Antoine Busnoys, Ma damoiselle, ma maistresse

Ma damoiselle, ma maistresse 3v · Busnoys, Antoine

Appearance in the group of related chansonniers:

*Dijon ff. 15v-16 »Ma damoiselle, ma maistresse« 3v Busnoys · Edition · Facsimile

*Nivelle ff. 40v-41 »Ma damoiselle, ma maistresse« 3v Busnois · Edition · Facsimile

Editions: Droz 1927 no. 12 (Dijon), Goldberg 1994, p. 330 (Nivelle), Busnoys 2018 no. 25 (Nivelle).

Text: Rondeau cinquain; full text in Dijon and Nivelle; the refrain is also in Berlin 78.B.17 f. 156, ed.: Löpelmann 1923, p. 293.

After Nivelle:

Ma damoiselle, ma maistresse,
ayez pitie de la destresse 1)
de mon pauvre doloureux cuer,
ou autrement vostre rigeur 2)
l’occira bien brief de tristesse.

Car tellement desir le presse
que son mal tous les jours ne cesse,
il est mort, par mon createur.

Ma damoiselle, ma maistresse,
ayez pitie de la destresse
de mon pauvre doloureux ceur.

Vous voíez bien qu’il ne s’adresse 2)
qu’a vous seulle ne n’a promesse
que d’estre vostre serviteur,
et sans l’avoir trouve menteur
luy donnez dueil a grant largesse. 4)

Ma damoiselle, ma maistresse,
ayez pitie de la destresse
de mon pauvre doloureux ceur,
ou autrement vostre rigueur
l’occira bien brief de tristesse.

My little lady, my mistress,
have pity for the distress
of my poor suffering heart,
or else your cruelty
will kill it before long of sadness.

For such does desire torment it
that its pain never ceases,
it is dead, by my Maker.

My little lady, my mistress,
have pity for the distress
of my poor suffering heart.

You will certainly see that it only
wants you and has made no other promise
than to be your servant,
and without having found it false
you cause it hurt in great abundance.

My little lady, my mistress,
have pity for the distress
of my poor suffering heart,
or else your cruelty
will kill it before long of sadness.

1) Dijon, line 2, “… de la tristesse” (error)
2) Dijon, lines 4-5, “lequel a, par mon createur / pour vous amer trop de tristesse”
3) Nivelle, line 12, “Vous voiez bien qui ...”
3) Dijon, line 16, “il a de deul …”
– a few further differences in spelling.

Evaluation of the sources:

Busnoys’ rondeau was copied into the Dijon and Nivelle chansonniers by their main scribes after the same exemplar or after very similar copies of this exemplar. Not only do they both mention Busnoys as the author, they are also identical in terms of music, including an error in the contratenor (a missing minima in bar 15). There are a few of the variations that arise during the copying process in the use of ligatures and coloration, and errors in reading of the exemplar. Furthermore, the Dijon scribe has introduced more accidental flats than we find in Nivelle, including an erroneous b-flat in the upper voice in bar 25! What really differentiates the two sources is their treatment of the poem's wording.

The poem seems to have become distorted when the Dijon scribe copied the refrain under the upper voice, or it had happened during the production of the exemplar he knew. The couplet and tierce are as in Nivelle, copied from the original with only a variant in the last line “il a de deul”. The scribe must have known the poem in the version preserved in the Rohan manuscript (Berlin, Staatsliche Museen der Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Kupferstichkabinett, Ms. 78.B.17), where the couplet and tierce are different from the version that Busnoys set to music, and he has written the words partly from memory without checking his exemplar. The result has become a curious mixture: In the Rohan manuscript, the second and fifth lines end with the same rhyming word "destresse", which the scribe repeats in Dijon, only with "tristesse" as the rhyming word, as it probably said in his exemplar’s last line. The fourth and fifth lines he has taken largely from his recollection of Rohan's version "lequel a, par mon createur / pour vous amer trop de tristesse". This could not possibly have been the original text, as the words “par mon createur” appear again in line eight. Busnoys would never have accepted to use a text with such obvious poetic errors. In the Rohan version this phrase does not appear later in the poem either. Here the Nivelle scribe has been more careful – or he had a better copy of the song available.

Comments on text and music:

Busnoys has created a beautiful elegiac setting of this quite ordinary poem. The upper voice is very singable and narrow in range, d'-c'', and it is accompanied by tenor and contratenor in the same, wider, ranges, c-f', with snatches of canonic imitation between tenor and superius. Its mood is serene, its A mode is coloured by Phrygian passages, and it is notated without any hexachordal signatures. Therefore, it has a strong effect when, in the song's second section, after the middle cadence to C, Busnoys suddenly introduces accidentals and lets the third line proceed in G-Dorian, before the song ends in an animated version of the opening mood.

See further the next song in the Nivelle chansonnier (ff. 41v-42) »C’est bien malheur qui me court seure«, which too is in A mode and may form a pair with this song.

PWCH November 2024