Poem II

End fact. Try fiction, Let us say we seeEn Bertrans, a tower-room at Hautefort,Sunset, the ribbon-like road lies, in red cross-light,South toward Montaignac, and he bends at a tableScribbling, swearing between his teeth, by his left handLie little strips of parchment covered over,Scratched and erased with al and ochaisos.Testing his list of rhymes, a lean man? Bilious?With a red straggling beard?And the green cat’s-eye lifts toward Montaignac.

Or take his “magnet” singer setting out,Dodging his way past Aubeterre, singing at Chalais

In the vaulted hall,Or, by a lichened tree at RochechouartAimlessly watching a hawk above the valleys,Waiting his turn in the mid-summer evening,Thinking of Aelis, whom he loved heart and soul ...To find her half alone, Montfort away,And a brown, placid, hated woman visiting her,Spoiling his visit, with a year before the next one.Little enough?Or carry him forward. “Go through all the courts,My Magnet,” Bertrand had said.

We came to VentadourIn the mid love court, he sings out the canzon,No one hears save Arrimon Luc D’Esparo--No one hears aught save the gracious sound of compliments.Sir Arrimon counts on his fingers, Montfort,Rochechouart, Chalais, the rest, the tactic,Malemort, guesses beneath, sends word to Cœur de Lion:

The compact, de Born smoked out, trees felledAbout his castle, cattle driven out!Or no one sees it, and En Bertrans prospered?

And ten years after, or twenty, as you will,Arnaut and Richard lodge beneath Chalus:The dull round towers encroaching on the field,The tents tight drawn, horses at tetherFurther and out of reach, the purple night,The crackling of small fires, the bannerets,The lazy leopards on the largest banner,Stray gleams on hanging mail, an armourer’s torch-flareMelting on steel.

And in the quietest spaceThey probe old scandals, say de Born is dead;And we’ve the gossip (skipped six hundred years).Richard shall die to-morrow--leave him thereTalking of trobar clus with Daniel.And the “best craftsman” sings out his friend’s song,Envies its vigour ... and deplores the technique,Dispraises his own skill?--That’s as you will.And they discuss the dead man,Plantagenet puts the riddle: “Did he love her?”And Arnaut parries: “Did he love your sister?True, he has praised her, but in some opinionHe wrote that praise only to show he hadThe favour of your party, had been well received.”

“You knew the man.”“You knew the man.”“I am an artist, you have tried both métiers.”“You were born near him.”“Do we know our friends?”“Say that he saw the castles, say that he loved Maent!”“Say that he loved her, does it solve the riddle?”End the discussion, Richard goes out next dayAnd gets a quarrel-bolt shot through his vizard,Pardons the bowman, dies,

Ends our discussion. Arnaut ends“In sacred odour”--(that’s apocryphal!)And we can leave the talk till Dante writes:Surely I saw, and still before my eyesGoes on that headless trunk, that bears for lightIts own head swinging, gripped by the dead hair,And like a swinging lamp that says, “Ah me!I severed men, my head and heartYe see here severed, my life’s counterpart.”