02/05 – The Troubadours

Nicholas Lombardo
East Asian Studies
2020 (Senior)

1. Studio Ghibli’s Whisper of the Heart – Shizuko discovering Nishi’s antique shop, the Barron, and the restored grandfather clock.
2. Chang’e Flying to the Moon

Listening to the troubadour lyric songs assigned for today, I kept having a distinct sense of longing and sadness. The lyrics, as well as the descriptions of some of the troubadours themselves, indicate a lot of emotion, especially romantic love, behind and composed into each song. Jaufre Rudel’s Lanquan li jorn in particular reminded me of the many stories of long-distance, eternal love shown in everything from folktales (Chang’e Flying To The Moon) to films (Whisper of the Heart). The painting above refers to a Chinese folk tale told during the Mid-Autumn Festival. In one iteration, the story surrounds a woman who protects her husband and prevents his elixir of immortality from falling into malicious hands taking the elixir herself and going to reside on the moon, where her husband can see her each night. The story, among other versions and tales, adds “romantic” sentiment to the Mid-Autumn Festival, during which people have traditionally revered the moon, and now will spend the evening together looking up at the moon, either in person or far apart. The film clip above shows Shizuko, protagonist of Japanese filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki’s Whisper of the Heart, meeting Nishi, an antique restorer and owner of an antique shop in Tokyo, and viewing a recently restored grandfather clock. The clock depicts a romance between a dwarf king who lives underground, and a fairy who is cursed to live as a sheep – the king may only see the fairy in her original form at the strike of 12 o’clock. These visuals and their tales seem to positively romanticize the longing and distance between those in love but apart, in contrast to Rudel’s piece whose sound and lyrics seem to suggest emphasis on the pain and sorrow.