Guillaume de Machaut: Le Remede de Fortune

The Remede de Fortune was written by Machaut in the early part of his career, and is

usually dated before 1349. The Remede is one of eight long dits written by Machaut, and runs

to over 4,300 lines. The term dit was applied to a variety of different poetic forms in Medieval

French literature, but most commonly referred to a first-person reflection on personal or political

themes based on octo-syllabic rhyming couplets. The work may be regarded as a treatise on love

and also an instructional manuscript on lyric poetry in the Courtly Love tradition. Within the

Remede are inserted seven exemplar types of lyric song which Machaut set to music. These are,

in order, a Lay, Complainte, Chant Roial, Balladelle, Balade, Chanson Balladee, and

Rondelet, and they represent the seven popular types of lyric song that existed in France at the

time. Machaut introduces each one as though his express purpose was to give an example of how

such a song should be written.

Machaut had been in the service of John of Luxembourg, king of Bohemia, since

about 1323, but entered the service of his daughter, Bonne (wife of the future King John II of

France) some time later, perhaps after her marriage in 1332. There are specific references to Bonne

in the Remede which strongly suggest the dit was written for her. For example, lines 54 to 56

contain a pun on her name:

“...ma dame, qui est clamee

De tous seur toutes belle et bonne.
Chascun par droit ce non li donne.”

i.e., “my lady, who is called “beautiful and Bonne, everyone properly gives her the name”. The

beloved lady of the poem is presented as mistress of a grand chateau, and the activities around it

closely resemble those of Bonne’s court. Bonne died in 1349, probably as a result of the plague.

The earliest publication of the Remede is in Machaut’s manuscript C, published

some time after 1350. Collaborating evidence from the illuminations within this manuscript also

support the argument that the Remede was written for Bonne, and that the manuscript itself was
originally intended for her, and possibly completed for her husband after her death. Manuscript C is

a parchment manuscript of 225 pages, which includes the complete text and music of the Remede

de Fortune, as well as other works. The manuscript is illustrated with miniatures depicting

scenes from the poetry, which art historians have identified as being the work of three artists, two of

which were assistants.1 All the miniatures for the Remede de Fortune are the work of the

master artist, and are considered masterpieces of fourteenth-century art. This artist has been

connected with other manuscripts belonging to John II, and was possibly the illuminator Jean de

Viarmes. Within manuscript C, the master artist concerned himself only with the illuminations of

the Remede de Fortune, suggesting that this dit was singled out for special treatment.

The narrative of the Remede concerns a simple, if rambling, love story. A poet attached to

a court has written a lay in praise of his lady, who is so high above him that he could never hope to

win her. She somehow comes across the poem, and wishes to know who wrote it. Embarrassed and

fearful, the poet does not answer her and departs to a garden, where he curses the cruelty of Fortune

- this text makes up the Complainte. He is visited by Esperance (Hope), who counters his

arguments, ending the first part of her speech with the Chant Roial. She follows this shortly

afterwards with the Baladelle in praise of Love. The poet is cheered, and composes the Balade

in thanks. He returns to the castle and joins the court in a song to accompany the dancing, a

Chanson Balladee (also known as a Virelai). He confesses to his lady that he was the author

of the lay, and she agrees to accept him as her ami. They exchange rings, which joyful event

prompts him to compose a Rondelet (or Rondeau), which he sings on departing. However, on

his next visit, his lady cautions him that slanderers are about, and the necessity of concealing their

love. Thus, the dit ends on an ambiguous note.

The Lay:
Qui n’aroit autre deport (He who has no other pleasure)
 The lay was a 13th and 14th Century song form mostly commonly found in France and

Germany. As poems, they were designed to be sung to a popular melody. They reached their

highest level of musical and poetic development in the hands of Machaut, who wrote 19 lays

including the exemplar in Remede. There is no set number of stanzas in the lay, and its form

allows for a considerable amount of variety within the verses. Consequently, the accompanying

music varies from one stanza to the next. The medieval lay had stanzas varying in length from

about 6 to 16 or more lines of 4 to 8 syllables. One or two rhymes were maintained throughout

each stanza.

