SERIOUS AND ALLEGORICAL POETRY.
In consequence of the slowness with which prose was used for any regular
literary purpose in France, verse continued to do duty for it until a
comparatively late period in almost all departments of literature. By
the very earliest years of the twelfth century, and probably much
earlier (though we have no certain evidence of this latter fact),
documents of all kinds began to be written in verse of various forms.
Among the earliest serious verse that was written rank, as we might
expect, verse chronicles. It was not till 1200 at soonest that long
translations from the Latin in French prose were made, but such
translations, and original works as well, were written in French verse
long before.
[Sidenote: Verse Chronicles.]
The rhymed Chronicles were numerous, but, with rare exceptions, they
cannot be said to be of any very great literary importance. Whether they
were imitated directly from the Chansons de Gestes, or _vice versa_, is
a question which, as it happens, can be settled without difficulty. For
they are almost all in octosyllabic couplets, a metre certainly later
than the assonanced decasyllabics of the earliest Chansons. The latter
form and the somewhat later dodecasyllable or Alexandrine are rarely
used for Verse Chronicles, the most remarkable exception being the
spirited _Combat des Trente_[77], which is however very late, and the
_Chronique de du Guesclin_ of the same date. There are earlier examples
of history in Alexandrines (some are found in the twelfth century, such
as the account of Henry the Second's Scotch Wars by Jordan Fantome,
Chancellor of the diocese of Winchester), but they are not numerous or
important. It is not unworthy of notice that the majority of the early
Verse Chronicles are English or Anglo-Norman. The first of importance is
that of Geoffrey Gaymar, whose Chronicle of English history was written
about 1146. Gaymar was followed by a much better known writer, the
Jerseyman Wace[78], who not only, as has been mentioned, versified
Geoffrey of Monmouth into the _Brut_[79], but produced the important
_Roman de Rou_[80], giving the history of the Dukes of Normandy and of
the Conquest of England. The date of the _Brut_ is 1155, of the _Rou_
1160. This latter is the better of the two, though Wace was not a great
poet. It consists chiefly of octosyllabics, with a curious insertion of
Alexandrines in rhymed not assonanced _laisses_. Wace was followed by
Benoist de Sainte-More, who extended his Chronicle of the Dukes of
Normandy to more than forty thousand verses. The 'Life of St. Thomas'
(Becket), by Garnier de Pont St. Maxence, also deserves notice, as does
an anonymous poem on the English wars in Ireland. But the most
interesting of this group is probably the history[81] of William
Marshal, Earl of Pembroke, who died in 1219 and who during his life
played a great part in England. It abounds in passages of historical
interest and literary value. During the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries, the practice of writing history in verse gradually died out,
yet some of the most important examples date from this time. Such are
the Chronicles of Philippe Mouskes[82], a Fleming, in more than thirty
thousand verses, extending from the Siege of Troy to the year 1243.
Mouskes is of some importance in literary history, because of the great
extent to which he has drawn on the Chansons de Gestes for his
information. In 1304 Guillaume Guiart, a native of Orleans, wrote in
twelve thousand verses a Chronicle of the thirteenth century, including
a few years earlier and later. There are a large number of other Verse
Chronicles, but few of them are of much importance historically, and
fewer still of any literary interest.
History, however, was by no means the only serious subject which took
this incongruous form in the middle ages. The amount of miscellaneous
verse written during the period between the end of the eleventh and the
beginning of the fifteenth century is indeed enormous. Only a very small
portion of it has ever been printed, and the mere summary description of
the manuscripts which contain it is as yet far from complete. If it be
said generally that, during the greater part of these three hundred
years, the first impulse of any one who wished to write, no matter on
what subject, was to write in verse, and that the popular notion of the
want of literary tastes in the middle ages is utterly mistaken, some
idea may be formed of the vast extent of literature, poetical in form,
which was then produced. Much no doubt of this literature is not in the
least worthy of detailed notice; much, whether worthy or not, must from
mere considerations of space and proportion remain unnoticed here. What
is possible, is to indicate briefly the chief forms, authors, and
subjects, which fall under the heading of this chapter, and to give a
somewhat detailed account of the great serious poem of mediaeval France,
the _Roman de la Rose_. Peculiarities of metre and so forth will be
indicated where it is necessary, but it may be said generally that the
great mass of this literature is in octosyllabic couplets.
