Josquin’s polyphonic chanson, or song, “Mille regrets,” a lover’s lament at leaving his or her beloved, illustrates his attention to the words he set to music. Though the poem is little more than a string of clichés, its sorrowful tone seems to have moved the composer and is perfectly captured in his music: in its somber harmonies, its drooping melodies, its slow-moving rhythms. Particularly effective are two homophonic moments in this song. The first singles out the phrase J’ai si grand deuil (“I feel such great sorrow”); the second, after a short point of imitation on Qu’on me verra, ends the song with repeated affirmations of brief mes jours déffiner (“my days are numbered”).

It is revealing to compare “Mille regrets” with Guillaume de Machaut’s chanson “Dame, de qui toute ma joie vient,” an earlier polyphonic love song (see page 55). There we have the sense of an exuberant interplay of melodies rather than an expression of the poetry’s sentiments. In Josquin’s chanson, in keeping with Renaissance expressive ideals, we experience instead a straightforward musical rendering of the grief of the words.