Peire Vidal, “Molt m’es bon e bell” (BdT 364.29)

The poem by Peire Vidal, “Molt m’es bon e bell”, has mainly been examined from the viewpoint of its versification and its belonging more or less justifiably to the ‘formal grammar of trobar’, but it has never been studied as a text. The obsessive repetition of the same rhyme-words has tended to conceal its poetic and narrative discourse. The present analysis will propose an interpretation that takes into account formal as well as textual aspects. Both metrical structure and poetic discourse iconically represent the passing of a measurable length of time: a period that corresponds to the time to be devoted to love’s service, or feudal service, that has never been studied in troubadour poetry. Thus we may speak of a song dedicated to the ‘time for love and for waiting’ as far as both the text and its metrical structure are concerned. It is also quite possible that the metrical structure alludes to the astronomical model of the rotation of the planets, thereby confirming the temporal interpretation of the poem.