FRANCOIS VILLON, 1431-14-?

Nothing is known of Villon's birth or death, and only too much of his life. In his poems the ancient forms of French verse are animated with the keenest sense of personal emotion, of love, of melancholy, of mocking despair, and of repentance for a life passed in taverns and prisons.

Three poems of Master Francois Villon worth reading :

Ballad of the women of Paris

Albeit the Venice girls get praise

For their sweet speech and tender air,

And though the old women have wise ways

Of chaffering for amorous ware,

Yet at my peril dare I swear,

Search Rome, where God's grace mainly tarries,

Florence and Savoy, everywhere,

There's no good girl's lip out of Paris.

The Naples women, as folk prattle,

Are sweetly spoken and subtle enough:

German girls are good at tattle,

And Prussians make their boast thereof;

Take Egypt for the next remove,

Or that waste land the Tartar harries,

Spain or Greece, for the matter of love,

There's no good girl's lip out of Paris.

Breton and Swiss know nought of the matter,
Gascony girls or girls of Toulouse;
Two fishwomen with a half-hour's chatter
Would shut them up by threes and twos;
Calais, Lorraine, and all their crews,
(Names enow the mad song marries,)
England and Picardy, search them and choose,
There's no good girl's lip out of Paris.

Prince, give praise to our French ladies
For the sweet sound their speaking carries;
'Twixt Rome and Cadiz many a maid is,
But no good girl's lip out of Paris.

(translation by Algernon Charles Swinburne)

The Quatrain that Villon made when he was doomed to die

Variant of the Foregoing Epitaph

Francois am I, - woe worth it me !

- Corbier my surname is aright :

Native of Auvers, near Pontoise citie ;

Of folk for sobriquet Villon hight .

But for the gallant appeal I made ,

My neck, in the bight of a rope of three ,

Had known ere this what my buttocks weighed .

The game scarce seemed to me worth to be played .

(translation by Algernon Charles Swinburne)

Ballade of the Ladies of Byegone Times.

(Le Testament: Ballade Des Dames Du Temps Jadis)

Tell me where, or in what country

Is Flora, the lovely Roman,

Archipiades or Thaïs,

Who was her nearest cousin,

Echo answering, at clap of hand,

Over the river, and the meadow,

Whose beauty was more than human?

Oh, where is last year’s snow?

Where is that wise girl Eloise,

For whom was gelded, to his great shame,

Peter Abelard, at Saint Denis,

For love of her enduring pain,

And where now is that queen again,

Who commanded them to throw

Buridan in a sack, in the Seine?

Oh, where is last year’s snow?

Queen Blanche of the Siren’s voice

White as a swan, and Alice, say,

Bertha Big-Foot and Beatrice,

Arembourg, ruler of Maine,

Or Jeanne d’Arc of Lorraine,

The English burned at Rouen? Oh,

Where are they Virgin, you who reign?

Oh, where is last year’s snow?

Prince, don’t ask of me again

Where they are, this year or no,

I have only this last refrain:

Oh, where is last year’s snow?

(translation by Algernon Charles Swinburne)