''Tomida femina'' (, ; "A swollen woman") is the earliest surviving poem in Occitan, a sixteen-line charm probably for the use of

midwives A midwife is a health professional who cares for mothers and newborns around childbirth, a specialization known as midwifery. The education and training for a midwife concentrates extensively on the care of women throughout their lifespan; c ...

. It is preserved in the left and bottom margins of a Latin legal treatise in a ninth- or tenth-century manuscript, where it is written upside down.The manuscript is #201 of the Bibliothèque du Patrimoine de Clermont Auvergne Métropole. The poem is on folio 89v. See Fig. 1 in Paden and Paden, p. 14. Line 14 is missing, but has been supplied by the editors on the basis of the pattern of the final three lines. It has been edited and translated into English by William Doremus Paden and Frances Freeman Paden: The meaning of the poetic charm, a " talking cure", is uncertain. Possibly it is intended as a cure for an

edema Edema, also spelled oedema, and also known as fluid retention, dropsy, hydropsy and swelling, is the build-up of fluid in the body's tissue. Most commonly, the legs or arms are affected. Symptoms may include skin which feels tight, the area ma ...

. The swollen woman of line 1 and the swollen child of line 3 may both be patients, or perhaps only one of them. The charm transfers the swelling from the patient to wood and iron, possibly referring to medical instruments, and thence to the earth. On the other hand, the swollen woman and child "held in her lap" may refer to a

pregnancy Pregnancy is the time during which one or more offspring develops ( gestates) inside a woman's uterus (womb). A multiple pregnancy involves more than one offspring, such as with twins. Pregnancy usually occurs by sexual intercourse, but ...

. The chanter may be the midwife. The poem's editors note the fittingness of an image of birth at the beginning of

Occitan literature Occitan literature (referred to in older texts as Provençal literature) is a body of texts written in Occitan, mostly in the south of France. It was the first literature in a Romance language and inspired the rise of vernacular literature thro ...

Notes

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Sources

*W. D. Paden and F. F. Paden. 2007. ''Troubadour Poems from the South of France''. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, pp. 14–16. Occitan literature Medieval literature Medical literature