Here richly with ridiculous displayKilled by excess was Wormwood laid away,While all of his acquaintance sneered and slanged,I wept: for I had longed to see him hanged.
Here richly with ridiculous displayKilled by excess was Wormwood laid away,While all of his acquaintance sneered and slanged,I wept: for I had longed to see him hanged.
Here richly with ridiculous display
Killed by excess was Wormwood laid away,
While all of his acquaintance sneered and slanged,
I wept: for I had longed to see him hanged.
His zeal for his tongue was real. As he lay upon his death-bed making his confession after so vigorous a life, he heard his nurse say something to herself which sounded ungrammatical and, turning round from the priest, he put her right in a manner most violent and sudden. His confessor, startled, said: "The time is not relevant." "All times are relevant!" he answered, sinking back. "I will defend with my last breath the purity and grandeur of the French tongue."
To such a man the meaning of the solution at which his people had arrived after a century of civil war lay, above all, in their ancient religion. On that converged those deeper and more permanent things in his soul of which even his patriotism and his literary zeal were but the surface. In the expression of that final solution his verse, which was hardly that of a poet, rises high into poetry; under the heat and pressure of his faith, single lines here and there have crystallized into diamonds. By far the most vigorous of so many frigid odes is the battle cry addressed by him in old age to Louis XIII setting out against La Rochelle. He visited that siege, but had the misfortune to die a bare week before the fall of the city. The most powerful of his sonnets, or rather the only powerful one, is that in which he calls to Our Lord for vengeance against the men who killed his son. Catholicism in its every effect, political and personal, as it were literary too, possessed the man, so that in ending the types of the French Renaissance with him you see how the terms in which ultimately the French express themselves are and will remain religious. The last two lines of his most famous and most Catholic poem have about them just that sound which saves them, in spite of their too simple words, from falling into the vulgar commonplace of vague and creedless men. In writing them down one seems to be writing down the fate of the great century now tamed, alas! and ordered, as must be the violence of over-human things:--
Vouloir ce que Dieu veut est la seule ScienceQui nous met en repos.
Vouloir ce que Dieu veut est la seule ScienceQui nous met en repos.
Vouloir ce que Dieu veut est la seule Science
Qui nous met en repos.
(From the "Ode to Louis XIII setting out against La Rochelle," and the "Sonnet on his son's death.")
It has been remarked that Malherbe in his most vigorous years deliberately employed the strength of his mind to the repression of emotion in his verse, and used it only to fashion, guide, control, and at last fix permanently the rules of the language. It is certainly true that as his bodily vigour declined, a certain unexpected anger and violence enters into his verse, to the great relief of us moderns: not to that of his contemporaries.
Of this feature in him, the two following extracts are sufficient proof. They were written, the first at the close of his seventy-second, the other at the entry of his seventy-third year. In each, something close to his heart was at issue, and in each he gives some vent--far more than had been his wont--to passion.
The first is a cry to Louis XIII to have done with the Huguenot. It was written to the camp before La Rochelle. I know of nothing in French literature which more expresses the intense current of national feeling against the nobility and rich townsmen who had attempted to warp the national tradition and who had re-introduced into French life the element which France works perpetually to throw out as un-European, ill-cultured and evil. Indeed, the reading of it is of more value to the comprehension of the national attitude than any set history you may read.
The second is in its way a thing equally religious and equally catholic. This call for vengeance to God was not only an expression of anger called forth by his son's death, it was also, and very largely, the effect of a reaction against the ethics of Geneva: an attack on the idolatry at once of meekness and of fatality which was to him so intolerable a corruption of the Christian religion.
There is some doubt as to whether it is his last work. I believe it to be so; but Blaise, in his excellent edition, prints the dull and unreadable ode to Lagade later, and ascribes it to the same year.
ODE TO LOUIS XIII.
