The
past is another country and it may take a lot of research and imagination to recreate its multilayered
richness of sights, sounds, smells, textures and tastes. Visiting the Chiltern Open Air Museum a few years ago, I found myself shouting to be
heard over the
almost unbearable thunder of iron-rimmed cartwheels rolling over
cobbles. I’d
had no idea carts made so much noise – and that was a single, large,
four-wheeled
wagon pulled by a single horse. Hard to imagine the din around the warehouses of
London Docks in the 1880s.
Music goes beyond natural sound, however. Music is a cultural
construct, full of meaning: it reflects, interprets and to a large extent
creates the manners and desires of its own time. It's natural to refer to
music as we construct history. Swing-time, jazz, rock and roll, punk, reggae,
hip-hop, grime – all tell something about the decades in which they flourish.
Impossible to imagine the sixties without the Beatles or the Kinks. The same
must be true for the deeper past. I once thrilled to a British Museum
reconstruction of a Roman trumpet call, and what about the prehistoric bone flutes that were played in caves
like Lascaux? (And why were they played, and for whose attention? The dead? Earth spirits?)
My children’s novel Dark Angels (HarperCollins) is set on the Welsh borders in the 1190s, and features a flawed
heroic figure, Lord Hugo de La Motte Rouge, Norman warlord and ex-crusader who
believes his dead wife may – just may – not be dead after all even though
seven years have passed since he buried her. She may have been spirited away by
the elf-folk and taken into the tunnels under the hill. In which case, there is a chance he could rescue her.
There are a quite a few 12th century legends on
this mysterious subject, the idea of a lost lover re-encountered in some fairy
land of the dead. Walter Map, a courtier at the court of Henry II, tells the
story of a Breton knight who rescued his dead-and-buried wife when, months
later, he saw her whirling in a fairy dance. And Sir Orfeo, the 13th century retelling of the Orpheus myth, most likely ultimately dates
from this time, translated from a Breton lai into Middle English – and it has a happy ending.
So there I was with the idea that my knight Lord Hugo would
be a sort of Orpheus figure. Therefore he needed to be musical. Now the Breton lais are lengthy stories in verse: they were performed by minstrels who probably chanted them with a musical prelude and
interludes. And of course the 12th and 13th centuries were also the time of the
troubadours of southern France whose songs were primarily songs of fin’
amour – of romantic love in high society.
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| Garden of Pleasure, Harley 4425, 15th C. |
It’s been suggested that the notion, even the emotion of romantic love was created by
the troubadours: a product of the hot-house urges of often very young
noblemen and noblewomen living in close
proximity in small castles, with nothing much to do – spending time together every day, with sex strictly
off-limits, since marriage was a formal affair of property and alliances arranged
by their elders. And this new music arose, a music of youth, full of expressions of
forbidden desire: subversive, exciting, dangerous, fashionable.
Many troubadours were high-born men and women, whose songs were usually performed for them by a joglar or jongleur, a professional singer. Still, it seemed to me possible that my own Lord Hugo might on occasion be prevailed upon to sing his own songs – especially if he thought that doing so might help him win back his wife from the dead land.
Many troubadours were high-born men and women, whose songs were usually performed for them by a joglar or jongleur, a professional singer. Still, it seemed to me possible that my own Lord Hugo might on occasion be prevailed upon to sing his own songs – especially if he thought that doing so might help him win back his wife from the dead land.
So I listened to troubadour songs. Here's an anonymous 13th
century song performed by Arnaud Lachambre; it's known by its first line: 'Voulez vous que je vous chante?' I made a free
translation of it to get myself in the mood for writing songs for
Lord Hugo.
Volez vous que je vous chante Would
you like me to sing to you
Un son d’amours avenant? A
fine song of love?
Vilain nel fist mie, By
no peasant was it made,
Ainz le fist un chevalier But
a gentle knight who lay
Sous l’ombre d’un olivier With
his sweetheart in his arms
Entre les bras s’amie. In
an olive tree’s shade.
Chemisete avoit de lin She
wore a linen chemise,
Et blanc peliçon hermin A
pelisse of white ermine –
Et bliaut de soie Of
silk was her dress,
Chauces ot de jaglolai Her
stockings were of iris leaves
Et solers de flours de mai And
slippers of mayflowers
Estroitement chauçade Her
feet to caress.
Ceinturete avoit de feuille Her
girdle was of leaves
Que verdist quant li tens meuille, Which
grow green when it rains,
D’or est boutonade Her
buttons of gold so fine,
L’aumosniere estoit d’amour Her
purse was a gift of love
Li pendant furent de flours And
it hung from flowery chains
Par amours fu donade. As
it were a lovers’ shrine.
Et chevauchoit une mule And
she rode on a mule,
D’argent ert la ferruere The
saddle was of gold,
La sele ert dorade; All
silver were its shoes.
Sus la croupe par derriers To provide her with shade,
Avoit plante trois rosiers On the crupper behind her
Pour faire li ombrage. Three
rose-bushes grew.
Si s’en va aval la pree As
she passed through the fields
Chevaliers l’ont encontree She
met gentle knights
Beau l’on saluade: Who
demanded courteously:
“Belle, dont estes vous nee?” “Fair
one, where were you born?”
“De France sui la louee, “From
France am I come,
De plus haut parage.” And
of high family.”
“Li rossignol est mon pere “The
nightingale is my father
Qui chant sor la ramee Who
sings from the branches
El plus haut boscage. Of
the forest’s highest tree.
La seraine est mon mere The
mermaid is my mother
Qui chante en la mer sale Who
sings her sweet notes
Li plus haut rivage.” By
the banks of the salt sea.”
“Belle, bon fussiez vous nee! “Fair
one, well were you born!
Bien estes emparentee Well
fathered, well mothered
Et de haut parage. And
of high family.
Pleüst á Dieu nostre pere Now would God only grant
Que vous ne fussiez donee That
you might be given
A femme esposade.” In
marriage to me!”
Could a song be more sensual, the object of desire more
dangerous? The lady in this chanson
is
a headily-erotic blend of wildwood flowers, songs and the fairy world, and that
purse which hangs from her girdle on flowery chains ‘like a lover’s
shrine’ is certainly a symbol Freud would have recognised. No wonder
the young knights acknowledge her ‘high degree’ and long
for her hand in marriage. It’s enough to turn their parents’ hair grey.
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| Lady out riding, 16th C, by Gerard Horenbout |
Troubadour songs often use images such as the coming of the
green leaves in spring and the song of the nightingale, to express the pain
and delight and longing of love. Here’s Guillem de Peiteus, Count of Poitiers
and Duke of Aquitaine, comparing love to a hawthorn branch:
As for our love, you must know
how
Love goes – it’s like the
hawthorn bough
That on the living tree stands,
shaking
All night beneath the freezing
rain
Till next day, when the warm sun,
waking,
Spreads through green leaves and
boughs again.
(Tr. W. D. Snodgrass.)
In the end I wrote this for Hugo to sing of his love:
When all the spring is bursting
and blossoming,
And the hedges white with
blossom like a breaking wave,
That’s when my heart is bursting
with love-longing
For the girl who pierced it, for
that sweet wound she gave.
And I hear the nightingale
singing in the forest –
Singing for love in the forest:
“Come to me, I am alone…
Better to suffer love’s pain for
a single kiss
Than live for a hundred years
with a heart of stone.”
It’s Hugo’s love and pain that drives the plot of Dark Angels and I needed the
plangent, beautiful music of the 13th century to get it
right.
