castell, where King Richard was kept prisoner, and began to sing a song in French,
which King Richard and Blondel had sometime composed together. When King
Richard heard the song, he knew it was Blondel that sung it; and when Blondel
paused at halfe of the song, the Kingbegan the other half, and completed it.[25] Thus
Blondel won knowledge of the King his maister, and returning home into England,
made the Barons of the countrie acquainted where the King was." This happened
about the year 1193.
The following old Provencal lines are given as the very original song;[26]
which I shall accompany with an imitation offered by Dr. Burney, ii. 237:--
BLONDEL.
Domna vostra beutas
Elas bellas faissos
Els bels oils amoros
Els gens cors ben taillats
Don sieu empresenats
De vostra amor que mi lia.
Your beauty, lady fair,
None views without delight;
But still so cold an air
No passion can excite:
Yet this I patient see
While all are shunn'd like me.
RICHARD.
Si bel trop affansia
Ja de vos non portrai
Que major honorai
Sol en votre deman
Que sautra des beisan
Tot can de vos volria.
No nymph my heart can wound
If favour she divide,
And smiles on all around
Unwilling to decide:
I'd rather hatred bear
Than love with others share.
The access which Blondel so readily obtained in the privileged character of a
Minstrel, is not the only instance upon record of the same nature (V2). In this very
reign of King Richard I., the young heiress of D'Evreux, Earl of Salisbury, had been
carried abroad and secreted by her French relations in Normandy. To discover the
place of her concealment, a knight of the Talbot family spent two years in exploring
that province, at first under the disguise of a Pilgrim; till having found where she was
confined, in order to gain admittance he assumed the dress and character of a Harper,
and being a jocose person, exceedingly skilled in "theGestsof the antients"[27] (so
they called the romances and stories which were the delight of that age), he was
gladly received into the family. Whence he took an opportunity to carry off the young
lady, whom he presented to the king; and he bestowed her on his natural brother,
William Longespee (son of fair Rosamond), who became in her right Earl of
Salisbury (V3).
The next memorable event which I find in history reflects credit on the
English minstrels: and this was their contributing to the rescue of one of the great