Firstpublished: Description: A rondeau(?) transcribed from the Trent manuscript tr93 whose attribution (Gary Richard Spilsted) is uncertain. The notes’ values and colourings are as in the manuscript, the coloured notes are “hemiolæ”. The time signature is missing in all the voices, the “tempus perfectum” has been assumed from the context and the perfect notes have been dotted. Only the text incipit to the Superius. The notes' values within the "ligaturæ" are as follows: the left upstemmed notes are semibreves - the unstemmed notes are breves. The “musica ficta” suggestions are in the MIDI and MusicXML files.
Tant que vivray en age florissant,
Je serviray Amour le dieu puissant,
En faictz en dictz, en chansons et accords
Par plusieurs jours m'a tenu languissant,
Mais après dueil m'a faict resjouissant,
Car j'ay l'amour de la belle au gent corps
Son alliance,
C'est ma fiance,
Son coeur est mien,
Mon cueur est sien :
Fy de tristesse,
Vive lyesse,
puisqu'en Amours a tant de bien!
Quand je la veulx servir et honorer,
Quand par escriptz vault son nom decorer,
Quand je la veoy et visite souvent,
Les envieux n'en font que murmurer,
Mais nostre amour n'en saurait moins durer,
Autant ou plus en emporte le vent.
Maulgrè envie
Toute ma vie
Je l'aimerai
Et chanterai:
c'est la première,
C'est la dernière,
que j'ai servie et serviray
English translation
As long as I remain at life’s full peak,
To serve the God of Love is what I’ll seek,
In deed, in word, in songs, and harmonies.
For quite some time she's left me feeling bleak,
But having suffered has not made me weak,
For I’ve the love of her whose beauties please.
Her sweet consent
Has my assent
Her heart and mine,
As one entwine:
Fie on sadness,
Long live gladness
For all is part of Love’s design.
When I desire to serve and honor her,
When odes I limn in ink to her refer,
When her I see, and yes, when we have sinned,
The jealous can do nothing but demur,
But calumny does not our Love deter:
Their jealousy and more’s gone with the wind.
Despite their gall
She’ll never pall
Her I’ll adore
And sing, what’s more:
The first is she,
And last for me,
Whom I will serve forevermore.