CARMINA BURANA
A large, extraordinary collection of medieval poetry came to light in 1803 at the southern Bavarian monastery of Benediktbeuern, after it was secularized during the French Revolution.
This collection of 320 poems, known as Carmina Burana or "Songs of Benediktbeuern", dates back to about AD 1230, and includes four basic categories of poems. These are:
- satirical or moralizing lyrics (carmina moralia);
- songs celebrating springtime and love (carmina veris et amoris);
- gambling and drinking songs (carmina lusorum et potatorum), including goliardic verse;
- and poems with religious content (carmina divina).
This collection of lyric poetry was first published in 1847 as the Codex Buranus by the librarian Andreas Schmeller. The Codex Buranus manuscript of 112 vellum leaves (25x17cm), with illustrations and colored initials, was presumably intended for an influential court. This may have been the court of the Bishop of Seckau (1231-43), since it was probably written and compiled in the Bavarian-Austrian linguistic region of Steiermark, Tirol, or Kaernten. How the Codex Buranaus later found its way to the southern Bavarian monastery at Benediktbeuern is unknown. Today the original manuscript is in the Bavarian State Library in Munich. Individual poems are referred to as CB followed by a number.
The dating of the Carmina Burana is based on two main types of evidence, textual and paleographic (the study of handwriting styles). Textual evidence dates two of the songs by German poets to 1217 and 1225, including one by Neidhart (CB 168) at 1217-19; and one by Walter von der Vogelweide (CB 211), from the early 1220s (Benedikt 1987). These serve as a terminus post quem; in other words, the collection of poems must have been compiled sometime after (post) the writing of these two. Secondly, various aspects of artistic and handwriting styles in the manuscript indicate that it was created prior to 1250 (serving as terminus ante quem). This combination of clues has helped date the Codex Buranus at ca. 1230.
Based on distinctive features of writing style, two anonymous scribes appear to have copied most of the Codex Buranus texts, and to have drawn many of the decorative initials, headlines, and musical notations. One of these scribes may have also painted the eight colored miniatures, which show some stylistic parallels to the initials. In the years following completion, the entries in the codex underwent several corrections. Overall, five different scribes left their imprints on the vellum leaves of the codex. The last, and most extensive editing took place in about 1300; thereafter there are no more manuscript entries.
Much of the lyric poetry in Carmina Burana is frankly pagan and sensual in content. This includes the so-called Goliardic verse (named for Goliath, who served as a medieval symbol for pagan, unruly behavior), typically composed by traveling students or young clerics, who often wandered from city to city to study under different mentors. Some vagabond poets (from Latin vagari) earned their bread by singing songs, typically satirical, and often employing graphic imagery. These goliardic songs were the "Bohemian" or student counterpart of the generally more refined, courtly, and morally idealized minne songs (minne=love) of German poets, and of the troubadour poems celebrating aristocratic ladies at the courts of France.
While most of the songs are written in medieval Latin, the Carmina Burana also includes some examples of medieval German and French texts, plus a few verses in mixed Latin and German. This variety of languages demonstrates the heterogeneous literary climate of the 12th and 13th centuries, reflected in the diverse authorship of the texts in the Codex Buranus.
The poetry is filled with youth and enjoyment, without a care for moral correctness or following the precept of moderation. The euphoria in the work extends to the body and the spirit of the listener. Carmina Burana contains testaments to all the aspects of the 13th century life: social conditions such as religion and politics; individual conflicts in morality and eroticism; and food for the mind in verses of satire cover the concerns of that time.
The funniest of all the verses in Carmina Burana is "Olim Lacus Colueram", also known as The Ballad of the Roasted Swan. It is a macabre setting in which the swan sings about its former life while it turns on the spit. In this verse the performer delivers the swan's lament while interjecting expressions of sympathy for the bird as it cooks.
The verse of "In Taberna" has been called "the greatest drinking song in the world". A verse from poem 36 reads:
Six hundred coins could not remotely
Fill the bill, for there's no quota
To this drink that knows no measure
And though nothing gives more pleasure,
Still are some who pick and carp,
Hoping to make our guilt pangs sharp.
Let those carpers go depraved--
Write their names not with the saved! . . .
The satire of the organization of the Christian religions is subtle and swift, particularly in the performed presentation of the works. The verse begins as a hail to the virgin in "Ave, Formosissima"...
Hail, most beautiful and good,
Jewel held most dear by us;
Hail, honor of maidenhood,
Virgin ever glorious--
Hail, thou light above all lights,
Hail, rose of the world--
Blacheflor
And Helen,
Venus,
Venus,
Venus noble-souled!
and ends as a tribute to the three goddesses of love and sex.
or this one:
Ich was ein chint so wolgethan(I was a child and fair to see)
Oh, what a lovely girl I was
virgo dum florebam [when I was young and pure]!
