Resonance in Richard de Fournival

My co-authored article with French literary scholar Jonathan Morton on the sonic aspects of Richard de Fournival’s Bestiary of Love has just appeared in the journal Romania.

This co-authored article arose ultimately from a joint reading group that Johnny and I ran a few year back at TORCH but was developed into an article thanks to the sponsorship of the Leverhulme Trust.  Romania is a very eminent and long-standing journal, founded in 1872 at the outset of modern Romanist studies by Paul Meyer and Gaston Paris. This means that, at present, it is not available online, nor am I able to post the pdf of the final article, although further information is available in both Johnny’s and my institutional repositories. However, after five years, the item will be freely available via Persée and meanwhile, I can send the pdf by email to a limited number of people who contact me personally asking for it (please just email me!). The publication details are:

Elizabeth Eva Leach and Jonathan Morton, ‘Intertextual and Intersonic Resonances in Richard de Fournival’s Bestiaire d’amour: Combining Perspectives from Literary Studies and Musicology’, Romania 135 (2017), 313-51. **NOW AVAILABLE ON JSTOR**

In addition, the journal maintains the traditional policy of not translating quotations in Latin and Romance languages. We would hope that our article will be of interest to readers of Anglophone scholarship regardless of their other language competences (it may be, for example, that they are advanced undergraduates who have not acquired Old French and Latin yet, or scholars interested in comparative perspectives from other language families), so we would have preferred translations to be included nonetheless. We provided them in the original submission, but it was not possible to retain them because of the journal’s policy. Therefore, we offer the translations here for those who might find them useful. All, except the first, are of Richard’s Bestiary.

p.322 (Aristotle, Metaphysics): Omnes homines scire desiderant natura. Signum autem est sensuum dilectio; et namque sine utilitate diliguntur propter se ipsos, et maxime aliorum qui est per oculos.
(All people desire by nature to know. An indication of this is the pleasure that comes from the senses, for they are desired for their own sake even beyond their being useful, and of them all this is most true of sight.)

p.325: car quant on voit painte une estoire ou de Troies ou d’autre, on voit les fais des preudommes qui cha en arriere furent aussi con s’il fussent present. Et tout aussi est il de parole, car quant on ot .j. roumans lire, on entent les fais des preudommes aussi con s’il fussent present. Et puis c’on fait present de che qui trespassé par ches .ij. choses, c’est par painture et par parole, dont il apert il bien que par ches .ij. choses puet on a memoire venir.
(for when one sees painted a history, either of Troy or something else, one sees the deeds of noble men which happened then as if they were present. And it is just the same for speech, for when one hears a romance read, one hears/understands the deeds of noblemen as if they were present. And since one can make present that which has come to pass by both these things, i.e. by painting and by speech, it is most apparent that by these two things one can enter into memory.)

p.326-7: Mais pour che que nus ne puet tout savoir, ja soit che que chascune chose puist estre seue, si couvient que chascuns sache aucune chose, et che que li uns ne set mie, que li autres le sache, si que tout est seu en tele manière qu’il n’est seu de nului a par lui, ains est seu de tous ensamble.
(And inasmuch as no one can know everything (although everything can be known), it is fitting that everyone know something, then what one person does not know, let another one know it so that everything is known in such a way that it is not known by one person singularly, but rather it is known by all together.)

p.328: Quant je ne serai presens, que chis escris et par painture et par parole me rende a vostre memoire comme present. Et je vous mousterrai comment chis escris est et painture et parole. Car il est bien apert qu’il ait parole, pour che que toute escriture est faite pour parole moustrer, et pour che qu’on le lise ; et quant on le list, si revient ele a nature de parole. Et d’autre part qu’il i ait painture, si est en apert pour che que lettre n’est mie s’on ne le paint.
(When I am not present, let this writing put me in your memory as if I were present, both by painting and by speech. And I will show how this writing is both painting and speech. For it is very clear that there is speech, because all writing is made to show speech and so that it is read; and when one reads it, it returns to the nature of speech. And on the other hand it is clear that there is painting, because there is no letter that is not painted.)

p.330: Chis outoirs senefie les faus amans qui sievent les dames et les damoiseles pour faire leur preu d’eles, combien qu’eles en doivent empirier.
(This vulture signifies false lovers who follow ladies and maidens to prey on them, however much damage it may cause them.)

p.335: Ensi comme on conte de le nature du coc, que de tant comme il cante par nuit plus pres de l’avespree ou de l’ajournee, de tant cante il plus souvent; et de tant comme il cante plus pres de la mienuit, si cante il plus esforchiement et plus engroisse se vois.
(Just as it is told of the cock’s nature that the closer to dusk or to dawn that it signs, the more often it sings; the closer it is to midnight, however, it sings more fiercely and with the loudest voice.)

p.340: pris a l’oïr et au veoir : dont ne fu che mie merveille se je perdi mon sens et memoire, car oïrs et veoirs sont les deus portes de memoire.
(taken by hearing and by sight; it was not at all surprising if I lost my sense and memory because hearing and sight are the two doors of memory.)

p.340: la douchour de vostre acointance et de vostre bel parler a cui oïr je fui pris.
(the sweetness of your friendship and of your fair speech by which, listening to it, I was taken.)

p.341: car j’ai oï conter .j. conte d’une dame qui avoit une trop bele vaque, qu’ele amoit tant que ele ne le vausist avoir perdue pour nule chose.
(for I have heard a story told of a lady who had a very beautiful cow that she loved so much that she would not have lost it for anything).

p.344 (Table):

Mais se vous ne prisiés mie tant me nourreture comme la vostre, et qu’il vous sanle que je ne vous aroie mie assés guerredonné pour vostre amour se je vous avoie le moie donnee,	But if you do not value my nurture as much as your own, and if it seems that I would not have rewarded you enough for our love if I had given you mine,
a che vous respont je qu’il n’est riens c’Amours ne fache yevel, que en amors n’a ne val ne tertre et est aussi onie comme mers sans ondes.	I respond that there is nothing that love does not make equal, for in love there is neither valley nor hill, like a waveless sea.
Dont .j. Poitevins dist. que « riens ne val l’amour qui ensi ondiele ».	Wherefore a Poitevin said « that a love that wavers is worth nothing ».
Et pour che dist Ovides. c’ « amours et signerie ne puent longes demourer ensanle en une caiiere; »	And Ovid says « that love and lordship cannot remain together in one seat; »
et li Poitivins, qui ensievy Ovide, si dist: « Ne puest l’orgueil od l’amour remanoir ».	and the Poitevin, who followed Ovid, says « love cannot remain where there is pride ».