UDK 849.0.09-1:929 Bernart de Ventadorn
»AISSI CO'L PEIS«: THE DELICATE EROTIC OF BERNART DE VENTADORN
Patrick A. Thomas
No one would ever dream of accusing Bernart de Ventadorn of the indelicacy typical of Guillaume IX. Nonetheless, although this Fra Angelico of medieval lyricism1 never trespasses the limits of a most delicate reserve,2 it is evident that the quality of his desire had yet to attain the more non-carnal passion of a Dante. Bernart does not seek to meet his domna in Paradiso-, her private chamber is heaven enough for him.
Keeping that in mind, one may wonder if there are not perhaps some indirect allusions to the erotic beneath the polished elegance of Bernart's cansos. Let us consider, for example, the second stanza of »Be m'an perdut lai enves Ventadorn«:
Aissi co'l peis qui s'eslaiss' el cadorn e no'n sap mot, tro que s'es pres en l'ama, m'eslaissei eu vas trop amar un jorn, c'anc no'm gardei, tro fui en mei la flama, que m'art plus fort, no'm feira foes de forn;3
(vv. 8—12)
The simile here is that of the unwary fish, attracted by bait, caught on a hook, and, by implication, cooked in a flame. This would appear to be the poem's central image4; its metaterm is contained therein, i. e., loss of control.5 If we examine the original language more carefully, moreover, we may question if there is not some ambiguity here. It is true, of course, that within context the surface meaning of peis is »fish«. But may it not also be an indirect reference to the membrum virile? At first glance, such a suggestion may seem startling. On the other hand, is it really? If we look up the Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, we discover that von Wartburg had
1	Léon Billet, Bernard de Ventadour, Troubadour du XIIe siècle (Orfeuil: Tulle, 1974), p. 173.
2	Billet, p. 152.
3	Moshé Lazar, Bernard de Ventadour, Troubadour du XII' siècle, Chansons d'amour (Paris: Klincksieck, 1966), p. 92.
4	»Bernart habitually uses a central image not only to give colour to the meaning of a song but also to point its structure...« (Sarah Kay, »Love in a Mirror: An Aspect of the Imagery of Bernart de Ventadorn,« Medium Aevum, 2, Lll [1983], 278).
s David Carlson, »Losing Control in Bernart de Ventadorn's ,Can Vei La Lau-zeta Mover,'« Romance Notes, 3, XXIII (Spring 1983), 272. Although Carlson uses this term with regard to another canso, it seems to me it is still applicable here.
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come upon only one example in Old French of a word derived from Latin penis, i. e., pe, significantly found in Old Provençal in Peire d'Alvernhe.6 Although it is true that in Provence Latin ë did not evolve into ei as in the North of France, nonetheless as Frede Jensen notes:
... the poetic device consisting in the replacement of closed E by the diphthong ei in rhyme position affects closed E generally and regardless of its etymological sources.7
Jensen further remarks that this diphthongalization occurs before s.8 Ergo, penis > pein > pei. The dropping of the final -n after e is normal in limousine, the dialect of Bernart.9 Of course, one may argue that the word found in V. 8 is peis, not pei. In this regard, allow us to call to the reader's attention that already in the late 12th century, the period when Bernart lived, there are clear indications in MSS that the final -s dropped in a prae-con-sonantal position.10 Therefore it is conceivable that in this case peis could have been pronounced pei-. »Ais-sii co'l peis qui. . .« Would this make sense within context? What does the poet say? Clearly Bernart says he is on fire. He is in the midst of a flame that burns him more strongly than the fire of an oven. From this point of view, this peis-pei would appear to be an indirect and subtle reference to sexual excitement on the part of a male.
What is implicit here becomes somewhat explicit in the next stanza when Bernart praises the less than spiritual charms of his lady:
Nom meravilh si s'amors me te près, que genser cors no crei qu'el se mire: bels et blancs es, e frescs e gais e les e totz aitals com eu volh e dezire.11
(vv. 15—18)
Like the »fish«, Bernart is hooked on the bait, which is evidently the lady's »cors«. He is not praising her soul at this point. Which brings us to that unusual word cadorn (v. 8). Carl Appel, after pointing out that this is the only place the word shows up, suggests that cadorn might be derived from cordon:
Wir finden bei Mistral unter cordo »corde« auch die Bedeutung »vermille, corde garnie d'hameçons et de vers«. So ungefähr haben wir in V auch cordon aufzufassen, und man könnte nun etwa cadorn aus cordon (crdon > cardon und, durch Metathese oder Verkennung des Wortausgangs, > cadorn) ableiten wollen.12
6	Walter von Wartburg, Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch (Basel: Zbinden, 1958), 8. Band, p. 189. Wartburg is somewhat doubtful of this derivation and suggests that pe < pedem might be more appropriate.
