Giraut de Borneil, “Ben cove, pus ja bayssa·l ram” (BdT 242.25)

This paper will offer a revision, with a translation and commentary, of the text of “Ben cove, pus ja baissa·l ram” by Giraut de Borneil, with a new examination of the manuscript tradition after the monographic editions by Adolf Kolsen and Ruth Verity Sharman. In particular the paper will offer a new reading of l. 20, transmitted only by Chansonnier a, while the other manuscripts have a lacuna that seems to have been crudely corrected by Sg. The interpretation of “e leis s’embla, que a miralh” as ‘and she, who holds a mirror, is elusive’ restores an image of the lady filled with pride on seeing her own beauty reflected in a mirror that is also in Raimbaut d’Aurenga and Pons de Capduoill. In the Introduction the text is interpreted as an example of two different aspects of Giraut’s poetry, expressed through two different voices in the text, the author’s ‘self’ and the lover’s ‘self’. The former, who speaks in the first stanza, gives importance to his aiming for excellence; the latter, who speaks in the following stanzas, presents contents and forms belonging to a discourse on love. Finally, the point is made that where the two parts meet, at l. 9 “E per ma guerreira cui am” ‘and for my enemy whom I love’, the text is of great poetic intensity.