Amours retranchées 5

De toy, Paschal, il me plaist que j’escrive

Qui de bien loin le peuple abandonnant,

Vas des Romains les tresors moissonnant,

Le long des bors où la Garonne arrive.

 

Haut d’une langue éternellement vive,

Son cher Paschal Tholose aille sonnant,

Paschal, Paschal, Garonne resonnant,

Rien que Paschal ne responde sa rive.

 

Si ton Durban, l’honneur de nostre temps,

Lit quelquefois ces vers par passe-temps,

Di-luy, Paschal (ainsi l’aspre secousse

 

Qui m’a fait cheoir, ne te puisse émouvoir)

Ce pauvre Amant estoit digne d’avoir

Une Maistresse, ou moins belle, ou plus douce.

 

 

 

 

                                                                            Of you, Paschal, it pleases me to write

                                                                            You who far off, abandoning the common throng,

                                                                            Go harvesting the treasures of the Romans

                                                                            Along the banks where the Garonne runs.

 

                                                                            Loudly in a language eternally alive

                                                                            Toulouse goes on praising its dear Paschal;

                                                                            The Garonne replying ‘Paschal, Paschal’,

                                                                            Its banks echoing nothing but Paschal.

 

                                                                            If your Durban, the pride of our times,

                                                                            Sometimes reads these verses at leisure,

                                                                            Tell him, Paschal (for the harsh shock

 

                                                                            Which has made me fall cannot thus move you)

                                                                            That this poor lover was worthy of having

                                                                            A mistress either less beautiful or more gentle.

 

 

 

 

 

We’ve met Paschal before and seen how Ronsard became less enchanted with him too. It’s not surprising that this sonnet ended up being withdrawn when that happened, naming him 6 times as it does! (And that’s even more obvious if you typeset the name in capitals each time, as is done by Marty-Laveaux, following some of the early sixteenth-century editions… But the story of how Paschal rose and fell is interesting, not principally to see Ronsard being duped by someone who didn’t have the same talent as he did, but rather for showing how it could have happened. It’s all about what was important at the time, and how values have changed; what is valued now, is not what was valued then.

 

But first the contemporary notes  on the sonnet written by Muret:

 

Line 1: ‘He addresses this sonnet to Pierre Paschal, a gentleman native to Languedoc, a man who, beyond an understanding of the sciences worthy of a fine mind (in which he has few equals) is endowed with such eloquence in Latin that even the Venetian Senate was astonished several times by it.’

 

Line 3: commenting on an earlier version of this line, which begins “Vas du Arpin…” (‘Go harvesting the treasures of the man from Arpinum’ – Cicero’s birthplace), Muret paraphrases “Go carefully gleaning the riches of Ciceronian eloquence”, and adds ‘he says that, because Paschal is one of those best-versed in Cicero who are alive today’

 

Line 4: ‘River which passes through Toulouse, where Paschal has his residence’

 

Line 9: ‘Michel-Pierre de Mauléon, protonotary of Durban, councillor in the Toulouse parliament, a very excellent fellow. Between him and Paschal is so great a friendship that effaces all those which are recommended by ancient authors.’  

 

 

So, now to the story of Paschal’s rise and fall.

 

It’s easy to forget – in an age when the ‘vulgar tongue’ has triumphed – that the Renaissance was not the re-birth of art, or of vernacular poetry, but pre-eminently was the re-birth of classical Latin & Greek literary style. All (or almost all) languages have a day-to-day form, and a higher style used in poetry and literature; and sometimes the gap between them is bigger, sometimes smaller. During the centuries since the fall of Rome, when Latin had remained the language of the church and of communication, the gap had become quite small – as it is today in English. But in the 1300s and 1400s, Italians rediscovered what the Golden Latin (& Silver Latin) poets and writers had done, and realised that the literary style could be much more refined than it was. And it was Latin, in particular, where their efforts were focused. Languages like French and Italian were, literally, secondary – and scholars even doubted whether anything good could be written in them. Ronsard and his peers were taking a risk by ‘renewing’ the French language as a language capable of birthing poetry of a quality comparable with the Greek and Roman ‘classics’.

