Stanzas I–XLI

I
In the year thirty of my age,
Wherein I've drunk so deep of shame,
Neither all fool nor yet all sage,
For all my misery and blame —
Which latter all upon me came
Through Bishop Thibault d'Aussigny :
(If bishop such an one folk name ;
At all events, he's none for me :

II
He's nor my bishop nor my lord ;
I hold of him nor land nor fee,
Owe him nor homage nor accord,
Am nor his churl nor beast, perdie).
A summer long he nourished me
Upon cold water and dry bread;
God do by him as he by me,
Whom passing scurvily he fed.

III
If any go about to say
I do miscall him — I say no :
I wrong him not in any way,
If one aread me rightly. Lo !
Here's all I say, nor less nor mo ;
If he had mercy on my dole,
May Christ in heaven like mercy show
Unto his body and his soul!

IV
And if he wrought me pain and ill
More than herein I do relate,
God of His grace to him fulfil
Like measure and proportionate!
But the Church bids us not to hate,
But to pray rather for our foes :
I'll own I'm wrong and leave his fate
To God that all things can and knows.

V
And pray for him I will, to boot,
By Master Cotard's soul I swear !
But soft : 'twill then be but by rote ;
I'm ill at reading ; such a prayer
I'll say for him as Picards' were.
(If what I mean he do not know —
Ere 'tis too late to learn it there —
To Lille or Douai let him go).

VI
Yet, if he needs must have't that I
Should, willy nilly, for him pray,
(Though I proclaim it not on high)
As I'm a chrisom man, his way
He e'en shall get ; but, sooth to say,
When I the Psalter ope for him,
I take the seventh verse alway
Of the psalm called " Deus laudem."

VII
I do implore God's blessed Son,
To whom I turn in every need,
So haply my poor orison
Find grace with Him — from whom indeed
Body and soul I hold — who's freed
Me oft from blame and evil chance.
Praised be our Lady and her Seed
And Louis the good King of France !

VIII
Whom God with Jacob's luck endow,
And glory of great Solomon!
Of doughtiness he has enow,
In sooth, and of dominion.
In all the lands the sun shines on,
In this our world of night and day,
God grant his fame and memory wonne
As long as lived Methusaleh !

IX
May twelve fair sons perpetuate
His royal lineage, one and all
As valorous as Charles the Great,
Conceived in matrix conjugal,
As doughty as Saint Martial !
The late Lord Dauphin fare likewise ;
No worser fortune him befall
Than this and after, Paradise !

X
Feeling my self upon the wane,
Even more in goods than body spent,
Whilst my full senses I retain,
What little God to me hath sent
(For on no other have I leant),
I have set down of my last will
This very stable Testament,
Alone and irrevocable.

XI
Written in the same year, sixty-one,
Wherein the good king set me free
From the dour prison of Mehun
And so to life recovered me :
Whence I to him shall bounden be
As long as life in me fail not :
I'm his till death ; assuredly,
Good deeds should never be forgot.

XII
Now is it true that, after years
Of anguish and of sorrowing,
Travail and toil and groans and tears
And many a weary wandering,
Trouble hath wrought in me to bring
To point each shifting sentiment,
Teaching me many another thing
Than Averrhoes his Comment.

XIII
However, at my trials' worst,
When wandering in the desert ways,
God, who the Emmaus pilgrims erst
Did comfort, as the Gospel says,
Showed me a certain resting-place
And gave me gift of hope no less ;
Though vile the sinner be and base,
Nothing HE hates save stubbornness.

XIV
Sinned have I oft, as well I know ;
But God my death doth not require,
But that I turn from sin and so
Live righteously and shun hellfire.
Whether one by sincere desire
Or counsel turn unto the Lord,
HE sees and casting off His ire,
Grace to repentance doth accord.

XV
And as of its own motion shows,
Ev'n in the very first of it,
The noble Romaunt of the Rose,
Youth to the young one should remit,
So manhood do mature the wit.
And there, alack I the song says sooth :
They that such snares for me have knit
Would have me die in time of youth.

XVI
If for my death the common weal
Might anywise embettered be,
Death my own hand to me should deal
As felon, so God 'stablish me !
But unto none, that I can see,
Hindrance I do, alive or dead ;
The hills, for one poor wight, perdie,
Will not be stirred out of their stead.

XVII
Whilom, when Alexander reigned,
A man that hight Diomedes
Before the Emperor was arraigned,
Bound hand and foot, like as one sees
A thief. A skimmer of the seas
Of those that course it far and nigh
He was, and so, as one of these,
They brought him to be doomed to die.

XVIII
The emperor bespoke him thus :
' Why art thou a sea-plunderer ? '
The other, no wise timorous :
' Why dost thou call me plunderer, sir ?
Is it, perchance, because I ear
Upon so mean a bark the sea ?
Could I but arm me with thy gear,
I would be emperor like to thee.

XIX
' What wouldst thou have ? From sorry Fate,
That uses me with such despite
As I on no wise can abate,
Arises this my evil plight.
Let me find favour in thy sight
And have in mind the common saw :
In penury is little right ;
Necessity knows no man's law.'

XX
Whenas the emperor to his suit
Had hearkened, much he wondered ;
And ' I thy fortune will commute
From bad to good,' to him he said ;
And did. Thenceforward Diomed
Wronged none, but was a true man aye.
Thus have I in Valerius read,
Of Rome styled Greatest in his day.

XXI
If God had granted me to find
A king of like greatheartedness,
That had fair fate to me assigned,
Stooped I thenceforward to excess
Or ill, I would myself confess
Worthy to die by fire at stake.
Necessity makes folk transgress
And want drives wolven from the brake.

