Gilles Mureau, Pensez y se le povez faire

Pensez y se le povez faire 3v · Mureau, Gilles

Source:

*Florence 229 ff. 41v-42 »Penses ycelle” 3v Murian (unicum) · Edition

Edition: Brown 1983 no. 42.

Text: Rondeau quatrain; incipits only in Florence 229; the complete poem is found in Jardin 1501 f. 75.

After Jardin 1501:

Pensez y se le povez faire
sans perdre vostre renommee,
car au monde n’a femme nee
a qui j’ayme mieulx a complaire.

Certes je ne me scauroye taire
que ne vous dye ma pensee

Pensez y se le povez faire
sans perdre vostre renommee.

Pourtant ne vous vueille desplaire
de je vous dy ma destinee;
ma vie seroit infortunee,
se vous me faisiez le contraire.

Pensez y se le povez faire
sans perdre vostre renommee,
car au monde n’a femme nee
a qui j’ayme mieulx a complaire.

Consider whether you can do it
without losing your reputation,
for there is no other woman in the world
whom I love more to please.

I certainly do not know how to be silent
and not tell you my thoughts, so

consider whether you can do it
without losing your reputation.

Therefore, do not be displeased
that I tell you my destiny;
my life would be unhappy,
if you refuses me.

Consider whether you can do it
without losing your reputation,
for there is no other woman in the world
whom I love more to please.

Evaluation of the sources:

The MS has in the superius and contratenor only the first words of the text in a rather garbled version, “Penses ycelle”, and the composer’s name is stated on a small scroll saying “Murian” drawn above the music. The copying shows only a few rhythmical errors in the superius and contratenor, which easily can be brought in line with the surrounding counterpoint (see the edition).

A rondeau quatrain published in Le Jardin de plaisance of 1501 fits the music in a natural way. It is worth remarking that the contratenor, while the upper voices come to rest in the medial cadence of the rondeau, declaims in repeated notes, which seem to demand a repetition of the last four syllables of the 2nd text line (bb. 22-24). The poem “Pensez y se le povez faire” fits perfectly into such a pattern with the words “renommee / ma pensee / destinee”.

Comments on text and music:

A lyrical setting of a typically yearning love poem, a rondeau quatrain. The music is in a high tessitura (c-f’’) with the upper voice in a dominating role – in the 2nd line, however, the tenor enters (bb. 14-15) above the superius. The contratenor is mostly below the tenor but takes the fifth above in the G cadences in the first and last lines.

See further my Introduction to The Complete Works of Gilles Mureau.

PWCH July 2011