IV Ballade pour prier Nostre Dame (Le Testament, 1461) Dame des cieulx, regente terrienne, Recevez moy, vostre humble chrestienne, Ce non obstant qu'oncques rien ne valus. 2 Sont trop plus grans que ne suis pecheresse, Sans lesquelz biens ame ne peut merir A vostre Filz dictes que je suis sienne; 6 Femme je suis povrette et ancïenne, 'The marshes of the underworld. 2 much. 4 St. Mary of Egypt, d. 421. 3 untruthful. 5 Steward of the Monastery of Adana in Cilicia. " although he. 7 church. 8 lutes. La joye avoir me fay, haulte Deesse, ENVOY Vous portastes, digne Vierge, princesse, V L'Épitaphe Villon Freres humains qui après nous vivez, Et nous, les os, devenons cendre et pouldre. Mais priez Dieu que tous nous vueille absouldre! Se vous clamons 2 freres, pas n'en devez ' long since. 3 call. 3 departed. Que sa grace ne soit pour nous tarie, 1 Mais priez Dieu que tous nous vueille absouldre! La pluye nous a büez 2 et lavez, Et le soleil dessechiez et noircis ; Pies, corbeaulx, nous ont les yeux cavez, Mais priez Dieu que tous nous vueille absouldre! ENVOY Prince Jhesus, qui sur tous a maistrie, CLÉMENT MAROT (b. Cahors, 1496 or 1497; d. Turin, 1544) CLÉMENT MAROT, as his father before him (see Introduction, p. 2), was a courtier. After an idle childhood and youth, he became in 1519 gentleman-in-waiting to Queen Margaret of Navarre, who, like her brother, François I., was an enlightened ruler, ever ready to protect graceless poets from ecclesiastical persecutors. At the Battle of Pavia in 1524 Marot was taken prisoner along with François I. In 1526 his Protestant leanings were the cause of his imprisonment No one harries us. * scoured. s to pay. in the Châtelet, and all that the intervention of powerful friends (see No. VI.), could effect was to have him transferred to more comfortable prison quarters at Chartres. After various other difficulties with both the ecclesiastical and the civil authorities, he succeeded to his father's office at Court, and found time and peace to follow his literary bent, publishing in 1532 his first collection of poems, entitled Adolescence Clémentine, and an edition of Villon, whom he admired. But in 1535 King François hardened his heart against Protestants, and Marot fled, first to Navarre, then to Italy. When he returned to France at the end of the following year, he is said to have abjured his religion at Lyons, but, having incurred disfavour by his verse translation of the Psalms in 1543, he retired to Geneva (where, however, he chafed under Calvin's strict rule), and then to Italy, where, a year later, he died. Marot's work consists of the lighter forms of verse, epigrams and satires, translations from the classics and, in his later years, from the Bible. He can scarcely be called a great poet, because he is more flippant than profound, but he is at least sprightly, witty and elegant, and sums up in a charming form the sunny philosophy of the early Renaissance. EXTRACTS VI. Incarcerated for eating meat in Lent, Marot invokes the aid of his friend, Lyon Jamet, secretary to the Duchess of Ferrara, by pointing the moral of the story of the "Lyon" and the Rat. VII. A typical sixteenth century description of scenery-that amid which Marot spent his boyhood. The poem was written in prison at Chartres. VIII. Others may be fickle lovers, but the poet professes undying fidelity to Virtue. VI A son Amy Lyon (1526) Je ne t'écry qui est rude ou affable, Cestuy lyon, plus fort qu'un vieil verrat, Et du lyon (pour vray) ne s'est gaudy, |