- Bernat de Palaol
Bernat de Palaol or de Mallorques (fl. 1386) was a Catalan
troubadour andmerchant fromMajorca . He was sometimes called "lo mercader mallorquí" (the Majorcan merchant).On
3 May 1386 Bernat participated publicly in a "partimen " (poetical debate) withJacme Rovira before the judgesGermà de Gontaut andRamon Galbarra at theConsistori del Gay Saber inToulouse . The subject of the debate was this: there was a young lord who loved a young lady who did not return the love, yet there was another young lady, of equal worth, who loved him deeply but to whom he was unattracted; to which of these should he devote his service? Bernat defended the second lady, but the judges found in favour of Jacme and the first lady: the lord, they said, ought to devote himself to the one he truly loves, not the one who truly loves him.Bernat produced only one surviving work, a combination of "
maldit " and "comiat " that began "Cercatz d'uymay, ja.n siatz belha y pros". In the tradition of those genres, Bernat describes his lady as unjust and indiscrete and renounces her. The terms he uses make it clear that he has not praised this woman in any previous poem. This poem, despite its genericrhyme scheme and metre, was moderately popular: it was cited byFrancesc Ferrer andFrancesc de la Via in the next century and its melody was adopted for a certain song of the "Misteri d'Elx ".References
*Riquer, Martín de (1964). "Història de la Literatura Catalana", vol. 1. Barcelona: Edicions Ariel.
External links
* [http://www.rialc.unina.it/inc-palaol.htm Incipitario di Bernat de Palaol] with links to edited versions of his poetry
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