Can vei la lauzeta mover (PC 70.43)[1] is a song written in the
Occitan language by
Bernart de Ventadorn, a 12th-century
troubadour. It is among both the oldest[2] and best known[3] of the troubadour songs. Both the lyrics and the melody of the song survive, in variants from three different manuscripts.[2]
It is one of the first poems "to dramatise the effect of someone actually speaking in the present", in part by its formulation as a
first-person narrative. Its lyrics are arranged in seven stanzas of eight lines, ending in a four-line coda. The first two verses speak of a
lark (the "lauzeta" of the title) flying with joy into the sun, forgetting itself, and falling, with the speaker wishing he could be so joyful, but unable because of his unrequited love for a woman.[3] In subsequent verses, the subject compares himself to
Narcissus and
Tristan, and promises to go into exile if the woman he loves does not return his love.[4]
This song is one of three Occitan verses interpolated into the 13th century French-language romance Guillaume de Dole, and one of two similar interpolations in
Gerbert de Montreuil's Le roman de la violette.[5]
Some scholars have suggested that this song inspired a tercet in
Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy, Paradiso XX:73–75, which also describes the flight of a lark;[6][7] however, others have suggested that Dante might have come by this image indirectly through
Bondie Dietaiuti,[8]
or that this sight would have been common enough that no connection between the two poems can be ascribed.[7]Ezra Pound included a translation of parts of this song in Canto 6 of The Cantos, and returned to the same image in Canto 117.[9]
The song continues to be performed, and recordings are available on many albums.[10]
References
^This notation refers to the Bibliographie des Troubadours by Alfred Pillet and Henry Carstens (Halle: Niemeyer, 1933). The 70 refers to Ventadorn, and the 43 is the song number among Ventadorn's works.
^Paden, William D. (January 1993), "Old Occitan as a lyric language: The insertions from Occitan in three thirteenth-century French romances", Speculum, 68 (1): 36–53,
doi:
10.2307/2863833
^Holbrook, Richard Thayer (1902),
"Chapter XLI: The Lark", Dante and the Animal Kingdom, Columbia University Press, pp. 266–269
Adams, Tracy (October 2000), "The ambiguous Narcissus figure of le lai de Narcisus and 'Can vei la lauzeta mover'", French Studies, LIV (4): 427–438,
doi:
10.1093/fs/liv.4.427.
Carlson, David (1983), "Losing control in Bernart de Ventadorn's 'Can vei la lauzeta mover'", Romance Notes, 23 (3): 270–276,
JSTOR43801915.
Gaunt, Simon (1998), "Discourse desired: desire, subjectivity and mouvance in Can vei la lauzeta mover", in Paxson, James; Gravlee, Cynthia (eds.), Desiring Discourse: the Literature of Love, Ovid through Chaucer, Selinsgrove: Sequehanna University Press, pp. 89–110.
Hill, Thomas D. (1979), "The fool on the bridge: 'Can vei la lauzeta mover' stanza 5", Medium Ævum, 48 (2),
doi:
10.2307/43631371.
Kay, Sarah (1983), "Love in a mirror: An aspect of the imagery of Bernart de Ventadorn", Medium Ævum, 52 (2): 272–285,
doi:
10.2307/43628739.
Smith, Nathaniel B. (1975), "'Can vei la lauzeta mover': poet vs. lark", South Atlantic Bulletin, 40 (1): 15–22,
doi:
10.2307/3199081.
Smith, Nathaniel B. (June 1978), "The lark image in Bondie Dietaiuti and Dante", Forum Italicum, 12 (2): 233–242,
doi:
10.1177/001458587801200205.
Steel, Matthew C. (1982), "A case for the predominance of melody over text in troubadour lyric: Bernart de Ventadorn's 'Can vei la lauzeta mover'", Michigan Academician, 14: 259–271.