Song: To Freida

The Core Media Forum
1

Well, I suppose that I may as well show a poem of mine, seeing as it has been ages and that XWing asked about this one, my sestina-form troubadour song. This was inspired by a woman for whom I had some feelings years ago whilst I worked in the kitchen of a local restaurant, who was beautiful, flirtatious, and socially outgoing, but who always seemed to attract the foul advances of chauvinistic drunken patrons.

The poem’s structure is directly taken from the sestina (or six-line) form used by troubadours and by their later imitators like Petrarch. There are six six-line stanzas which repeat six end-rhyme words, with each rhyme word occupying a different place in each stanza. The poem ends with an envoy (from an Old French word which meant ‘departure’, but had the sense of sending something out to someone in departure) which repeats all six rhyme words and bids the lady, to whom the poem is addressed, farewell.

In addition to the structure, I have also used some traditional troubadour poetic tropes and imagery.

Song: To Freida

My damosel let spring a larkish laugh,
That I well hoped betokened noblesse true,
Though bound’n estate but understood her eyen.
Her steps, a bootless path, she trode full sweet.
Yet I in churlish weeds in swink mote speed,
And sorrow made that I could nought of dance.

No earthly hand had carv’n such feet for dance,
Nor taught such cheer and lusty tongue to laugh.
And lo, her lily neck had token sweet:
A dearworth string, methought, of dwarven speed,
To cast in sheen, and boot a count’nance true,
That men bewitched ne’er might her drive from eyen.

But could a shamefast man to wend her eyen,
From bawds oft wont their frowards gins to speed,
And idle deeds full lewd and boasting laugh.
Though cunning fall her steps he’d heed her dance,
And deal as bid good thewes, upright and sweet.
Thereby soon might he win her heart’s will true?

Though men of hardier mood, if false or true,
Are free, by bolder might, to follow dance,
Rough irons hold my heart’s assay of speed.
They n’ ail but thrive in salty streams from eyen:
No ruthful rust, but iron’s warbling laugh,
Of stronger forging waxeth there, unsweet.

Yet thralldom knoweth this one freedom sweet:
A bounden wight, though fey are wax’n his eyen,
Shall know ne gin ne smart of hunt untrue.
What bawdy boast and eke what lewdest laugh
May lacking meat them feast of ven’ry’s dance?
No hunted swinking bit their maws shall speed.

O wicked sight! The hunt is whipped to speed!
And th’ eager hounding hawks, for ven’ry sweet,
Follow steadfast for t’ overset her dance.
O bootless flight! Eftsoons their snares untrue,
Are set to hold her neck! Away mine eyen!
Another string shall snare her to their laugh.

Envoy:

Farewell, ye lusty laugh and gleaming eyen!
Yea, still my speed shall ne’er match thine in dance,
Though wax my likeness sweet and courage true.

Archaic word explanations:

betoken = signify, represent
noblesse = nobility
true = This word has a sense of ‘honourable’.
bound’n = bound (from the old past participle ‘bounden’)
estate = social rank
eyen = eyes; the -n plural was common into Early Modern English and survived straight from Old English eagan.
bootless = useless, pointless
sweet = This word has a strong sense of noble aesthetics.
weeds = clothes
swink = toil, labour (from Old English swincan ‘to toil’)
mote = must (the old present tense form; ‘must’ was actually originally the past tense.
speed = progress (the original meaning of this verb)
could = This verb has a sense of knowing how to do something, as it did in Old English.
carv’n (carven) = carved; the verb was originally strong
lusty = vivacious
dearworth = precious (Old English deorwurþ)
boot = benefit
shamefast = modest, restrained
wend = turn
bawd = bawdy persons, and ‘players’
wont = accustomed
gins = schemes, tricks
thewes = manners (Old English þeaw ‘custom, manner’)
false = dishonourable, deceitful
assay = try
ruthful = merciful (‘ruth’ is an old word for ‘mercy’ and ‘pity’)
warbling = mocking
waxeth = increases
wight = being, creature
smart = injury (either physical or a blow against one’s honour)
eke = also
them feast = make a feast for themselves. Archaically, as a verb ‘to feast’ usually takes a direct object.
ven’ry (venery) = prey in hunting, but it has a strong sexual undertone
overset = disrupt
eftsoons = once more

This poem is Copyright 2004 Percival Koehl.

2

I enjoyed it! You’ve executed a good balance between seriously treating a heartfelt topic and maintaining the songlike quality necessary to sestinas. I’m also struck by how smoothly it progresses, how much an integrated whole it is. The motion of the poem, upward toward hopefulness and then downward toward despondence, like a parabola, seems to me appropriate for a sestina. The motion is spread evenly throughout the stanzas.

The speaker’s flowing and melodic voice, I think, from the sanguine start to the melancholy end, is the best feature of the poem: metaphorical, but not over-indulgent in poetics; hopeful, without exaggeration; despondent, without melodrama; ever the troubadour. The pleasure of any given line is tangible in the sounds themselves.

Excellent poem.

3

And I am equally glad that you enjoyed it so. Perhaps you also noticed my overall antithesis of captivity and freedom throughout the poem; that was probably the strongest influence from Petrarch, as well as the motion between intensities, just as you already clearly pointed out. The lark and the praise of Freida’s supernatural beauty and manners is, of course, typical fare in troubadouric poetry and in that of later imitators. I did have to leave out some tropes, such as the spring-and-winter antithesis, at least directly. Did you, by chance, get the mythological allusion through the lady’s name and her necklace as well?

I think that part of what took me so long (apart from the fact that I am very picky about my archaic diction) was preventing the poem from sounding too sappy. Obviously, my diction more or less can protect me from modern sentimental clichés, but I did want to avoid the overused stereotypical depressed admirer, bemoaning the unrequited love. Obviously, meter was not much of a problem, because I use iambic pentameter for also everything, and I reckon that the old eleven-beat line of most original troubadouric poetry would not work well in English, even though it does very well in Occitan and Italian, and quite well in French.