island, where he encounters a friendly lion; the lion leads him through a wasteland into a
grove, where they are received by a noble lady and her retainers. Here, the narrator
observes the love experience of the lion, who is harassed by the persecution of hostile
beasts whenever his lady takes her gaze from him. The narrator intercedes on behalf of
the lion before returning to his manor.
In the Jugement du roy de Navarre (1349; 4,212 lines), Machaut returns to the love
debate of Behaigne and this time pronounces, through the person of Charles the Bad, king
of Navarre, in favor of the Lady. Much more than a simple love debate, the poem is a
complex commentary on the role of a poet and poetry in society. An important prologue
evokes the Black Death.
The Dit de l’alerion (1350s; 4,814 lines) is a bird allegory that presents extensive
analogies between birds of prey and women, between hawking and fin’amors. The
Narrator/Lover tells of four raptors he has acquired, loved, and lost: a sparrowhawk, an
alerion (a type of large eagle), an eagle, and a gerfalcon. Like the Remede, it is a didactic
treatise on love; unlike that poem, it incorporates exempla drawn from historical and
literary sources to make its points.
The Fonteinne amoureuse (1360–62; 2,848 lines) is a dream vision in which Machaut
offers advice to his patron, Duke John of Berry. One night, the Narrator overhears a
Lover bemoaning the fact he must go into exile (in actuality, John went to England in
1360 as a hostage after the Treaty of Brétigny) and be separated from his Lady. The next
day in a garden, the Narrator and the Lover fall asleep near a fountain and are visited by
Venus, who brings the Lady to comfort her suitor and assure him of her fidelity. The two
men awaken and return to the castle; several days later, the Lover crosses the sea, but
with joy in his heart.
In his last and lengthiest dit amoureux, the Voir dit (1363–65; 9,009 lines with
intercalated prose letters), Machaut gives a pseudoautobiographical account of an affair
with a young admirer, Toute-Belle. A sort of epistolary novel in verse, the work is more
likely a fiction than an account of a real affair, though many early scholars sought to see
in it a roman à clef. It is notable for its verisimilitude and for its apparently parodic
depiction of fin’amors.
The shorter dits include the Dit de la Marguerite, the Dit de la Fleur de Lis et de la
Marguerite, the Dit de la Harpe, and the Dit de la Rose.
In addition to his dits amoureux, Machaut composed two other long poems: Confort
d’ami (1356–57; 4,004 lines) and Prise d’Alexandrie (1369–71; 8,886 lines and three
prose letters). The Confort, incorporating many exempla, was written to console Charles
the Bad, who had been taken prisoner by John II in April 1356. The Prise is a verse
account of the career of Pierre de Lusignan, king of Cyprus, which culminated with the
capture of Alexandria in 1365.
Machaut’s musical works fall into three genres: motets, settings of fixed-form lyrics,
and Mass. Fifteen of Machaut’s motets set French texts, six set Latin texts, and two mix
French and Latin. The earliest date we have for a work by Machaut is the Latin motet
Bone pastor Guillerme/Bone pastor qui/Bone pastor, written for the occasion of the
election of Guillaume de Trie as archbishop of Reims in 1324. Most of the remaining
motets, dated before ca. 1350, celebrate fin’amors. The invective against Fortune in
Machaut’s most popular motet, Qui es promesses/Ha Fortune/Et non est, was known to
Chaucer. The last three of Machaut’s motets appear to relate to political events of the late
The Encyclopedia 1085