 

Petrarch in Italy, and now Ronsard in France, were determined to show that the local language could be used as stylishly as Latin; but they lived within a humanist world which still valued Latin higher. When you see one or more dedicatory poems in Latin at the beginning of one of Ronsard’s collections, it’s not an affectation: it is a statement that what follows is literature worthy of the name, and the Latin is there to prove it.

 

It’s also important to realise that good style was valued enormously highly. In Florence, in the 1400s, reputations were made and lost on the turn of a (Latin) phrase. So Paschal’s Italian training in good classical Roman style was a strong weapon in his armoury. It’s worth noting that Paschal had published only the short book in 1548 (beautifully presented, of course – see it online here) containing his prosecution speech at a murder trial in Venice, and some Latin letters describing his Italian impressions, which would be his calling-card on being introduced to the poets; indeed, he would publish little else. That his reputation, on this basis, should equal Ronsard’s, looks crazy to us at this distance, but gives some idea of the importance the Renaissance attached to style rather than substance: what mattered was writing well, not necessarily the originality or substantive content of what you wrote. And Paschal did, indeed, write Latin well.

 

Paschal’s career was traced at length by Pierre de Nolhac a century back – well worth a read. His rise really begins when he came back from Italy in 1553, fluent in the ‘Ciceronian’ style of oratorical Latin which was favoured by the Italian stylists, and was introduced to some of the Pleiade poets: Ronsard, along with Olivier de Magny, was his first and strongest supporter. For what it’s worth, Baif’s first published piece of poetry was a dedicatory sonnet in another little booklet publishing a French translation of that Venetian speech of Paschal’s.

 

The promise of writing eulogies of France’s greatest poets in Latin had a strong appeal to all of them, even though they were wedded to the renewal of the French language, for they ‘knew’ instinctively that histories and eulogies written in Latin were longer-lasting and more significant than the equivalent in French. Publication in Latin would ensure that their reputation was Europe-wide, for a Latin eulogy would reach educated people across the whole of Europe. And Henri II ‘knew’ that it was more important that the history of his reign was undertaken by someone who could write high-quality Latin, than by someone who could handle sources etc with a historian’s insight.

 

Which is why Paschal rose so quickly to the position of Historiographer of France, in 1554. He was – or presented himself as – the pre-eminent Italian-trained Ciceronian writer in France. Not until Muret went to Rome would he have a direct rival. But his fine Latin did not make him a good historian. Although Ronsard and others ridiculed him for not having managed to write any of his history, three volumes of drafts survive in manuscript, and show that he was good at writing speeches etc, but not at military history or the undercurrents of politics. So his history skimped on what we think of as ‘history’, and majored on long speeches and extended praises of the main characters. And when Henri II died in 1559, he fell from favour and was replaced, returned to the south, and died soon afterwards (in 1565, aged only 45) leaving his history unfinished.

 

By 1554, then, Paschal was an important personage, and with the prospect of being immortalised in Latin, it was important that the poets continued to praise him. As late as 1558 Bellay placed him alongside Ronsard, he the master of prose, Ronsard the master of poetry; and in the mid-1550s Ronsard amended one of his 1550 odes so that it now said ‘Paschal will at some point make me immortal by his eloquence … It’s you who will make me eternal!’. To us, both the statement, and the breath-taking sycophantism of it, look unbelievable. And indeed back in 1555 Etienne Pasquier had already warned Ronsard that he was over-estimating and over-praising Paschal. (Further south, in Paschal’s home, people were less convinced by him: as early as 1551 a humanist poet and professor of law, Etienne Forcadel, had written: ‘Hear what his gilded eloquence actually says: that speech, however sweet, is empty’. So Ronsard’s line 5, about Toulouse praising Paschal, is not entirely true!)

 

(Incidentally, Paschal’s dear friend Durban was, as Muret’s note explains, a member of the Mauléon family. Paschal’s printed speech from Venice was as prosecutor in a trial for the murder of a Mauléon; though it’s not clear if the family chose him for his known eloquence in Ciceronian-style prosecutions, or because of some prior connection in Toulouse. Ronsard, in his 1559 invective, later reproached Durban for having ‘imposed’ the mediocre Paschal on him and for over-praising him among the poets. In fact, of course, Ronsard did quite a lot of that himself!)