Fais choir en sacrifice au démon de la FranceLes fronts trop élevés de ces ames d'enfer;Et n'épargne contre eux, pour notre délivrance,Ni le feu ni le fer.Assez de leurs complots l'infidèle maliceA nourri le désordre et la sédition:Quitte le nom de Juste, ou fais voir ta justiceEn leur punition.Le centième décembre a les plaines ternies,Et le centième avril les a peintes de fleurs,Depuis que parmi nous leurs brutales maniesNe causent que des pleurs.Dans toutes les fureurs des siècles de tes pères,Les monstres les plus noirs firent-ils jamais rienQue l'inhumanité de ces coeurs de vipèresNe renouvelle au tien?Par qui sont aujourd'hui tant de villes désertes,Tant de grands bâtiments en masures changes,Et de tant de chardons les campagnes couvertes,Que par ces enrages?Marche, va les détruire, éteins-en la semence,Et suis jusqu'à leur fin ton courroux généreux,Sans jamais écouter ni pitié ni clémenceQui te parle pour eux.Toutes les autres morts n'ont mérite ni marque;Celle-ci porte seule un éclat radieux,Qui fait revivre l'homme, et le met de la barqueA la table des dieux.
Fais choir en sacrifice au démon de la FranceLes fronts trop élevés de ces ames d'enfer;Et n'épargne contre eux, pour notre délivrance,Ni le feu ni le fer.Assez de leurs complots l'infidèle maliceA nourri le désordre et la sédition:Quitte le nom de Juste, ou fais voir ta justiceEn leur punition.Le centième décembre a les plaines ternies,Et le centième avril les a peintes de fleurs,Depuis que parmi nous leurs brutales maniesNe causent que des pleurs.Dans toutes les fureurs des siècles de tes pères,Les monstres les plus noirs firent-ils jamais rienQue l'inhumanité de ces coeurs de vipèresNe renouvelle au tien?Par qui sont aujourd'hui tant de villes désertes,Tant de grands bâtiments en masures changes,Et de tant de chardons les campagnes couvertes,Que par ces enrages?Marche, va les détruire, éteins-en la semence,Et suis jusqu'à leur fin ton courroux généreux,Sans jamais écouter ni pitié ni clémenceQui te parle pour eux.Toutes les autres morts n'ont mérite ni marque;Celle-ci porte seule un éclat radieux,Qui fait revivre l'homme, et le met de la barqueA la table des dieux.
Fais choir en sacrifice au démon de la France
Les fronts trop élevés de ces ames d'enfer;
Et n'épargne contre eux, pour notre délivrance,
Ni le feu ni le fer.
Assez de leurs complots l'infidèle malice
A nourri le désordre et la sédition:
Quitte le nom de Juste, ou fais voir ta justice
En leur punition.
Le centième décembre a les plaines ternies,
Et le centième avril les a peintes de fleurs,
Depuis que parmi nous leurs brutales manies
Ne causent que des pleurs.
Dans toutes les fureurs des siècles de tes pères,
Les monstres les plus noirs firent-ils jamais rien
Que l'inhumanité de ces coeurs de vipères
Ne renouvelle au tien?
Par qui sont aujourd'hui tant de villes désertes,
Tant de grands bâtiments en masures changes,
Et de tant de chardons les campagnes couvertes,
Que par ces enrages?
Marche, va les détruire, éteins-en la semence,
Et suis jusqu'à leur fin ton courroux généreux,
Sans jamais écouter ni pitié ni clémence
Qui te parle pour eux.
Toutes les autres morts n'ont mérite ni marque;
Celle-ci porte seule un éclat radieux,
Qui fait revivre l'homme, et le met de la barque
A la table des dieux.
SONNET ON HIS SON'S DEATH.
Que mon fils ait perdu sa dépouille mortelle,Ce fils qui fut si brave, et que j'aimai si fort,Je ne l'impute point à l'injure du sort,Puis que finir à l'homme est chose naturelle.Mais que de deux marauds la surprise infidèleAit terminé ses jours d'une tragique mort,En cela ma douleur n'a point de réconfort,Et tous mes sentiments sont d'accord avec elle.O mon Dieu, mon Sauveur, puisque, par la raison,Le trouble de mon ame étant sans guérison,Le voeu de la vengeance est un voeu légitime,Fais que de ton appui je sois fortifié;Ta justice t'en prie, et les auteurs du crimeSont fils de ces bourreaux qui t'ont crucifié.