[Sidenote: Miscellaneous Satirical Verse.]
It has already been observed in discussing the Fabliaux that the first
enquirers into old French literature were led to include a very
miscellaneous assortment of poems under that head; and it may now be
added that this miscellaneous assortment with much else constitutes the
_farrago_ of the present chapter. The two great poems of the _Roman du
Renart_ and the _Roman de la Rose_ stand as representatives of the more
or less serious poetry of the time, and everything else may be said to
be included between them. Beginning nearest to the _Roman du Renart_ and
its kindred Fabliaux, we find a vast number of half-satirical styles of
poetry, many, if not most of them, known (according to what has been
noted in the preface as characteristic of mediaeval literature) by
distinctive form-names. Of these _dits_ and _debats_ have already been
noticed, but it is not easy to give a notion of the number of the
existing examples, or of the extraordinary diversity of subjects to
which both, and especially the _dits_, extend. Perhaps some estimate may
be formed from the fact that the _dits_ of three Flemish poets alone,
Baudouin de Conde, Jean de Conde, and Watriquet de Couvin, fill four
stout octavo volumes[83]. The subjects of these and of the large number
of _dits_ composed by other writers and anonymous are almost
innumerable. The earliest are for the most part simple enumerations of
the names of streets, of street cries, of guilds, of coins, and
such-like things. By degrees they become more definitely didactic, and
at last allegorical moralising masters them as it does almost every
other kind of poetry in the fourteenth century. The _debat_, sometimes
called _dispute_, or _bataille_, is an easily understood variety of the
_dit_. Ruteboeuf's principal _debat_ has been named; another in a less
serious spirit is that between _Charlot et le Barbier_. There is a
_Bataille des Vins_, a _Bataille de Careme et de Charnage_, a _Debat de
l'Hiver et l'Ete_, etc., etc. Another name much used for half-satirical,
half-didactic verse was that of _Bible_, of which the most famous
(probably because it was the first known) is that of Guyot de
Provins,--a violent onslaught on the powers that were in Church and
State by a discontented monk. An extract from it will illustrate this
division of the subject as well as anything else:--
Des fisiciens me merveil:
de lor huevre et de lor conseil
rai ge certes mont grant merveille,
nule vie ne s'apareille
a la lor, trop par est diverse
et sor totes autres perverse.
bien les nomme li communs nons;
mais je ne cuit qu'i ne soit hons
qui ne les doie mont douter.
il ne voudroient ja trover
nul home sanz aucun mehaing.
maint oingnement font e maint baing
ou il n'a ne senz ne raison,
cil eschape d'orde prison
qui de lor mains puet eschaper.
qui bien set mentir et guiler
et faire noble contenance,
tout ont trove fors la creance
que les genz ont lor fait a bien.
tiex mil se font fisicien
qui n'en sevent voir nes que gie.
li plus maistre sont mont changie
de grant ennui, n'il n'est mestiers
dont il soit tant de mencongiers.
il ocient mont de la gent:
ja n'ont ne ami ne parent
que il volsissent trover sain;
de ce resont il trop vilain.
mont a d'ordure en ces liens.
qui en main a fisiciens,
se met par els. il m'ont eu
entre lor mains: onques ne fu,
ce cuit, nule plus orde vie.
je n'aim mie lor compaignie,
si m'ait dex, qant je sui sains:
honiz est qui chiet en lor mains.
par foi, qant je malades fui,
moi covint soffrir lor ennui.
_Testaments_ of the satirical kind, chiefly noteworthy for the brilliant
use which Villon made of the tradition of composing them, _resveries_
and _fatrasies_ (nonsense poems with a more or less satirical drift),
parodies of the offices of the Church, of its sermons, of the miracle
plays, are the chief remaining divisions of the poetry which, under a
light and scoffing envelope, conceals a serious purpose.
[Sidenote: Didactic verse. Philippe de Thaun.]
