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In addition to the above three-class distribution, the whole Yamato nation was divided into uji, or families. An uji founded by one of the Tenson took precedence of all others, the next in rank being one with an Imperial prince for ancestor, and after the latter came the families of the Tenjin and Chigi.
Most famous of these courts was that of Queen Eleanor herself, while among the others were those of the ladies of Gascony, the Viscountess of Narbonne, the Countess of Champagne, and the Countess of Flanders. Disputes before these courts usually took the form of the tenson, or contention, already described. Many are the legendary accounts of the laws upon which these courts based their decisions.
In the early songs of the Bible, too, are many verses whose second half answers the first, and, in fact, the Hebrew words for "answer" and "sing" are said to be identical. Among the Troubadours, this species of musical dialogue took the form of the tenson, or contention. The use of answering couplets in solo songs is another point of resemblance.
Cabell, himself a master of cynical touches and shrewdly anticipant of them, protects his invention with the competent armor of irony, and now and then particularly in the felicitous tenson spoken by Perion and Demetrios concerning the charms of Melicent brings mirth and beauty to an amalgam which bids fair to prove classic metal.
Thus they would sit together, nightly, upon the prow of Perion's ship and speak against each other in the manner of a Tenson, as these two rhapsodised of Melicent until the stars grew lustreless before the sun. How Perion Braved Theodoret Demetrios, meanly clothed, his hands tied behind him, trudged sullenly beside his conqueror's horse.
Among the other forms used, the verse was merely a set of couplets, the chanson was divided into several stanzas, while the sonnet was much freer in form than at present. When more than two singers took part in a tenson, it became a tournament. The sirvente was a song of war or politics, sometimes satirical, sometimes in praise of the exploits of a generous patron.
These were the men who rendered most assistance originally in the organization of the State, but as they were merely adherents of the Tenson, the latter's direct descendants counted themselves superior and sought always to assert that superiority.
It is plain that few genealogical trees could be actually traced further back than the Chigi. Hence, for all practical purposes, the Shimbetsu consisted of the descendants of vanquished chiefs, and the fact was tacitly acknowledged by assigning to this class the second place in the social scale, though the inclusion of the Tenjin and the Tenson should have assured its precedence.
The name of tenson was given to those poetical contests in verse which took place in the Courts of Love, or before illustrious princes. The songs were sung from chateau to chateau, either by the troubadours themselves, or by the jongleur or instrument player by whom they were attended; they often abounded in extravagant hyperboles, trivial conceits, and grossness of expression.
Somewhere out in the gloom coyotes chattered and yelped, and from far across the dusky valley others answered a doleful tenson. I dozed. Frank awoke us all with a shout. We leaped up and stared blinkingly into the north. That whole region of the sky was aflame from zenith to horizon with spectral fires. It was the aurora.
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