MY OBJECT in the present article is to examine, more fully than has been done hitherto, the allegations and allusions contained in the two sirventes of Bertran de Born directed against Alphonso II, king of Aragon (1162-96) and count of Barcelona; and at the same time to discuss certain passages in the text which appear to me to require correction or further elucidation. Before coming to details and reviewing the two sirventes separately, it seems necessary to set forth briefly the circumstances which account for the mutual enmity existing between the troubadour and the king, and which prompted Bertran de Born to single out Alphonso as the butt for his bitterest vituperation. As we may gather from Bertran de Born's own words,' the immediate cause of his two lampoons against Alphonso was the assistance that monarch had rendered to Richard the Lion-hearted, count of Poitiers and duke of Aquitaine, in the capture of Autafort, Bertran's castle, which Bertran was compelled to surrender on July 6, 1 Cf. in the first sirventes (strophe 1): "Sai venc lo reis, don es aunitz, E sei soudadier logaditz"; and in the second sirventes (strophe 2): "Mas trop fo deschausitz e braus, Quan venc sai sus per osteiar." Though Autafort is not mentioned by name in either sirventes, the words sai ('here') in the first passage, and still more sai sus ('up here') in the second passage, can leave no doubt that Bertran's stronghold is meant. As its name implies, it was perched on an eminence. [MODERN PHILOLOGY, February, 1937] 225