Se je garde bien vostre honneur 3v · Anonymous
Appearance in the group of related chansonniers:
*Dijon ff. 17v-18 »Se je garde bien vostre honneur« 3v · Edition · Facsimile
*Laborde ff. 48v-49 »Se je garde bien vostre honneur« 3v · Edition · Facsimile
Other musical sources:
Florence 176 ff. 4v-6 »Se je guande bien vostre honeur« 3v · Facsimile
Paris 15123 ff. 74v-75 »Sige garde bien vostre honour« 3v · Facsimile
Sevilla 5-1-43 ff. 19v-20 »Se je garde bien vostre cueur« 3v
This page with editions as a PDF
Editions: Droz 1927 no. 14 (Dijon), Goldberg 1997 p. 445 (Laborde).
Text: Rondeau cinquain; full text in Dijon and Laborde; also in Jardin 1501 ff. 75 and 96v (tierce in two versions, both different from Dijon and Laborde).
After Dijon:
|
Se je garde bien vostre honneur, Se de ce vous me faictes seur se je garde vostre honneur, Parce jamais n’aray douleur, 3) Se je garde bien vostre honneur, |
If I defend your honour, If you can assure me this, if I defend your honour, By that I will never be unhappy, If I defend your honour, |
1) Laborde, line 3, “... vous point ma …”
2) Laborde, line 4, “dictez moy et …”
3) Laborde, line 12, “Penses jamaiz …”
4) Laborde, line 13, “mais seray …”
5) Laborde, line 14, “bien heure sera ...” (error)
6) Laborde, line 15, “... qui tousiours desvie” (error)
Evaluation of the sources:
The Dijon and the Laborde scribes copied “Se je garde bien” into their respective chansonniers. The music in the same in both sources, but the scribes used different exemplars, even if the differences may seem insignificant. Laborde shows many differences in the use of ligatures that have some impact on how the words are presented, and there are a few melodic deviations (S b. 49, T b. 47, C bb. 59-60); also the poem in Laborde appears less consistent than in Dijon. Taken together these small differences in the music firmly place Laborde in a tradition of transmission together with three slightly later Italian chansonniers: Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Ms. Magl. xix.176, Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, ms. f.fr. 15123 (Chansonnier Pixérécourt) and Seville, Biblioteca Capitular y Colombina, MS 5-1-43.
The scribe of Florence 176 copied the music with care, but was not interested in the French words and gave up after three lines. His French exemplar may very well have contained a version of the song, which was earlier than those that reached the Dijon and Laborde scribes. Here the mensuration is indicated as the then quite old-fashioned C2, that is imperfect minor modus, which is patterned in imperfect longae and diminished. This pattern is not used to any noticeable effect in the song, and in the four other sources the mensuration has been changed into the normal tempus imperfectum diminutum. Furthermore, in Florence 176 the hexachordal signatures follow the traditional pattern with no signature in the upper voice and one-flat signatures in the two lower voices. Laborde seems to adhere to this scheme with no flat in the upper voice, but after the first two staves there is a change to the same configuration as in the majority of sources with a one-flat signature in all voices.
In this way, Laborde is part of a chain of sources that were transferred to Italy, where a number of new variants were introduced, while Dijon comes to represent another branch of the song's circulation, even though the differences between them are very small.
Comments on text and music:
This is a setting of a love poem full of hope expressed in rich rimes. To modern ears, the music is completely cool to the poem’s hope. It is for three voices, each in its own range (b-d'', d-e', G-g), which never cross each other, in G-Dorian, which characterizes the tonal progression throughout the setting, and it is strongly unified. This last despite the fact that the song complies with all requirements for variation in its course.
It starts with a rhythmic acceleration, from longa value to semiminimae, at the beginning of the second line tenor and superius imitate each other rhythmically (bb. 11-14) and in the third line pass into a longer passage in canonic imitation (bb. 24 ff), which appears again in free form in the second section of the song. The beginning of the second section contrasts with the preceding by its homorhythmic declamation, and in two places there are details that the composer probably expected his colleagues to nod approvingly: Just before the mid-cadence he “cheats” the listener, who will expect a cadence to G in bar 36, but the song just slides on to rest on the fifth step of the mode. The last line opens with an imitation of a single note and a single syllable “la / sur” – a clever way to kick off after the languishing ending of the fourth line, which is extended to balance the two sections.
The unity is evident in the motifs. Superius starts by circling g' followed by a leap up to d'', from where the melodic line winds its way back stepwise to g'. We hear the same progression extended at the end of the third line (from bar 29) and at the end of the fourth line (from bar 42), and finally the final melisma (from bar 58) refers back to the same melodic material. This takes place in contrapuntal interaction with the tenor, who at relatively the same places peaks at its highest note e'-flat. In the tenor’s handling of the material, the tendency towards monotony becomes clearer, as it stays within the f-hexachord for long passages. The contratenor does not contribute much, as it is a low supporting voice, which far too much trudges back and forth between G and d. The song meets all the requirements for being up-to-date in the 1460s, but it lacks the sparkle of the better chanson composers.
PWCH April 2026