Stuff Isolde is Not Allowed to Do:

Entry #84757:

There is an A&S competition coming up at Trillies where you earn points for each component of the piece that you made using period techniques.  So like...if I entered a scroll, I'd get extra points for having made the paper, mixed the pigment, cut the quill, etc, etc.

So I am NOT going to enter an original troubadour-style song with original harp accompaniment and documentation that reads, "I should get extra points for the following:
1)  Using period techniques to not write it down.  Troubadours didn't write down shit.
2)  Using period techniques to procure my harp.  Someone else made it, and now it's mine.  This is EXACTLY how the troubadours did it.
3)  I did not slaughter the sheep to harvest the guts for my strings.  Extra points for avoiding animal husbandry like any self-respecting troubadour.
4)  I expect to get laid as a direct result of my awesome song.  Even my motivation is period!"

I'm not going to enter that as documentation.  That would be sarcastic and wrong.  That said, I'm also probably not going to enter the competition.  I mean - I get it, and it's cool.  Encourage people to learn new things, get a better understanding of the items that would influence your art, etc.  I'm just a depth girl, rather than a breadth girl is all.  I'd rather take the time to write a really good song, and then play it on a harp made by someone who took the time to learn what he was doing.

My art doesn't produce physical items, so there aren't many arts that are really adjacent to it.  And those that are - ie, musical-instrument making - deserve the kind of devotion that music has already claimed from me.  That said - I expect to see some really awesome scribal and textile entries, and I'm looking forward to some quality drooling.  :-)

OMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMG IT'S SPRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIING!!!!!

There are leaves on the trees and flowers blooming and grass on the ground and NO!  SNOW!  And there's an event coming up with the word "dandelion" in its name, and that means it's time for REJOICING IN THE STREETS!!!!!

Also songs about Spring.  So at Dandelion Festival, I'm challenging people to bring bardic pieces that celebrate the Springtime.  Find the girl in the green dress with the harp during the day, perform a piece, fill the day with song (or stories, they're fine too) and receive a bright, shiny as-yet-to-be-determined token.  Yee-uh.

So here, to get your bardic juices flowing, are some ideas:

Oh how I love the springtime gay...
A troubadour song about bashin' heads...in the springtime.
Read more here.

Kalenda Maya:
A troubadour song about a jilted lover...in the springtime.
Lyrics and translation here.
Listen on youtube here.

A l'entrada de temps clar
A troubadour song about a springtime dance...in the springtime.
Lyrics and translation here.
Listen on youtbube here.

Greek Mythology
The myth of Persephone and Hades was a popular basis for stories and poems in period.
Read more about it here.

Norse Mythology
They had Norse people in period!  And they had....
Myths about the Springtime.

Sonnet 98
Willie Shakespeare wrote about everything.  Including the springtime.

From you have I been absent in the spring,
When proud-pied April dress'd in all his trim
Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing,
That heavy Saturn laugh'd and leap'd with him.
Yet nor the lays of birds nor the sweet smell
Of different flowers in odour and in hue
Could make me any summer's story tell,
Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew;
Nor did I wonder at the lily's white,
Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose;
They were but sweet, but figures of delight,
Drawn after you, you pattern of all those.
   Yet seem'd it winter still, and, you away,
   As with your shadow I with these did play.

Movin' Out! Also, a troubadour song revisited.

Oh God, it begins - the mad, downhill dash to moving away again.  I've got movers coming on Thurs, I leave Atlantia for Ealdormere (again) on Fri and then on Sat I'm teaching two classes - one of which I need to, like, finish writing.  And print out handouts.  Fnerh.

BUT IN THE MEANTIME!!!  I attended my last event in Atlantia for a while on Sat, and I'm glad I was able to before the stress hit.  Performer's Revel, hosted by Their Excellencies Fevronia Murometsa (a kindred harper) and Igor Medvedev (a kindred foodie).  Fantastic time - lots of music and stuffing my face.  And counting Gertrude there were SEVEN HARPS of assorted sizes and makes.  That was pretty sweet.

At the request of Mistress Linette...and some other people too, I think...I am posting here the melody to "Oh how I love the springtime gay."  My translation, the documentation, etc are posted here, but I put all of that stuff up before I worked up Bertan de Born's melody.  So here it is!  (PDF format - if you don't read music, drop me a line, I can midify it for you).  Follow the first link for the rest of the verses.  Someday, I will post all of that on one page so it'll make sense.  Not today.

Enjoy, you bloodthirsty maniacs, you!  ;-)

New Videos!