Such things have at all times been composed in verse, and the reason is
sufficiently obvious. In the first place, the intention of the writers
is to a certain extent masked, and in the second, the reader's attention
is attracted. But the middle ages by no means confined the use of verse
to such cases. Downright instruction was, as often as not, the object of
the verse writer in those days. The earliest, and as such the most
curious of didactic poems, are those of Philippe de Thaun, an Englishman
of Norman extraction, who wrote in the first quarter of the twelfth
century. His two works are a _Comput_, or Chronological Treatise,
dedicated to an uncle of his, who was chaplain to Hugh Bigod, Earl of
Norfolk, and a _Bestiary_, or Zoological Catalogue, dedicated to Adela
of Louvain, the wife of Henry the First. Written before the vogue of the
versified Arthurian Romances had consecrated the octosyllable, these
poems are in couplets of six syllables. Their great age, and to a
certain extent their literary merit, deserve an extract:--
Monosceros est beste,
un corn ad en la teste,
pur ceo ad si a nun.
de buc ele ad facun.
par pucele eat prise,
or oez en quel guise,
quant hom le volt cacer
et prendre et enginner,
si vent horn al orest
u sis repaires est;
la met une pucele
hors de sein sa mamele,
e par odurement
monosceros la sent;
dune vent a la pucele,
si baiset sa mamele,
en sun devant se dort,
issi vent a sa mort;
li hom survent atant,
ki l'ocit en dormant,
u trestut vif le prent,
si fait puis sun talent.
grant chose signefie,
ne larei nel vus die.
Monosceros griu est,
en franceis un-corn est:
beste de tel baillie
Jhesu Crist signefie;
un deu est e serat
e fud e parmaindrat;
en la virgine se mist,
e pur hom charn i prist,
e pur virginited,
pur mustrer casteed,
a virgine se parut
e virgine le conceut.
virgine est e serat
e tuz jurz parmaindrat.
ores oez brefment
le signefiement.
Ceste beste en verte
nus signefie de;
la virgine signefie,
sacez, sancte Marie;
par sa mamele entent
sancte eglise ensement;
e puis par le baiser
ceo deit signefier,
que hom quant il se dort
en semblance est de mort:
des cum home dormi,
ki en cruiz mort sufri,
ert sa destructiun
nostre redemptiun,
e sun traveillement
nostre reposement.
si deceut des diable
par semblant cuvenable;
anme e cors sunt un,
issi fud des et hum,
e iceo signefie
beste de tel baillie.
_Bestiaries_ and _Computs_ (the French title of the Chronologies) were
for some time the favourites with didactic verse writers, but before
long the whole encyclopaedia, as it was then understood, was turned into
verse. Astrology, hunting, geography, law, medicine, history, the art of
war, all had their treatises; and latterly _Tresors_, or complete
popular educators, as they would be called nowadays, were composed, the
best-known of which is that of Walter of Metz in 1245.
[Sidenote: Moral and Theological verse.]
All, or almost all, these works, written as they were in an age
sincerely pious, if somewhat grotesque in its piety, and theoretically
moral, if somewhat loose in its practice, contained not only abundant
moralising, but also more or less theology of the mystical kind. It
would therefore have been strange if ethics and theology themselves had
wanted special exponents in verse. Before the middle of the twelfth
century Samson of Nanteuil (again an Englishman by residence) had
versified the Proverbs of Solomon, and in the latter half of the same
century vernacular lives of the saints begin to be numerous. Perhaps the
most popular of these was the legend of Barlaam and Josaphat, of which
the fullest poetical form has been left us by an English trouvere of the
thirteenth century named Chardry, by whom we have also a verse rendering
of the 'Seven Sleepers,' and some other poems[84]. Somewhat earlier,
Hermann of Valenciennes was a fertile author of this sort of work,
composing a great _Bible de Sapience_ or versification of the Old
Testament, and a large number of lives of saints. Of books of Eastern
origin, one of the most important was the _Castoiement d'un Pere a son
Fils_, which comes from the _Panchatantra_, though not directly. The
translated work had great vogue, and set the example of other
_Castoiements_ or warnings. The monk Helinand at the end of the twelfth
century composed a poem on 'Death,' and a vast number of similar poems
might be mentioned. The commonest perhaps of all is a dialogue _Des
trois Morts et des trois Vifs_, which exists in an astonishing number of
variants. Gradually the tone of all this work becomes more and more
allegorical. _Dreams, Mirrors, Castles_, such as the 'Castle of Seven
Flowers,' a poem on the virtues, make their appearance.
[Sidenote: Allegorical verse.]
[Sidenote: The Roman de la Rose.]
