RS 1967
Anonymous
Anonimo
I Vous ki ameis de vraie amor, anveilliez vos, ne dormeis pais! L’aluëte nos trait lou jor 4et si nos dist an ces refrais ke venus est li jors de paix ke Deus, per sa tres grant dousor, promet a ceaz ki por s’amor 8panront la creus et por lour fais sofferront poinne neut et jor. Dont vairait Il ces amans vrais!
II Cil doit bien estre forjugiez 12ki a besoing son Signor lait. Se serait il, bien lou sachiez! Aseiz avrait et poinne et lait a jor de nostre dairien plait, 16ke Deus costeis, pames et piez mousterait sanglans et plaiez, car cil ki plus avrait bien fait serait si tres fort emaëz 20k’il tranblerat, keil greit k’il ait.
III Cil ki por nos fut an creus mis, ne nos amait pais faintemant, ains nos amat com fins amins, 24et por nos, honorablemant, la Sainte Crox mult doucemant antre ces bras, an mi son pis, com agnials dous, simples et pis, 28et l'astraing angoisousemant. Puis i fut a trois clos clofis per piez, per mains, estroitemant.
IV J’ai oït dire an reprovier: 32«Boens merchiez trait de borce argent» et «Cil ait mult lou cuer ligier ki lou bien voit et lou mal prant». Saivez ke Deus n'ait an covant 36a ceaz ke se vorront creusier? Se m’eïst Il, mult bial luier: Paradis par afaitemant! Car ki son prout puet porchasier, 40fols est se a demain s’atant.
V Nos ne n'avons point de demain, a certes lou peons savoir. Teis cuide avoir lou cuer mult sain 44c’ains lou quairt jor tot son avoir ne priset pais, ne son savoir. Car, cant la mort lou tient a frain et il ne puet ne piez ne mains 48a lui sachier ne removoir, la keute lait si prant l’estrain. Mais trop est tairt a persovoir!
I You who love with true love, wake up, sleep no more! The lark brings us the dawn and tells us with its warbling that the day of peace has come which God, in his great sweetness, promises to those who for love of Him will take the cross, and for their sins will suffer pain both night and day. Then He will see who truly loves Him!
II Anyone who abandons his lord in his hour of need deserves to be sent into exile. And he will be, you can be sure of that! He will suffer pain and disgrace at the Last Judgment, when God will show His bleeding and wounded sides, hands and feet: even one who has behaved most righteously [in this life] will be so appalled that he will tremble, whether he wishes or no.
III The one who was set upon the cross for us did not love us dissemblingly but did so as a perfect lover, and for our sakes, with dignity, [He took] the holy cross most sweetly in his arms, holding it tightly in anguish across his chest, like a gentle, innocent and pious lamb. Then he was nailed fast with three nails through feet and hands.
IV I have heard say in a proverb: ‘A good price draws money from the purse’ and ‘It is a complete fool who sees what’s good and takes what’s bad’. Do you know what God guarantees to those wishing to take the cross? God help me, splendid wages: Paradise assured! Anyone who can pursue profit [today] is mad to wait until tomorrow.
V We have no [certainty of] tomorrow, we know this well. Someone may think he is in perfect health yet within the fourth day he may no longer put any value on the whole sum of his wealth or knowledge, for once death holds him in his bridle and he can no longer move his hands and feet in one direction or another, he gives up his soft bed and takes a straw mattress. But realisation comes too late!
Historical context and dating
The opening is that of a cantio vigilum, which associates the song with the liturgical tradition of the vigiliae and morning hymns. The text takes the form of an announcement of good news, as if it were the expression of the biblical κήρυγμα (kérugma) in which the herald, God’s official spokesman, publicly proclaims that the time is fulfilled and the faithful are invited to repent and amend their lives. The lark, messenger of the day, is the mystical reflection of the annunciation of Christ’s coming and the opportunity to emerge from the darkness of sin and renew the pact of fidelity with God by taking the votum crucis. The use of traditional preaching motifs (the dies irae, the account of the Passion, the memento mori) together with the use of proverbs having a mercantile flavour, clothes the song in the garb of a public sermon, and reveals the type of lay, bourgeois audience to whom the song is addressed. (Oeding 1910, 37, thinks that the author is a cleric).
Bédier sees in the text a certain stylistic energy reminiscent of Chevalier mult estes guariz, but does not go as far as to date it to 1147. Nonetheless, on the basis of its formal aspects (stanzas «d’un type assez compliqué» and singulars, p. 20), he still considers it to have been composing during the 12th c. (as Jeanroy 1889, p. 69), citing Paris 1892, p. 165, who links it to the crusade of 1189. Schöber (1976, p. 238), however, observes that there is no reference either to the fall of Jerusalem or to the loss of the Holy Cross, or to the liberation of the holy places from the enemy. Noting lexical echoes of the Vers de la mort of Hélinant of Froidmont (to which Bédier had also referred in a note on p. 24), composed between 1194 and 1197, and also the fact that that the versification appears late, he situates the song at the time of the Fourth Crusade. Finally Dijkstra (1995a, p. 97) is more inclined to date it to the Third Crusade, ‘compte tenu du ton optimiste du poète … mais j’avoue que l’argumentation en est faible’.
Schöber is unquestionably right to draw attention to the absence of references to the holy places. The absence of any military element traditionally present in appeals composed at the imminent prospect of a crusade, and the presence of a wealth of motifs belonging to texts of a homiletic, religious and liturgical nature, provide no support of a contingent historical kind, and situate the composition of the text a long way from any prospective departure. But the fact that the song is a metrico-melodic contrafactum of a monodic conductus of Philip the Chancellor may provide useful chronological indications. Philip became chancellor of the Notre-Dame chapter in 1217 and was the author of profane and liturgical poems in both Latin and French (cfr. Dronke 1987 and Rillon-Marne 2012), together with a vast number of homilies for which he is cited by the most famous and prestigious preachers of the time. His ‘crusade’ repertory includes four sermons urging participation in Louis VIII’s expedition to the Midi in 1226 (cfr. Bériou 1997), to which has recently been added the conductus Crucifigat omnes (cfr. Payne 1986, p. 238, n. 12, and Payne 2001, 19, p. 596). The latter is essentially a vigorous call to a war of liberation of the Holy Land after the fall of Jerusalem and the capture of the true cross in 1187, and can therefore be added to Venit Ihesus as a second exhortation by Philip the Chancellor to take part in the Third Crusade. In contrast, although the monodic conductus Quid ultra tibi facere, of which RS 1967 is a contrafactum, belongs to a similar climate, it is not hortatory and its tone clearly differs from the harshness and bellicosity of the two preceding conductus. Instead it is edifying and moral in character, and is evidently not subject to the pressure of events. It therefore seems likely to belong to a period which falls between the urgent calls to take part in the Third Crusade and the preaching efforts in favour of royal intervention in Occitania, such as that initiated by Innocent III in his bull Quia maior nunc of April 1213 which gave rise to a new campaign of Crucis praedicationes. The song seems likely to have arisen in this climate and to date from a time immediately following that year. It is also important to take note of the rubric De Nostre Daime written in the margin of ms C next to the incipit: its presence may be not only further confirmation that it is modelled on Vous ki ameis but also that it was composed in the musical modes of the School of Notre-Dame.