I know that God hath formed me,
And made me to his own likenesse:
I know that he hath given to me truly
Soul and body—wit and knowledge givis.
I know that by right wise true balance,
After my deeds judged shall I be.
I know much, but I wot not the variance,
To understand whereof cometh my folly.
I know full well that I shall die,
And yet my life amend not I.
I know in what poverty,
Born a child this earth above.
I know that God hath lent to me
Abundance of goods to my behoof.
I know that riches can me not save,
And with me I shall bear none away.
I know the more good I have,
The loather I shall be to die.
I know all this faithfully,
And yet my life amend not I.
I know that I have passed
Great part of my days with joy and pleasaunce.
I know that I have gathered
Sins, and also do little penance.
I know that by ignorance,
To excuse me there is no art.
I know that once shall be
When my soul shall depart—
That I shall wish that I had mended me.
I know there is no remedy,
And therefore my life amend I will!
RICHARD PYNSON, _16th century_.
[Illustration: [Pastoral Scene]]
XXVI.
=Medley.=
Several translations from pleasing verses of Charles, Duke of Orleans,
have been inserted in this volume; and as the American reader is seldom
very familiar with French poets, we shall venture to give a little
sketch of their author. Charles d’Orleans was born in 1391, and his life
was highly colored by the vicissitudes of that stormy period. He was a
nephew of the unhappy Charles VI., and was still a mere lad when, in
1406, his father Louis, Duke of Orleans, and regent of the kingdom, was
assassinated in the streets of Paris, an event which placed the youth at
once in nominal possession of his father’s duchy. The crime was laid at
the door of John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy; and the widowed
princess, Valentine Visconti, urged doubtless by the nobles of her
political party, sought every possible means of bringing the offender to
punishment; a criminal suit, extraordinary in its details, stands
recorded in the French annals in connection
with this circumstance. In order to excite the public sympathies to the
utmost, the widowed duchess, with her children, appeared repeatedly in
the streets, and courts of justice, in gloomy mourning procession. On
all these occasions the young duke held a prominent position at the side
of his Italian mother. His father’s murderer and kinsman, however, was
too powerful for legal punishment; a few years later he fell under the
dagger of the assassin on the bridge of Montereau, and in the presence
of the dauphin. The consequences of these crimes were ruinous to France;
the powerful house of Burgundy, after the murder of Duke John, rose in
open rebellion, and Henry V. of England, through their means, obtained
what without them he would scarcely have dared seriously to aim
at—possession of the throne of St. Louis. On the famous field of
Agincourt, Charles d’Orleans, sharing the fate of so many others, was
made prisoner. He was immediately sent to England, where his captivity
and exile were prolonged through a period of nearly five and twenty
years, and varied only by removals from one stronghold to another.
During part of that time he was confined in Pontrefact Castle, where his
cousin, Queen Katherine, the wife of Henry V., paid him a visit in one
of her progresses. Captivity, as in the case of several other royal and
princely exiles, led him to seek consolation and amusement from poetical
composition. His verses are very pleasing indeed, full of the simplicity
of natural feeling, with much ease and grace of expression. Absence does
not appear to have diminished his love of country; he cherished a
longing desire to return to France, and envied, as he tells us, even the
birds which were flying toward his native shores. At length, after a
captivity extending over half a lifetime, he was liberated, and returned
to France. Having some claims upon the Duchy of Milan, through his
mother, a Visconti, he raised troops, not long after his return to
Paris, and led an expedition into Italy, but failed to conquer the ducal
crown. He was more successful as a poet than as a soldier; but he left,
however, a reputation superior to either of these distinctions, that
of a good and honest man. His death took place in the year 1461.
The Duke of Orleans, who figures in Shakspeare’s drama of Henry V. at
the battle of Agincourt, was this same poet-prince. His character is not
unworthily sketched in the play, where he appears loyal and brave,
superior to the other French princes figuring in the same scenes. When
the French are already in full flight, he exclaims:
“We are enough yet living in the field
To smother up the English in our throngs,
If any order might be thought upon.”
To which the Duke of Bourbon is made to reply, very expressively:
“The devil take order now! I’ll to the throng;
Let life be short, else shame will be too long.”
Shakspeare was probably not aware that the duke was a poet, else he
would doubtless have made an allusion to the fact in Act iii., Scene
vii., where some pleasantry occurs between the dauphin and his
companions regarding a sonnet he had himself written to his horse.