The question of the origin of this habit of allegorising and
personification is one which has been often incidentally discussed by
literary historians, but which has never been exhaustively treated. It
is certain that, at a very early period in the middle ages, it makes its
appearance, though it is not in full flourishing until the thirteenth
century. It seems to have been a reflection in light literature of the
same attitude of mind which led to the development of the scholastic
philosophy, and, as in the case of that philosophy, Byzantine and
Eastern influences may have been at work. Certain it is that in some of
the later Greek romances[85], something very like the imagery of the
_Roman de la Rose_ is discoverable. Perhaps, however, we need not look
further than to the natural result of leisure, mental activity, and
literary skill, working upon a very small stock of positive knowledge,
and restrained by circumstances within a very narrow range of
employment. However this may be, the allegorising habit manifests itself
recognisably enough in French literature towards the close of the
twelfth century. In the _Meraugis de Portlesguez_ of Raoul de Houdenc,
the passion for arguing out abstract questions of lovelore is
exemplified, and in the _Roman des Eles_ of the same author the knightly
virtues are definitely personified, or at least allegorised. At the same
time some at all events of the Troubadours, especially Peire Wilhem,
carried the practice yet further. _Merci_, _Pudeur_, _Loyaute_, are
introduced by that poet as persons whom he met as he rode on his
travels. In Thibaut de Champagne a still further advance was made. The
representative poem of this allegorical literature, and moreover one of
the most remarkable compositions furnished by the mediaeval period in
France, is the _Roman de la Rose_[86]. It is doubtful whether any other
poem of such a length has ever attained a popularity so wide and so
enduring. The _Roman de la Rose_ extends to more than twenty thousand
lines, and is written in a very peculiar style; yet it maintained its
vogue, not merely in France but throughout Europe, for nearly three
hundred years from the date of its commencement, and for more than two
hundred from that of its conclusion. The history of the composition of
the poem is singular. It was begun by William of Lorris, of whom little
or nothing is known, but whose work must, so far as it is easy to make
out, have been done before 1240, and is sometimes fixed at 1237. This
portion extends to 4670 lines, and ends quite abruptly. About forty
years later, Jean de Meung, or Clopinel, afterwards one of Philippe le
Bel's paid men of letters, continued it without preface, taking up
William of Lorris' cue, and extended it to 22,817 verses, preserving the
metre and some of the personages, but entirely altering the spirit of
the treatment. The importance of the poem requires that such brief
analysis as space will allow shall be given here. Its general import is
sufficiently indicated by the heading,--
Ci est le Rommant de la Rose
Ou l'art d'amors est tote enclose;
though the rage for allegory induced its readers to moralise even its
allegorical character, and to indulge in various far-fetched
explanations of it. In the twentieth year of his age, the author says,
he fell asleep and dreamed a dream. He had left the city on a fair May
morning, and walked abroad till he came to a garden fenced in with a
high wall. On the wall were portrayed figures, Hatred, _Felonnie_,
_Villonie_, Covetousness, Avarice, Envy, Sadness, Old Age, _Papelardie_
(Hypocrisy), Poverty--all of which are described at length. He strives
to enter in, and at last finds a barred wicket at which he is admitted
by Dame Oiseuse (Leisure), who tells him that Deduit (Delight) and his
company are within. He finds the company dancing and singing, Dame
Liesse (Enjoyment) being the chief songstress, while Courtesy greets him
and invites him to take part in the festival. The god of love himself is
then described, with many of his suite--Beauty, Riches, etc. A further
description of the garden leads to the fountain of Narcissus, whose
story is told at length. By this the author, who is thenceforth called
the lover, sees and covets a rosebud. But thorns and thistles bar his
way to it, and the god of love pierces him with his arrows. He does
homage to the god, who accepts his service, and addresses a long
discourse to him on his future duties and conduct. The prospect somewhat
alarms him, when a new personage, Bel Acueil (Gracious Reception), comes
up and tenders his services to the lover, the god having disappeared.
Almost immediately, however, Dangier[87] makes his appearance, and
drives both the lover and Bel Acueil out of the garden. As the former
is bewailing his fate, Reason appears and remonstrates with him. He
persists in his desire, and parleys with Dangier, both directly and by
ambassadors, so that in the end he is brought back by Bel Acueil into
the garden and allowed to see but not to touch the rose. Venus comes to
his aid, and he is further allowed to kiss it. At this, however, Shame,
Jealousy, and other evil agents reproach Dangier. Bel Acueil is immured
in a tower, and the lover is once more driven forth.
