Chapitre 5

1. N’ENQUEREZ, do not seek to know. SEPMAINE,_semaine_. 3. QUE … NE, lest. REMAINE = reste. LAY ou PLUSTOST RONDEAU. 8. SE, si. 12. DEVIE = meure. 13. VOIRE = vraiment. JE CONNAIS TOUT FORS QUE MOI-MEME. 15. LAICT. lait. 21. BESONGNE = travaille. CHOMME, chôme. 24. GONNE, gown, a monk’s garment.

6. 3. PIPEUR, one who whistles in imitation of birds ; je congnois pipeur qui jargonne, I know the tricks of the bird-catcher. 4. FOLZ NOURRIZ DE CRESME, refers perhaps to the pampered court jesters. 7. MULLET, mulet. 10. GECT, a counter for counting and adding (_qui nombre et somme_). 12. BOESMES, Bohemians; la faults des Boesmes is the heresy of the followers of John Huss (1369-1415) and Jerome of Prague (1375-1416). 16. COULEREZ ET BLESMES = teints colorés et blêmes»

CLEMENT MAROT.

1497-1544.

He abandoned the law to live at court and write verses. After his first successes, he became page in the household of Marguerite of Navarre, and continued to enjoy her protection and that of her brother, Francis I., though this could not save him, when accused of heresy because of the welcome that he gave to the ideas of the Reformation, from the necessity of twice fleeing to Italy for safety. In spite of some deeper notes and in spite of his translation of the first fifty Psalms, which is used in French Protestant churches, he was by no means a religious reformer. He was essentially a court poet, putting into graceful verse, ballades, rondeaux, epistles, epigrams, etc., the trifles, jests, sallies, and elegant badinage that delighted courtly society.

Works: l’Adolescence Clémentine, 1532; Oeuvres de Clément Marot, Lyon, 1538; Trente Psaumes de David, 1541; Cinquante Psaumes de David, 1543 ; les Oeuvres de Clément Marot, Lyon, 1544; Oeuvres complètes de Clément Marot, par M. Guiffrey, 1876-81 (only part has appeared); Oeuvres complètes, par P. Jannet, 4 vols., 1868-72; Oeuvres choisies, par E. Voizard, 1890.

For reference: E. Scherer, Études littéraires sur la littérature contemporaine, vol. viii; Emile Faguet, le Seizième siècle, 1893; H. Morley, C. Marot and other studies, London, 1871.

RONDEAU. For the form see the remarks on versification.

20. SE DEMENOIT, expressed itself. 21. C’ESTOIT DONNÉ TOUTE LA TERRE RONDE, i.e. it was as if one had given. 23. “They loved each other for the heart alone.”

24. SI A JOUIR ON VENOIT, if one’s love was returned. 25. s’entretenoit, kept faith.

7 2. FEINCTS, feints. OYT, from ouïr. 3. Qui = si quelqu’un. ME FONDE, rely.

PIERRE DE RONSARD.

1524-1585.

The greatest French poet of the Renaissance, he entered the household of the Duke of Orleans at the age of ten, spent three years as page of James V. of Scotland, and traveled much about Europe on various embassies. At eighteen, attacked by deafness, he withdrew to the college of Coqueret and was won to poetry by study of the ancients. It was then that a common love for the classical literatures and a common zeal for imitating their beauties in French bound him to the other young men who with him called themselves the Pleiad and set themselves to the task of renewing French literature in the image of the literatures of antiquity. In 1550, the year after the appearance of the manifesto of the young school, the Défense et Illustration de la langue française of du Bellay, he published a volume of odes. His fame was instant and immense; he returned in glory to court, and for forty years the authority of his example was hardly questioned. His talent was exercised in almost all kinds of verse, chansons, sonnets, elegies, eclogues, hymns, epistles, and even in the epic, where, however, his experiment, la Franciade, was a complete failure, abandoned when but four of the proposed twelve cantos were finished. But his genius was essentially lyric. The ode was his special contribution to French verse; in it he followed the classical form with its divisions into strophe, antistrophe, and epode, sometimes in direct imitation of Pindar, Anacreon, Theocritus, or Horace. His best work is that in which he freed himself most fully from the influence of a model. His deepest and truest note’s are those that celebrate the pleasures of this life, the delights of nature, and the inevitable “cold obstruction” of death.

Works: Odes and Bocage, 1550; Amours, Odes, book v, 1552, 1553; Hymnes, 1555, book ii, 1556; Meslanges, 1555, book ii, 1559; Oeuvres (_Amours, Odes, Poèmes, Hymnes_), 4 vols., 1560; Oeuvres, i vol., 1584; recent editions are Oeuvres complètes, par P. Blanchemain, 8 vols., 1857-67 (_Bibliothèque elzévirienne_); par Marty-Laveaux, 6 vols., 1887 ff.; Oeuvres choisies, avec notice de Sainte-Beuve, I vol.

For reference: Excellent biographical study by Marty-Laveaux in his edition of the works; Émile Faguet, le Seizième siècle, 1893 ; Sainte-Beuve, Causeries du lundi, vol. xii.

7. A CASSANDRE. 8. DESCLOSE, opened. 10. A POINT PERDU; ne was not, and still is not always, required in the question; cf. 164, 22. VESPREE = soir; cf. vêpre. 13. LAS, hélas. 20. FLEURONNE= fleurit.

8. CHANSON. 27. AMOUR, Cupid. 1. CHENEVIERE = chanvre. 3. MY-NUD, half naked. 19. FOL LE PELICAN; cf. for another use of this popular notion about the pelican the famous picture in the Nuit de mai of Alfred de Musset, 150, 12 ff. A HÉLÈNE. 26. OYANT, from ouïr. 27. DESJA, déjà. 29. BENISSANT VOSTRE NOM, etc., i.e. congratulating you on being immortalized by the poet’s praise.

