Les Accidens de l'Homme, Minstrels

Minstrels

Minstrels
Mes menestrelz par accordance · sonnent chancons ce nest pas fainte · tous les humains a ceste dance · sont subgectz <a> dancer par contrainte(1)·
My minstrels harmoniously play songs – that’s no hypocrisy. All men are obliged to dance this dance by constraint.

Les loups rauissans

La Vie de l'Homme

»sonnant« means "to play" or "to sound", but a number of editions instead say, »souuent«, which means "often" and is a bit harder to make sense of.

It is not uncommon for "u" and "n" to be reversed, and this applies to manuscripts as well as printed books.

We can observe the same phenomenon in Danse aux aveugles, where Eaige (old age) plays the flute and the tabor: »Eaige, sonnant sa fleuste et son tambour«. In this case, there are both manuscripts and printed books with the alternate text: »Aage souuant a sa fluste et tambour«.

Footnotes: (1)

The "a" in line 4 must be dropped, because it is a repetition of the "a" in line 3 and disturbs the meter.

In some editions, like the "Heures a lusaige de Tournay", ca. 1512, the publisher has omitted the "a".