Alexandra’s Reviews > Lark in the Morning: The Verses of the Troubadours, a Bilingual Edition > Status Update

Going to start inserting “In nomine patri et filii et spiritus sancti” in my daily conversations just because I can.

Gotta say— Bernard de Ventadorn is the first troubadour introduced in this book whose songs I just couldn’t fully get into. Nothing particularly bad or awful, just uninspiring compared to those before him. Still, there’s some beautiful lines that bring me joy especially in Old Occitan!

“A Mo Cortes, lai on ilh es,
Tramet lo vers, e ja no•lh pes
Car n’ai estat tan lonjamen” (98).

I can only WISH that the legendary myth of Jaufre Rudel’s vida was true!!!

“Jaufre Rudel… fell in love with the Countess of Tripoli without ever having seen her, simply because of the good things he had heard the pilgrims retiring from Antioch tell of her, and for her he wrote many fine poems, rich in melody and poor in words” (60).

Legendary fictional devotions haven’t reached the same heights since tbh

Sooooo rich in history already so far, I'm loving this! To think there's so little saved and far more lost to time we'll never get to know from the named troubadors/trobairitz deeply saddens me 🥺