Wine, Women, and Song

Author:Various,
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Poetry
Publisher: manybooks.net

"*** on shepherds I bestow,

Thistles on divines, and lo!

To the law my shade shall go.

"Elders have my tardy pace,

Boys my rude and rustic grace,

Monks my simple open face."

He who saith this testament

Will not hold, let him be shent;

He's an ass by all consent.

La sol fa,

He's an ass by all consent,

La sol fa mi re ut.

As a third specimen I select a little bit of mixed prose and verse from the Carmina Burana, which is curious from its allusion to the Land of Cockaigne. Goliardic literature, it may be parenthetically observed, has some strong pieces of prose comedy and satire. Of these, the Mass of Topers_ and _Mass of Gamesters_, the Gospel according to Marks_, and the description of a fat monk's daily life deserve quotation.[34] They are for the most part, however, too profane to bear translation.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 34: Wright's Rel. Ant._, ii.; _Carm. Bur., pp. 248 and 22; Wright's Mapes, p. xl.]

THE ABBOT OF COCKAIGNE.

No. 55.

I am the Abbot of Cockaigne,

And this is my counsel with topers;

And in the sect of Decius (gamesters) this is my will;

And whoso shall seek me in taverns before noon;

After evensong shall he go forth naked,

And thus, stripped of raiment, shall lament him:

Wafna! wafna!

O Fate most foul, what hast thou done?

The joys of man beneath the sun

Thou hast stolen, every one!

XXI.

The transition from these trivial and slightly interesting comic songs to poems of a serious import, which played so important a part in Goliardic literature, must of necessity be abrupt. It forms no part of my present purpose to exhibit the Wandering Students in their capacity as satirists. That belongs more properly to a study of the earlier Reformation than to such an inquiry as I have undertaken in this treatise. Satires, especially medieval satires, are apt, besides, to lose their force and value in translation. I have therefore confined myself to five specimens, more or less closely connected with the subjects handled in this study.

The first has the interest of containing some ideas which Villon preserved in his ballad of the men of old time.

DEATH TAKES ALL.

No. 56.

Hear, O thou earth, hear, thou encircling sea,

Yea, all that live beneath the sun, hear ye

How of this world the bravery and the glory

Are but vain forms and shadows transitory,

Even as all things 'neath Time's empire show

By their short durance and swift overthrow!

Nothing avails the dignity of kings,

Naught, naught avail the strength and stuff of things;

The wisdom of the arts no succour brings;

Genus and species help not at death's hour,

No man was saved by gold in that dread stour;

The substance of things fadeth as a flower,

As ice 'neath sunshine melts into a shower.

Where is Plato, where is Porphyrius?

Where is Tullius, where is Virgilius?

Where is Thales, where is Empedocles,

Or illustrious Aristoteles?

Where's Alexander, peerless of might?

Where is Hector, Troy's stoutest knight?

Where is King David, learning's light?

Solomon where, that wisest wight?

Where is Helen, and Paris rose-bright?

They have fallen to the bottom, as a stone rolls:

Who knows if rest be granted to their souls?

But Thou, O God, of faithful men the

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