Mistress Elashava bas Riva has put a couple of new videos up on her YouTube channel, including one of me reciting "Oh how I love the springtime gay..." (this was before I'd learned the melody).  Follow the link to her channel, and you'll also find a performance by another harper, Breddelwyn ap Taliesin, as well as the Jararvellir Music Guild performing Claude Gervais' "Pavane de la Guerre."  And that's just the latest batch!  Good stuff.

I AM ISOLDE! RESEARCH GODDESS!!! RAWR!!!

There are two songs who's melodies I particularly wanted to take a look at - "Lai Non Par" and "Lai Markiol."  So I trot my happy self down to the library to get a copy of Hendrik van der Werf's Extant Troubadour Melodies, the seminal collection of, you guessed it, extant troubadour melodies.  Checked out.  Blast.

Far from daunted, I figured the only other person likely to have it checked out was the professor in charge of the Early Music Ensemble, and that I'd beg it off of him for a few days at rehearsal.  So I get to rehearsal, and before I can even broach the subject, he tells me about this great book he has, and would I like to borrow it.  HELL YES I'D LIKE TO BORROW IT, THANK YOU!!!  I giddily drag it home on the bus (it's rather large), eagerly crack it open, and...not there.  Blast.

Utterly betrayed by van der Werf, I turn to the internet where I find generous fragments of the melodies, which thank you I already have in books and I want THE WHOLE THING!!!  But I do find some helpful footnotes...

To make a long story short, I spent this afternoon tearing through books in three languages (one of which I actually speak) and eventually find one book devoted to both songs, containing transcribed melodies in all their complete, stemless glory.  Deux lais en langue mixte, by Dominique Billy.  Yes, I did a geeky little end-zone dance there in the stacks which may or may not have involved antlers.  No, I do not speak French, so Billy's no doubt brilliant analysis and commentary will be utterly lost on me.  Fortunately, however, dots on a page transcend the petty constraints of national dialect.

VICTORY IS MINE!!!

Aeron's Song

The jewel of the sky has turned to steel. 
As I watch my lover's form recede, I feel 
The wind cut through my hollow body 
          like an empty, longing ache. 
"Come back!" I cry, too late with my appeal. 

Though he'll return to me, I long have known 
His scars have blinded him to why he is my own. 
Can he yet feel my jealous fingers 
          fight the wind to touch his hair, 
And never see how fair my love has grown? 

My scorching lips he feels against his face 
And never understands his beauty fuels their blaze. 
My lover's arms are strong, hands gentle, 
          body lithe and stature high, 
His soul burns from inside his shadowed gaze. 

He's noble as the oak, and still more strong, 
He'll neither flagrantly, nor lying do me wrong, 
But does he know my love is true 
          like love he's never known before? 
I've told him this and more through our years long. 

My love's not for the scarf I often tie. 
To all his word-fame and his laurel, I reply 
I'd love his soul, his hands, his body 
          were he peasant, don or king. 
He feels the love I bring him, but not why. 

Does he fear my love will blow away, 
          not rooted to the ground? 
Does he fear that I'll awaken 
          from some dream in which I'm bound?  

I'd have him look into my eyes 
          and see his grace reflected there. 
I look on Aeron, for he's where my love is found.


Notes:  Written for my husband.  This was my first attempt at composing a piece in a period style - actually, it was my first attempt at composing a piece period.  This here is Song #1.  :-)  I wrote it in the style of a troubadour canso, or love song, taking sylistic cues in particular from the songs of the trobaritz - the female troubadours.  There are some historical glitches - it's iambic, where troubadour poems were syllabic, there's only one melisma in the entire melody.  But overall, I think I achieved my goal.  And it makes Aeron blush.  Heee!  :-)  As you can see in the image, I displayed it transcribed into the square notation used in the troubadour manuscripts.  For the full documentation, download this here PDF.

On Translation

Some people say that poetry is untranslatable.  I've found myself thinking along those lines before, and yet I'm really quite happy with the way my Bertran de Born translation came out.  What makes that poem great is the cadence and the imagery - flowing from the gay springtime to the gay and bloody mele at a galloping pace evokes the mad, perverse glee that's what I love about the piece.  And I think that's more or less preserved in my translation.

Then there's verse that I just can't bring myself to translate.  Take, for example, Mikhail Lermontov's "Выхожу один я на дорогу"  The link leads to a page with the poem in both English and Russian, and includes further links to audio of the poem read aloud, in Russian.  Surf around for more classic Russian poetry.

What I love about this piece is the sounds of the words.  These words are not just arbitrary markers of abstract concepts, rather the very sounds that Lermontov chooses express the images and ideas they stand for.  "Сквозь туман" (skvohz tum-an) in the second line evokes a darker, thicker, warmer feeling than "through the mist," and recalls the rich, full "oo"s and "oh"s in the first line.  The poem is full of that, and I can't render English that preserves what I love about this poem.  I've yet to see a satisfactory translation - the one included in the link is a good and valiant effort, but it doesn't make much effort to preserve the music of the poetry.  What you're reading is not the poem I love.

