B&P’s Shadorma and Beyond – May 7, 2016

Hello!

I’m scheduling this post as I’m away this week-end … not only in space but in time, so please forgive me as I won’t be able to answer your comments until next week.  In fact I’m visiting the beginning of the late 14th to the early 15th century area in the Republic of Bologna and they didn’t have internet, in fact I’ll be living in a bivouac and a medieval one at that for a couple of days.

San Giorgio di Piano (Bologna)

So, I thought we’d take a look into a little Italian poetical history.

If indeed we’d landed ourselves in the 14th century we might have still come across a little love poem called a “madrigal” not to be mistaken with a lovely musical form which appeared a couple of centuries later with the same name.

The madrigal originating as an Italian poetic form, was actually a pastoral or love song. The Italian madrigal was written in lines of either seven or eleven syllables and consisted of two or three tercets, followed by one or two rhyming couplets:

As the moon arose that night
A mist softened the moon light
(Unwary, hearts filled with love).

A poor maid had lost her knight,
And a blackbird saw her plight
(Its song filled her from above).

Under the moon love was born
‘Tween a maid and a low-born

A love born of beauty and light
On a blackbird’s song that night.

© G.s.k. ‘16

Often these poems present fantastic images of animals or birds, symbolic of men or women in pursuit of love, in my case I chose a blackbird whose song is symbolic of spring courtship.

As I was researching this post I discovered that according to the Italian texts sometimes the poems were put to music or sung like this one by Jacopo de Bologna student of Francesco Landini:

The madrigale wasn’t long-lived … it had all but disappeared by the late 14th century substituted by the ballata or the canzone.  It was reborn in the renaissance as a polyphonic musical form in two or three voices.  As a poetic form it appeared again in France and later in England. In England it was much more structured than the earlier Italian form.

So here’s a picture to try to inspire us to write a madrigale … or perhaps a shadorma!

~ Mother and Kittens in a Garden, attributed to Mao 1, Chinese, 12th century

Ah … yes, my choice of image comes from the 12th century and it’s Chinese, if you prefer something closer to home,  go for it – I was feeling more pastoral than romantic 😉 !

Once you’ve written your madrigale or shadorma please tag Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie and B&P’s Shadorma and Beyond, then link up to us with the Mr. Linky app so everyone can find you.

Have a great week!  Ciao,  Bastet.

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About Bastet

I love to read...I like to write...I've travelled the world and seen the sites. I'm past my prime and feel so young, especially when near the young. I'm writing this blog, to remember, to think and to share...with the hopes that someone else will make a comment that will stimulate new thoughts and pathways. Actually, I'm a gabber, so the logical extension of gabbing is blogging! ;-)

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