Note 13 — Chapter X · THE BALADA.
Reading edition
A curious exception to this rule occurs in a balada published by Professor Bartsch from a Paris manuscript. It is evidently written in imitation of a popular model, and differs in toto from the spirit and diction of the poetry of the Troubadours, with which it has nothing in common but the language. Here we have a refrain of purely musical significance at the end of some of the lines, and also the exclamation of the dancers referred to in the text. Here also, curiously enough, the words take a narrative turn, thus seeming to foreshadow the gradual transition of the term ballad from its old to its modern meaning. A stanza may follow here:—
A l’entrada del tems clar, eya, Per joya recomençar, eya, E per jelos irritar, eya, Vol la regina mostrar Q’el’est est si amoroza. Alavi’, alavia, jelos, Laissaz nos, laissaz nos Ballar entre nos, entre nos.
(‘At the beginning of the bright season, eya, in order to begin again joy, eya, and to irritate the jealous, eya, the queen resolves to show how amorous she is. Away, away, ye jealous, let us, let us, dance by ourselves, by ourselves’).