7	»Deviations from the Troubadour Norm in the Language of Guillame IX« in Hans-Erich Keller, Studia Occitanica in memoriam Paid Remy (Kalamazoo, MI: Western Michigan University Press, 1986), II, 352.
8	Jensen, »Deviations«, p. 353.
9	Camille Chabaneau, Grammaire Limousine (Paris: Maisonneuve, 1876), p. 104.
10	Mildred K. Pope, From Latin to Modern French (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1934), p. 220. Even if it is argued that Bernart lived a little before this period, it can easily be pointed out that phonological changes always proceed more rapidly than the orthographic.
11	Lazar, p. 92.
a Bernart von Ventadorn, seine Lieder, mit Einleitung und Glossar (Halle: Niemeyer, 1915), pp. 71—72.
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Assuming that peis-pei is ithyphallic by implication and that the bait is the lady's lovely cors, as does seem to be the case, would it be outside the realm of possibility that cadom also might have an erotic undertone? We think not. Acknowledging that, down through the centuries, people have used various euphemisms for the more intimate parts of the body, permit us to suggest that this cadom or »little cord« might well be a veiled reference to that part of the lady's cors which is homologous to the phallus or peis. Given the erotic ambiance of these verses, this suggestion would appear to be logical and perhaps even ineluctable.
To back up our argument, let us look briefly at two images found in Guillaume IX. In »Campanho, tant ai agutz d'avol conres«, we find v. 5: »No m'azauta cons gardatz ni gores ses peis.«13 To the lubrioious troubadour, guarded cons would hardly be pleasing since they are being guarded against all membra virilia, including his own. The »gores ses peis« would seem to be an imaged repetition of the same idea. The fishpond, this moist hole in the ground, could well be interpreted as a symbol for the cons. In that case, »ses peis« would mean, not only »without fish«, but more symbolically and more significantly »without phalli«, peis being the plural of pei. Is it for nothing that one folk motif involves conception from eating fish?14 In antoher canso, »Farai un vers, pos mi somelh«, Guillaume IX. describes a sexual adventure with two willing wives: »Ueit jorns ez encar mais estei / En aquel forn.«15 It is unmistakable that in this circumstance the troubadour is referring to sexual heat. Could not one understand the forn or »hot oven« as being a yonic symbol? It does seem likely. And even though Bernart operates on a more refined level, it would appear probable that, in the final analysis, the heat so prevalent in v. 12 of »Be m'an perdut...« is not really any less carnal: »que art plus fort, no'm feira foes de forn«. The soul of the poet may be enkiindled more deeply, but his flesh is not any less incandescent. One recalls J. D. Burnley's scholarly investigation of fin as in fin'amors:
... it can also be used... as an intensifier to indicate vehemence of feeling or desire.16
Not unlike the medieval attitude toward leprosy, the troubadours considered love an ignis sacer, a feu saint,11 the purpose of which was to enable the sufferer to gain greater merit.18
What we have said does not in the least detract from Bernart de Venta-dorn's reputation as »le divin chantre du bel amour«.19 Hopefully what we
13	Alfred Jeanroy, ed., Les Chansons de Guillaume IX, due d'Aquitaine (Paris: Champion, 1967), p. 5.
14	Stith Thompson, Motif-Index of Folk Literature (Bloomington, IN: Indiana Univ. Press, 1935), V, 304. I hesitate to bring up Moby Dick, but recent criticism has suggested that the Great White Whale, a sperm whale by the way, is a gigantic phallic symbol swimming around in an ocean of primordial passion.
15	Jeanroy, p. 12, vv. 77—78.
" »Fine Amor: Its Meaning and Content,« The Review of English Studies, 122, XXXI (May 1980), 133.
17	Lawrence Wright, »,Burning' and Leprosy in Old French,« Medium Aevum, 1, XVI (1987), 104.
18	Wright, p. 105.
19	Billet, p. 173.
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have accomplished is to point out that beneath the apparent simplicity20 of his trobar leu lies a complex network of sensual nuances. The lack of gross-ness does not mean that Bernart has left his body behind. On the contrary, the erotic As far from being absent as we have seen in the phallic and yonic symbols: peis, cadorn, forn. The subtlety of his expression makes the difference. The cansos of Bernart de Ventado>rn incarnate the quintessence of romance: desire. Not has the sputtering flame of the uncultivated rustic, but rather the rarefied fire of a fin amans. The alert reader will not be insensitive to the delicate erotic of this poetry of refined passion.
20 Georges Tardieu, »Thèmes et Motifs Communs au Poète Ventadour et au Roi de Navarre Thibault de Champagne«, Bulletin de la Société des Lettres, Sciences et Arts de Corrèze, LXXXV (1982), 149.
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