Que mon fils ait perdu sa dépouille mortelle,Ce fils qui fut si brave, et que j'aimai si fort,Je ne l'impute point à l'injure du sort,Puis que finir à l'homme est chose naturelle.Mais que de deux marauds la surprise infidèleAit terminé ses jours d'une tragique mort,En cela ma douleur n'a point de réconfort,Et tous mes sentiments sont d'accord avec elle.O mon Dieu, mon Sauveur, puisque, par la raison,Le trouble de mon ame étant sans guérison,Le voeu de la vengeance est un voeu légitime,Fais que de ton appui je sois fortifié;Ta justice t'en prie, et les auteurs du crimeSont fils de ces bourreaux qui t'ont crucifié.
Que mon fils ait perdu sa dépouille mortelle,
Ce fils qui fut si brave, et que j'aimai si fort,
Je ne l'impute point à l'injure du sort,
Puis que finir à l'homme est chose naturelle.
Mais que de deux marauds la surprise infidèle
Ait terminé ses jours d'une tragique mort,
En cela ma douleur n'a point de réconfort,
Et tous mes sentiments sont d'accord avec elle.
O mon Dieu, mon Sauveur, puisque, par la raison,
Le trouble de mon ame étant sans guérison,
Le voeu de la vengeance est un voeu légitime,
Fais que de ton appui je sois fortifié;
Ta justice t'en prie, et les auteurs du crime
Sont fils de ces bourreaux qui t'ont crucifié.
These stanzas, which are among the best-known as they are, in the opinion of many, the dullest, in French literature, serve well to close this book.
One verse at least (the fourth) is most legitimately famous, though it is hackneyed from the constant repetition of fools. For the rest a certain simplicity, a great precision, may or may not atone for their deliberate coldness.
What is certain is that, poetry or not, they admirably express the spirit of his pen and its prodigious effect. They express the classical end of the French Renaissance with as much weight and hardness as the great blank walls of stone that were beginning to show in the rebuilding of Paris. It is for this quality that I have printed them here, using them as the definite term of that long, glorious, and uncertain phase in European letters.
THE "CONSOLATION OF DU PERRIER."
Ta douleur, du Perrier, sera donc éternelle?Et les tristes discoursQue te met en l'esprit l'amitié paternelleL'augmenteront toujours?Le malheur de ta fille au tombeau descenduePar un commun trépas,Est-ce quelque dédale où ta raison perdueNe se retrouve pas?Je sais de quels appas son enfance étoit pleine,Et n'ai pas entrepris,Injurieux ami, de soulager ta peineAvecque son mépris.Mais elle étoit du monde, où les plus belles chosesOnt le pire destin;Et rose elle a vécu ce que vivent les rosesL'espace d'un matin.Puis quand ainsi seroit que, selon ta prière,Elle auroit obtenuD'avoir en cheveux blancs terminé sa carrière,Qu'en fût-il avenu?Penses-tu que, plus vieille, en la maison célesteElle eût eu plus d'accueil,Ou qu'elle eût moins senti la poussière funesteEt les vers du cercueil?De moi, déja deux fois d'une pareille foudreJe me suis vu perclus;Et deux fois la raison m'a si bien fait résoudre,Qu'il ne m'en souvient plus.Non qu'il ne me soit mal que la tombe possédeCe qui me fut si cher;Mais en un accident qui n'a point de reméde,Il n'en faut point chercher.La Mort a des rigueurs à nulle autre pareilles:On a beau la prier;La cruelle qu'elle est se bouche les oreilles,Et nous laisse crier.Le pauvre en sa cabane, où le chaume le couvre,Est sujet à ses lois;Et la garde qui veille aux barrières du LouvreN'en défend point nos rois.De murmurer contre elle et perdre patience,Il est mal à propos;Vouloir ce que Dieu veut est la seule scienceQui nous met en repos.Vouloir ce que Dieu veut est la seule scienceQui nous met en repos."