 

Ronsard was not alone in preparing biographical material in French which Paschal could convert into a more significant publication, in Latin. But Paschal failed to deliver on his ‘hall of fame’ – though there is evidence that, again, he made some progress towards it: interestingly, there is a piece on Mellin de Saint-Gelais which survives – so perhaps his popularity with Ronsard’s set was affected by his taking a different view of just who was important to mention in this ‘hall of fame’!

 

But then the Pleiade poets began to see through the ‘emperor’s clothes’ and realise that his talents were, in fact, limited. It is interesting that this happened in 1559, when the King his supporter died and he did not gain the new King’s support. Could Ronsard and his friends have been playing safe up to that point? But when the gloves came off they really did get vituperative. Adrien Tournebu published a vicious Latin satire, and Baif published a French translation; Ronsard wrote, but only circulated in manuscript, a vicious anti-eulogy of him – in Latin. In Latin, because that was Paschal’s home turf, and because it carried more weight. Incidentally, although Ronsard’s Latin is fine and even stylish, it’s not in the same league as Paschal’s. Each had their specialism, and each was excellent within it. Is it coincidental that Ronsard also prepared a first collected edition of his works very shortly afterwards in 1560, and removed Paschal’s name from all the poems and dedications he had given him? (He wanted to re-dedicate his Hymne de la Mort to Bellay – but Bellay refused ‘someone else’s leftovers’.)

 

It was about the same time that Ronsard wrote, in his Elegie to Jérôme L’Huillier, of the way others, more adept than him but less deserving, won honours from kings while he struggled to make ends meet.

 

As usual though, Ronsard’s anger was short-lived. His poem beginning “Je meurs Paschal” dates from about 1564, when Paschal had retired to the south; and Ronsard also mentioned him favourably in some of his anti-Calvinist poetry. By this time, though, Paschal was dead, so Ronsard’s cooling anger may have had as much to do with that early death and the sadness of potential unfulfilled, as with any genuine reconciliation.

 

A minor detail of Ronsard history to close: in 1554 it was Paschal who, in Toulouse, persuaded the jury of the ‘Jeux Floraux’ to award the prize to Ronsard, and it was Paschal who accepted the award on his behalf. The silver flower never reached Ronsard, but the next year the committee had a silver statuette of Minerva made instead and sent that. Ronsard presented it to the King!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ronsard on music

Music seems closely linked with Ronsard – partly because so many composers set so many of his poems to music, partly because Ronsard’s poetry itself is littered with references to music, musical instruments, and singing his own songs. In the past scholars and readers assumed that Ronsard must himself have been musical, not least because he refers to playing his songs on the lyre or guitar. But more recently the view of Ronsard’s musicianship has taken a more cynical turn – for good reason!

 

For a start, recall that he was hard of hearing: we don’t now how severe his deafness was, but it certainly inhibited his ability to present his own poetry as music at court (or – perhaps it did, if we assume that the musical supplement to the 1552 Odes was intended to paper over this problem area, and give Ronsard a weapon in the ‘war’ to replace Mellin de Saint-Gelais as court poet in residence).

 

Then, consider the famous Preface to the 1560 ‘Mellange de chansons’ by Le Roy & Ballard (reprinted with some additions in 1572). What evidence does this provide?

 

 

The Mellange is a large collection of songs old and new: Ronsard refers to some of them as positively ancient, though the oldest can date from no earlier than the 1490s! What we must recall is that, until the advent of printing, music was only transmitted in manuscripts, and consequently ‘old’ music was essentially forgotten music. This is the reason why Josquin (in particular, though some of his peers also) became a figure of legend, the paradigm of good music. For Josquin was the first ‘great’ composer whose music was preserved and perpetuated in prints for future generations to read and perform. He was the first composer to get a ‘revival’, as German publishers and musicians discovered the early prints and re-published material from them – and looked out more manuscript material to publish. It was Josquin who, as one German publisher pointed out, was producing more music dead than he had alive… So, Ronsard’s preface had to justify re-producing old music as well as new, despite the fact that in his poetry he had made clear that the new poetry – his poetry, that of the Pleiade – was the only poetry which adequately reflected that of the (true) ancients, the Greek and Roman masters. Hence it is that Josquin has to become an ‘ancient’: a true exemplar whom other ‘moderns’ can follow.  

