Ventadorn Blog post

Ben Long

Ventadorn: You’ve Asked, My Lords, for song

First Stanza:

Ventadorn is asked to write a song but he doesn’t know how to sing it because his life hasn’t been great lately.  At first he thinks it is because his love has left him, but he resolves that it is not the case, but he still wonders why he feels so lonely even though he has somebody.

Second Stanza:

Lord is capitalized here so it refers to god giving him gifts and honoring him.  The gift is the woman “who loves [him] faithfully”.  He “languishes” because his love is away from him and he has no idea “if she fares ill or well”.  The “I dare not go there,” suggests that if he to find his love something bad will happen because she is the wife of the lord whose house she is staying at

Third Stanza:

When he is with his beloved, Ventadorn is happy.  So much so that when he is thinking about her, he goes into a daydream like state in which he can’t hear people who call out to him.  The “So subtly does she snare the heart out of my breast” is saying that she stole his heart.  The “men swear…there” is saying that although Ventadorn is physically wherever he is in the house, his best part, which is his lover or his love for her, is wherever she is in the house.  He feels incomplete without her

Fourth Stanza:
He asks what he should do.  Should they live with the conflict?  He doesn’t think he should because it would kill him.  The only way it would work is if he got to be with her in her room

Fifth Stanza:

Ventadorn refuses to take back his love.  He realizes that God has given him a great gift in this woman and he has taken full advantage of his opportunity to be with her. Now that the gift turned hostile he cannot just give up, he knows that he and his love have to wait for each other and overcome what keeps them apart.

Sixth Stanza:

Ventadorn thanks this women for her love and exclaims that he loves her more than he has ever loved anybody.  He pledges himself to her and says that her just looking at him would be enough.  This is interesting; he is putting himself way below her in the relationship instead of them being equal.  It makes it sound like he is more invested in the relationship than her

Seventh Stanza:

He asks god to at the very least help him calm down as well as someone named Escudor, as they are wandering aimlessly and want direction

Eighth Stanza:

Responds to the last stanza, saying that god will try his best to help him out.  Magnet is capitalized in this stanza; maybe Magnet is his lover because they are so attracted to each other.  What or whoever Magnet is will be going with Ventadorn.