For those who know no Latin it is the same. “In this year,” [1359] says a Limburg chronicle, “Men sang and piped this song”:
| Gott geb im ein verdorben jar der mich macht zu einer nunnen und mir den schwarzen mantel gab der weissen rock darunten! Soll ich ein nunn gewerden dann wider meinen willen so will ich auch einem knaben jung seinen kummer stillen, Und stillt he mir den meinen nit daran mag he verliesen[1555]. | God send to him a lean twelve months Who in mine own despite, A sooty mantle put on me, All and a cassock white! And if I must become a nun, Let me but find a page, And if he is fain to cure my pain His pain I will assuage. His be the loss, then, if he fail To still my amorous rage. |
In Italy at Carnival time in the fifteenth century the favourite songs tell of nuns who leave their convents for a lover[1556]. But above all the theme is found over and over again in French folk songs: “the note, I trowe, y maked was in Fraunce.” Two little thirteenth century poems have survived to show how piquant an expression the French singers gave to it. In one of these the singer wanders out in the merry month of May, that time in which the “chanson populaire” is always set, in deep and unconscious memory of the old spring festivals, celebrated by women in the dawn of European civilisation. He goes plucking flowers, and out of a garden he hears a nun singing to herself:
| ki nonne me fist je di trop envie j’amaisce trop muels ke fust deduissans Je sant les douls mals malois soit de deu Elle s’escriait e deus, ki m’ait mis maix ieu en istrai ke ne vestirai Je sant les douls mals malois soit de deu Celui manderai k’il me vaigne querre s’irons a Parix car it est jolis Je sant les douls mals malois soit de deu quant ces amis ot de joie tressaut, et vint a la porte si en gatait fors Je sant les douls mals malois soit de deu | Jesus lou maldie. vespres ne complies: moneir bone vie et amerousete. leis ma senturete. ki me fist nonnete. comceux esbaihie! en cest abaie! per sainte Marie; cotte ne gonnette. leis ma senturete. ki me fist nonnete. a cui seux amie. en ceste abaie; moneir bone vie, et je seux jonete. leis ma senturete. ki me fist nonnete. la parolle oie, li cuers li fremie, do celle abaie: sa douce amiete. leis ma senturete. ki me fist nonnete[1557]. |
“The curse of Jesus on him who made me a nun! All unwillingly say I vespers and compline; more fain were I to lead a happy life of gaiety and love. I feel the delicious pangs beneath my bosom. The curse of God on him who made me be a nun! She cried, God’s curse on him who put me in this abbey. But by our Lady I will flee away from it and never will I wear this gown and habit. I feel, etc. I will send for him whose love I am and bid him come seek me in this abbey. We will go to Paris and lead a gay life, for he is fair and I am young. I feel, etc. When her lover heard her words, he leapt for joy and his heart beat fast. He came to the gate of that abbey, and stole away his darling love. I feel, etc.”
In the other song the setting is the same;
L’autrier un lundi matin
m’an aloie ambaniant;
s’antrai an un biau jardin,
trovai nonette seant.
ceste chansonette
dixoit la nonette
“longue demoree
faites, frans moinnes loialz
Se plus suis nonette,
ains ke soit li vespres,
je morai des jolis malz”[1558].
“Lately on a Monday morn as I went wandering, I entered into a fair garden and there I found a nun sitting. This was the song that the nun sang: ‘Long dost thou tarry, frank, faithful monk. If I have to be a nun longer I shall die of the pains of love before vespers.’”
The end hardly ever varies. The nun is either taken away by a lover (as in the first of these songs), or finds occasion to meet one without leaving her house (as in the second); or else she runs away in the hope of finding one like the novice of Avernay in Deschamps’ poem, who had learned nothing during her sojourn “fors un mot d’amourette,” and who wanted to have a husband “si comme a Sebilette.”
Adieu le moniage:
Jamaiz n’y entreray.
Adieu tout le mainage
Et adieu Avernay!
Bien voy l’aumosne est faitte:
Trop tart me suy retraitte,
Certes, ce poise my,
Plus ne seray nonnette
(Oez de la nonnette
Comme a le cuer joly:
S’ordre ne ly puet plere)[1559].