Isabel del Okes

Challenges Entered: Period Poetry, Embellish It

Projects: 13th Century Planh (Troubadour Grief Poem), Inkle Trim Added to a Viking Overdress

EK wiki page: https://wiki.eastkingdom.org/index.php?title=Isabel_del_Okes

Inkle Trim Added to a Viking Overdress

I have several friends who make inkle and tablet woven trim, so I have several lengths of trim kicking about my house. Last year I purchased this plain, green Viking Overdress. I decided to add some trim to the top edge of the plain Overdress to meet the Embellish It Challenge. The trim was made by my friend Erica.

13th Century Planh (Troubadour Grief Poem) to Meet Grim the Skald’s Period Poetry Challenge

The Spring grants blessings to all that is green

Raising even the lowly grasses high

Life all around us struggles to be seen

The azure dome stretches across the sky

Yet I know not how to find verdant bliss

And my heart knows not how to join the song

For my love is gone and all is amiss

The plague has changed what was once right to wrong

Though the world has turned from Winter’s cruel frost

And spun around to face Spring’s pure gaze

Though new born leaves dance spinning and wind tossed

And the sun on water does spark and blaze

I will find no joy in the birds’ rich choir

Nor will I take pleasure in fields of gold

I will wail and weep and call Spring a liar

Bereft of comfort with no love to hold

My sighs as cruel as blizzard’s freezing gale

My tears as cold as Winter’s icy flakes

My body weakens, withers, I grow frail

My wretched heart with each beat slowly breaks

There is no life to spark within my breast

For oh my love has been taken from me

His gentle hands in mine no longer rest

For the plague tears apart all we can see

No more do his eyes shine bright with love’s spark

Nor do I feel his soft touch on my face

No more does he sing, my dear meadowlark

Nor do we dance in love’s sweet embrace

For the plague keeps him from my loving arms

Tis nothing I can do to draw him nigh

Not honeyed words nor woman’s magic charms

Nor fervent prayers nor songs sent on my sigh

You dank and wretched plague, why have you come

To keep me so far from my soul’s delight

Fiend you have stripped me of all I have won

Turning the bright Spring to darkest of night

A pilgrim’s path you have placed me upon

How far have you thrust my beloved away

There is no day without his light to dawn!

There is only night without his loving day!

Oh, I weep in time with the dripping clock

For there is no Spring in this horrid year

I have no key for my joy to unlock

If my dearest love cannot join me here

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This poem is based on “With confusion wrapped around my sad heart“ written by an anonymous trobairitz (female troubadour) found on page 121 of Songs of the Woman Troubadours. The original poem is a planh, a lament, likely composed in the mid-thirteenth century in Provence (Bruckner, Shepard, and White, p. 186). While a planh was a lament or eulogy for the dead, I decided to make mine a lament for the separation Covid-19 has forced upon us.

The form of the original poem is a canso, a common form used by the troubadours and trobairitz. A canso consists of “four to eight monometric stanzas, often on the same rhymes; they are followed by a tornada the size of a half-stanza and generally consisting in an address to the dedicatee of the song, man or woman, or to the song itself” (Akenhurst and Davis, p. 13).

The original poem is composed of five coblas singulars and one tornadas (Bruckner, Shepard, and White, p.185).

When the rhyming scheme never changes but the sounds of each stanza are different they are coblas singulars (Gaunt and Kay, p. 292)

Bruckner, Shepard, and White note that the original poem has the following rhyme and metrical syllable scheme (p.185):

A10 B10 A10 B10 C10’ D10 C10’ D10

I do not read Old Occitan but with some research and a lot of help from my husband, who knows more French than I do, I think we figured out what the apostrophe after the C10 rhyme meant. It seems that the syllable count is actually 11 on the C lines but the 11th syllable is caused by the word being feminine so it is a very soft, unaccented syllable. Given the lack of gendered words in English, I decided to stick with the 10-syllable count in my poem.

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Bruckner, Matilda Tomarym. Shepard, Laurie. White, Sarah. Songs of the Woman Troubadours. 1995. Garland Publishing, Inc. New York and London.