To take an example relevant to the SCA, let's return to the troubadours.  The only song by a trobaritz (female troubadour) that survives with a melody is "Ah chantar," by the Comtessa de Dia.  Here is the third verse, in Old Occitan:

Be.m meravill com vostre cors s'orguoilla,
amics, vas me, per qu'ai razon qu'iem. duoilla;
non es ges dreitz c'autr' amors vos mi tuoilla
per nuilla ren que.us diga ni acuoilla;
e membre vos cals fo.l comenssamens
de nostr'amor!  ja Dompnedieus non vuoilla
qu'en ma colpa sia.l departimens.

This verse speaks of the author's confusion at her lover's sudden coldness, and fear of losing him to some other woman.  Most of the lines end on the feminine rhyme "way-lia" (or-gway-lia, dway-lia, etc), and to me it sounds like a wail or a plea, like an expression of confused hopelessness.  She breaks from this rhyme scheme in ordering him to remember the beginning of their love.  This expression of strength is accompanied by a masculine rhyme, strong, unusual enjambment and "oh"s and "r"s which provide a powerful foundation for the melodic high point of the verse.  Without understanding a word, you can tell by listening that she goes from helpless to angry and back to helpless during this verse.

I love singing this piece because when I do, it seems that my mouth and my mind are one, that the disconnect between what I'm thinking and the sounds I can use to represent that is gone.  I've given translating this piece a shot, but I've yet to produce a single line in English that preserves that seamless marriage of sound and thought.  What I love about this piece is not really what she says - she was neither the first nor the last to write a "My man done gone and left me" song.  But I'm in love with how she says it.  I haven't given up completely, but I'm not sure I can bring myself to tamper with that.

"Oh how I love the springtime gay..."

This is a song by Bertran de Born, that I translated from Old Occitan for a the combat-themed A&S competition at "It's Only a Flesh Wound."  Video of that performance can be found here, compliments of Mistress Elashava bas Riva.  If I ever get a video of me singing it, I'll post it here.

Oh how I love the springtime gay
That brings the leaves and flowers out.
As much to hear the merry way
Of birds who throw their song about
To echo through the glen.
So much I love a meadow fair
Festooned with tents whose banners flare.
And oh! what rapture then
When ranks upon that field prepare,
Each armored knight upon his mare.

I love it when the scouts compel
The landed gentry there to flee,
A multitude of knights will swell
In hot pursuit and mounting glee.
And how I love it when
I see a crumbling castle tall
Besieged, with broken, tumbling wall,
The host advances then
Through sharpened staves contrived to maul
And ditches where the dead men fall.

So too I love the brave seignor
Who mounted, fearless, armored bright
Rides first into the fray and gore
For thus does he inspire with might
And valor all his men.
And when the battles escalate
Each man must cheerfully await
To follow him again.
For ‘till a foe you desecrate,
Your manhood’s only second-rate.

Club and sword and colored helm
Perforated, crumpled shield
Immediately overwhelm
The vassals fighting on the field.
Bewildered horses then
Run frantically, their riders bled.
And when they’re charging full ahead,
All brave and worthy men
Must look to hacking arm and head –
A coward’s worth less than the dead.

I tell you – sleeping, food nor drink,
Holds half the savor as the time
I hear both sides cry, “Too the brink!”
And when the panicked horses whine
And flee without their men.
I hear the cries of “Help!” in vain
And see them tumble, knight and thane,
in ditches on the fen.
Their splintered lances still remain
Upon the meadow, in the slain.

Go pawn your castle baron,
Your town, your city, all your store,
‘Ere ever you stop making war!

Notes: ISN'T THAT FREAKING AWESOME??? So like, I go up to the judging panel full of knights, and I'm all, "So I know the theme is combat, use your imagination," and then I'm all small and young and female and start talking about the gay springtime and the birds and crap, and the next thing you know, there's BLOOD AND DEATH AND SPEARS AND STUFF!!! I love that. And I love that this was written by a troubadour. The artistic movement that brought the world "courtly love." That's right. BEGONE, ye prevailing stereotypes! BEGONE!!!

Anyway. I tried to stick as closely as possible to the Old Occitan original in terms of meter and rhyme, so that I can match this translation up with Bertran de Born's melody. I could not have done this without William D. Paden Jr's volume on Bertran de Born, with literal prose translations and a big, honkin' glossary (the link will take you to a Google Books page that contains a generous preview of said volume). For the full documentation, download this here PDF.