Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Lyric Address: By Way of an Introduction
- 1 Staying in Tune with Love: Hadewijch, ‘Song 31’ (thirteenth century)
- 2 O Brittle Infirm Creature: Anonymous (Gruuthuse MS), ‘Song’ (c. 1400)
- 3 Lyric Address in Sixteenth-Century Song: Aegied Maes (?), ‘Come hear my sad complaint’ (before 1544)
- 4 An Early Modern Address to the Author: Pieter Corneliszoon Hooft, ‘My love, my love, my love’ (1610)
- 5 Parrhesia and Apostrophe: Joost van den Vondel, ‘Salutation to the Most Illustrious and Noble Prince Frederick Henry’ (1626)
- 6 Lyrical Correspondence: Maria Tesselschade Roemers Visscher, ‘To My Lord Hooft on the death of Lady Van Zuilichem’ (1637)
- 7 The Apostrophic Interpellation of a Son: Jan Six van Chandelier, ‘My Father’s corpse addressing me’ (1657)
- 8 Guilty Pleasure: Hubert Korneliszoon Poot, ‘Thwarted attempt of the Poet’ (1716)
- 9 Same-Sex Intimacy in Eighteenth-Century Occasional Poetry: Elizabeth Wolff-Bekker, ‘To Miss Agatha Deken’ (1777)
- 10 Nature, Poetry and the Address of Friends: Jacobus Bellamy, ‘To my Friends’ (1785)
- Epilogue: Lyrical and Theatrical Apostrophe, from Performing Actor to Textual Self
- List of Poems (Sources)
- Index of Names
3 - Lyric Address in Sixteenth-Century Song: Aegied Maes (?), ‘Come hear my sad complaint’ (before 1544)
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 December 2020
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Lyric Address: By Way of an Introduction
- 1 Staying in Tune with Love: Hadewijch, ‘Song 31’ (thirteenth century)
- 2 O Brittle Infirm Creature: Anonymous (Gruuthuse MS), ‘Song’ (c. 1400)
- 3 Lyric Address in Sixteenth-Century Song: Aegied Maes (?), ‘Come hear my sad complaint’ (before 1544)
- 4 An Early Modern Address to the Author: Pieter Corneliszoon Hooft, ‘My love, my love, my love’ (1610)
- 5 Parrhesia and Apostrophe: Joost van den Vondel, ‘Salutation to the Most Illustrious and Noble Prince Frederick Henry’ (1626)
- 6 Lyrical Correspondence: Maria Tesselschade Roemers Visscher, ‘To My Lord Hooft on the death of Lady Van Zuilichem’ (1637)
- 7 The Apostrophic Interpellation of a Son: Jan Six van Chandelier, ‘My Father’s corpse addressing me’ (1657)
- 8 Guilty Pleasure: Hubert Korneliszoon Poot, ‘Thwarted attempt of the Poet’ (1716)
- 9 Same-Sex Intimacy in Eighteenth-Century Occasional Poetry: Elizabeth Wolff-Bekker, ‘To Miss Agatha Deken’ (1777)
- 10 Nature, Poetry and the Address of Friends: Jacobus Bellamy, ‘To my Friends’ (1785)
- Epilogue: Lyrical and Theatrical Apostrophe, from Performing Actor to Textual Self
- List of Poems (Sources)
- Index of Names
Summary
‘Come hear my sad complaint’ is one of the 221 songs that have come down to us in the Antwerp Songbook, the oldest, largest, printed secular song collection in the Low Countries and as such a major source for our knowledge of late-medieval/early modern song. The single copy that we still have was printed in Antwerp in 1544. It has only texts and no melodies, but musicologists have successfully reconstructed many of the melodies by using other contemporary songbooks that do have musical notation. We know little about the actual authors: the songs are heterogeneous with respect to both origin and (probable) date of creation. Many of the songs bear traces of oral composition and transmission, a substantial number of others were probably written by Rederijkers (Rhetoricians, members of official civic poetry guilds, all male). Characteristic for the Antwerp Songbook is precisely this mixture of old and new, traditional and refined. The book represents the flourishing of popular song in the bustling city of Antwerp in the sixteenth century: with a bit of imagination one can still feel the heartbeat of a blooming metropolis.
It is difficult to pinpoint the context for this song more precisely. It might convey the name of the author as the first and second stanza bear the acrostic ‘Aegied Maes’ (1: 1-5, 2: 1-4), although this name is otherwise unknown and the combination of letters might simply be coincidental. That the author was a rhetorician seems indicated by formal features of the song, in particular the rather intricate rhyme scheme with only two rhymes in each stanza (abaaaab), and stock phrases common to rhetorical poetry (e.g. specifically 5: 3 minnelijck graen, literally ‘charming exquisite lady’, here translated as ‘one I hold most dear’).
‘Aenmerct’ is lyrical, in the original meaning of the term, in the sense that it is a musical expression, made to be sung. This has a number of important implications. First, the melody, which is in a minor key, intensifies the meaning of the words and increases its emotional impact.
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- Information
- Lyric Address in Dutch Literature, 1250–1800 , pp. 59 - 74Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2018