XXII
My time of youth I do bewail,
That more than most lived merrily,
Until old age 'gan me assail,
For youth had passed unconsciously.
It wended not afoot from me,
Nor yet on horseback. Ah, how then ?
It fled away all suddenly
And never will return again.

XXIII
It's gone, and I am left behind,
Poor both in knowledge and in wit,
Black as a berry, drear and dwined,
Coin, land and goods, gone every whit ;
Whilst those by kindred to me knit,
The due of Nature all forgot,
To disavow me have seen fit,
For lack of pelf to pay the scot.

XXIV
Yet have I not my substance spent
In wantoning or gluttony
Nor thorow love incontinent ;
None is there can reproach it me,
Except he rue it bitterly ;
I say it in all soothfastness —
Nor can you bate me of this plea —
Who's done no wrong should none confess.

XXV
True is it I have loved whilere
And willingly would love again :
But aching heart and paunch that ne'er
Doth half its complement contain,
The ways of Love allure in vain ;
'Deed, none but those may play its game
Whose well-lined belly wags amain ;
For the dance comes of the full wame.

XXVI
If in my time of youth, alack!
I had but studied and been sage
Nor wandered from the beaten track,
I had slept warm in my old age.
But what did I ? As bird from cage,
I fled the schools ; and now with pain,
In setting down this on the page,
My heart is like to cleave in twain.

XXVII
I have construed what Solomon
Intended, with too much largesse,
When that he said, ' Rejoice, my son,
In thy fair youth and lustiness : '
But elsewhere speaks he otherguess ;
' For youth and adolescence be '
(These are his words, nor more nor less)
' But ignorance and vanity.'

XXVIII
Like as the loose threads on the loom,
Whenas the weaver to them lays
The flaming tow, burn and consume,
So that from ragged ends (Job says)
The web is freed, — even so my days
Are gone a-wand'ring past recall.
No more Fate's buffs nor her affrays
I fear, for death assuageth all.

XXIX
Where are the gracious gallants now
That of old time I did frequent,
So fair of fashion and of show,
In song and speech so excellent?
Stark dead are some, their lives are spent ;
There rests of them nor mark nor trace :
May they in Heaven have content ;
God keep the others of His grace!

XXX
Some, Christ-a -mercy, are become
Masters and lords of high degree ;
Some beg all naked and no crumb
Of bread save in some window see ;
Some, having put on monkery,
Carthews, Celestines and what not,
Shod, breeched like oysterfishers be ;
Look you, how divers is their lot !

XXXI
God grant great lords to do aright,
That live in luxury and ease !
We cannot aught to them requite,
So will do well to hold our peace.
But to the poor ( like me ), that cease
Never from want, God patience give!
For that they need it ; and not these,
That have the wherewithal to live, —

XXXII
That drink of noble wines and eat
Fish, soups and sauces every day,
Pasties and flawns and roasted meat
And eggs served up in many a way.
Herein from masons differ they,
That with such toil their bread do earn :
These need no cupbearer, folk say,
For each one pours out in his turn.

XXXIII
To this digression I've been led,
That serves in nothing my intent.
I am no Court, empanelled
For quittance or for punishment :
I am of all least diligent.
Praised be Christ! May each man's need
By me of Him have full content!
That which is writ is writ indeed.

XXXIV
So let that kite hang on the wall
And of more pleasing subjects treat ;
For this finds favour not with all,
Being wearisome and all unsweet :
For poverty doth groan and greet,
Full of despite and strife alway ;
Is apt to say sharp things in heat
Or think them, if it spare to say.

XXXV
Poor was I from my earliest youth,
Born of a poor and humble race :
My sire was never rich, in sooth,
Nor yet his grandfather Erace ;
Want follows hard upon our trace
Nor on my forbears' tombs, I ween,
(Whose souls the love of God embrace !)
Are crowns or sceptres to be seen.

XXXVI
When I of poverty complain,
Ofttimes my heart to me hath said,
' Man, wherefore murmur thus in vain ?
If thou hast no such plentihead
As had Jacques Cœur, be comforted :
Better to live and rags to wear
Than to have been a lord, and dead,
Rot in a splendid sepulchre.'

XXXVII
(Than to have been a lord! I say.
Alas, no longer is he one ;
As the Psalm tells of it, — to-day
His place of men is all unknown.)
As for the rest, affair 'tis none
Of mine, that but a sinner be :
To theologians alone
The case belongs, and not to me.

XXXVIII
For I am not, as well I know,
An angel's son, that crowned with light
Among the starry heavens doth go:
My sire is dead — God have his spright!
His body's buried out of sight.
I know my mother too must die —
She knows it too, poor soul, aright —
And soon her son by her must lie.

XXXIX
I know full well that rich and poor,
Villein and noble, high and low,
Laymen and clerks, gracious and dour,
Wise men and foolish, sweet of show
Or foul of favour, dames that go
Ruffed and rebatoed, great or small,
High-tired or hooded, Death ( I know )
Without exception seizes all.

XL
Paris or Helen though one be,
Who dies, in pain and drearihead,
For lack of breath and blood dies he,
His gall upon his heart is shed ;
Then doth he sweat, God knows how dread
A sweat, and none there is to allay
His ills, child, kinsman, in his stead,
None will go bail for him that day.

XLI
Death makes him shiver and turn pale,
Sharpens his nose and swells his veins,
Puffs up his throat, makes his flesh fail,
His joints and nerves greatens and strains.
Fair women's bodies, soft as skeins
Of silk, so tender, smooth and rare,
Must you too suffer all these pains ?
Ay, or alive to heaven fare.