Machaut laid out Qui n’aroit autre deport in 12 stanzas, the last being identical to the

first in rhyming structure and melody, although the melody is transposed up a fifth in the last verse,

which was a signature device of his. Below is the first stanza from the lay. It is divided into two

equal parts, which have the same rhyming scheme and number of syllables. The letters and

numbers below show the rhyming scheme and number of syllables respectively.
 Qui n'aroit autre deport Encor y a maint ressort:

En amer Ramembrer,

Fors dous Penser Ymaginer

Et Souvenir En dous plaisir

Avec l'Espoir de joïr, Sa dame vëoir, oïr,

S'aroit il tort, Son gentil port,

Se le port Le recort

D'autre confort Dou bien qui sort

Voloit rouver; De son parler

Car pour un cuer saouler Et de son dous regarder,

Et soustenir Dont l'entrouvrir

Plus querir Puet garir

Ne doit merir Et garentir

Qui aimme fort Amant de mort.

a7 b3 b4 c4 c7 a4 a3 a4 b4 b7 c4 c3 c4 a4
a7 b3 b4 c4 c7 a4 a3 a4 b4 b7 c4 c3 c4 a4

The final stanza follows an identical pattern. The stanzas in between each have a different

structure, although all conform in one aspect - that of the division into two separate parts. In the

musical settings, which are different for each stanza, the first part of the stanza ends with an open

ending (ouvert) while the second part ends with a closed ending (clos). The only exceptions to

this are the first and last stanzas, which are tonally closed at the end of each half.

The entire lay is set in triple time and is monophonic, intended to be sung by a single voice

with possibly harp or lute accompaniment. Certain rhythmic motives unify the song as a whole,

especially runs of four eighth-notes, which tend to precede cadence points.

The Complainte:
Tieus rit au main qui au soir pleure (He laughs in the morning who weeps in the
evening)

The complainte is a song of mourning or lamentation, and, as a form, is one of the oldest

in antiquity. Examples can be found in the Iliad and the Odyssey, as well as in the Bible. In the

Remede de Fortune, the complaint is set as thirty-six strophic stanzas, all set to the same

monophonic music. This has a much more regular rhyming scheme, as demonstrated by the first

stanza below:

Tieus rit au main qui au soir pleure

Et tieus cuide qu'Amours labeure

Pour son bien, qu'elle li court seure

Et ma l'atourne;

Et tieus cuide que Joie acqueure

Pour li aidier, qu'elle demeure.

Car Fortune tout ce deveure,

Quant elle tourne,

Qui n'atent mie qu'il adjourne

Pour tourner; qu'elle ne sejourne,

Ains tourne, retourne et bestourne,

Tant qu'au desseure

Met celui qui gist mas en l'ourne;

Le seurmonté au bas retourne,

Et le plus joieus mat et morne

Fait en po d'eure.

This can be summarized as a8 a8 a8 b4 a8 a8 a8 b4 b8 b8 b8 a4 b8 b8 b8 b4.

 Musically, Machaut has set the Complainte in a minor mode. It is, like the Lai, in triple

time, and the stanzas are divided into 4 equal parts. The phrase structure is aAbB, where the

smaller letters denote an ouvert ending, and the capitals denote the same phrase with a clos

ending. That the Complaint runs to 36 stanzas (over 500 lines) and is set completely strophically

poses some performance difficulties, and most modern performances and recordings tend to cut the

number of stanzas. The complainte was becoming an archaic form even in Machaut’s time, and,

in fact, he never set it again. This remains the only extant example of a complainte written by

Machaut.

The text deals with Fortune and her wheel, the protagonist blaming the personified Fortune

for all his troubles. It is rich in imagery and rather vicious in its denouncement. In Le Jugement

du Roy de Behaigne and Remede de Fortune2, the authors give the following translation

of lines 937 - 968:

“If Fortune loves, it’s from afar;

she’s never there when needed
and cares for no one,
good or bad.
And I testify she’s so false
that she’d bear false witness
to entrap the best friend she has in the world.
She flays more than she shears,
and she abounds in wickedness,
whereby she destroys her nursling;
she doesn’t give a rotten apple
for what she knocks down,
and wants her works to be destroyed,
in this there’s no one like her.
I call her:

“Stupid, squint-eyed, false, and miserly.”

