SETTINGS OF CHANSON TEXTS FOUND IN JACQUES GOHORY'S L'ONZIEME LIVRE D'AMADIS DE GAULE OF 1554

Abstract

When Jacques Gohory translated the Eleventh Book of the Spanish romance Amadís de Gaula - one of Feliciano de Silva's sixteenth-century additions to the original medieval text - into French, he used a method of free translation, by which he altered the text to suit the tastes of the French court and to flatter the book's dedicatee, Diane de Poitiers. Gohory adapted the Spanish book's two existing chanson texts to suit French tastes and also added six song texts to the work. His text is the earliest source of the chanson, "O combien est heureux," which was set by Guillaume Costeley. His adaptation of one of the Spanish chansons, "Comme l'argentine face," was set by Jacques Arcadelt. In this study, Gohory is identified as the author of these song texts, which had been considered anonymous until now.