VIRELAI

virelai: translation

(virelay)

Thevirelaiwas one of the fixed forms of French verse of the 13th, 14th, and 15th centuries.Usually set to music, one form of thevirelaiused short lines and was divided into stanzas, each using only two rhymes. In general the last rhyme of one stanza became the first rhyme of the next stanza, so that thevirelaimight rhymeaabaab bbcbbc ccdccdetc., with no determinate length. This sort ofvirelaimight also have two opening lines that would occur intermittently as a refrain. A second form of thevirelaialternated longer and shorter lines within stanzas, with the shorter lines of one stanza providing the rhyme for the longer lines of the next stanza. Such avirelaimight rhymeabab bcbc cdcd, where the first and third lines of each stanza are long and the second and fourth are short. Again this kind ofvirelaicould be any length.

Like other fixed forms, including the RONDEAU and theBALLADE, thevirelaiwas generally used as a vehicle for conventional expressions of love, although another type ofvirelaiwas called the realistic type, and was intended to describe vividly some active scene.

Thevirelaiwas never a popular form in England, though in his prologue toThe LEGEND OF GOOD WOMEN, CHAUCER claims to have written some in his youth. But the best known French poets of the 14th and 15th centuries, including MACHAUT, DESCHAMPS, and CHRISTINE DE PIZAN, wrote a number ofvirelais. Perhaps the bestknown example is this one by Eustache Deschamps:

Il me semble, à mon avis,

Et la bouche vermeillette;

Dittes moy se je suis belle.

J’ay vers yeulx, petits sourcis,

Le chief blont, le nez traitis,

Ront menton, blanche gorgette;

J’ay dur sain et hault assis,

Lons bras, gresles doys aussis,

Et par le faulz sui greslette;

Dittes moy se je suis belle.

(Wilkins 1969, 79)

And so on, for some 45 lines.Deschamps’s poem (an unusual example of the first form ofvirelaimentioned above) uses only two rhymes throughout, plus the refrain. An example of the second form is this one by Christine de Pizan:

Vifs en baudour.

De mener joye à son tour,

Et qui mieulx mieulx.

(Wilkins 1969, 93)

Note how varied is the line length of these opening stanzas of Christine’s poem. But note that the last short line of the first stanza does provide the rhyme for the first long line of the second.

■ Wilkins, Nigel, ed.One Hundred Ballades, Rondeaux and Virelais from the Late Middle Ages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969.