In the first
"Chant," the first section opens:[4]
Seigneurs, faites silence; et que tout bruit cesse,
Si vous voulez entendre une glorieuse chanson.
Aucun jongleur ne vous en dira une meilleure.
Then some vaguely prelusive lines. But the audience is clearly not quite
ready yet, for the second section begins:
Barons, ecoutez-moi, et cessez vos querelles!
Je vous dirai une tres-belle chanson.
And after some further prelude, the section ends:
Ici commence la chanson ou il y a tant a apprendre.
The "Chanson" does, indeed, make some show of beginning in the third
section, but it still moves with a cautious and prelusive air, as if
anxious not to launch out too soon. And this was evidently prudent, for
when the fourth section opens, direct exhortation to the audience has
again become necessary:
Maintenant, seigneurs, ecoutez ce que dit l'Ecriture.
And once more in the fifth section:
Barons, ecoutez un excellent couplet.
In the sixth, the jongleur is getting desperate:
Seigneurs, pour l'amour de Dieu, faites silence, ecoutez-moi,
Pour qu'en partant de ce monde vous entriez dans un meilleur;
but after this exclamation he has his way, though the story proper is
still a good way off. Perhaps not all of these hortatory stanzas were
commonly used; any or all of them could certainly be omitted without
damaging the poem. But they were there to be used, according to the
judgment of the jongleur and the temper of his audience, and their
presence in the poem is very suggestive of the special difficulties in
the art of rhapsodic poetry.
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