"O Magali, see how the stars
That bright were shining
Now thou art come, O Magali,
Turn pale and flee."[14]
It is most singular what an effect of song there is everywhere in this country. The rivers seem to sing as they flow; the tall yellow reeds sing as the wind stirs them; the olives have a little whispered canzo of their own, and the mistral—even he roars a sort of rough baritone in the general concert. No wonder the troubadours were born in this most lyrical of lands.
They had songs for every possible occasion: the morning song or aubade, the serena or evening song, the canzo or love-song, the tenso for argumentative moods, the descort when reproaching a cruel lady, the complicated sestina for moments of unbridled literary energy, the sirvente for general expression of views, the planh or complaint, for laments, as, for example, when Folquet of Marseilles (whose acquaintance we are to make presently) writes of the death of Count Barral, Viscount of Marseilles.[15]
"Like one who is so sad that he has lost the sense of sorrow, I feel no pain or sadness; all is buried in forgetfulness. For my loss is so overpowering that my heart cannot conceive it, nor can any man understand its greatness."
In the following translation of some extracts from a tenso, the troubadours Bernart de Ventadour and Peirol discuss relations of personal feeling and artistic creation:
Peirol. Little worth is the song that does not come from the heart, and as love has left me, I have left song and dalliance.
Bernart. Peirol, you commit great folly, if you leave off those for such a reason; if I had harboured wrath in my heart, I should have been dead a year ago, for I also can find no love nor mercy. But for all that I do not abandon singing, for there is no need of my losing two things.