Ta douleur, du Perrier, sera donc éternelle?Et les tristes discoursQue te met en l'esprit l'amitié paternelleL'augmenteront toujours?Le malheur de ta fille au tombeau descenduePar un commun trépas,Est-ce quelque dédale où ta raison perdueNe se retrouve pas?Je sais de quels appas son enfance étoit pleine,Et n'ai pas entrepris,Injurieux ami, de soulager ta peineAvecque son mépris.Mais elle étoit du monde, où les plus belles chosesOnt le pire destin;Et rose elle a vécu ce que vivent les rosesL'espace d'un matin.Puis quand ainsi seroit que, selon ta prière,Elle auroit obtenuD'avoir en cheveux blancs terminé sa carrière,Qu'en fût-il avenu?Penses-tu que, plus vieille, en la maison célesteElle eût eu plus d'accueil,Ou qu'elle eût moins senti la poussière funesteEt les vers du cercueil?De moi, déja deux fois d'une pareille foudreJe me suis vu perclus;Et deux fois la raison m'a si bien fait résoudre,Qu'il ne m'en souvient plus.Non qu'il ne me soit mal que la tombe possédeCe qui me fut si cher;Mais en un accident qui n'a point de reméde,Il n'en faut point chercher.La Mort a des rigueurs à nulle autre pareilles:On a beau la prier;La cruelle qu'elle est se bouche les oreilles,Et nous laisse crier.Le pauvre en sa cabane, où le chaume le couvre,Est sujet à ses lois;Et la garde qui veille aux barrières du LouvreN'en défend point nos rois.De murmurer contre elle et perdre patience,Il est mal à propos;Vouloir ce que Dieu veut est la seule scienceQui nous met en repos.Vouloir ce que Dieu veut est la seule scienceQui nous met en repos."
Ta douleur, du Perrier, sera donc éternelle?
Et les tristes discours
Que te met en l'esprit l'amitié paternelle
L'augmenteront toujours?
Le malheur de ta fille au tombeau descendue
Par un commun trépas,
Est-ce quelque dédale où ta raison perdue
Ne se retrouve pas?
Je sais de quels appas son enfance étoit pleine,
Et n'ai pas entrepris,
Injurieux ami, de soulager ta peine
Avecque son mépris.
Mais elle étoit du monde, où les plus belles choses
Ont le pire destin;
Et rose elle a vécu ce que vivent les roses
L'espace d'un matin.
Puis quand ainsi seroit que, selon ta prière,
Elle auroit obtenu
D'avoir en cheveux blancs terminé sa carrière,
Qu'en fût-il avenu?
Penses-tu que, plus vieille, en la maison céleste
Elle eût eu plus d'accueil,
Ou qu'elle eût moins senti la poussière funeste
Et les vers du cercueil?
De moi, déja deux fois d'une pareille foudre
Je me suis vu perclus;
Et deux fois la raison m'a si bien fait résoudre,
Qu'il ne m'en souvient plus.
Non qu'il ne me soit mal que la tombe posséde
Ce qui me fut si cher;
Mais en un accident qui n'a point de reméde,
Il n'en faut point chercher.
La Mort a des rigueurs à nulle autre pareilles:
On a beau la prier;
La cruelle qu'elle est se bouche les oreilles,
Et nous laisse crier.
Le pauvre en sa cabane, où le chaume le couvre,
Est sujet à ses lois;
Et la garde qui veille aux barrières du Louvre
N'en défend point nos rois.
De murmurer contre elle et perdre patience,
Il est mal à propos;
Vouloir ce que Dieu veut est la seule science
Qui nous met en repos.
Vouloir ce que Dieu veut est la seule science
Qui nous met en repos."
THE COMPLAINT.
Line 5.Prins.An inaccurate pedantic past participle ofprendre.
Line 14.Faulse.There is to be noted here and elsewhere throughout these extracts, until the modern spelling at the close of the period, the redundant "l" in many words. It was an effect of pure pedantry. The latin "l" had becomeuin northern French.Falsamade, naturally, "Fausse." The partial learning of the later middle ages reintroduced an "l" which was not known to be transformed, but was thought omitted.
Line 24.Liesse.One of the commonest words of this epoch, lost to modern French. It means joy=laetitia.
Line 25. Note the gender of "Amour," feminine even in the singular throughout the middle ages and renaissance--right up to the seventeenth century.
THE TWO ROUNDELS OF SPRING.
I
Line 1.Fourriers.The servants who go before to find lodging. The term survives in French military terminology. TheFourriersare the non-commissioned officers and party who go forward and mark the Billeting of a regiment.
Line 9.Pieça=il y a pièce; "lately".Cf.naguère="il n'y a guère...."
Line 11.Prenez pais="take the fields," begone.
Line 19. Note "Chant," the regular form of the subjunctive=Cantet. The only latin vowel preserved after the tonic syllable is a=French e (mute). Thuscontat="chante" which form has in modern French usurped the subjunctive.
