The Protégé's Lament

ABOUT THE POEM

I had a friend who is a contemporary poet and was lamenting two perceptions he has about SCA poetry. The first was that to do period poetry from pre 1500 you had to work in another language. The second was that the subject matter of anything pre 1500 was so dry. This poem is my attempt to refute both of those ideas.

The format of the poem is the same as that of the Carmina Burana poem #95, ‘Cur suspectumme tenet domina’. (see below for more about that poem). My poem, like the original, consists of 5 verses of four lines each with a repeated refrain between each verse. The way that each line is laid out in the actual Carmina Burana is by syllable. Each line is split into two word groupings with the first word grouping consisting of 4 syllables and the second consisting of 6 syllables. (Hence, each line is a total of 10 syllables. See the section below for an example from the original). The refrain is a seven syllable line. The most likely meter of the poem (based on how the Latin original is formed) is that the first syllable of every group is stressed and then every other syllable after that. It is the same in my poem.

The rhyme scheme is straightforward; every line in each verse rhymes with all the others in the verse. The refrain stands alone and does not rhyme with anything.

I followed this rhyme and meter scheme throughout the poem. I deviated slightly in the third verse in that when I read it I read it as a slang version of the words urging and purging (in order to have all the lines truly rhyme you have to leave the G off of both of these words). I also realize that the word chirurgeon can be a three, four or even five syllable word depending on how you say it. I say it with 4. That way it fits.

The theme of the poem is fairly obvious. It is the lament of a protégé. He fears that his master suspects him of not working hard enough and the poem is a list of all the hard work and accomplishments he has been part of.

I should note here that I am the protégé of a pelican, but this poem is in no way about me or my pelican, whom I love dearly and who would never, ever ask me to do any kind of hard work. Ever. At all. I mean it. Seriously. Ahem. On to the next section.

ABOUT THE ORIGINAL POEM AND THE CARMINA BURANA IN GENERAL

The Carmina Burana is named after the Codex Buranas, a collection of 228 poems inscribed by three different hands around the year 1230. These were in addition to other works found in a large collection of medieval poetrythat came to light in 1803 at the southern Bavarian monastery of Benediktbeuern. With other peripheral works they total 320 poems that make up the Carmina Burana as a whole. The collection dates back to about 1230. The works include four basic categories of poems. These are satirical or moralizing lyrics (carmina moralia); songs celebrating springtime and love (carmina veris et amoris); gambling and drinking songs (carmina lusorum et potatorum), including goliardic verse; and poems with religious content (carmina divina).

About 120 poems are considered ‘Love Lyrics’ many of which may have been set to song at the time of their writing (9 pieces in the actual manuscript include musical notations in plainchant and many others are known to be set to music in other manuscripts.

The first verse of this poem (which is #95 in the Codex) is as follows:

Cur suspectum me tenet domina?
Cur tam torva sunt in me lumina?
Testor celum celique numina:
Que veretur non noni crimina!
Refrain: Tort a vers mei ma dama

translation:

Why does my mistress hold me in suspicion?
Why do her eyes frown so upon me?
I call heaven and the deities of heaven do witness:
I have no knowledge of the sins which she fears!
REF: My lady does me wrong!
(Poem and translation from reference 2, page 129)

The rest of the poem, which consists of 4 more verses identical in meter and rhyme, consist of a lament about the fact that the speaker in the poem is suspected by his lady of being a homosexual and/or practicing homosexual acts and a denial of that fact. The refrain (My Lady does my wrong) is repeated after every verse and so appears five times in the poem. (I think one of the neatest things about this poem is the use of French for the refrain and Latin for the bulk of the poem.)

My poem is similar to this one in that it is indeed a lament from a person who perceives that they are being mistreated. If differs radically from the original in that it is meant to be more humorous in nature. In contrast, the original is a rather tragic refutation of actions that at the time were considered immoral and inappropriate, especially in the context of courtly love, which many of the Carmina poems are about.

REFERENCES

1. Dronke, P. Medieval Latin and the Rise of the European Love Lyric. 2nd ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968.

2. Walsh, P. G. Love Lyrics of the Carmina Burana. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1993.

3. http://www.athenapub.com/14carmina.htm, accessed on January 9th, 2007, which featured an article entitled "Carmina Burana" from the periodical Athena Review, page 71-73, Volume 4, no 2, 1996.