Here the portion due to William of Lorris ends. Its main characteristics
have been indicated by this sketch, except that the extreme beauty and
grace of the lavish descriptions which enclose and adorn the somewhat
commonplace allegory perforce escape analysis. It is in these
descriptions, and in a certain tenderness and elegance of general
thought and expression, that the charm of the poem lies, and this is
very considerable. The deficiency of action, however, and the continual
allegorising threaten to make it monotonous had it been much longer
continued in the same strain.
It is unlikely that it was this consideration which determined Jean de
Meung to adopt a different style. In his time literature was already
agitated by violent social, political, and religious debates, and the
treasures of classical learning were becoming more and more commonly
known. But prose had not yet become a common literary vehicle, save for
history, oratory, and romance, nor had the duty of treating one thing at
a time yet impressed itself strongly upon authors. Jean de Meung was
satirically disposed, was accomplished in all the learning of his day,
and had strong political opinions. He determined accordingly to make the
poem of Lorris, which was in all probability already popular, the
vehicle of his thoughts.
In doing this he takes up the story as his predecessor had left it, at
the point where the lover, deprived of the support of Bel Acueil, and
with the suspicions of Dangier thoroughly aroused against him, lies
despairing without the walls of the delightful garden. Reason is once
more introduced, and protests as before, but in a different tone and
much more lengthily. She preaches the disadvantages of love in a speech
nearly four hundred lines long, followed by another double the length,
and then by a dialogue in which the lover takes his share. The
difference of manner is felt at once. The allegory is kept up after a
fashion, but instead of the graceful fantasies of William of Lorris, the
staple matter is either sharp and satirical views of actual life, or
else examples drawn indifferently from sacred and profane history. One
speech of Reason's, a thousand lines in length, consists of a collection
of instances of this kind showing the mobility of fortune. At length she
leaves the lover as she found him, 'melancolieux et dolant,' but
unconvinced. Amis (the friend), who has appeared for a moment
previously, now reappears, and comforts him, also at great length,
dwelling chiefly on the ways of women, concerning which much scandal is
talked. The scene with Reason had occupied nearly two thousand lines;
that with Amis extends to double that length, so that Jean de Meung had
already excelled his predecessor in this respect. Profiting by the
counsel he has received, the lover addresses himself to Riches, who
guards the way, but fruitlessly. The god of love, however, takes pity on
him (slightly ridiculing him for having listened to Reason), and summons
all his folk to attack the tower and free Bel Acueil. Among these Faux
Semblant presents himself, and, after some parley, is received. This new
personification of hypocrisy gives occasion to some of the author's most
satirical touches as he describes his principles and practice. After
this, Faux Semblant and his companion, Contrainte Astenance (forced or
feigned abstinence), set to work in favour of the lover, and soon win
their way into the tower. There they find an old woman who acts as Bel
Acueil's keeper. She takes a message from them to Bel Acueil, and then
engages in a singular conversation with her prisoner, wherein the
somewhat loose morality of the discourses of Amis is still further
enforced by historical examples, and by paraphrases of not a few
passages from Ovid. She afterward admits the lover, who thus, at nearly
the sixteen-thousandth line from the beginning, recovers through the
help of False Seeming the 'gracious reception' which is to lead him to
the rose. The castle, however, is not taken, and Dangier, with the rest
of his allegorical company, makes a stout resistance to 'Les Barons de
L'Ost'--the lords of Love's army. The god sends to invoke the aid of his
mother, and this introduces a new personage. Nature herself, and her
confidant, Genius, are brought on the scene, and nearly five thousand
verses serve to convey all manner of thoughts and scraps of learning,
mostly devoted to the support, as before, of questionably moral
doctrines. In these five thousand lines almost all the current ideas of
the middle ages on philosophy and natural science are more or less
explicitly contained. Finally, Venus arrives and, with her burning
brand, drives out Dangier and his crew, though even at this crisis of
the action the writer cannot refrain from telling the story of Pygmalion
and the Image at length. The way being clear, the lover proceeds
unmolested to gather the longed-for rose.
[Sidenote: Popularity of the Roman de la Rose.]