Line 23.Livrée="Liberata,"i.e., things given out. A term originally applied not only to clothing, but to the general allowance of the king's household. Hence our word "livery."
"THE FAREWELL".
Line 2.Chiere lie."Happy countenance."Chierehere is the substantive,lie=laeta, is the adjective.Bonne chèremeans "a good time" wherechèreis an old word for "head" (Greek: kara).
Line 5.Baillie=Bailliwick, "For Age that has me now within her bounds."
Line 7.Mye."Crumb." "I am not a whit (not a crumb) with her (Joie) to-day."
Line 15. "Well braced," literally "well girthed" (as a horse is).
THE DEAD LADIES.
Stanza 1, line 1. Note the redundant negative; it is characteristic of mediaeval French, as of all primitive work, that the general suggestion of doubt is sufficient to justify a redundant negative.
Line 2.Flora, etc. It is worth while knowing who these women were.Florais Juvenal's Flora (Sat. II. 9), a legend in the university. OfArchipiadaI know nothing.Thaïswas certainly the Egyptian courtesan turned anchoress and canonized, famous in the middle ages and revived to-day in the repulsive masterpiece of M. Anatole France.Eloisis, of course,Heloïse, andEsbaillartis Abelard. The queen, who in the legend had Buridan (and many others) drowned, was the Dowager of Burgundy that lived in the Tour de Nesle, where the Palais Mazarin is now, and had half the university for a lover: in sober history she founded that college of Burgundy from which the École de Médecine is descended; the legend about her is first heard of (save in this poem) in 1471, from the pen of a German in Leipzig.Blanchemay be Blanche of Castille, but more likely she was a vision of Villon's own, for what did St. Louis' mother ever sing?Berteis the legendary mother of Charlemagne in the Epics;Beatrisis any Beatrice you choose, for they have all died.Allismay just possibly be one of the Troubadour heroines, more likely she is here introduced for rhyme and metre;Haremburgisis strictly historical: she was the Heiress of Maine who married Foulque of Anjou in 1110 and died in 1126: an ancestress, therefore, of the Plantagenets.Jehanneis, of course, Joan of Arc.
Line 8.D'Antanisnot"Yester-year." It is "Ante annum," all time past beforethisyear. Rossetti's "Yester-year" moreover, is an absurd and affected neologism; "Antan" is an excellent and living French word.
Stanza II., line 2. Note the pronunciation of "Moyne" to rhyme (more or less) with "eine": the oi, ai and ei sounds were very similar till the sixteenth century at earliest. They are interchangeable in many popular provincialisms and in some words,e.g., Fouet, pronounced "Foit" the same tendency survives. The transition began in the beginning of the seventeenth century as we learn from Vaugelas: and the influence towards the modern sound came from the Court.
Stanza III., line 2.Seraine="Syren."
Line 5. "Jehanne," "Jehan," in spite of the classical survival in their spelling, were monosyllables from the earliest times.
Line 7. The "elles" here would not scan but for the elided "e" in "souv'raine" at the end of the line. In some editions "ils" is found andsouveraineis spelt normally.Ilsandelsfor a feminine plural existed in the middle ages.
Envoi.The envoi needs careful translation. The "que" of the third line="sans que" and the whole means, "Do not ask this week or this year where they are,withoutletting this refrain haunt you." "Que" might possibly mean "de peur que," did not the whole sense of the poem forbid such an interpretation.
AN EXCERPT FROM THE GRANT TESTAMENT.
Stanza 75, line 4. A charming example of those "flashes" which reveal Villon.
Stanza 76, line 2. Note the spelling ofGrantin the feminine without ane. Adjectives of the third declension whose feminine was not distinguishable in Latin took no "e" in early French. A survival of this is found in grand' rue, grand' messe, etc.
Line 5.Grant erre, "quickly," and the whole line reads: "Let it (my body) be delivered to it (luy=la terre) quickly," the "erre" here is from the popular late Latin "iterare"="iter facere." It survives in the nautical idiom "reprendre son erre"="to get under weigh again."
Line 7. "Erre" here comes, on the contrary, fromerrare, to make a mistake, to err.
Stanza 77, line 4.Maillon.Swaddling clothes.
Line 5.Boullon, scrape. The two lines are obscure but seem to read: "He has got me out of many a scrape which gave him no joy" (esioyefromesjouir=rejouir).
