L'anme verai que tot aime

Poem (Canso):

L'anme verai que tot aime
Aucun que ne le rendt, mais rejete
C’effort doit dans soi torner
Et fixe sa foi a l’attention de pitié
Pour salut, consirant le deduit.
L’amor temporal le fait a depecier.

Le cuer pie ne puet a depecier,
Renforcé de la force de cui l'aime
Si sa valeur at le plus deduit
Que sol péché mortal rejete.
Portant l’amant s’accordt pitié
Et a l’amor divin vueut a torner.

Cui de cor a l’anme ne fait a torner?
L'escut de priere nesun vueut a depecier
Sans que l’homme n’at la plus pitié
De Deu, chascun que s'aime
Et negun neit ou nesun rejete.
Le salut divin est le meillor deduit.

Negun otroit ne solaz ne deduit
Que la grace de Déu la puet a torner,
Por le paien la valet rejete
Et veuet ses mensonges a depecier.
La merci norist, et si le l'aime,
Demandant sol la bele pitié.

Le tresor que résulte de pitié
Brille meillor de le plus bel deduit,
Augmentat le fidèle que l'aime.
De la vertu que nun puet a torner:
Com fer est, ne fait a depecier
Et sin la force outreement rejete.

Quant li vices l’anme rejete
Et emprent l’espoir de pitié,
Sas failles le gars vuelt a depecier
Por l’anme de Crist est le sol deduit.
Que’l cuer verai doit a torner,
Et eternalment Deu l'aime.

Envoi

Le cler anme rejete deduit
Et vuelt le plus pitié torner:
La foi que n'est depecier l'aime.

OLSCUS ME FECIT ANNAE - LUCIDUM SIGNUM NOBIS ES

Translation:

The faithful soul that completely loves
Another who does not requite it, but rejects
That effort, must within oneself turn
And fix his faith to the focus of mercy
For salvation does without vain favor.
The earthly love will him shatter. (that is, love will shatter the faithful one)

The pious heart cannot shatter,
Strengthened by the force that him loves (the force that loves him)
If his valor has the greater favor
Which only mortal sin rejects. (which rejects nothing but mortal sin)
So the lover grants himself mercy
And to the divine love can (he) turn.

Who from the body to soul cannot turn?
The shield of prayer none would shatter
Except for the man that has not that greatest mercy
Of God, who any and all He loves (God, who loves any and all)
And none denies or none rejects.
The divine salvation is the greatest favor.

No one grants any comfort or favor
Like to the grace of God can he turn, (like the grace of God to which he can turn)
For the infidel the servant rejects (the servant rejects the infidel)
And can his lies shatter. (and can shatter his lies)
The mercy nourishes, and so him loves, (loves he who is)
Asking only for the beautiful mercy.

The treasure that arises from mercy
Shines greater than the most beautiful favor,
Augmenting the faithful one that it loves. (that loves it)
From virtue that away none can turn: (from the virtue none can turn away from)
It is like iron, unable to shatter
And sin its strength totally rejects. (its strength totally rejects sin)

When the vices the soul rejects (when the soul rejects the vices)
And undertakes the hope of mercy,
His weaknesses the servant will shatter (the servant will shatter his weaknesses)
For love of Christ is the only favor
To which the faithful heart must turn,
And God eternally he loves. (and he loves God eternally)

Envoy

The bright soul rejects (mortal) favor
And will to the greatest mercy turn:
He the faith that cannot shatter loves. (he loves - or rather, should love - faith of an unbreakable strength)

OLSK MADE ME FOR ANNE - YOU ARE A BEACON OF LIGHT TO US

Documentation / Explanation (Razo):

This sestina (see below) was written for my good friend, Dame Anne le Couer (the current kingdom seneschal of Atlantia). Anne is a wonderful person and I wanted to give her a poem that I thought would appeal to her persona as well as her innate strength and faith.

A sestina is a thirty-nine line poem, invented by the thirteenth-century troubadour Arnaut Daniel, which forces a poet to exercise flexibility through rigid structure: there are six six-line stanzas and a three-line envoy, all of which use the same end words. If first stanza’s end-words are labeled 123456, then the second stanza’s end words follow this pattern: 615243. The third stanza uses 364125, the fourth 532614, the fifth 451362, and the sixth 246531. None of the end words are used twice in the same line order in any stanza. The final envoy uses two end words in each line, in the order 2 - 5, 4 - 3, 6 - 1. Daniel was fond of using the first end word of each pair directly before the final end word for that line. I have followed that trend in this poem. For an example of a Daniel sestina, see Lo ferm voler qu'el cor m'intra.

As Dame Anne’s persona is a fifteenth-century Frenchwoman, I decided the poem should be in French (the sestina is a French form, after all). I attempted to make the French somewhat archaic without making it enormously so. I also decided the sestina, with its rigidity and end word repetition, would be an excellent exercise for me to try and challenge my writing abilities. I also thought the sestina’s rigidity would provide a theoretically sound variation on the “fixed formes” of fourteenth and fifteenth century French poetry (the most common types being the rondeau, virelai, and ballade). In addition, the structure of the sestina mirrors the order and reason of one’s faith in God (at least in medieval thought). I could not help providing two short Latin messages to Anne at the beginning and end of the poem; I wanted there to be a more personal message than the somewhat vague individual mentioned in the sestina proper.

While I have dabbled in very short Old French poems before, this is the longest work in a foreign language I have written to date. In the future, I plan to try and learn more about modern French grammar in order to help incorporate it into further Old/Middle French poems from the later SCA period (so as to not have any ‘Renaissance France’ poetry sound like it’s out of a Chretien de Troyes epic more than Renaissance-era France, for example).

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