She’s never satisfied with doing evil.
She doesn’t give a fig for anyone,
rather she treats them all
just as the moon behaves,
which is now full, bright, and shining,
yet in two weeks
has neither form nor brightness;
except that Fortune fixes no month, week,
day, or appointed hour,
instead her vengeance is sudden;
that’s well known,
for when a person is at the peak of his
honor and of the the riches of this world,
she brings him to naught with a turn of her wheel.
 Such is Fortune.

The Chant Roial:

Joye, plaisance, et douce nourreture (Joy, pleasure and sweet sustenance)

The passionate denouncements of Fortune in the complainte could scarcely be left

unchecked, and, sure enough, Esperance, Hope herself, turns up to chide the poet and to put him on

a better path. She is described as the most beautiful lady the poet had ever seen, excepting, of

course, his own lady. She explains that Love has, in fact, treated him well in carrying his message

to his Lady, who now knows that he loves her with a sincere heart. Esperance promises that if he

will be governed by her, she will never leave him. To further distract him from his troubles, she

sings him the Chant Roial, the text of which deals with the importance of accepting Hope as a fair

return for Love.

The Chant Roial (or Chanson Royale) was a close relation of the Ballade, and dates

back to the chansons of the thirteenth century. It was often used for stately or heroic subjects,

and, because of complicated rhyming patterns and rules that precluded using a rhyming word more

than once, it was considered one of the more complex forms of poetry. Machaut’s setting uses five

stanzas of 9 lines each, followed by an envoi, a three-line post-script addressed to Love herself.

The stanzas are laid out in a rhyming scheme of a10 b10 a10 b10 c7 d7 d7 e7 e5, while the envoi

has a rhyming scheme of d7 e7 e5.

Like the Complainte, the chant roial was an older form which was declining in

popularity during Machaut’s time. Perhaps in full knowledge of this, Machaut also used more

archaic devices in the music. It is also monophonic, with a largely syllabic underlay. There is also

evidence of the old rhythmic modes in the triple rhythms of the piece.

This is the only known example of Machaut’s setting of the form.

The Balladelle:

En amer a douce vie (To be in love is a sweet life)

After some further philosophical discussions on Love and Fortune, Hope sings the poet a

balladelle to cheer him further before she leaves. The balladelle is a musical variant of the

ballade, and is also known as a Ballade duplex. The rhyming scheme is based on 12 lines in

four groups, with the following schema: a7 a3 b7 a7 a3 b7 b7 b3 b7 b7 b3 a7. Thus the overall

musical grouping is AABB, with tonal closure occurring at the end of the last phrase.

This is the first polyphonic setting in the Remede, and it includes a Triplum, Cantus,

Tenor and Contratenor. The text is applied only to the Cantus, but this does not neccessarily

imply that the other lines were taken by instruments, although this may have been the case.

Although the Balladelle is described in the poem as being sung by Hope, the polyphonic texture

suggests that, in performance practice, it was not considered dramatically important that the words

of a single speaker be taken by a solo voice.

The piece is in 9/8, an old-fashioned style which was somewhat dated even during

Machaut’s time, and the dissonant Triplum also looked backwards to earlier music.

The Balade:
Dame, de qui toute ma joie vient (Lady, from whom all my joy comes)

Reassured by Hope, the poet sets on his way back to see his lady, pausing first to compose a

Balade. This form, also known as the Ballade simplex, is more typical of Machaut’s style, and

consists of three eight-line stanzas, laid out in a rhyming scheme as follows:

a10 b10 a10 b10 c7 c10 d10 d10. The final lines of each stanza are identical. Musically, each

stanza follows the form AABC.

 This piece is considerably more modern in conception than the preceding Balladelle, as

evidenced first by the meter of the piece, in 3/4 rather than 9/8. The lines are of identical length,

except for one variant of seven syllables - this was standard in the eight-line stanza. It features very

melismatic writing in the cantus, while there is no underlay in the Tenor. The Tenor follows a

completely different rhythm, suggesting that, in this case, the line may have been intended for an

instrument rather than a voice. In Manuscript C, there are only these 2 parts, but in later

manuscripts, the Balade was revised to include a triplum and contratenor, bringing the

polyphony up to 4 voices, which are harmonically rather more successful than the dissonance of the

Balladelle.

