The pastourelle is characterized by extreme simplicity of theme. Its characters are shepherds and shepherdesses, and it usually begins in the narrative form, the narrator fixing the time of his adventure—the early morn—and the scene, invariably a field, where he meets a shepherdess ‘in the shade of a bush,’ or ‘at the edge of a spring.’ The amorous dialogue which follows has a happy conclusion if the lover be a shepherd, an unhappy one if he be a knight. The sentiments expressed in the Troubadour pastoral are, of course, rather those of knight and lady in the disguise of shepherds than those of real shepherds. Robin and Marion, the usual hero and heroine of pastoral songs, are the central personalities of a whole cycle, the origin of which is exceedingly ancient, far behind the day of Adam de la Halle, who is perhaps the most famous composer of pastorals. Most of the mediæval pastorals preserved to us belong to this cycle. The famous Robin m’aime is still sung, we are told, by the peasants of northern France. It runs as follows:

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Robins m’ai-me,—Robins m’a;
Robins m’ a— de-man-dé-e si m’a - ra.

The pastoral song survived the Middle Ages and was a favorite down to the Revolution, long before which it had, however, found its way into the aristocracy and polite society of cities and so lost the little natural flavor which still clung to it in the days of the Troubadours. Robin and Marion made way for Tircis and Aminta, Phyllis and Lycidas, beribboned and bespangled counterfeits of the original article. To illustrate how hackneyed this type of song and the plays later made out of them had become in the time of Molière, we may quote Monsieur Jourdain: ‘Why all these shepherds? I see nothing else.’ To which the dancing-master replies peremptorily: ‘When characters speak in music it is necessary, for the sake of realism, to make them shepherds. Song was ever affected by shepherds; it is hardly natural that princes and princesses should vent their passions in musical dialogue!’

Among Troubadour dance forms there should also be mentioned the carol or rondet de carol, retroensa, estampida, and the espringerie (jumping dance). Particularly notable is the Estampida of Rambaut de Vacqueiras (1180-1270), a Troubadour at the court of Montferrat, the lover of the beautiful princess Beatrice. The story connected with it aptly illustrates the influence of the jongleurs. When one day a band of these, native of France, came to the court, they awakened general merriment with a new Estampida played on their viols. Only Rambaut could not be roused from his melancholy, and Beatrice asked him therefore to sing a song himself, and so regain a happier mood. Whereupon he composed the charming dance song Kalenda maya in the manner of the jongleurs’ estampida:

Estampida by Rambaut de Vacqueiras.

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Kal-len-da ma-ya
Ni fuelhs de fa-ya
Ni chans d’auzell ni flors de glaia
Non es quem pla-ya
Pros dom-na gua-ya
Tro qu’un ys-nelh mes-sat-gier a-ya
Del vos-tre bel cors quem re-tra-ya
Pla-zer no-yelh qu’ Amors m’a-tra-ya
E ja-ya
Em-tra-ya
Vas vos don-na ve- ra-ya
E cha-ya
De pla-ya
L’ge-los ans quem n’e-stra-ya.