Line 7 and 8. These are obscure but apparently="And beseech him on my knees not to forsake all joy on that account."
Stanza 78, line 2. "Le Romman du Pet au Deable." The Pet au Deable was a great stone at the door of a private house in the university. The students took it away and all Paris fought over the matter. The "Roman" was a set of verses, now lost, which Villon wrote on the quarrel.
Line 3.Guy Tabariewhogrossa(wrote out), these verses was a friend of Villon's: soon hanged.
Line 5.Soubz.The "b" is pedantic, theouindicates of itself the loss of theb. The "z" (and the "s" in the modernsous) are due to the derivation not fromsubbutsubtus.
THE BALLAD OF OUR LADY.
Stanza 2, line 3.Egypcienne.St. Mary of Egypt.
Line 4.Theophilus.This was that clerk who sold his soul to the Devil and whom Our Lady redeemed. You may find the whole story sculptured on the Tympanum of the exquisite northern door of Notre Dame in Paris.
Line 8.Vierge Portant="Virgin that bore a son."
Stanza 3, line 4.Luz="luthus." "S" becomes "z."
The Envoi. Note the Acrostic "Villon" in the first letters of the first six lines. It is a trick he played more than once.
THE DEAD LORDS.
Stanza 1, line 1.Calixte.These names are of less interest.Calixtewas Pope Calixtus III., Alphonso Borgia, who died in 1458--in Villon's twenty-sixth year.Alphonseis Alphonso V of Arragon, who died in that same year. TheDuc de Bourbonis Charles the First of Bourbon, who died at the end of the year 1456, "gracieux" because his son protected Villon.Artus(Arthur) of Brittany is that same Richemont who recaptured Paris from Willoughby. Charles VII is Charles VII. TheRoy Scotisteis James II., who died in 1460: theAmethysthalf of his face was a birthmark. TheKing of Cyprusis probably John III., who died in that same fatal year, 1458. Pedants will have it that theKing of Spainis John II of Castille, who died in 1454--but it is a better joke if it means nobody at all.Lancelotis Vladislas of Bohemia, who died in 1457.Cloquinis Bertrand de Guesclin who led the reconquest.The Count Daulphinof Auvergne is doubtful;Alençonis presumably the Alençon of Joan of Arc's campaign, who still survived, and is called "feu" half in ridicule, because in 1458 he had lost his title and lands for treason.
Stanza 2, line 3.Amatiste=amethyst.
Stanza 3, line 7.Tayon=Ancestor. "Etallum." Latin "Stallio."
THE DIRGE.
Line 1.Cil=celui-ci. The Latin "ecce illum."
Line 3.Escuelle=bowl. "With neither bowl nor platter."
Line 4. Note again the constant redundant negative of the populace in this scholar: "Had never, no--not a sprig of parsley."
Line 5.Rez=ras, cropped.
OF COURTING LONG AGO.
Line 5.On se prenoit, one attacked--"it was but the heart one sought."
Line 11.Fainctz=sham; "changes" is simply like the English "changes": the form survives in the idiom: "donner le change."
Line 13.Refonde=recast.
NOËL.
Verse 1, line 3.L'Autre hyer=alterum heri, "t'other day."
Line 10.Noé.The tendency to drop final letters, especially thel, is very marked in popular patois, and this is, of course, a song based on popular language. Most French peasants north of the Loire would still say "Noé" for "Noël."Noëlis, of course,Natalem(diem).
Verse 2, line 2.Cas de si hault faict=so great a matter.
TWO EPIGRAMS.
Epigram 1, line 2.Vostre.Marguerite of Navarre. As I have remarked, in the text, she had sent him a Dixaine (some say he wrote it himself). This one is written in answer.--Ay.Note, till the verb grew over simple in the classical French of the seventeenth century there was no more need for the pronoun than in Latin. Thus Montaigne will omit the pronoun, but Malherbe never.
Line 5.Cuydans=thinking (Cogitare=Cogtare=Coyde=cuider, theoibecameuiby a common transition;cf.noctem, octem, noit, nuit, huit.) The word is now archaic.
Line 9.Encor.Without the final e. This is not archaic but poetic licence.Encore="hanc horam," and a post tonic "am" in Latin always means a final mute e in French.
Epigram 2, line 1.Maint(now archaic) is a word of Teutonic origin, ourmany.