 

 

Ronsard’s text (above) is not readily available, so here is a transcription:

 

PREFACE DE P. DE RONSARD

AV ROY CHARLES IX.

SIRE, tout ainsi que par la pierre de touche, on esprouve l’or s’il est bon ou mauvais, Ainsi les anciens esprouvoyent par la Musique les esprits de ceux qui sont genereux, magnanimes, & non forvoyans de leur premiere essence: & de ceux qui sont engourdiz paresseux, & abastardiz en ce corps mortel, ne se souvenant de la celeste armonie du ciel, non plus qu’aux compagnons D’ulisse d’avoir esté hommes, apres que Circe les eut transformés en porceaux. Car celuy, S I R E, Iequel oyant un doux accord d’instrumens ou la douceur de la voyx naturelle, ne s’en resjouist point, ne s’en esmeut point & de teste en piedz n’en tressault point, comme doucement ravy, & si ne sçay comment derobé hors de soy: c’est signe qu’il à l’ame tortue, vicieuse, & depravée, & duquel il se faut donner garde, comme de celuy qui n’est point heureusement né. Comment pourroit on accorder avec un homme qui de son naturel hayt les accords? celuy n’est digne de voyr la douce lumiere du soleil, qui ne fait honneur a la Musique, comme petite partie de celle, qui si armonieusement (comme dit Platon) agitte tout ce grand univers. Au contraire celuy qui luy porte honneur & reverence est ordinairement homme de bien, il a l’ame saine & gaillarde, & de son naturel ayme les choses haultes, la philosophie, le maniment des affaires politicques, le travail des guerres, & bref en tous offices honorables il fait tousjours apparoistre les estincelles de sa vertu. Or’ de declarer icy que c’est que Musique, si elle est plus gouvernée de fureur que d’art, de ses concens, de ses tons, modulations, voyx, intervalles, sons, systemates, & commutations: de sa division en Enarmonique, laquelle pour sa difficulté ne fut jamais perfaittement en usage: en chromatique, laquelle pour sa lasciveté fut par les anciens banye des republiques, en diatonique laquelle comme la plus aprochante de la melodie de ce grand univers fut de tous approuvée. De parler de la Phrigienne, dorienne, lydienne: & comme quelques peuples de Grece animez d’armonie, alloyent courageusement a la guerre, comme noz soldatz aujourdhuy au son des trompettes & tabourins: comme le Roy Alexandre oyant les chams de Timothée, devenoit furieux, & comme Agemennom allant a Troye, laissa en sa maison tout expres je ne sçay quel Musicien D’orien, lequel par la vertu du pied Anapeste, moderoit les efrenées passions amoureuses de sa femme Clytemnestre, de l’amour de laquelle Ægiste emflamé, ne peut jamais avoir joyssance, que premierement il n’eut fait meschamment mourir le Musicien. De vouloir encores deduire comme toutes choses sont composées d’accordz, de mesures, & de proportions, tant au ciel, en la mer, qu’en la terre, de vouloir discourir davantage comme les plus honorables personnages des siecles passez se sont curieusement sentiz espris des ardeurs de la Musique, tant monarques, Princes, Philosophes, gouverneurs de provinces, & cappitaines de renom: je n’auroys jamais fait: d’autant que la Musique à tousjours esté le signe & la merque de ceux qui se sont monstrez vertueux, magnanimes & veritablement nez pour ne sentir rien de vulgaire. Je prendray seullement pour exemple le feu Roy votre Pere, que Dieu absolve, lequel ce pendant qu’il a regné a fait apparoistre combien le ciel l’avoit liberallement enrichy de toutes graces, & de presens rares entre les Roys lequel a surpassé soit en grandeur d’empire, soit en clemence, en liberalité, bonté, pieté & religion, non seullement tous les Princes ses predecesseurs, Mais tous ceux qui ont jamais vescu portant cet’ honorable tiltre de Roy: lequel pour descouvrir les etincelles de sa-bien naissance, & pour montrer qu’il estoit acomply de toutes vertus, a tant honoré, aymé, & prise la