Note: Anyone who has read anything of the troubadours knows well the tale of Bertran of Born and My Lady Maent of Montaignac, and knows also the song he made when she would none of him, the song wherein he, seeking to find or make her equal, begs of each preëminent lady of Langue d’Oc some trait or some fair semblance: thus of Cembelins her ‘esgart amors’ to wit, her love-lit glance, of Aelis her speech free-running, of the Vicomtess of Chalais her her throat and her two hands, at Roacoart of Anhes her hair golden as Iseult’s; and even in this fashion of Lady Audiart ‘although she would that ill come unto him’ he sought and praised the lineaments of the torse. And alll this to make ‘Una dompna soiseubuda’ a borrowed lady or as the Italians translated it ‘Una donna ideale’.
Personæ, 1926