Everyone thought the world of me,
omnibus placebam [I charmed them, to be sure].
Refrain: Hoe et oe!
maledicantus tilie
iuxta viam posite!
[Alas and lack-a-day!
Thrice cursèd be the linden tree
that grows along the way!]
The fields I wandered unaware
flores adamare [to pluck me a bouquet];
a wicked stranger met me there,
ibi deflorare [to pluck ME, so to say].
Alas...
He took me by my snow-white hand,
sed non indecenter [not without hesitation]
and led me o'er the meadowland
valde fraudulenter [with some prevarication].
Alas...
He grasped me by my garment white,
valde indecenter [ very indecently
and pulled at me with all his might,
multum violenter [excruciatingly].
Alas...
He spoke then: "We must hurry on,
nemus est remotum" [these woods look good enough].
I wish that I had never gone,
planxi et hoc totum [I cried, and all that stuff].
Alas...
"Thee stands a linden, pretty maid,
non procul a via [not very far from hence],
my harp is lying in its shade,
tympanum cum lyra" [and suchlike instruments].
Alas...
When the tree was overhead,
dixit: "Sedeamus," [he said, "Here's where we'll sit"],
spurred by passion then he said:
"ludum faciamus!" [Let's play around a bit.]
Alas...
He seized me then without ado,
non absque timore [not without nervousness].
"I'll make a woman now of you,
dulcis es cum ore!" [you've got a pretty face!]
Alas...
He pulled my clothing off in haste,
corpore detecta [he bared me pink as ham]
and straight into my castle raced,
cuspide erecta [with a rampant battering-ram].
Alas...
He took his quiver and his bow,
bene venabatur! [how well his hunt did go!]
And this was he who tricked me so,
"Ludus compleatur!" ["Thanks, darling. Cheerio!"]Trans. David Parlett
The complete text of the Codex Buranus you will find
here.
CARMINA BURANA
Version originaleCarmina gulatorum et potarum - Carmina lusorum - Carmina moralia et divina
1. Bacche, bene venies I (CB 200)
2. Virent prata hiemata (CB 151)
3. Nomen a solempnibus (CB 52)
4. Alte clamat Epicurus (CB 211) - Nu lebe ich (CB 211a)
5. Vite perdite II (CB 31)
6. Vacillantis trutine I (CB 108)
7. In taberna quando sumus (CB 196)
Officium lusorum (CB 215/215a):
8. Introitus: Lugeamus omnes in Decio
9. Epistola: Lectio actuum apopholorum
10. Sequentia: Victime novali
11. Evangelium: Sequentia falsi evangelii
12. Oratio: Ornemus!
13. Dic, Christi veritas (CB 131) - Bulla fulminante (CB 131a)
14. Licet eger II (CB 8)
15. Si vocatus ad nupcias (CB 26,3)
16. Nomen a solempnibus II (CB 52)
17. Fas et nefas ambulant (CB 19)
18. Flete flenda (CB 5)
19. Homo qui vigeas (CB 22)
20. Procurans odium II (CB 12)
21. Crucifigat omnes (CB 47)
Carmina Moralia - Carmina Veris et Amoris
1. Deduc, Syon, uberrimas (CB 34)
2. Ecce, torpet probitas (CB 3)
3. In terra sumus rex (CB 11)
4. Tempus transit gelidum (CB 153)
5. Bacche, bene venies II (CB 200)
6. Licet eger (CB 8)
7. In Gedonis ara (CB 37)
8. Exiit diluculo rustica puella (CB 90)
9. Clauso Chronos (CB 73)
10. Olim sudor Herculis (CB 63)
11. Virent prata hiemata (CB 151/151a)
12. Veris dulcis in tempore I (CB 159)
13. Vacillantis trutine II (CB 108)
14. Michi confer, venditor I (CB 16)
15. Veris dulcis in tempore II (CB 159)
Carmina Divina - Ludus de Passione - Carmina amoris infelicis
1. Ave nobilis venerabilis Maria (CB 11)
2. Fulget dies celebris (CB 153)
3. Ave, domina mundi (CB 18)
4. Ave Maria, gratia plena (CB 15)
5. Deus, in nomine tue (CB 15)
6. Ludus de Passione (CB 16)
7. Regali ex progenie Maria (CB 18)
8. Sanctissima et glorissima (CB 18)
9. Iste mundus furibundus (CB 24)
10. Axe Phebus aureo (CB 71)
11. Dulce solum natalis patrie (CB 119)
12. Procurans odium I (CB 12)
13. Vite perdite I (CB 31)
14. Sic mea fata canendo solo (CB 116)
15. Ich was ein chint so wolgetan (CB 185)
Performers: Pilar Figueras (soprano), Zeger Vandersteene (countertenor), Hans Breitschopf (countertenor), Pedro Liendo (baritone), René Zosso (symphony, voice), René Clemencic (recorders), et al.
