Trobador Poets; Selections from the Poems of Eight Trobadors

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1911. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... We are told little more of Guiraut de Bornelh's life than of Arnaut Daniel's. In two mss. short explanations are given of a few of his songs, but they are no more trustworthy than those prefixed to the sirventes of Bertran de Born. The biography itself tells none of the events of his life, but succeeds in giving a picture of the poet exactly like what, to judge from his songs, one may imagine him to have been. Guiraut de Bornelh was of Limousin, of the neighbourhood of Essiduoill, of a rich castle belonging to the Viscount of Limoges. And he was a man of low condition, but well versed in letters, and of natural talent. And he was a better trobador than any of those who had been before him, or who came after him--wherefore he was called Master of the Trobadors, and is still, by all those who understand subtle and well-turned sayings of love or of wit. He was greatly honoured by men of worth and understanding, and by good ladies who understood his lofty sayings and his songs. And his way of life was such, that all the winter he stayed at school and studied letters, and all the summer he went about from court to court, and took two singers who sang his songs. He never wanted a wife, but all he gained he gave to his poor relations and to the church of the town where he was born, which church was called, and still is, Saint Gervais. Guiraut de Bornelh took his art more seriously than the other trobadors took theirs. The schools where he studied were, no doubt, those connected with religious houses, where classical literature was taught; he learned the art of verse-making from his elder contemporaries. The greater number of his poems are love-songs, and while reading these one feels instinctively that he took more interest in the form of the songs than in the ladi...