Gaunt, Simon. Kay, Sarah. Eds, “Appendix 2: Occitan Terms”. The Troubadours: An Introduction. 1999. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge, New York, and Melbourne

Zumthor, Paul. “An Overview: Why the Troubadours?” Akehurst, F.P.R. Davis, Judith M. Eds. A Handbook of the Troubadours. 1995. University of California Press. Berkeley and Los Angeles, California.

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ORIGINAL POEM

With confusion wrapped around my sad heart,

Shedding tears, tearing my hair,

Sighting heavily, I, wretched woman, will say farewell

To perfect love and all its practices;

I have no wish to love or like any man

In the world from now on,

For cruel death has stolen the one I loved

More than myself, with perfect pleasure.

For this reason I’m acting like a person

In despair, and I will spend each day

With a dismal face and inform

All those I see circling around me

That hope mean nothing to me;

And they can go seek elsewhere

A lady who loves them or gives them friendship

As I am taking leave of love and joy.

If with God’s blessing I could say farewell

To the world, as I’ve said it to love

(all my relations still hold me back),

I’d complain but little, I live is so much pain;

And for this reason I pray that death may come

Without delay to kill my weary heart

Since it killed the one my heart weeps for,

And I sigh and sorrow day and night.

All those I see brightly adorned and clothed,

Dancing, singing, happy, and at ease

Torment me, and I desire no pleasure

Of my own; this should be no wonder,

For at those times they renew the wound

By bringing to my heart the sweet manner

And bright clothing of the one (God keep him)

Who has no equal in the world, I think.

So it suits me not to love ever again,

To abandon love and its dwelling place,

For I don’t think I’ll find a man in this world

As good, as cheerful, or as worthy as he was.

He was frank, brave, completely honorable,

And so ardent that he died because of it,

For which reason my heart would be at fault

If I love another man after his death.

My sweet friend, if no one sustains me,

I am long dead, God help me,

For I feel nothing by misery, so strong is the grip

Of sorrow in me since I lost you

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Original Poem (in Occitan)

Ab lo cor trist environat d’esmay,

Plorant mos uslls e rompen los cabels,

Sospirant fort, lassa, comait pendray

De fin amor et de totz son conssells,

Car ja no.m platz amor hom qu’el mon sia

D’eras enant, ne portar bon voler,

Pus mort crusel m’a tolt cel q’eu volia

Trop mais que me, sens negun mal sauber.

E per aiso fauc lo captenimen

Desesperat e farai chascun jorn

Ab trist semblan, e darai entenen

A totz aicels que.m vey anar entorn

Qu’en me no.ls qual aver nul’esperansa;

Ans podon be sercar en autre part

Dona q’els am o qu’els don s’amistansa

Car eu d’amor e de joi me depart.

E si del mon pogues pendre comiat

Ab grat de Deu, axi com fau d’amor,

Totz mos parens encara m’an retrat,

Plandrie.m pauc aitant visc ab dolor,

E per aiço prec la mort sans demora

Vengua de faitz per mon las cor alcir,

Pus a mort cell de que mon cor tant plora

E fa mant dol nuyt e jorn e suspir

De tots quant vey ben parats e vestits

Dençant, xentant, alegres e pagats

Ai gran enueg e no.m plats mos delits;

E non deu esser res maravelats,

Car pus me son renovellant la playa

Anant me.l cor en lo gent aresar

E.l gay vestir d’acell, a qui Deus haya,

Lo qual no crey en lo mon n’agues par.

Per que m’es bon de null temps amar plus

E de iaquir amor e son hostal,

Car eu no crey hom de tobar dejus

Tn bo, tant gay ne de valor aytal.

El era franch, valen, d’onor complida

E tant ardit que ell n’es estat mort,

...per que mon cor faria gran fallida

Si n’amava altre apres sa mort.

Mon dolç amych, si be hom no.m sosterra,

Morta suy hey gran res, si Due m’ajut,

Car sino mal no sent, tan fort s’aferra

Dolor en me despuys que.us ay perdut.