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?

Author Timeline

Author Timeline

BC
Aristophanes 446 - 386
Plato 424? - 348?
Aristotle 384 - 322

AD
Plutarch 46 - 120
Gospel of Matthew, Acts of the Apostles (around the end of the first century)
St. Augistine 354 - 430
Machiavelli 1469 - 1527
Rabelais 1494 - 1553
Montaigne 1533 - 1592
Shakespeare 1564 - 1616
Locke 1632 - 1704
Rousseau 1712 - 1778
Gibbon 1737 - 1794
Declaration of Independence - 1776
The Constitution of the US - 1787
Federalist Papers 1787 -1788
Smith 1723 - 1790
Marx/Engles 1818 - 1883/1820 - 1895

November Reading

The calendar page turns again and we move on.  This month we're reading several of the founding documents of the United States.   The fact that we're having a general election here next week is simply good luck timing. 
I've added the Articles of Confederation to the reading.  I've heard of it but never read it before now.  I hope it will be useful to compare it with the Constitution that followed it. 

Articles of Confederation (link)

Declaration of Independence (link)

Constitution of the United States (link)

Federalist Papers #s 1-10, 15, 31, 47, 51, 68-71 (link)

Christianity and Empire

Gibbon created something of a sensation in the 1770's, when he suggested that Christianity helped weaken and dissolve the Roman empire. 

The clergy successfully preached the doctrines of patience and pusillanimity; the active virtues of society were discouraged; and large portion of public and private wealth was consecrated to the specious demands of charity and devotion; and the soldiers' pay was lavished on the useless multitudes of both sexes, who could only plead the merits of abstinence and chastity. Faith, zeal, curiosity, and the more earthly passions of malice and ambition kindled the flame of theological discord; the church, and even the state, were distracted by religious factions; whose conflicts were sometimes bloody, and always implacable; the attention of emperors was diverted from camps to synods; the Roman world was oppressed by a new species of tyranny; and the persecuted sects became the secrets enemies of the country.

Gibbon is claiming that the creation of the large Christian system 1) moved money away from more useful pursuits, 2) created factionalism and 3) distracted Romans (even emperors) from more pressing affairs of state.  We know a lot more about the Roman empire now in 2012 than Gibbon did in the 18th century and we can now say with confidence that he is wrong (or at least overstating) each of these problems.  At the very least, he is wrong to lay these at the feet of Christianity in some unique way.
The amount of money that was given to the church was trivial as a whole.  And was probably comparable to what had been given in various celebrations and sacrifices in the pre-Christian era.  Some wealth was taken out of production as churches became more ornate, but again, this was little different than what was happening with wealthy estates.  If anything, the Christian practices of distributing alms to the poor, probably offset any loss.
Factionalism was alive and well before the first Christian apostles appeared.  In fact, well before the time of Christ.  We know this was true at the very highest levels of the Senate and throughout the peoples.  It's more likely that Christianity had an overall unifying effect than otherwise.
The third claim is a bit harder to judge.  Over time, the Romans certainly did lose focus on the qualities that had given them an empire.  Early Roman expansion was built on, among other things, a celebration of military qualities.  Was that weakened by Christian thought?  Well, it certainly didn't end Roman wars.  Constantine was the emperor that made Christianity an official Roman religion.  He fought and others fought after him.  But it has to be noted that the 'map' didn't really expand much after him.

Overall, I'm sympathetic with the notion that philosophical ideas can build up and bring down empires.  I'm just not very convinced by the case that Gibbon brings forth.

Chaucer - Poetry

I've read some Chaucer before but usually in translations.  This time we get a bit in Middle English, though it's not hard to decipher.  From (of course), 'The Canterbury Tales', which we'll tackle in year ten(!).

When that Aprille, with hise shoures soote,
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote
And bathed every veyne in swich licour,
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
When Zephirus eek with his swete breeth
Insipired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe course yronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open eyes-
So priketh hem Nature in hir corages-
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages
And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes
To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;
And specially, from every shires ende
Of Engelond, to Caunturbury they wende,
The hooly blisful martir for to seke
That hem hath holpen, whan that they were seeke.

I typed this out from the book, so apologies for any misspellings.  My spell-check is kind of freaked out by the whole ordeal.  It must not be set for Middle English.
As before, when reading the beginning of longer poems, this snippet really doesn't do justice to the whole.  I wish that the editor (Leslie Pockell) had done a bit more sections within the longer poems, rather than just taking the first part.  As it is, there is nothing terribly remarkable about this passage.  I can't find a phrase in it that is well quoted.
In this case, I know that Chaucer has good stuff.  This ain't it.

November Reading

I'm throwing an extra item into the readings for November, simply because it makes sense to me.  Follow along if you'd like, ignore if you'd rather.  The overall selection is a set of the founding documents for the United States.  I'm adding in the 'Articles of Confederation', the lesser known precursor to the US Constitution.  I'm hoping that this will provide a bigger picture on the evolution of the process.

• Articles of Confederation (link)
• Declaration of Independence (link)
• Constitution of the United States (link)
• Federalist Papers #s 1-10, 15, 31, 47, 51, 68-71 (link)

Gibbon Thoughts

1. I meant to post a bunch this week but I'm under the weather.  2. I wonder if this post title will result in some strange hits to the blog.

I found this month's reading to be frustrating.  Gibbon has an easy style and he is certainly readable.  The problem is that it's frustrating to only read a small section from the middle of a much larger narrative.  This wasn't an issue earlier in the year when we read Plutarch, since his chapters were all nicely self contained.  Not so here. 
Not that I have an easy solution here.  Reading the entire 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' is not a small task.  It certainly wouldn't work inside of the full reading plan where each month we move to something new.  And, sadly, we don't come back to Gibbon at all.