Joyeux de Toulouse. L’autr’ier el dous temps de pascor

L’autr’ier el dous temps de pascor

       En una ribeira

Aniey cercan novella flor

       Cost’una cendieyra,

E per delieg de la verdor…

       Et, a la primeira flor

Qu’ieu trobiey, torney en plor

       Tro qu-en una ombreira

Reviriey mos huelhs alhor.

       Et una bergeira

Lai via ab fresca color

       Blanca cum neuieyra…

Et ieu quan vi son gay cors gen

       D’avinent estatge,

E sa fresca cara rizen

       E lo sieu clar vizatge,

Oblidiey tot mon pensamen,

       Quar de gran paratge

Mi semblet al benfait plazen,

       Cors de gran barnatge…

Ves lieys m’en aniey humilmen;

       Et en la ferratge

Gardet tres anhels solamen;

       Et en mon coratge

Ieu maldis qui primeiramen

       Baysset son linhatge…

Ezra Pound on Joios of Tolosa in TTSC:

“If humanity was much the same, it is equally certain that individuals were not any more like one another; and this may be better shown in the uncommunicative canzoni than in the razos. Thus we have a pastoral from the sensitive and little known Joios of Tolosa:

                                    Lautrier el dous temsp de pascor

                                    En una ribeira,

which runs thus:

   “The other day, in the sweet time of Easter, I went across a flat land of rivers hunting for new flowers, walking by the side of the path, and for delight in the greenness of things and because of the complete good faith and love which I bear for her who inspires me, I felt a melting about my heart and at the first flower I found, I burst into tears.

   And I wept until, in a shady place, my eyes fell upon a shepherdess. Fresh was her colour, and she was white as a snow-drift, and she had doves’ eyes, ’…” (LE 100)

Joios' poem can be found in Ms fr. 856:

In “The Normal Opportunity of the Provençal Troubadour,” a fragment for the unfinished project Gironde, Pound states:

"There are three ways of ‘going back,’ of feeling as well as knowing about the troubadours, first, by way of the music, second, by way of the land, third, by way of the books themselves, for a manuscript on vellum has a sort of life and personality which no work of the press attains. The Ambrosian library possesses a MS (R71 superiores), a thoroughbred, with clearly written words and music, which contains the extant tunes of Arnaut Daniel. Another MS (Fonds fr. 20050) in the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris, a small quarto with music, is so very old that it might have been carried by some late singer on the road; while Ms fr. 856 is fat, like a dictionary and was certainly made for reading.” (A Walking Tour 84).

References:

Pound, Ezra. “Troubadours their Sorts and Conditions.” 1913. Literary Essays, New York: New Directions, 1968. 94-108. Print.

Raynouart, M. Choix des poesies originales des troubadours. Tome 5. Paris: Firmin Didot, 1820.  241-42. Google Books. Web. 20 August 2015. 

Sieburth, Richard, ed. A Walking Tour in Southern France.Ezra Pound among the Troubadours. New York: New Directions, 1992. Print.