Readings of poetry--readings of music: intertextuality in Josquin's Je me complains de mon amy

Abstract

Josquin’s five-voice Je me complains de mon amy incorporates the melodic and poetic fragment ‘La tricoton, la tricoton / La belle tricotee’, derived from a pre-existing popular song, as its final couplet. Despite the unusual placement of the quotation and the obscure meaning of the word ‘tricotee’, the chanson has attracted little scholarly attention. Relying on the concept of intertextuality, this article explores the signifying function of the insertion. The above quotation forms the last phrase of the tune ‘La tricotee est par matin levee’, which survives in three 15th-century polyphonic settings. Its text is related to other ‘Je m’y levay par ung matin’ poems, whose associative meanings were easily recognizable by contemporary audiences. Comparison between the individual phrases of ‘La tricotee est par matin levee’ and the phrases of the canonic melody in Je me complains de mon amy reveals a one-to-one correspondence of their motivic content and structural layout. On the level of the poetry, the interaction of the ‘tricotee’ topos with the amorous complaint of the main poem creates a subtle layer of irony, present from beginning to end. The proposed reading reveals Josquin’s reliance on the full verbal and musical ‘text’ of ‘La tricotee est par matin levee’ and the social and cultural overtones with which the tune resonates.