Musique, que tous ceux qui restent aujourdhuy en France bien affectionnez a cet art, ne le sont tant tous ensemble, que tout seul particulierement l’estoit. Vous aussi S I R E,   comme heritier & de son Royaume & de ses vertus, monstrez combien vous estes son filz favorisé du ciei, d’aymer si perfaittement telle sçience & ses accords sans lesquelz chose de ce monde ne pourroit demourer en son entire. Or de vous conter icy d’Orphée, de Terpandre, d’Eumolpe, d’Arion ce sont histoires, desquelles je ne veux empescher le papier, comme choses a vous congneues. Seullement je vous reciteray que les plus magnanimes Roys faisoyent anciennement nourrir leurs enfans en la maison des Musiciens, comme Peleus qui envoya son filz Achille, & Æson son filz Jason, dedans l’Antre venerable du Centaure Chiron, pour estre instruitz tant aux armes, qu’en la medecine, & en l’art de Musique: d’autant que ces trois mestiers meslez ensemble ne sont mal seans a la grandeur d’un Prince, & advint d’Achille & de Jason, qui estoyent princes de votre age, un si recommandable exemple de vertu, que l’un fut honoré par le divin poëte Homere, comme le seul autheur de la prinse de Troye: & l’autre celebré par Apolloine Rhodien, comme le premier autheur d’avoir apris a la mer, de soufrir le fardeau incongnu des navires: lequel ayant outrepassé les roches Symplegades, & domté la furie de la froide mer de Scytie, Finablement s’en retourna en son pays, enrichy de la noble toyson dor. Donques, S I R E, ces deux Princes vous seront comme patrons de la vertu, & quand quelque foys vous serez lassé de voz plus urgentes affaires, à leur imitation, vous adoucirez voz souciz par les accordz de la Musique, pour retourner plus fraiz & plus dispos a la charge Royalle que si dextrement vous suportez. Il ne faut aussi que votre Magesté s’esmerveille si ce livre de mellanges lequel vous est treshumblement dedié par voz treshumbles & tresobeissans seruiteurs & Imprimeurs Adrian le Roy, & Robert Ballard, est composé des plus vieilles chanssons qui se puissent trouver aujourdhuy, pource qu’on a tousjours estimé la Musique des anciens estre la plus divine, d’autant qu’elle a esté composée en un siecle plus heureux, & moins entaché des vices qui regnent en ce dernier age de fer. Aussi les divines fureurs de Musique, de Poësie, & de paincture, ne viennent pas par degrés en perfection comme les autres sçiences, mais par boutées & comme esclairs de feu, qui deça qui dela apparoissent en divers pays, puis tout en un coup sesvanouissent. Et pource, S I R E, quand il se manifeste quelque excellent ouvrier en cet art, vous le devez songneusement garder, comme chose d’autant excellente, que rarement elle apparoist. Entre lesquelz se font depuis six ou sept vingtz ans eslevez, Josquin des prez, Hennuyer de nation, & ses disciples Mouton, Vuillard, Richaffort, Janequin, Maillard, Claudin, Moulu, Jaquet, Certon, Arcadet. Et de present le plus que divin Orlande, qui comme une mouche à miel a cueilly toutes les plus belles fleurs des antiens, & outre semble avoir seul desrobé l’harmonie des cieux pour nous en resjouir en la terre surpassant les antiens, & se faisant la seule merveille de notre temps. Plusieurs autres choses se pourroyent dire de la Musique, dont plutarque & Boëce ont amplement fait mention. Mais n’y la breveté de ce præface, ny la commodité du temps, ny la matiere ne me permet de vous en faire plus long discours, Supliant le Createur, S I R E, d’augmenter de plus en plus les vertus de votre majesté , & vous continuer en la bonne affection qu’il vous plaist porter a la Musique, & à tous ceux qui s’estudient de faire reflorir soubz votre regne, les sçiences & les artz qui florissoyent soubz l’empire de Cesar Auguste: duquel Auguste Dieu tout puissant vous vueille donner les ans, les victoyres, & la prosperité.

