Chapter I

Line 1. _Fourriers._ The servants who go before to find lodging. The term survives in French military terminology. The _Fourriers_ are 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). Thus _contat_="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." _Chiere_ here is the substantive, _lie_=_laeta_, is the adjective. _Bonne chère_ means "a good time" where _chère_ is 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).

VILLON.

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. _Flora_ is Juvenal's Flora (Sat. II. 9), a legend in the university. Of _Archipiada_ I know nothing. _Thaïs_ was 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. _Elois_ is, of course, _Heloïse_, and _Esbaillart_ is 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. _Blanche_ may be Blanche of Castille, but more likely she was a vision of Villon's own, for what did St. Louis' mother ever sing? _Berte_ is the legendary mother of Charlemagne in the Epics; _Beatris_ is any Beatrice you choose, for they have all died. _Allis_ may just possibly be one of the Troubadour heroines, more likely she is here introduced for rhyme and metre; _Haremburgis_ is 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. _Jehanne_ is, of course, Joan of Arc.

Line 8. _D'Antan_ is _not_ "Yester-year." It is "Ante annum," all time past before _this_ year. 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 and _souveraine_ is spelt normally. _Ils_ and _els_ for 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, _without_ letting 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 of _Grant_ in the feminine without an _e_. 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, from _errare_, 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" (_esioye_ from _esjouir_=_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 Tabarie_ who _grossa_ (wrote out), these verses was a friend of Villon's: soon hanged.

Line 5. _Soubz._ The "b" is pedantic, the _ou_ indicates of itself the loss of the _b_. The "z" (and the "s" in the modern _sous_) are due to the derivation not from _sub_ but _subtus_.

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. _Calixte_ was Pope Calixtus III, Alphonso Borgia, who died in 1458--in Villon's twenty-sixth year. _Alphonse_ is Alphonso V of Arragon, who died in that same year. The _Duc de Bourbon_ is 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. The _Roy Scotiste_ is James II, who died in 1460: the _Amethyst_ half of his face was a birthmark. The _King of Cyprus_ is probably John III, who died in that same fatal year, 1458. Pedants will have it that the _King of Spain_ is John II of Castille, who died in 1454--but it is a better joke if it means nobody at all. _Lancelot_ is Vladislas of Bohemia, who died in 1457. _Cloquin_ is Bertrand de Guesclin who led the reconquest. _The Count Daulphin_ of Auvergne is doubtful; _Alençon_ is 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.

MAROT.

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 the _l_, 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." _Noël_ is, 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_, the _oi_ became _ui_ by 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, our _many_.

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 in _em_, should lose the final syllable in French: a post tonic _em_ always 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 in _am_, 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 be _don_ (_donem_, post tonic _em_ is lost). The "oint" is from a false analogy with the fourth conjugation, as though the Latin had been _doniam_.

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 of _bénir_ from _Benedicere_; the _c_ between vowels at the end of the tonic syllable becomes _s_: the _t_ is added for euphony, to help one to pronounce the _s_.

Line 3. _Silenus_ for _Silène_. 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. _Mignonne_ is, 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. Note _Pourpre_, and in line 5 _Pourprée_ so in line 9 _Beautez_, and in the last line _Beauté_: 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 negative _n'_ 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. Note _ioye_, _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 man _armed_: 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 Italian _Panno_--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. supra_ in "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.