C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
Here Beginneth Villon to Enter upon Matter Full of Erudition and of Fair Knowledge
By François Villon (1431–1463?)
N
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 Averröes his Comment.
When wandering in the desert ways,
God, who the Emmaüs 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.
But God my death doth not require,
But that I turn from sin, and so
Live righteously and shun hell-fire.
Whether one by sincere desire
Or counsel turn unto the Lord,
He sees; and casting off his ire,
Grace to repentance doth accord.
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! the song says sooth:
They that such snares for me have knit
Would have me die in time of youth.
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.
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.
“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.
That uses me with such despite
As I on no wise can abate,
Arises this my evil plight.
Let me find favor in thy sight
And have in mind the common saw:
In penury is little right;
Necessity knows no man’s law.”
Had harkened, much he wonderèd:
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.
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 folks transgress,
And want drives wolven from the brake.
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.
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….
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.”
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.
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.
Villein and noble, high and low,
Laymen and clerks, gracious and dour,
Wise men and foolish, sweet of show
Or foul of favor, dames that go
Ruffed and rebatoed, great or small,
High-tired or hooded,—Death (I know)
Without exception seizes all.
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.
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.