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Guillem de Ribes

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Ruins of the castle o Ribes held bi Guillem

Guillem de Ribes (born c.1140) wis a Catalan nobleman an troubadour, the laird (or castellan) o Sant Pere de Ribes.[1] He wis a kent componer o leeric verse, but nane o his wirks survive. In the sang o Peire d'Alvernhe, probably performit for the entourage o Eleanor, dochter o Henry II o Ingland an fiancée o Alfonso VIII o Castile, in Gascony on its wey back tae Castile in 1173, Guillem is ane o twal contemporar troubadours (each probably present) satired:

E•N Guillems de Ribas lo quins,
qu'es malvatz defors e dedins,
e ditz totz sos vers raucamen,
per que es avols sos retins,
e'atretan se'n fari'us chins;
e l'uoil semblan de vout d'argen.
Lord Guillem de Ribes is the fifth,
who is wicked outside and in
and recites all his poems harshly,
for his noises are terrible,
like those made by a dog;
and his eyes look like those of a silver statue.[2]
  1. See Martín de Riquer (1964), Història de la Literatura Catalana, vol. 1 (Barcelona: Edicions Ariel), pp. 36–7, for an identification of the troubadour and the lord.
  2. The translation comes from Elizabeth Aubrey (1989), "References to Music in Old Occitan Literature", Acta Musicologica, 61:2 (May–Aug.), p. 118.