Line 6.Coulpe=Culpam, of course; a fault.
Line 9.Emport. Note the old subjunctive without the final e.Vide supra, on "Chant." The modern usage is incorrect. For the first conjugation making its subjunctive inem, should lose the final syllable in French: a post tonicemalways disappears. The modern habit of putting a final e to all subjunctives is due to a false analogy with verbs from the third conjugation. These made their subjunctive inam, a termination which properly becomes the mute e of French.
TO HIS LADY IN SICKNESS.
Line 4.Sejour=(here) "staying at home."
Line 14, 15.Friande de la bouche, glutton.
Line 17.Danger.The first meaning of "Danger" is simply "to be in lordship" (Dominicarium). The modern is the English "Danger." This is between the two; "held to your hurt."
Line 26.Doint.This subjunctive should properly bedon(donem, post tonicemis lost). The "oint" is from a false analogy with the fourth conjugation, as though the Latin had beendoniam.
THE VINEYARD SONG.
Verse 1, line 2.Clamours.See how southern this is, with its Lanquedoc forms, "clamours" for "clameurs."
Line 5. So are these diminutions all made up at random, as southern as can be, and note the tang of the verse, fit for a snapping of the fingers to mark the rapid time.
Verse 3, line 2.Bénistre.The older form ofbénirfromBenedicere; thecbetween vowels at the end of the tonic syllable becomess: thetis added for euphony, to help one to pronounce thes.
Line 3.SilenusforSilène. Because the name was new, the Latin form is kept. The genius of the French, unlike that of modern English, is to absorb a foreign name (as we did once). Thus once we said "Anthony" "Tully": but Montaigne wrote "Cicero"--his descendants say "Ciceron."
Line 4.Aussi droict qu'une ligne="right out of the flask." The flask held above one and the wine poured straight into the mouth. The happy south still know the way.
Line 5.Bigne: a lump, a knock, a bruise.
Line 6.Guigne=cherry.
RONSARD.
DIALOGUE WITH THE NINE SISTERS.
Stanza 1, line 3.Chef grison=gray head. When he says "trente ans," that is all rubbish, he was getting on for forty-three: it was written in 1567.
Stanza 2, line 1.Nocher=pilot; rare but hardly archaic.
Stanza 3, line 3.Cependant=meanwhile. The word is now seldom used in prose, save in the sense of "notwithstanding," "nevertheless."
Stanza 5, line 1.Loyer=Condition of tenure.
Line 2.Ores=Now that. Should be "ore" (horam). The parasitic "s" probably crept in by false analogy with the adverbs in "s."
Stanza 6, line 1.Lame=tombstone. The word is no longer used.
Line 4. See how, even in his lighter or prosaic manner, he cannot avoid great lines.
Stanza 8, line 1.Vela=Voilà. Then follows that fine ending which I have put on the title-page of this book.
"MIGNONNE ALLONS VOIR SI LA ROSE."
Line 1.Mignonneis, of course, his Cassandre: her personality was always known through his own verse. She was fifteen when he met her and her brown eyes: it was in 1546 at Blois, her birthplace, whither he had gone to visit the Court, during his scholar's life in Paris. He met her thus young when he himself was but in his twenty-third year, and all that early, violent, not over-tilled beginning of his poetry was illumined by her face. But as to who she was, by name I mean, remained long a matter of doubt. Binet would have it that her true name was Cassandre, and that its singularity inspired Ronsard. Brantôme called it "a false name to cover a true." Ronsard himself has written, "false or true, time conquering all things cannot efface it from the marble." There need have been no doubt. D'Aubigné's testimony is sufficient. She was a Mlle de Pie, and such was the vagary of Ronsard's life, that it was her niece, Diane Salviati de Taley whom in later life he espoused and nearly wed.
Line 3. NotePourpre, and in line 5Pourpréeso in line 9Beautez, and in the last lineBeauté: so little did he fear repetition and so heartily could his power carry it.
Line 4.A point: the language was still in flux. The phrase would require a negativen'in modern French.
Line 10, 11.Marastre... puisqu'une...There is here an elliptical construction never found in later French. Harsh stepmother nature (whom I call harsh) since..." etc.
SONNETS FOR HÉLÈNE.
Sonnet xlii., line 1.Ocieuse="otiosa," langorous.
