Pau de Bellviure
Encyclopedia
Catalan people
The Catalans or Catalonians are the people from, or with origins in, Catalonia that form a historical nationality in Spain. The inhabitants of the adjacent portion of southern France are sometimes included in this definition...
poet of the fourteenth and/or fifteenth centuries. To the Catalan and Spanish writers of the Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
he was a model of courtly love
Courtly love
Courtly love was a medieval European conception of nobly and chivalrously expressing love and admiration. Generally, courtly love was secret and between members of the nobility. It was also generally not practiced between husband and wife....
who had attained gran fama (great fame). Pere Torroella lists him among the "doctors" of poetry. According to Ausiàs March
Ausiàs March
Ausiàs March was a Valencian poet who was born in Gandia towards the end of the 14th century. He was the son of Pere March, nephew of Jaume March II, and cousin of Arnau March....
, his love for his lady turned him mad and he broke his neck and died, a martyr to love.
"Pau de Bellviure" may be a surname, in which case his given name is unknown. In some manuscripts he is called Benviure, the name of a famous lineage. The castle of Benviure was later absorbed by Eramprunyà, an estate of the March family. In his Prohemio a carta, the Marqués de Santillana begins survey of the history of Catalan verse with Guilhem de Berguedan
Guilhem de Berguedan
Guillem de Berguedà , or Guilhem de Berguedan in Occitan, was a Catalan troubadour and viscount of Berguedà. He was the most prolific Catalan poet of the twelfth century, though he composed in Occitan, and thirty-one of his poems survive...
and "Pao de Benbibre". There is mention of a Paül, son of Pere de Benviure, secretary to John I of Aragon
John I of Aragon
John I , called by posterity the Hunter or the Lover of Elegance , but the Abandoned in his lifetime, was the King of...
, who died in 1417 without descendents, but this is probably not the poet. According to Guerau de Maçanet, Pau was a member of the noble Rocabertí or Cabrera
Cabrera
Cabrera means goatherd in Spanish and Catalan. It may refer to:Places:* Cabrera, Balearic Islands* Cabrera, a town in the northeast of the Dominican Republic* Cabrera, Cundinamarca, a town in Colombia* Cabrera, Santander, a town in Colombia...
families.
Only one complete poem, Dompna gentil, vos m'enculpats a tort, survives despite Pau's subsequent fame. It is a discreet maldit in which he attacks his lady for her infidelity. A fragment, Per fembre fo Salamo enganat, of a lost poem by Pau is preserved in the Conhort of Francesc Ferrer. In this fragment Pau lists the names of famous men who were the victims of woman's lies: Solomon
Solomon
Solomon , according to the Book of Kings and the Book of Chronicles, a King of Israel and according to the Talmud one of the 48 prophets, is identified as the son of David, also called Jedidiah in 2 Samuel 12:25, and is described as the third king of the United Monarchy, and the final king before...
, David
David
David was the second king of the united Kingdom of Israel according to the Hebrew Bible and, according to the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, an ancestor of Jesus Christ through both Saint Joseph and Mary...
, Samson
Samson
Samson, Shimshon ; Shamshoun or Sampson is the third to last of the Judges of the ancient Israelites mentioned in the Tanakh ....
, Adam, Aristotle
Aristotle
Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...
, Virgil
Virgil
Publius Vergilius Maro, usually called Virgil or Vergil in English , was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He is known for three major works of Latin literature, the Eclogues , the Georgics, and the epic Aeneid...
, John the Baptist
John the Baptist
John the Baptist was an itinerant preacher and a major religious figure mentioned in the Canonical gospels. He is described in the Gospel of Luke as a relative of Jesus, who led a movement of baptism at the Jordan River...
, and Hippocrates
Hippocrates
Hippocrates of Cos or Hippokrates of Kos was an ancient Greek physician of the Age of Pericles , and is considered one of the most outstanding figures in the history of medicine...
. In both his extent pieces, Pau comes across as misogynistic, but his light-hearted treatment of the subject and his use of irony assured his popularity. It is unknown whether he really died of love or it is a legend that merely arose from his reference to la mort qui.m corre (death that chases me) in Dompna gentil.
External links
- Incipitario de Pau de Bellviure, with links to edited original-language texts of all his works