Note 523 — Chapter XVI

This poem is in Cap. CCLXXII. of the Chronicle, and consists of twelve stanzas, each of twenty lines, and each having all its twenty lines in one rhyme, the first rhyme being in o, the second in ent, the third in ayle, and so on. It sets forth the counsel of Muntaner to the king and prince on the subject of the conquest they had projected; counsel which the chronicler says was partly followed, and so the expedition turned out well, but that it would have turned out better, if the advice had been followed entirely. How good Muntaner’s counsel was we cannot now judge, but his poetry is certainly naught. It is in the most artificial style used by the Troubadours, and is well called by its author a sermo. He says, however, that it was actually given to the king.