Valentine's Day With Charles (Also entitled: History Channel Never Wrote Back to Me)

Yesterday was Valentine's Day and of course, I can't let it pass without discussing Charles and the first Valentine's Day poem. Or poems. Charles is usually attributed with writing the first Valentine's Day poem. This would be Rondel VI. 

I am already sick of love,

My very gentle Valentine,

Since for me you were born too late,

And I for you was born too soon.

God forgives him who has estranged

Me from you for the whole year.

I am already sick of love,

My very gentle Valentine.

(Translation from here: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Translation:A_Farewell_to_Love)

According to most sites I've found, including Wikipedia, History Channel (more on that later) and other sites, this was written in 1415 while in England and the gentle Valentine in question is Bonne d'Armagnac. However, that can't be right. If it's specifically for Valentine's, it could not be 1415 since he was taken to England in November, after Agincourt. It also doesn't appear in the English manuscript, Harley MS 682. However, it is in the French manuscript, BnF MS. fr. 25458.

I would argue that there's a more logical case for Ballade LXVI/Ballade 72 to be "the first Valentine." It's in the English manuscript (hence it being B 72) as well as the French and according to Fox and Arn (2010) it's the only Valentine's Day poem that dates to when Charles was in England. I am not sure how "Valentine's Day poem" is defined by the people who say R VI is the first, especially considering earlier work referencing the day like Chaucer's Parliament of Fowls. If for the poem to be considered a proper Valentine's Day poem it needs to be addressed to someone, then R VI is probably it. I doubt that Bonne was the intended recipient, both from the dating of the poem and the lines "Since for me you were born too late, / And I for you was born too soon" which if anyone suggests Marie of Cleves (I hesitate to identify anyone not explicitly mentioned in a poem since Charles wasn't writing straight biographical poetry). If the poem just has to be about Valentine's Day, then B 72 would be it. The speaker can't sleep for the noise the happy birds outside are making as they chose their mates-- he's grieving the loss of his mate on the "day of Seynt Valentyne."

And now for History Channel and what they never wrote back about. Last year for Valentine's Day there was a post about R VI and Charles on history.com and in a move that both annoyed and didn't surprise me, they somehow managed to get almost everything wrong. They had the audacity to have a contact link telling me if I found a mistake to send it in-- which I did. I never got any response so I assume comments go directly into the circular file. I made a blog post about it here, which corrects the mistakes.  Answer me, cowards.

Now that's done, an update on the project: 

As of 02/14/2019:

- 1500/6531 lines translated

- 42/74 ballades from the first ballade cycle translated