9. 2. OMBRES MYRTEUX, shadows of the myrtles. ÉLÉGIE. 8. VENDEMOIS, one of the old divisions of France, on the Loire. It was the birth-place of Ronsard. 10. REMORS; has here rather the sense of regret. 13. AGEZ, agés the spelling -ez for -és was usual. 22. CHEF = tête. 23. DE RECHEF = de nouveau. 24. PERRUQUE = chevelure. 26. VERDS, strong, supple.

10. DIEU VOUS GARD. 7. GARD, the form of the present subjunctive regularly descended from the Latin subjunctive in verbs of the first conjugation. The ending e, added later, is due to analogy. 8. VISTES ARONDELLES, vites (_rapides_) hirondelles. 10. TOURTRES = tourterelles. 12. VERDELETS, verts; such diminutives were quite in favor in the language of the time; cf. rossignolet, nouvelet, fleurettes. 15. BOUTONS JADIS COGNUS, etc., i.e. the hyacinth and the narcissus. 29. AU PRIX DE, in comparison with.

11. A UN AUBESPIN. 6. LAMBRUNCHE, a wild vine. 10. PERTUIS, holes. 12. AVETTES = abeilles. 30. RUER = jeter.

12. ÉLÉGIE CONTRE LES BÛCHERONS DE LA FORÊT DE GASTINE. Cf. the poem by Laprade, p. 192. Gastine is in Haut-Poitou, in the present department of Deux-Sèvres. 14. PERSÉ, percé. 15. MASTIN, mâtin. 21. PANS, used by Ronsard in the plural as if he thought them a kind of being, like Satyrs. 22. FANS, now written faons, but still pronounced as if spelled fans. 24. PREMIER, used adverbially. 26. ESTONNER in the older language expressed a physical shock; to stun. 28. NEUVAINE, composed of nine. TROPE, troupe; the nine muses. Calliope was the muse of epic poetry, and Euterpe the muse of music and lyric poetry.

13. 3. ALTEREZ, BRUSLEZ, ETHEREZ, see note on agez, 9, 13. 8. DORDONEENS, referring to the forest of Dordona, in Epirus, where oracles were rendered from oak trees. According to Greek traditions the first men lived on acorns and raw flesh. 16. ET QU’EN CHANGEANT DE FORME, etc., and that it will change its form and put on a new one.

JOACHIM DU BELLAY.

1525-1560.

After Ronsard the foremost poet of the Pleiad. He was of an illustrious family, but, cut off from a brilliant public career by ill health and deafness, he sought consolation in letters. He even preceded Ronsard in inaugurating the literary reform, issuing the manifesto of the new movement, his Défense et Illustration de la langue française, his collection of sonnets called Olive, and a Recueil de poésies, all in 1549. Shortly afterwards he accompanied his cousin, Cardinal du Bellay, to Rome; the admiration which the historic associations of the city excited in him and his disgust at the intrigues of the court and the corruptions of Italian life, mingled with homesickness for the pleasant sights and quiet air of his native Anjou, inspired the two collections of sonnets which are his best, the Antiquités romaines, translated by Spenser in 1591, and the Regrets.

Works: Olive, Recueil de poésies, 1549; Premier livre des antiquités de Rome, 1558; Jeux rustiques, 1558; les Regrets, 1559 ; Oeuvres, 1569. Recent editions are : Oeuvres complètes, par Marty-Laveaux, 2 vols., 1866-67; Oeuvres choisies, par Becq de Fouquières, 1876.

For reference: Léon Séché, Joachim du Bellay, 1880; E. Faguet, le Seizième siècle, 1893 ; Sainte-Beuve, Nouveaux lundis, vol. xiii; Walter Pater, The Renaissance, London, 1873.

13. L’IDÉAL. This is from the first collection of sonnets, Olive. The influence of Petrarch is evident. Compare also the lines of the sestet with the final stanzas of Lamartine’s Isolement, p. 65. 22. En 1’eternel = dans l’éternité.

14. L’AMOUR DU CLOCHER. From the Regrets. 8. cestuy, old form of demonstrative, celui. The reference is of course to Jason. 9. USAGE, experience. 11. QUAND REVERRAY-JE, etc., cf. Homer’s Odyssey, I, 58. 18. LOYRE, the name of the river is now feminine. 19. LIRÉ, a little village in Anjou, was the birth-place of du Bellay. D’UN VANNEUR DE BLÉ AUX VENTS. From the collection entitled Jeux rustiques.

15. 8. CESTE, cette. 10. J’AHANNE = je me fatigue.

AGRIPPA D’AUBIGNÉ.

1550-1630.

Soldier as well as poet, he was a leader of the Huguenots in the wars that ended with the accession of Henry IV. After the assassination of Henry IV., his safety became more and more threatened in France, and he withdrew finally to Geneva. His main work is a long descriptive and narrative poem, but in many parts essentially lyrical, les Tragiques, a fierce picture of France in the civil wars. In his lyrics, which comprise stances, odes, and élégies, he is a follower of the tradition of Ronsard.

Works: Les Tragiques, 1616; a recent edition is by L. Lalanne, 1857; also in the Oeuvres complètes, par MM. Reaume et de Caussade, 4 vols., 1873-77.

For reference: Pergameni, la Satire au seizième siècle et les Tragiques d’Agrippa d’Aubignê, 1881; E. Faguet, le Seizième siècle,