Anonymous, Ne me veilles, ma chiere dame

Ne me veilles, ma chiere dame 3v · Anonymous

Appearance in the group of related chansonniers:

*Laborde ff. 23v-25 »Ne me veilles ma chiere dame« 3v PDF · Facsimile

Edition: Goldberg 1997, p. 411 (Laborde – faulty).

Text: Rondeau cinquain; full text in Laborde:

Ne me veilles, ma chiere dame,
qui tant choisir de corps et d’ame,
plus voir languir devant vos yeulx;
d’ung doulant faictez demy joyeulx
sans differer pour craincte d’ame.

Pour moy guerir, seulle vous clame
ne rien qui soit je ne reclame
que vostre grace soubz les cieulx.

Ne me veilles, ma chiere dame,
qui tant choisir de corps et d’ame,
plus voir languir devant vos yeulx.

Pour dieu apaiser sans diffame,
l’ardent feu qui mon cueur enflame
et jourront ses faulx envieux
a l’esbaÿ qu’ainsi m’ist dieulx
je n’ay espoir en aultre femme.

Ne me veilles, ma chiere dame,
qui tant choisir de corps et d’ame,
plus voir languir devant vos yeulx;
d’ung doulant faictez demy joyeulx
sans differer pour craincte d’ame.

My dear lady, do not keep me,
who truly choose you with body and soul,
awake any longer to see me languish before your eyes;
make a sufferer a little happy
without resistance of fear for your soul.

In order to save myself, I ask of you alone,
I pray for nothing else, which might be
under the sky, but your grace.

My dear lady, do not keep me,
who truly choose you with body and soul,
awake any longer to see me languish before your eyes.

To appease God without disgrace,
the burning fire that enflames me
and promises these false envious
a shock, – may gods thus help me –
I have no hope in another woman.

My dear lady, do not keep me,
who truly choose you with body and soul,
awake any longer to see me languish before your eyes;
make a sufferer a little happy
without resistance of fear for your soul.

Evaluation of the source:

Copied by the main scribe of Laborde with only a few scribal errors. The two upper parts in the same high range are placed with the in general highest part (Superius 1) in the normal position of the tenor on the opening's right side above the contratenor, while Superius 2 and the supplementary text are placed at the left.

Comments on text and music:

This conventional love complaint seems to be a rather amateurish attempt at writing a poem in rime équivoque, a difficult genre in which the poet was not very successful. It has occurrences of artful word order and, as here preserved, some irregularities and obscure meanings. The poem has received an extensive setting for two equal high voices, which form a self-sufficient musical structure, and a wide-ranging contratenor, which most of the time accompanies and supplements the duet. It participates in bars 60-61 only in the imitatory play of the upper voices. The setting abounds in improvisatory stock phrases, and it depends on unison canonic imitation, where triadic movement acts as a sort of automatic counterpoint in thirds and sixths (bars 19-28, for example, weaves around the F-triad – in all three parts sounding like an improvisation upon the soft hexachord).

The result is quite boring, but one cannot deny it a certain brilliance and charm. The opening is remarkably similar to the much more competent »Recours d’onneur et de liesse«, which also is unique to Laborde (no. 6).

PWCH January 2012; revised June 2018 (1)

1) I am grateful to Professor Richard Wexler for spotting an error in my transcription and in the commentary, which now has been removed.