The Chanson Balladee:

Dame, a vous sans retollir (My lady, to you without reservation

The poet returns to his lady, and is rewarded with a sweet glance and an invitation to dance.

Later, she asks him to sing, and he offers her this Chanson Balladee. The Chanson

Balladee is more commonly known as a virelai, and in the text, Machaut mentions both terms

but expresses his preference for the former term. Nonetheless, the virelai was the term by which

the form became known, and the other designation dropped out of usage.

The virelai allows for a variety of versification, but the form used in the Remede is the

one that Machaut most often favoured. It consists of three stanzas, with a refrain that opens and

closes the piece. Each stanza is in three sections, the first two having the same rhyming scheme,

and the last having the same scheme as the refrain. Machaut’s example has the following scheme:

← Stanzas: a7 a7 b4 b7 a4 a7 b4 b7 b7 a4 b7 b7 a4

← Refrain: a7 a7 b4 b7 a4 a7 b4
 Musically, this has the phrase structure where the stanzas are ABB (with A being

considerably longer than B), and the refrain repeats exactly the A section. Because the refrain

proceeds and succeeds each stanza, the actual musical form is more similar to AABBA.

This song has a strong 6/8 dance rhythm, as it was intended to accompany the dancing at the

court. It is monophonic and also references the old rhythmic modes.

The Rondelet:

Dame, mon cuer en vous remaint (My lady, my heart stays with you)

After a happy exchange of rings as a token of mutual love, the poet departs his lady in

cheerful spirits. Joyfully, he sings a Rondelet, or rondeau, as he leaves.

The rondeau, with the ballade and virelai, made up the three formes fixés of

Medieval French poetry. Each was also a musical form, consisting of various repetitions of verse

and refrain. These three forms continued to be used in music until the end of the fifteenth century,

although their influence continued beyond that time. These are also the last three forms that

Machaut presents in this work - the other forms were either already declining in popularity or

declined shortly afterwards.

Machaut’s last musical offering in the work is polyphonic - set for triplum, cantus, and

tenor. It is just one stanza long - 8 lines of 8 syllables each. The rhyming pattern is based around

repeated lines, as follows: A B a A a b A B, where the capital letters denote lines of identical text,

and lowercase denotes, as before, different text but with a similar final rhyme. The musical

structure follows an identical form ABaAbAB, where capital letters denote identical music and text,

and lowercase indicates identical music with different text.

This is the most melismatic of the pieces presented in the Remede, and has the most in

common with his later music. Again, Machaut has set a poem recited by a solo character to
polyphonic music, demonstrating that the question of performance was of less importance that

might be the case today.

Conclusion

In his Remede de Fortune, Machaut set out to do more than to write a long courtly

poem with a relatively light-weight plot. The intention of the musical insertions, exemplifying the

major poetic and musical forms of the day, was to instruct - each is prefaced with an introduction

which explains how the poet or character in the poem came to write or recite the piece. The context

of each piece is also chosen deliberately, intending to demonstrate where and when such a piece

might be proper, be that to accompany a dance, or to praise a beautiful lady. The poems themselves

are clearly intended to be used as examples of the best usage of the various forms. They are also

inserted in more-or-less historical order - the older poetic forms appearing first, and the more

modern later.

Throughout the text of the dit, Machaut also includes various remarks on musical matters -

describing the ideal voice as clear, sweet and rich; setting out common performance practice for

courtly songs; portraying the court musicians as being skilled in both the new and old styles; and

including an impressive list of instruments that were used to accompany the dancing. All of the

above suggests Machaut had a high degree of awareness of his own influence and place in history.

Thus the Remede is more than a courtly love poem to Bonne of Luxembourg, to whom he was

clearly devoted. It is also a summation of the state of both the poetic and musical forms of the day.

Áine Mulvey
1 Lawrence Earp, Guillaume de Machaut: A Guide to Research (New York and London: Garland Publishing, Inc,
1995), 78.
2 James I. Wimsatt and William W Kibler, Le Jugement du roy de Behaigne and Remede de Fortune (Athens,
GA: The University of Georgia Press, 1988), 220.