It is impossible to exaggerate, and not easy to describe, the popularity
which this poem enjoyed. Its attacks on womanhood and on morality
generally provoked indeed not a few replies, of which the most important
came long afterwards from Christine de Pisan and from Gerson. But the
general taste was entirely in favour of it. Allegorical already, it was
allegorised in fresh senses, even a religious meaning being given to it.
The numerous manuscripts which remain of it attest its popularity before
the days of printing. It was frequently printed by the earliest
typographers of France, and even in the sixteenth century it received a
fresh lease of life at the hands of Marot, who re-edited it. Abroad it
was praised by Petrarch and translated by Chaucer[88]; and it is on the
whole not too much to say that for fully two centuries it was the
favourite book in the vernacular literature of Europe. Nor was it
unworthy of this popularity. As has been pointed out, the grace of the
part due to William of Lorris is remarkable, and the satirical vigour of
the part due to Jean de Meung perhaps more remarkable still. The
allegorising and the length which repel readers of to-day did not
disgust generations whose favourite literary style was the allegorical,
and who had abundance of leisure; but the real secret of its vogue, as
of all such vogues, is that it faithfully held up the mirror to the
later middle ages. In no single book can that period of history be so
conveniently studied. Its inherited religion and its nascent
free-thought; its thirst for knowledge and its lack of criticism; its
sharp social divisions and its indistinct aspirations after liberty and
equality; its traditional morality and asceticism, and its half-pagan,
half-childish relish for the pleasures of sense; its romance and its
coarseness, all its weakness and all its strength, here appear.
[Sidenote: Imitations.]
The imitations of the _Roman de la Rose_ were in proportion to its
popularity. Much of this imitation took place in other kinds of poetry,
which will be noticed hereafter. Two poems, however, which are almost
contemporary with its earliest form, and which have only recently been
published, deserve mention. One, which is an obvious imitation of
Guillaume de Lorris, but an imitation of considerable merit, is the
_Roman de la Poire_[89], where the lover is besieged by Love in a tower.
The other, of a different class, and free from trace of direct
imitation, is the short poem called _De Venus la Deesse d'Amors_[90],
written in some three hundred four-lined stanzas, each with one rhyme
only. Some passages of this latter are very beautiful.
Three extracts, two from the first part of the _Roman de la Rose_, and
one from the second, will show its style:--
En iceli tens deliteus,
Que tote riens d'amer s'esfroie,
Sonjai une nuit que j'estoie,
Ce m'iert avis en mon dormant,
Qu'il estoit matin durement;
De mon lit tantost me levai,
Chaucai-moi et mes mains lavai.
Lors trais une aguille d'argent
D'un aguiller mignot et gent,
Si pris l'aguille a enfiler.
Hors de vile oi talent d'aler,
Por oir des oisiaus les sons
Qui chantoient par ces boissons
En icele saison novele;
Cousant mes manches a videle,
M'en alai tot seus esbatant,
Et les oiseles escoutant,
Qui de chanter moult s'engoissoient
Par ces vergiers qui florissoient,
Jolis, gais et pleins de leesce.
Vers une riviere m'adresce
Que j'oi pres d'ilecques bruire.
Car ne me soi aillors deduire
Plus bel que sus cele riviere.
D'un tertre qui pres d'iluec iere
Descendoit l'iaue grant et roide,
Clere, bruiant et aussi froide
Comme puiz, ou comme fontaine,
Et estoit poi mendre de Saine,
Mes qu'ele iere plus espandue.
Onques mes n'avoie veue
Tele iaue qui si bien coroit:
Moult m'abelissoit et seoit
A regarder le leu plaisant.
De l'iaue clere et reluisant
Mon vis rafreschi et lave.
Si vi tot covert et pave
Le fons de l'iaue de gravele;
La praerie grant et bele
Tres au pie de l'iaue batoit.
Clere et serie et bele estoit
La matinee et atempree:
Lors m'en alai parmi la pree
Contreval l'iaue esbanoiant,
Tot le rivage costoiant.
* * * * * *
Une ymage ot empres escrite,
Qui sembloit bien estre ypocrite,
_Papelardie_ ert apelee.
C'est cele qui en recelee,
Quant nus ne s'en puet prendre garde,
De nul mal faire ne se tarde.
El fait dehors le marmiteus,
Si a le vis simple et piteus,
Et semble sainte creature;
Mais sous ciel n'a male aventure
Qu'ele ne pense en son corage.
