Motet composers set lines of Ovid’s text that appear in juxtaposition with their respective explanatory glosses, taken from the translation L’Art d’amours. Related proverbs and intertextual refrains serve to comment even more so on Ovid’s original text. Several motet composers used these proverbs and intertextual refrains, and it is likely that these non-Ovidian texts were borrowed from earlier motets rather than a single literary source. Composers who set these texts in motets also appear to have borrowed musical material from each other, though the exact relationship of source and borrowing is not always clear. The current hypothesis is that the motetus voice of Dieus, je fui ja pres de joir / Dieus, je n’i puis la nuit dormir / Et vide et inclina aurem tuam provided the entire textual and musical structure of the Latin double motet Laus tibi salus / Laus tibi virgo / Et vide et inclina aurem tuam. Other motets are discussed in terms of text borrowing, though this borrowing could be between the motets or it could be composers borrowing the same text from the single source, L’Art d’amours.

Works: Anonymous: Cest quadrouble / Vos n’i dormires / Biaus cuers / Fiat (354-60); Anonymous: Laus tibi salus / Laus tibi virgo / Et vide et inclina aurem tuam (358); Anonymous: Ne sai tant / Ja de boine / Portare (364-67).

Sources: Anonymous: Dieus, je fui ja pres de joir / Dieus, je n’i puis la nuit dormir / Et vide et inclina aurem tuam (358-64).

Index Classifications: Polyphony to 1300

Contributed by: Elizabeth Stoner