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Ci commence Remede de Fortune

from Guillaume de Machaut: Remede de Fortune by Blue Heron

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lyrics

Ci commence Remede de Fortune

Cilz qui veult aucun art aprendre
A .xii. choses doit entendre.
La premiere est qu’il doit eslire
Celui ou ses cuers mieus le tire
Et ou sa nature l’encline ;
Car la chose envis bien define
Qu’en veult encontre son gré faire,
Quant Nature li est contraire.
Aimme son maistre et son mestier
Sus tout ; et ce li est mestier
Qu’il l’onneure, obeisse et serve ;
Et ne quide pas qu’il s’asserve,
Car s’il les aimme, il l’ameront,
Et s’il les het, il le harront :
Profiter ne puet autrement.
Doctrine rechoive humblement
Et bien se gart qu’il continue,
Car science envis retenue
Est et de legier oubliee,
Quant elle n’est continuee.
Soing, penser, desir de savoir
Ait, si pourra science avoir.
Et l’entreprengne en joene aage,
Ains qu’en malice son courage
Mue par trop grant cognoissance …

(Remede de Fortune, 1-25)

Here begins the Remedy for Fortune

If you’re going to learn any skill,
there are twelve things you must understand.
The first is you must choose
the thing your heart most draws you to
and towards which your nature inclines you,
for nothing can be accomplished
contrary to one’s will
as long as Nature is against you.
Love your master and your profession
above all; and it is critical
that you love, honor, and serve them.
And don’t imagine that you’ve enslaved yourself,
for if you love them, they will love you,
and if you hate them, they will hate you:
nothing can be gained otherwise.
Receive instruction meekly
and take care to stick to it,
for learning is difficult to retain
and easily forgotten
when it is not put into practice.
You must be diligent, assiduous, and eager for knowledge: thus you will attain wisdom.
And undertake it at a young age,
before your heart turns to wickedness
through too much experience …

[English Translation © Scott Metcalfe. Unauthorized reprinting strictly prohibited.]

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from Guillaume de Machaut: Remede de Fortune, released October 21, 2022

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Blue Heron Boston, Massachusetts

Winner of the 2018 Gramophone Classical Music Award for Early Music (the first non-European group to win the award), Blue Heron (Scott Metcalfe, dir.) has been acclaimed by The Boston Globe as “one of the Boston music community’s indispensables” and hailed by Alex Ross in The New Yorker for the “expressive intensity” of its interpretations. ... more

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