Bonfilh's stanzas (2, 6 and 8)
Guiraut, I sing to make my heart rejoice
And for love of one who keeps me happy,
And because I like honor and joy and youth;
But I'd never sing only for money,
Nor do I seek it; I'd rather give it to you,
For I give generously, all for the love of my lady,
Who is clever and worthy and pretty and gay.
Because she smiles so sweetly to me, I sing.
Since you're leaving love to deliver a sermon,
Set speech aside and put on a white robe
'vest blanc vestimen''
Guiraut, and we'll have a spitting contest
'esputamen''
For my lady declines to worship a cross.
If there were any love or courtesy in you,
You wouldn't think it foolish to use the word ''tu''.
Since love wants lovers to call each other ''tu'',
You've simply no reason to stew.
I leave this ''tensó''; I'll answer you no more,
Since reason fails you and you speak villainy.
I let it drop out of respect for my lord Bertran
Of Opian, who is prosperous in love.
Bonfilh or Bonfils (meaning "godson") was a
Jewish
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
troubadour
A troubadour (, ; oc, trobador ) was a composer and performer of Old Occitan lyric poetry during the High Middle Ages (1100–1350). Since the word ''troubadour'' is etymologically masculine, a female troubadour is usually called a ''trobairi ...
from
Narbonne
Narbonne (, also , ; oc, Narbona ; la, Narbo ; Late Latin:) is a commune in Southern France in the Occitanie region. It lies from Paris in the Aude department, of which it is a sub-prefecture. It is located about from the shores of the ...
. He is the only known Jew who wrote in the troubadour style and language,
Old Occitan
Old Occitan ( oc, occitan ancian, label= Modern Occitan, ca, occità antic), also called Old Provençal, was the earliest form of the Occitano-Romance languages, as attested in writings dating from the eighth through the fourteenth centuries. Old ...
. His only known work is a ''
partimen
The ''partimen'' (; ca, partiment ; also known as ''partia'' or ''joc partit'') is a cognate form of the French jeu-parti (plural ''jeux-partis''). It is a genre of Occitan lyric poetry composed between two troubadours, a subgenre of the '' ten ...
'' (debate) with
Guiraut Riquier
Guiraut Riquier de Narbona ( 1230 in Narbonne – 1292 in Narbonne or Rodez) is among the last of the Occitan troubadours. He is well known because of his great care in writing out his works and keeping them together—the New Grove Encyclopedia c ...
, ''Auzit ay dir, Bofil, que saps trobar'' ("I hear tell, Bonfilh, that you know how to compose"). It has been suggested that Bonhilh may have been a poetic invention of Guiraut and not a historical person, or that he was the same person as the Jewish poet
Abraham Bedersi
Abraham Bedersi (Hebrew: אברהם בדרשי) was a Provençal Jewish poet; he was born at Béziers (whence his surname ''Bedersi'', or native of Béziers). The dates of his birth and death have not been ascertained.
An elegy which he composed ...
.
[Susan L. Einbinder (2008), ''No Place of Rest: Jewish Literature, Expulsion, and the Memory of Medieval France'' (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press), 21–22.] There is a
lacuna
Lacuna (plural lacunas or lacunae) may refer to:
Related to the meaning "gap"
* Lacuna (manuscripts), a gap in a manuscript, inscription, text, painting, or musical work
** Great Lacuna, a lacuna of eight leaves where there was heroic Old Norse p ...
in the only surviving manuscript version of this song that lasts from the middle of the third stanza through to the middle of the fifth. The seventh stanza is also missing the ending of its final line. Each stanza has eight lines, but the last two are ''
tornadas'' of four each.
The poem starts off amicably, but ends on bad terms, with Guiraut resorting to
antisemitism
Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism.
Antis ...
(he names Bonfilh as having
hurt Jesus). Riquier poses a polylemma for his debate partner: does Bonfilh sing out of fear, because a lady makes him do it, "to ply the
''joglar'''s trade" (that is, for money), or to advance his fame? Bonfilh's responds that it is out of joy and for his lady that he sings. He also reproaches Guiraut for using the formal second-person pronoun ''vos'' with his lady, while he, Bonfilh, uses the familiar and intimate ''tu''. This is unusual, however, as the troubadours universally use ''vos'' with ladies (even those of low rank, as in ''
pastorela
The ''pastorela'' (, "little/young shepherdess") was an Occitan lyric genre used by the troubadours. It gave rise to the Old French ''pastourelle
The pastourelle (; also ''pastorelle'', ''pastorella'', or ''pastorita'' is a typically Old Fre ...
s''). It is not a Jewish custom, as the fourteenth-century ''
Roman de la Reine Esther'' by
Crescas Caslari puts ''vos'' in the mouth of the king,
Assuérus, when addressing
Esther
Esther is the eponymous heroine of the Book of Esther. In the Achaemenid Empire, the Persian king Ahasuerus seeks a new wife after his queen, Vashti, is deposed for disobeying him. Hadassah, a Jewess who goes by the name of Esther, is chosen ...
. Both Guiratu and Bonfilh submit their ''partimen'' to Bertran d'Opian (''fl''. 1229–42), a knight of Narbonne, for judgement. He was known to Guiraut.
Notes
{{authority control
13th-century French troubadours
People from Narbonne
13th-century French Jews