Moult la ressembloit bien l'ymage
Qui faite fu a sa semblance,
Qu'el fu de simple contenance;
Et si fu chaucie et vestue
Tout ainsinc cum fame rendue.
En sa main un sautier tenoit,
Et sachies que moult se penoit
De faire a Dieu prieres faintes,
Et d'appeler et sains et saintes.
El ne fu gaie ne jolive,
Ains fu par semblant ententive
Du tout a bonnes ovres faire;
Et si avoit vestu la haire.
Et sachies que n'iere pas grasse.
De jeuner sembloit estre lasse,
S'avoit la color pale et morte.
A li et as siens ert la porte
Deveee de Paradis;
Car icel gent si font lor vis
Amegrir, ce dit l'Evangile,
Por avoir loz parmi la vile,
Et por un poi de gloire vaine,
Qui lor toldra Dieu et son raine.
* * * * * *
_Comment le traistre Faulx-Semblant
Si va les cueurs des gens emblant,
Pour ses vestemens noirs et gris,
Et pour son viz pasle amaisgris._
'Trop sai bien mes habiz changier,
Prendre l'un, et l'autre estrangier.
Or sui chevaliers, or sui moines,
Or sui prelas, or sui chanoines,
Or sui clers, autre ore sui prestres,
Or sui desciples, or sui mestres,
Or chastelains, or forestiers:
Briement, ge sui de tous mestiers.
Or resui princes, or sui pages,
Or sai parler trestous langages;
Autre ore sui viex et chenus,
Or resui jones devenus.
Or sui Robers, or sui Robins,
Or cordeliers, or jacobins.
Si pren por sivre ma compaigne
Qui me solace et acompaigne,
(C'est dame Astenance-Contrainte),
Autre desguiseure mainte,
Si cum il li vient a plesir
Por acomplir le sien desir.
Autre ore vest robe de fame;
Or sui damoisele, or sui dame,
Autre ore sui religieuse,
Or sui rendue, or sui prieuse,
Or sui nonain, or sui abesse,
Or sui novice, or sui professe;
Et vois par toutes regions
Cerchant toutes religions. Mes de religion, sans faille,
G'en pren le grain et laiz la paille;
Por gens avulger i abit,
Ge n'en quier, sans plus, que l'abit.
Que vous diroie? en itel guise
Cum il me plaist ge me desguise;
Moult sunt en moi mue li vers,
Moult sunt li faiz aux diz divers.
Si fais cheoir dedans mes pieges
Le monde par mes privileges;
Ge puis confesser et assoldre,
(Ce ne me puet nus prelas toldre,)
Toutes gens ou que ge les truisse;
Ne sai prelat nul qui ce puisse,
Fors l'apostole solement
Qui fist cest establissement
Tout en la faveur de nostre ordre.'
FOOTNOTES:
[77] This is an account of the battle of thirty Englishmen and thirty
Bretons in the Edwardian wars.
[78] There is, it appears, no authority for the Christian name of Robert
which used to be given to Wace.
[79] Wace's _Brut_ is not the only one. The title seems to have become a
common name.
[80] The old edition of the _Roman de Rou_, by Pluquet, has been
entirely superseded by that of Dr. Hugo Andresen. 2 vols. Heilbronn,
1877-1879.
[81] Discovered recently in the Middlehill collection, and known chiefly
by an article in _Romania_ (Jan. 1882), giving an abstract and
specimens.
[82] Ed. Reiffenberg. Brussels, 1835-1845.
[83] Ed. Scheler. Brussels, 1866-1868.
[84] Well edited by Koch. Heilbronn, 1879.
[85] See especially _Hysminias and Hysmine_.
[86] Ed. F. Michel. 2 vols. Paris, 1864.
[87] _Dangier_ is not exactly 'danger.' To be 'en dangier de quelqu'un'
is to be 'in somebody's power.' _Dangier_ is supposed to stand for the
guardian of the beloved, father, brother, husband, etc. This at least
has been the usual interpretation, and seems to me to be much the more
probable. M. Gaston Paris, however, and others, see in _Dangier_ the
natural coyness and resistance of the beloved object, not any external
influence.
[88] Chaucer's authorship of the existing translation has been denied.
It is, however, certain that he did translate the poem.
[89] Ed. Stehlich. Halle, 1881.
[90] Ed. Foerster. Berne, 1880.