Line 5.Ennuy, in the sixteenth century meant something fuller than, and somewhat different from the word "ennui" to-day. It was a weariness which had in it some permanent chagrin.
Line 8.Pipe, "cajoles": a word which (now that it is unusual) mars the effect of its meaning by its insignificant sound.
Lines 8 and 9. Noteioye,vraye, a feminine "e" following another vowel is, since Malherbe, forbidden in the interior of a verse, unless elided.
Line 11.Ton mort, "your ghost."
Sonnet xliii., line 6.Desia=dejà.
Line 7.De mon nom.I have printed the line thus because Ronsard himself wished it so, and so corrected it with his own hand. But the original form is far finer "Au bruit de Ronsard."
DU BELLAY.
THE SONNET "HEUREUX QUI COMME ULYSSE."
Line 3.Usage.A most powerful word in this slightly archaic sense: the experience of long travel: familiar knowledge of things seen.
Line 12.Loire.This word has puzzled more than one editor. There are two rivers: the great river Loire, which is feminine, and the little Loir, which is masculine. Here Du Bellay spells the name of the great river, but puts it in the masculine gender. It has been imagined that he was talking of the smaller river. But he was not. The Loire alone has any connection with Liré or with his life, and as for the gender, strained as the interpretation may seem, I believe that Du Bellay deliberately used it in the parallel with the Tiber and the idea of the "Fleuve Paternel," to which he alludes so often elsewhere.
Line 13.Lyré.The modern Liré, his birthplace, on the left bank of the Loire, just opposite Ancenis. As you go along the Poitiers road to the bridge it stands up on your right, just before the river.
THE DOG.
Line 1.Motte=a turf.
Line 40.Damoiselet.Still used more or less in its old sense of a young manarmed: not merely a young page or a cadet of the gentry,="like a little sentry."
Line 43.Anvie=(of course) "envie."
THE CAT.
Line 22.Rouët=spinning-wheel.
Line 26.Panne=the ItalianPanno--cloth.
Line 27.Troigne=the mouth and face of an animal, the muzzle.
Line 32.Chere=(originally) "head" and one of the few old French words derived from Greek, but the first signification has long been lost. Here the phrase is equivalent to "faire bonne chere" which has for centuries been used proverbially for what we call "a good time."V. suprain "The Farewell" of Charles of Orleans.
MALHERBE.
EXTRACTS FROM THE "ODE TO LOUIS XIII."
Stanza 3, line 1.Centième.He dates the Huguenot trouble from a century. It may be said to have originated in the placards threatening the defilement of the Sacrament, placards which appeared in the streets of Paris in 1525.
Stanza 2, line 3.Le nom de Juste.Louis XIII had no particular affectation of that title: it is rather a reminiscence of his distant collatoral and namesake who closed the fifteenth century.
Last stanza, line 1.Toutes les autres morts.He has just been speaking of death in battle against the factions.
SONNET ON HIS SON'S DEATH.
Line 1.Mon fils.The only survivor of his many children, a young man, just called to the bar at Aix and passionately loved by his father, he bore the curious name of Marc-Anthony. A M. de Piles killed him in a duel, having for second his brother-in-law. The whole was an honourable bit of business, and the death such as men of honour must be prepared to risk: but Malherbe would see no reason and defamed the adversary.
Line 9.La Raison.The idea runs all through Malherbe's work. It is his distinguishing note, and is the spirit which differentiates him so powerfully from the sixteenth century, that this stoical balance or regulator which he calls "La Raison," and which governed France for two hundred years, is his rule and text for verse and prose as well as for practical life. Even the grandeur to which it gave rise seemed to him accidental. He demanded "la raison" only, and felt the necessity of it in art as acutely as though its absence were something immoral.
EXTRACTS FROM THE "CONSOLATION OF DU PERRIER."
Stanza 1, line 1.Duperrier.A critic of sorts and a gentleman, living in Provence and perhaps of Provençal ancestry. The verses were written while Malherbe's fame was still local, two years before the king's visit had lifted him to Paris.
Stanza 2, line 2.Ta fille.The child Marguerite. Her name does not appear in the poem nor in any letter; we have it from Racan.
Stanza 10, line 3.Et la garde, etc.These two lines are quoted, sometimes, not often, by admirers who would prove that Malherbe was not incapable of colour or of warmth.