Occitan (was: Brithenig universe)

Roger Mills wrote:
>
> In a message dated 4/5/2000 10:32:16 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
> pbrown@POLARIS.UMUC.EDU writes:
> (J.Cambell I think, wrote:)
No, it was I.

> << >Yes, AFAWK, except that France is less monolithic linguistically.  Occitan
>  >as a literary language wasn't squelched,  >>
> Would that entail that the Albigensian Crusade did not take place?  And
> perhaps that Catharism has fluorished?
Entail, no.  Literary Occitan was alive and well over a hundred years after
the Albigensian Crusade: a short portion of the _Divine Comedy_ is
even written in it.

Here is Purg. xxvi 136-48.  The speaker is an Occitan poet, and Dante makes
him speak (unlike all other characters in the Comedy) in his native language,
possibly to show that Dante could write the *langue d'oc* himself.  Note
the macaronic rhymes disire-dire-cobrire and escalina-affina.

        Io mi fei al mostrato innanzi un poco,
        e dissi ch'al suo nome il mio disire
        apparecchiava grazioso loco.

        El cominciò liberamente a dire:
        <<Tan m'abellis vostre cortes deman,
        qu'ieu no me puesc ni voill a vos cobrire.

        Ieu sui Arnaut, que plor e vau cantan;
        consiros vei la passada folor,
        e vei jausen lo joi qu'esper, denan.

        Ara vos prec, per aquella valor
        que vos guida al som de l'escalina,
        sovenha vos a temps de ma dolor!>>.

        Poi s'ascose nel foco che li affina.

The Dorothy Sayers translation renders the Occitan as Border Scots.
I don't have access to the complete version, but from memory the
first few lines are:

        Sae weel me likes your couthie kind entreatin,
        I canna nor I willna hide fra ye;
        I'm Arnaut [...]

--

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