Villon - Poetry

For more on my attempts to better understand poetry, click the 'Poetry' link at the bottom of this post.

Our next selection is from Francois Villon, sometimes called the father of French poetry.  The work is called 'The Ballad of Ladies Past' and was translated by Dante Gabriel Rosetti.

Tell me now in what hidden way is
Lady Flora the lovely Roman?
Where's Hipparchia, and where is Thais,
Neither of them the fairer woman?
Where is Echo, beheld of no man,
Only heard on river and mere,-
She whose beauty was more than human?...
But where are the snows of yester-year?

Where's Heloise, the learned nun,
For whose sake Abeillard, I ween,
Lost manhood and put priesthood on?
(From Love he won such dule and teen!)
And where, I pray you, is the Queen
Who willed that Buridan should steer
Sewed in a sack's mouth down the Seine?...
But where are the snows of yester-year?

White Queen Blanche, like a queen of lilies,
With a voice like any mermaiden-
Bertha Broadfoot, Beatrice, Alice,
And Ermengarde the lady of Maine,-
And that good Joan whom Englishmen
At Roen doomed and burned her there,-
Mother of God, where are they then?...
But where are the snows of yester-year?

That ending question has some punch, doesn't it?  The 'snows of yester-year' are gone, never to return.  The same is true of all these lovely (and formidable!) ladies.  Time has swallowed them up and nothing is left but memory and reputation.  The question is whether the author is lamenting their loss or telling people to move on.  I think either reading works.
Of the eleven ladies mentioned here, I recognize only four.  No doubt an educated Frenchmen of 15th century would do much better.  I'd be interested to see a modern version.  What ladies of legend would we remember today?