Part 13 (1/2)
Vous n'y avez chose vostre nes-une, Fors les beaulx dons de grace et de nature.
Se Fortune donc, par cas d'adventur Vous toult les biens que vostres vous tenez, Tort ne vous fait, aincois vous fait droicture, Car vous n'aviez riens quant vous fustes nez.
Ne laissez plus le dormir a grans sommes En vostre lict, par nuict obscure et brune, Pour acquester richesses a grans sommes.
Ne convoitez chose des...o...b.. la lune, Ne de Paris jusques a Pampelune, Fors ce qui fault, sans plus, a creature Pour recouvrer sa simple nourriture.
Souffise vous d'estre bien renommez, Et d'emporter bon loz en sepulture: Car vous n'aviez riens quant vous fustes nez.
Les joyeulx fruictz des arbres, et les pommes, Au temps que fut toute chose commune, Le beau miel, les glandes et les gommes Souffisoient bien a chascun et chascune: Et pour ce fut sans noise et sans rancune.
Soyez contens des chaulx et des froidures, Et me prenez Fortune doulce et seure.
Pour vos pertes, griefve dueil n'en menez, Fors a raison, a point, et a mesure, Car vous n'aviez riens quant vous fustes nez.
Se Fortune vous fait aucune injure, C'est de son droit, ja ne l'en reprenez, Et perdissiez jusques a la vesture: Car vous n'aviez riens quant vous fustes nez.
CHARLES D'ORLeANS.
Le temps a laissie son manteau De vent, de froidure et de pluye, Et s'est vestu de brouderie, De soleil luyant, cler et beau.
Il n'y a beste, ne oyseau, Qu'en son jargon ne chante ou crie: Le temps a laissie son manteau De vent, de froidure et de pluye.
Riviere, fontaine et ruisseau Portent, en livree jolie, Gouttes d'argent d'orfavrerie, Chascun s'abille de nouveau: Le temps a laissie son manteau.
FOOTNOTES:
[110] The following is an account of these forms, in their more important developments. The _ballade_ consists of three stanzas, and an _envoy_, or final half-stanza, which is sometimes omitted. The number of the lines in each stanza is optional, but it should not usually be more than eleven or less than eight. The peculiarity of the poem is that the last line of every stanza is identical, and that the rhymes are the same throughout and repeated in the same order. The examples printed at the end of this chapter from Lescurel and Chartier will ill.u.s.trate this sufficiently. There is no need to enter into the absurdity of _ballades equivoquees_, _emperieres_, etc., further than to say that their main principle is the repet.i.tion of the same rhyming word, in a different sense, it may be twice or thrice at the end of the line, it may be at the end and in the middle, it may be at the end of one line and the beginning of the next. The _chant royal_ is a kind of major ballade having five of the longest (eleven-lined) stanzas and an envoy of five lines. The _rondel_ is a poem of thirteen lines (sometimes made into fourteen by an extra repet.i.tion), consisting of two quatrains and a five-lined stanza, the first two lines of the first quatrain being repeated as the last two of the second, and the first line of all being added once more at the end. The _rondeau_, a poem of thirteen, fourteen, or fifteen lines, is arranged in stanzas of five, four, and four, five, or six lines, the last line of the second and third stanzas consisting of the first words of the first line of the poem. The _triolet_ is a sort of rondel of eight lines only, repeating the first line at the fourth, and the first and second at the seventh and eighth. Lastly, the _villanelle_ alternates one of two refrain lines at the end of each three-lined stanza. These are the princ.i.p.al forms, though there are many others.
[111] Ed. Montaiglon. Paris, 1855.
[112] The Rondeau is not in Lescurel systematised into any regular form.
[113] Ed. L. de Mas Latrie. Societe de l'Orient Latin, Geneva, 1877.
This is a poem not much shorter than the _Voir Dit_, but continuously octosyllabic and very spirited. The final account of the murder of Pierre (which he provoked by the most brutal oppression of his va.s.sals) is full of power.
[114] Ed. P. Paris. Societe des Bibliophiles, Paris, 1875. This is a very interesting poem consisting of more than 9000 lines, mostly octosyllabic couplets, with ballades, etc. interspersed, one of which is given at the end of this chapter. It is addressed either to Agnes of Navarre, or, as M. P. Paris thought, to Peronelle d'Armentieres, and was written in 1362, when the author was probably very old.
[115] Deschamps is said to have been also named Morel. A complete edition of his works has been undertaken for the Old French Text Society by the Marquis de Queux de Saint Hilaire.
[116] Ballades, 147, 149. Ed. Queux de St. Hilaire.
[117] Ed. Scheler. 3 vols. Brussels, 1870-1872.
[118] Ed. Hericault. 2 vols. Paris, 1874. Charles d'Orleans was the son of the Duke of Orleans, who was murdered by the Burgundians, and of Valentina of Milan. He was born in 1391, taken prisoner at Agincourt, ransomed in 1449, and he died in 1465. His son was Louis XII.
[119] Ed. Queux de St. Hilaire. Paris, 1868.
CHAPTER X.
THE DRAMA.
[Sidenote: Origins of Drama.]