ALBA SES TITOL. En un vergier sotz fuelha d'albespi Oy dieus, oy dieus, de l'alba! tan tost ve. 'Plagues a dieu ja la nueitz non falhis Nil mieus amicx lonh de mi no s partis Ni la gaita jorn ni alba no vis, Oy dieus, oy dieus, de l'alba! tan tost ve. Bels dous amicx, baizem nos, ieu e vos Oy dieus, oy dieus, de l'alba! tan tost ve. Bels dous amicx, fassam un joc novel Tro la gaita toque son caramel; Oy dieus, oy dieus, de l'alba! tan tost ve. Per la douss' aura q'es venguda lai Del mieu amic bel e cortes e gai Del sieu alen ai begut un dous rai. Oy dieus, oy dieus, de l'alba! tan tost ve.' 'La domna es agradans e plazens Per sa beautat la gardon mantas gens, Oy dieus, oy dieus, de l'alba! tan tost ve.' ALBA BY AN ANONYMOUS POET. Beneath a hawthorn on a blooming lawn 'Now, sweetest friend, to me with kisses cling, 'There let with new delight our love abound 'I drink the air that softly blows my way, The lady is of fair and gentle kind, And many a heart her beauty has entwined, Ah God, ah God, the dawn! it comes so soon.' In the course of time, as the alba became more and more an established form of art, the old popular features were gradually abandoned. Instead of introducing fictitious dramatis persone with fictitious dialogue, the poets begin to speak in their own proper persons, and the alba lapses into the ordinary rank and file of subjective lyrical forms. Only the external signs of the refrain and the recurrence of the word alba remain to account for the title, and even this rule has been abandoned in the curious little poem by Sir Stephen' above referred to. Of the variations arising from this process only one may be mentioned here, on account of its originality of conception. Guiraut Riquier is the author. Here the motive of the alba appears entirely reversed. For here we meet with a lover tossing sleepless on his lonely couch and thinking of his love. To him night is full of gloom and terror, and 'e dezir vezer l'alba' (I long to see the dawn) is the burden of his song. To the same versatile poet we owe the representative specimen of the serena or even-song. Formally it resembles the morning song, with which it shares the refrain, and in it the recurrence of the verbal key-note, which in this case is ser, or evening. As regards its relation to the alba, it may be said that the same sentiment appears here in converse significance. For the serena is sung by a lover to whom a meeting has been promised, and who deprecates the day and its brightness that sever him from his heart's desire. Although by no means wanting in truth and poetical suggestiveness, the situation is somewhat too subtle for the imagination of the people, and there is little evidence of a popular source of the serena, which appears to be little more than an outgrowth and modification of the alba in its more artificial development. CHAPTER X. THE BALADA. THE balada is not to be mistaken for the ballad of modern parlance. It is, as its etymology indicates, a song serving to accompany the dance. This destination proves at once its antiquity and its popularity. There is little doubt that in some form or other the balada has subsisted from the times of Greek and Roman religious ceremonies down to our own days. In a country full of Southern beauty and Southern gaiety, its growth was a thing of natural necessity, like that of corn or wine. No political change or calamities could crush it. It survived the ravages of the crusaders in the thirteenth cen-. tury, and the influences of classical' literature in the eighteenth. When Tristram Shandy entered the rich plain of Languedoc, the first thing he perceived was a lame youth whom Apollo had recompensed with a pipe, to which he had added a tambourin of his own accord, running sweetly over the prelude, and the reapers singing: Viva la joya Fidon la tristessa. Unfortunately there is again little or no record of the earlier development of this charming branch of poetry. But traces of its spirit and grace remain in the few specimens transmitted to us through the medium of the Troubadours, and these bear, in the freedom and variety of their metrical treatment, the distinct mark of their affinity with popular models. It ought to be added that the baladas remaining to us are mostly by anonymous authors, which would tend to prove that the more celebrated and more dignified poets kept aloof from the unsophisticated species. On the other hand, some of the specimens show all the refinement and a good deal of the artificiality of Provençal versification. One of them, for instance, is written almost entirely in what is technically called rims dictionals-a curious metrical device, for an explanation of which the reader is referred to the technical portion of this book. A set rule for the structure of these dancesongs it would be difficult to find, but it appears that most of them have a few introductory lines by way of prelude, after which the stanzas themselves begin. The refrain also is not unfrequent, and would suggest the falling in of a chorus-the only sign, by the way, of the existence of that important musical component. For the artistic baladadiffering in this essentially and significantly from the popular roundelay-is supposed to be sung and the accompanying dance to be performed by a single person. The idea of a dance en masse, or even in couples, verbally and mimetically addressing each other, seems excluded. Hence the subjective character |