''Daurel e Betó'' (); ''Daurèl e Beton'' in modern

Occitan Occitan may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to the Occitania territory in parts of France, Italy, Monaco and Spain. * Something of, from, or related to the Occitania administrative region of France. * Occitan language, spoken in parts o ...

, ''Daurel et Beton'' in French, "Daurel and Beton"), is an anonymous

chanson de geste The ''chanson de geste'' (, from Latin 'deeds, actions accomplished') is a medieval narrative, a type of epic poem that appears at the dawn of French literature. The earliest known poems of this genre date from the late 11th and early 12th c ...

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 ...

which full title reads ''Lo romans de Daurel e de Betó''. It is made up of 2198 lines, grouped in 53

monorhyme Monorhyme is a passage, stanza, or entire poem in which all lines have the same end rhyme. The term "monorhyme" describes the use of one ( mono) type of repetitious sound (rhyme). This is common in Arabic, Latin and Welsh work, such as ''The Book of ...

laisse A laisse is a type of stanza, of varying length, found in medieval French literature, specifically medieval French epic poetry (the ''chanson de geste''), such as ''The Song of Roland''. In early works, each laisse was made up of (mono) assonanced ...

s of

alexandrine Alexandrine is a name used for several distinct types of verse line with related metrical structures, most of which are ultimately derived from the classical French alexandrine. The line's name derives from its use in the Medieval French ''Roman ...

s (1-138) and

decasyllable Decasyllable (Italian: ''decasillabo'', French: ''décasyllabe'', Serbian: ''десетерац'', ''deseterac'') is a poetic meter of ten syllables used in poetic traditions of syllabic verse. In languages with a stress accent (accentual ...

s (139-2198), but the last fifteen being only partially readabl

the end of the story remains a mystery. The one extant record of the text is a poorly kept manuscript discovered in 1876 by Didot family#Ambroise-Firmin Didot, Ambroise-Firmin Didot. Though it could never be authentified before, the existence of such a work had been known since the early

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...

through a quick mention in a poem by 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 ...

Guiraut de Cabrera. ''Daurel e Betó'' was written in the late twelfth or the early first half of the thirteenth century and is connected with the cycle of Charlemagne, but by the romantic character of the events is more like a regular romance of adventure. Excluding the cities of

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

and Babylon, all the places evoked in the tale are located in a region comprised between Poitiers and

Agen The commune of Agen (, ; ) is the prefecture of the Lot-et-Garonne department in Nouvelle-Aquitaine, southwestern France. It lies on the river Garonne southeast of Bordeaux. Geography The city of Agen lies in the southwestern department ...

, where it was probably composed. A thorough study of the vocabulary and alleged pronunciation (there was no fixed rules for spelling) of the author further reduces this area to

Haute-Garonne Haute-Garonne (; oc, Nauta Garona, ; en, Upper Garonne) is a department in the Occitanie region of Southwestern France. Named after the river Garonne, which flows through the department. Its prefecture and main city is Toulouse, the country' ...

and Tarn. Moreover, Beton, Aicelina, Gauserand and Bertrand were names mostly found in

Occitania Occitania ( oc, Occitània , , or ) is the historical region in Western and Southern Europe where the Occitan language was historically spoken and where it is sometimes still used as a second language. This cultural area roughly encompasse ...

.Paul Meyer, ''Daurel et Beton, chanson de geste provençale publiée pour la première fois d'après le manuscrit unique appartenant à M. A. Didot'', 1880, p. xxx: ''Notons cependant qu'Aicelina, Bertran, Beto, Gauseran, sont bien rares ailleurs que dans le midi de la France.''

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Full online text
{{DEFAULTSORT:Daurel E Beto Occitan literature Chansons de geste