Toy, Seigneur, qui abbats, qui blesses, qui gueris, Qui donnes vie et mort, qui tue et qui nourris? Les princes n'ont point d'yeux pour voir ces grand'merveilles; Quand tu voudras tonner, n'auront-ils point d'oreilles? (Les Tragiques: Jugement) O enfans de ce siecle, ô abusez mocqueurs, Les Saincts vous aimoient-ils? Un abisme est entr'eux; Ne destruira-t-il pas les corps en les bruslant? L'air corrupteur n'a plus sa corrompante haleine, FRANÇOIS DE MALHERBE (b. Caen, 1555; d. 1628) THE scion of a legal family in Normandy, Malherbe received a sound education at Caen and Paris, completed at the Universities of Bâle and Heidelberg. Quarrelling with his family, he settled in Provence, where, at the age of twentysix, he married a widow who had already had two husbands. His fame having attracted the notice of Henry IV., he was brought to the Paris Court in 1605 as semi-official laureate, and acted thenceforth as supreme arbiter in matters of poetic diction. Malherbe's Norman birth, legal surroundings, unromantic marriage and court connection are not without their bearing on his poetry. It consists of Les Larmes de Saint Pierre (1587), a close imitation of Italian models and showing the same faults as Ronsard, various Moral Odes, ultimately collected under the title Bouquet de fleurs à Sénèque (1590), and occasional pieces, such as the ode to Henry IV., Sur la Prise de Marseille (1596), and the famous Consolation (1599). While Malherbe's maturer poems are in sharp contrast with the exuberant manner of La Pléiade and models of clarity and polish, they appeal more to the head than to the heart, they are uninspired and, being usually suggested by great public events in which he can have had little direct personal interest, they are often abstract and general. His qualities are such as are equally valuable in prose; his shortcomings are in lyric inspiration, tact and sensibility; his tendency is towards frigidity and, sometimes, bathos. EXTRACTS XXIII. Logic, classical allusion, historical precedent and personal candour are invoked to console a nobleman of Provence for the loss of his young and beautiful daughter, Marguerite. Stanzas 5-18, seldom quoted, because they weaken the effect and offend good taste, are typical of Malherbe's sturdy faith in the power of reason. XXIV and XXV. Despite his fondness for pagan allusion, Malherbe found congenial themes in Christian doctrines: equality in death (cp. No. XVII.) and the transitory nature of this world. XXVI. A wild lament for Marc-Antoine de Malherbe, a magistrate at Aix and an incorrigible dueller, who met his death at the hands of a Jewish officer. Tithon 1 n'a plus les ans qui le firent cigale; Sans égard du passé, les mérites égale Ne te lasse donc plus d'inutiles complaintes: Aime une ombre comme ombre, et des cendres éteintes C'est bien, je le confesse, une juste coutume Par le canal des yeux vidant son amertume, Même quand il avient que la tombe sépare Celui qui ne s'émeut a l'âme d'un barbare, Mais d'être inconsolable, et dedans sa mémoire N'est-ce pas se haïr, pour acquérir la gloire Priam, qui vit ses fils abattus par Achille, Et hors de tout espoir du salut de sa ville, François, quand la Castille, inégale à ses armes, Sembla d'un si grand coup devoir jeter des larmes 1 Granted immortality, he had forgotten to ask for eternal youth; weary of age, he longed for death and he was turned into a grasshopper. So called because of the shortness of his life; the infant prince of Nemea. 3 Son of François I. He was supposed to have been poisoned by the Spaniards. |