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During the flight from Barcelona to København, The Grandma has been reading Ausiàs March, on the 567th anniversary of his death, the Valencian poet who so excellently sang of love and the art of sailing, an art shared with the Scandinavian inhabitants with whom The Grandma will spend a few days sharing work projects and cultural experiences.
Perhaps one of the best-known poems of Ausiàs March is Veles e vents, a beauty one that expresses the inner struggle of the lover, especially the conflict between reason and love passion.
Ausiàs March uses the nautical metaphor (the winds, the sea, the ship) to represent his state of mind: the rough sea symbolizes his tormented heart; the contrary winds represent the opposing feelings that dominate him and the ship is himself, who tries to stay on course in the midst of emotional disorder.
Love is seen by Ausiàs March as a powerful and contradictory force that causes torment and instability; doubt and inner contradiction and emotional dependence. As in all his love poems, Ausiàs March expresses an intense, deep and often painful vision of love, very characteristic of his work.
More information: Lletra UOC
Ausiàs March (1397-March 3, 1459) was a Valencian poet and knight from Gandia, València. He is considered one of the most important poets of the Golden Century of Catalan literature.
Not much is known of March's life. He was born in approximately 1400 to a Valencian noble family. His father, Pere March, was himself a poet and served at the court of the younger brother of King Alfonso IV, Pere. His uncle, Jaume March II, was also a poet. March was one of the two children of Pere's second wife, Lionor of Ripoll; he had a younger sister, Peirona.
In 1413, the still-young March became head of his family -part of the Valencian petty nobility- upon the death of his father. From a very young age he took part in the expeditions that King Alfons el Magnànim carried out in the Mediterranean. After returning from these expeditions in 1427, he settled in Gandia. After his return, he would never again leave the region where he was born. March was twice married: first to Isabel Martorell (sister of the writer Joanot Martorell), and later to Joana Escorna.
In 1450, he moved from Gandia to Valencia. It was there that he died on March 3, 1459. While March himself was buried in his family's chapel at the Valencia Cathedral, his two wives and family are buried in the Monastery of Sant Jeroni de Cotalba. Five illegitimate children but no legitimate heirs have been attributed to him.
Inheriting an easy fortune from his father, Pere March -the treasurer to the Duke of Gandia- and enjoying the powerful patronage of Carles of Viana, prince of Aragon, March was able to devote himself to poetical composition.
He was an undisguised follower of Petrarch, carrying the imitation to such a point that he addressed his Cants d'amor (Love songs) to a lady whom he professed to have seen first in church on Good Friday. So far as the difference of language allows, he reproduced the rhythmical cadences of his model, but this should be qualified as the medieval tradition of locus communis requested this following. This is something Petrarch himself did and it need not to be stressed.
March is a very original and idiosyncratic poet.
In the Cants de mort (Death hymns) he touches a note of brooding sentiment peculiar to himself. It can be said that he developed Petrarch's rhetoric and used it for more inner psychological meditations, as other major poets such a Camões and Shakespeare would.
March was one of the first poets to use the local vernacular, Catalan, instead of the troubadour language, Occitan. His poems are marked by obscurity, a sometimes monotonous morbidity, and a conflicting battle between desire and morality, achieved at its apex in the great Cant Spiritual.
He was fully entitled to the supremacy which he enjoyed among his contemporaries, and the success of his innovation no doubt encouraged Boscán to introduce the Italian metres into Castilian.
March's poetry has been set to music by different composers.
Mestre i ponent contra d’ells veig armar:
xaloc, llevant los deuen subvenir
ab llurs amics lo grec e lo migjorn,
fent humils precs al vent tramuntanal
que en son bufar los sia parcial
e que tots cinc complesquen mon retorn.
Bullirà·l mar com la cassola en forn,
mudant color e l'estat natural,
e mostrarà voler tota res mal
que sobre si atur un punt al jorn.
Grans e pocs peixs a recors correran
e cercaran amagatalls secrets;
fugint al mar on són nodrits e fets,
per gran remei en terra eixiran.
Los pelegrins tots ensems votaran
e prometran molts dons de cera fets;
la gran paor traurà al llum los secrets
que al confés descoberts no seran.
