Thursday, December 15, 2016

 

Ex Oriente Trux, or Divided We Fall

Guilhem de Montanhagol (13th century), poem no. 14 Ricketts, first stanza, tr. Alan R. Press, Anthology of Troubadour Lyric Poetry (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1971), p. 275:
Throughout the world men find fault with one another, the clerics with the laymen and the laymen with them, likewise; and the people complain of their lords' excesses, and the lords often of them. Thus is the world full of ill-will, but now there come from out of the East the Tartars who, unless God forbids it, will reduce them all to a common measure.
The Provençal, id., p. 274:
Per lo mon fan li un dels autres rancura,
Li clerc dels laycx e.l laic d'elhs yssamen;
E li poble.s planhon de desmezura
De lor senhors, e.l senhor d'elhs, söen.
Aissi es ples lo mons de mal talen,
Mas ar venon sai deves Orïen
Li Tartari, si Dieus non o defen,
Que.ls faran totz estar d'una mensura.
I don't have access to Peter T. Ricketts, ed., Les poésies de Guilhem de Montanhagol: troubadour provençal du XIIIe siècle (Toronto: Pontifical Institute for Medieval Studies, 1964).



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