And a translation:

 

PREFACE, BY P. DE RONSARD

TO KING CHARLES IX

SIRE, Just as with the touchstone it may be proven whether gold is true or false, so the ancients used music to prove the souls of those who are generous, magnanimous, and insightful as to their prime essence; and of those who are lazy, slothful, debased in this mortal body, not recalling the celestial harmony of heaven any more than the companions of Ulysses recalled being men after Circe had transformed them into swine. For, SIRE, he who, hearing the sweet harmony of instruments or the sweetness of the natural voice, does not rejoice in it, is not moved at all, does not shiver from head to foot like one sweetly swept away, and feel himself somehow swept up out of himself: this is a sign that he has a twisted, vicious, depraved soul, and we must take guard against him as one who is unhappily born.

How could we be in harmony with a man who, by his nature, hates harmonies? That man is not worthy to see the sweet light of the sun who does not honour music as a small part of that greater Music which so harmoniously (as Plato says) moves all our great Universe. By contrast, he who bears it honour and reverence is ordinarily a good man who has a healthy, happy soul and by nature loves higher things, philosophy, the management of political affairs, the work of war; briefly, in all honourable tasks the stars of his virtue will always appear.

So, to state here what Music is: whether it is governed more by passion than art, of its harmonies, of its notes, modulations, voices, intervals, sounds, organisation and linkages; of its division into Enharmonic, which because of its difficulties was never perfectly used, and Chromatic, which for its sensuality was banned by the ancients from their republics, and Diatonic, which as the one most closely approaching the melody of this great universe was approved of all.

– to speak of the Phrygian, Dorian, Lydian, and how some Greek peoples aroused by harmony went off courageously to war, as our soldiers do today to the sound of trumpets and drums; how Alexander the king, hearing the songs of Timotheus became mad, and how Agamemnon as he went to Troy deliberately left in his home some musician from the East who by the power of the Anapaestic metre could moderate the unchained passions of love in his wife Clytemnestra, inflamed by love of whom Aegisthus could never be happy had he not first of all had the musician killed.

– to seek again to deduce how all things are composed of harmonies, of measures, of proportions – whether in heaven, in the sea or on earth; to seek to discover furthermore how the most honoured persons of past ages felt themselves curiously swept up by the passions of music – whether monarchs, princes, philosophers, provincial governors, or renowned captains;

all these I would never have done, since music has always been the sign and mark or those who have shown themselves virtuous, magnanimous and truly born to feel nothing that is common. I shall take as example only the late King your father, whom God absolve, who while he reigned made apparent how much heaven had liberally enriched him with all graces and with gifts rare among Kings; who surpassed in the greatness of his power, in his clemency, in liberality, goodness, piety and religion not only all princes before him, but also all those who have ever lived bearing that honourable title of King; who to display the stars governing his fair birth and to show that he was accomplished in all virtues, so honoured, loved and took up music that all those who remain today in France who favour this art are not so significant all together as he was by himself.

You too SIRE, the inheritor of both his kingdom and his virtues, show how far you are his son, favoured by heaven, by loving so perfectly this science and its harmonies, without which no thing of this world could subsist entire. So, to tell you here of Orpheus, of Terpander, of Eumolpe, of Arion – these are stories with which I do not want to clutter up this paper as they are things which are well-known to you. I shall only tell you that the most magnanimous kings brought their children up of old in the houses of musicians, like Peleus who sent his son Achilles, and Aeson his son Jason, into the venerable cave of the centaur Chiron to be instructed as much in arms as in medicine and in the art of music; especially since these three roles mixed together sit not badly with the grandeur of a prince, and were for Achilles and Jason, who were princes of your own age, so commendable examples of virtue that one was honoured by the divine poet Homer as the sole author of the capture of Troy; and the other was celebrated by Apollonius of Rhodes as the first inventor of teaching the sea to suffer the unknown burden of ships – who, having passed beyond the rocks of the Symplegades [the Clashing Rocks], and conquered the fury of the frozen seas of Scythia, and finally returned to his own country enriched with the noble Golden Fleece.

