Le Chastelain de Couci
French trouvère
Le Chastelain de Couci (modern orthography Le Châtelain de Coucy) was a French trouvère of the 12th century. He may have been the Guy de Couci who was castellan of Château de Coucy from 1186 to 1203 and fought in the third and fourth Crusades. Some twenty-six songs, written in langue d'oïl are attributed to him, and about fifteen or sixteen are considered authentic. The legend of the love of the Châtelain de Coucy and the Lady of Fayel, in which there figures a jealous husband who makes his wife eat the heart of her lover, has no historical basis, and dates from a late 13th century romance by Jakemon Sakesep.
Quotes
edit- La douce voiz du louseignol sauvage
Qu’oi nuit et jor cointoier et tentir
Me radoucist mon cuer et rassouage.
Lors ai talent que chant pour esbaudir.- The sweet voice of the wild nightingale that I hear embellishing and resounding night and day, so softens my heart and assuages it that now I want to sing in order to give joy.
- «La douce voiz du louseignol sauvage», st. 1, ll. 1–4 (variants: rosignol for louseignol), as translated by Wendy Pfeffer, The Change of Philomel (1985), p. 116; see also: John Fiske, The Discovery of America, vol. 1, pt. 2 (1892), p. 328, note
- Chançon, va t'en pour faire mon message
La u je n'os trestourner ne guenchir.- Song, go and be my messenger, there where I do not dare return or go.
- «La douce voiz du louseignol sauvage», st. 5, ll. 33–4, as translated by Pfeffer (1985), p. 117
External links
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- Frederick Goldin, Lyrics of the Troubadours and Trouvères: An Anthology (Anchor Books, 1973), p. 349
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Poets and Poetry of Europe, 2nd ed. (Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1870), p. 425
- Olive Sayce, Exemplary Comparison from Homer to Petrarch (D. S. Brewer, 2008), p. 201
- Edgar Taylor, Lays of the Minnesingers and Troubadours (Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, Brown and Green, 1825), p. 259
- Brian Woledge, The Penguin Book of French Verse, vol. 1 (Penguin Books Ltd., 1961), p. 95
- Songs of the Troubadours and Trouvères: An Anthology of Poems and Melodies (Garland Publishing, Inc., 1998), p. 249