En lo perill no·m caureu de l’esment,
ans votaré al Déu qui·ns ha lligats
de no minvar mes fermes voluntats
e que tots temps me sereu de present.
Jo tem la mort per no ser-vos absent,
perquè amor per mort és anul·lats;
mas jo no creu que mon voler sobrats
pusca ésser per tal departiment.
Jo só gelós de vostre escàs voler
que, jo morint, no meta mi en oblit.
Sol est pensar me tol del món delit
car, nós vivint, no creu se pusca fer:
aprés ma mort d'amar perdau poder
e sia tost en ira convertit,
e jo, forçat d’aquest món ser eixit,
tot lo meu mal serà vós no veer.
Oh Déu, ¿per què terme no hi ha en amor,
car prop d’aquell jo·m trobara tot sol?
Vostre voler sabera quant me vol,
tement, fiant, de tot l’avenidor.
Jo són aquell pus extrem amador
aprés d'aquell a qui Déu vida tol.
Puis jo són viu, mon cor no mostra dol
tant com la mort per sa extrema dolor.
A bé o mal d’amor jo só dispost,
mas per mon fat fortuna cas no·m porta.
Tot esvetlat, ab desbarrada porta,
me trobarà faent humil respost.
Jo desig ço que·m porà ser gran cost
i aquest esper de molts mals m’aconhorta.
A mi no plau ma vida ser estorta
d’un cas molt fer, qual prec Déu sia tost;
lladoncs les gents no·ls calrà donar fe
al que amor fora mi obrarà;
lo seu poder en acte·s mostrarà
e los meus dits ab los fets provaré.
Amor, de vós jo·n sent més que no·n sé,
de què la part pijor me'n romandrà,
e de vós sap lo qui sens vós està.
A joc de daus vos acompararé.
Sails and winds shall fulfill my deep longings,
forging uncertain paths along the sea.
Mistral and Ponent rise up against them;
Sirocco and Levanter must then resist,
with stalwart allies Gregal and Noonday,
making humble plea to wind Transmontane
to lend them favor with her billowing
that, as one, five might aid my swift return.
The sea will boil like a crock on the flame,
transforming her natural color and shape;
she will reveal how she distains all
that seek her refuge even for a moment.
Fish both great and humble, left succorless,
will seek a secret nook or hiding place,
fleeing what once engendered and protected
to pursue a desperate landlocked rescue.
With one voice, all seafarers will take oath,
pledging gifts of supplicatory wax;
the terror there will unlock the secrets
until then unconfessed, hence unabsolved.
Through such peril, you will not leave my thoughts,
and to the God who joined us, thus my plea:
that I be steadfast in my firm resolve,
and you my strong companion all the while.
I fear death for the absence it will bring,
because love, in death, is perforce anulled;
but I do not believe this departure
will reverse my own desperate longing.
I yearn deeply for your lukewarm heart, and
pray my death does not cause your disregard.
Life's joy is banished by this thought alone
(though while we live I doubt it will happen):
that when I die your love will soon falter
and all its fury be turned into rage.
And I, forcibly cast out of this world,
I will only regret not seeing you.
My God, were love not infinite, boundless
I would stand alone at its furthest point!
Then I would know the measure of your love,
and trust it all to fate, if fearfully.
No one has loved more ardently than I,
save any man whose life God took for love;
I, who live, cannot show the heartfelt pain
revealed best and alone in lovelorn death.
Yet I am at love’s call, for good or ill,
and although such fortune ne'er befall me,
will stand prepared, unbarred doors open wide,
where I'll be found in humble readiness.
I so want that which will cost me dearest
that there is solace in waiting alone!
I am not content to be spared the worst
Dear God, it is my life's most fervent plea
for then all who watch will see, in action,
love's universal and external works
made powerfully manifest in me,
as these many words I confirm with deeds.
Love, in you, feeling undermines thought,
so that to me falls the worst of all lots:
as with a bet at any gaming table,
discernment is for those not so enticed.
é no se com jo faça obra nova.
Old age is bad for Valencians,
I don't know how I make new work.
Ausiàs March, Cants de Mort
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