So, SIRE, these two princes shall be patrons of your virtue, and when sometimes you are tired of your more urgent affairs, in imitation of them you will sweeten your cares through the harmonies of music, to return fresher and more eager to the royal charge which you carry out so ably. Your Majesty need also not marvel if this book of songs, which is most humbly dedicated to you by your most humble and most obedient servants and printers Adrian le Roy and Robert Ballard, is composed of the oldest songs which can be found today, since we have always considered the music of the ancients to be the most divine as it was composed in a more fortunate age, less stained with the vices which reign in this last age of iron.

Also, the divine passions of music, poetry and painting do not come to perfection by degree like the other sciences, but by bounds, and like flashes of lightning which appear here and there in various countries and just as quickly disappear. And so, SIRE, when some excellent workman in this art appears you should carefully protect him as a most excellent thing which appears but rarely. Among such men arose in the last twenty-sex or -seven years Josquin des Prez, a man of Hainault, and his disciples Mouton, Willaert, Richafort, Janequin, Maillard, Claudin [de Sermisy], Moulu, Jaquet, Certon and Arcadelt. And at the present time the more-than-divine Orlando [di Lasso] who like a honey bee has gathered all the fairest flowers of the ancients, and beyond that seems alone to have uncovered the harmony of the heavens for us to enjoy on this earth, surpassing the ancients, and making himself the sole wonder of our time.

Many other things could be said about music, of which Plutarch and Boetius have made ample mention. But neither the brevity of this preface nor the availability of time or material allow me to provide you with a longer discussion; calling on the Creator, SIRE, to increase more and more the virtues of Your Majesty and to continue you in the good affection it pleases you to bear towards music, and towards all those who study to make flourish again under your rule all the sciences and arts which flourished under the rule of Caesar Augustus; of which Augustus may the all-powerful God choose to give you the years, victories and prosperity.

Although this preface is sometimes presented as a unique and important statement of new enlightenment views, as I read it it seems to show more continuity with medieval views than a new departure: the Enharmonic, Chromatic & Diatonic; the Phrygian, Dorian & Lydian modes;  discussion of music’s ‘affect’, its impact on the emotions. Of course all this is fundamental to Ronsard’s view of music: it is important because it is useful, because it is affective, because it enhances the impact of poetry and because, like poetry, it can lead us to different emotional and intellectual states.

 

If Ronsard brings something new, it is of course a deep engagement with the classics, and therefore examples drawn from the myths to illustrate music’s importance. It has, however, been noted that Ronsard’s examples appear to have been lifted from his fellow-poet Baif, who wrote a much lengthier dialogue on the topic – and explained everything at much greater length, for let us be clear, Ronsard does not actually explain anything here. He simply summarises very briefly, without exploring in any detail.

 

And what Ronsard offers is not by any means an analysis of how music works – of the means and techniques which are used, of what makes good music ‘good’, let alone what makes music have the effects it does. All we are offered is (again) a list, some of the component parts of music: “de ses concens, de ses tons, modulations, voyx, intervalles, sons, systemates, & commutations…” In this respect Ronsard is very far from a ‘working musician’ or even (apparently) from ‘understanding’ music.  

 

Of course, Ronsard does offer a convincing list of leading musicians – something which has been used as evidence of his engagement with music, but which would not be difficult for anyone connected with Le Roy & Ballard to have provided (or helped him with). Indeed, most feature in the ‘Mellange de chansons’: Josquin, Mouton, Richafort, Maillard, Moulu, and especially Willaert, account for nearly 50 songs in the book, with Certon and Arcadelt adding a few more. Missing from the book, though in Ronsard’s list, are other significant French composers: Janequin and Claudin de Sermisy. But Ronsard omits others who might today seem greater than some in his list – Gombert and Clemens, for instance. So, is this list any evidence of Ronsard’s expertise? I don’t think it provides any substantial evidence.

 

What we are left with, then, is a decent ‘philosophical’ context for music, a list of music’s techniques, some evidence of classical reading about affects, and some borrowed mythological evidence, together with a fair list of composers. Not much, in effect, to build a reputation on – either for this preface or for Ronsard’s knowledge of music as ‘a science’.

 

Is that too cynical?