....

Pero ¿cómo te digo que me esperes
si estás para esperar los pies clavados?

Rimas Sacras (1614, #XIV)

II

Giorgio di Francesco of Après moi le deluge writes:

La parte che dice: "e giammai tanta pena non durai se non quando a la nave adimorai" non significa che Federico voglia far paragoni con il mal di mare; al contrario, vuol dire che non ha mai sofferto tanto, come per il distacco dall'amata, cioè come da quando egli è partito via mare (evidentemente dalla Siria, perché l'amata risiede là);quindi chiede alla sua canzone di volare in Siria, al fiore della Siria, cioè alla più bella di quel Paese, per chiederle di ricordarlo sempre e di mantenerglisi fedele, mentre non avrà pace, finché non potrà servirla.

Insomma, mi pare una poesia molto stereotipata. Ne ricordo altre di altri autori, praticamente quasi identiche, almeno per quanto concerne il soggetto. Una deve essere di Ruggieri Apuliese.


Traduzione italiana moderna:

Oh, povero me, non avrei pensato che mi sarebbe parso tanto difficile
il (fatto di) partire dalla mia signora,
(eppure) da quando mi allontanai (da lei), pareva che mi sentissi morire,
ricordando la sua dolce compagnia
e non sopportai mai tanta pena,
se non quando dimorai sulla nave,
ed ora credo che morirò certamente,
se non ritornerò ben presto da lei.
Canzonetta gioiosa, va’ al fior della Siria

a quella che tiene imprigionato il mio cuore:
Di alla più amorosa,
che per sua cortesia,
si ricordi del suo servitore,
colui il quale sta penando per il suo amore,
fino a quando non possa pienamente obbedire al suo comando,
e pregala per me, per la sua bontà,
che mi si conservi fedele

Medieval Minimalism

Rip Cohen, Thirty Two Cantigos d'amigo of Dom Dinis, Hispanic Seminary, 1987.

Dámaso Alonso and José Manuel Blecua, Antología de la Poesía Española: Lirica de Tipo Tradicional, 2nd ed., Ed. Gredos, 1964.

Dr. José Joaquim Nunes, Crestomatia Arcaica, 7th ed, Livraria Classica Editora, Lisboa, n.d. (first ed. 1921)

Portuguese-Galician / Dom_Dinis / Rip Cohen: "Girl in the Dawn: Textual Criticism and Poetics"

Appendix III

It's time to repeat my standard grumble about academic writing and publishing. Cohen's book has been invaluable to me, but it's not really accessible for someone who doesn't have a pretty good reading knowledge of Portuguese-Galician, as well as a rudimentary knowledge, at least,  of structuralist poetics. Cohen gives a lot of attention to questions of genre which are only  of academic interest, and only to those academics who are interested in producing a cross-cultural structuralist theory of literature.

Like Cao Chi and Aloysius Bertrand, Dom Dinis is a distinctive, powerful poet whose work is almost unknown in the English-speaking world. Cohen could have written a much better book which included everything in this book, but which added 50-100 pages including more complete translations of the poems, helpful comments on their language, and background information on Dom Dinis, the Galician-Portuguese school of poetry, and the delightful cancions d'amigo genre. His scholarly achievement would have been in no way diminished by these additions, but non-specialist readers would also have a book introducing them to the poet Dom Dinis, who deserves a bigger audience than he as yet has had. There is no good reason the better book was not written.

As always, I excuse Cohen personally, subject to correction, on the grounds that this is probably the write-up of his dissertation. PhD candidates are of unfree status, like serfs and helots,  and they cannot be held entirely responsible for their actions.  The problem lies with the academic establishment, which enforces toxic methodological rules banning appreciation, popularization, and humanism from literary studies. [Update: Cohen is presently finishing the translation of ~500 old Galician poems, and I eagerly look forward to seeing his book.]

Appendix IV

Silmarrillion at Après moi le deluge (a wonderful site for anyone interested in literature, especially early Romance-language literature) has linked and has given me some new information. Here and here are two excellent sites dealing with the jarchas (kharjas above) -- the original texts are included.

Here is a pdf of an earlier poem by Pero Meogo upon which Dom Dinis drew. (Here is the html version). In this poem a deer surprises the girl, instead of the wind doing so. To me the king's poem is much subtler, more delicate, less formulaic, less predictable, and more mysterious than Pero's.

Here is a fascinating piece about the role of deer in pagan ceremonies --  tending toward orgy --  which survived into the Christian era. Deer play a sexual role in Chinese and Mongol symbolism too, though in Asia the deer seems to be female, whereas the European deer seem to be stags. (The most ancient Mongol ancestor was a fallow doe married to a grey wolf.)

Pero Meogo

Levóus'a louçana

Levóus'a louçana,
levóus’a velida,
vai lavar cabelos
na fontana fría,
leda dos amores,
dos amores leda.

Levóus’a velida,
levóus’a louçana,
vai lavar cabelos
na fría fontana,
leda dos amores,
dos amores leda.

Vai lavar cabelos
na fontana fría,
passou seu amigo
que lhi ben quería,
leda dos amores,
dos amores leda.

Vai lavar cabelos
na fría fontana,
passa seu amigo
que muit’a amava,
leda dos amores,
dos amores leda.

Passa seu amigo
que lhi ben quería,
o cervo do monte
a augua volvía,
leda dos amores,
dos amores leda.

Passa seu amigo
que muito amava
o cervo do monte
volvía a augua,
leda dos amores,
dos amores leda

In the wilds there is a dead doe (Shih Ching #23)

In the wilds there is a dead doe;
With white rushes we cover her.
There was a lady longing for the spring;
A fair knight seduced her.

In the woods there is a clump of oaks,
And in the wilds a dead deer
With white rushes well bound;
There was a lady fair as jade. 

"Heigh, not so hasty, not so rough;
Heigh, do not touch my handkerchief. 
Take care, or the dog will bark."

The Shih Ching is the oldest Chinese poetry collection, and it has had a canonical role for 2500 years or more. It is thought that the present collection has been adapted to Confucian specifications from an earlier body of work which was more erotic and less puritanical; the last three lines are thought to be in the voice of the girl, who (during the pre-Confucian age) was quite happy to be seduced .

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