vanity of honours, from oppressive luxury and cruel war.
Medieval literature inherited from the classic authors the theme of the praise of the simple life, which may be called the negative side of the bucolic sentiment. Court life and aristocratic pretension are disavowed in favour of solitude, work and study. In the fourteenth century this theme had found its typical expression in France in Le Dit de Franc Gontier of Philippe de Vitri, bishop of Meaux, musician and poet, and a friend of Petrarch.
"Soubz feuille vert, sur herbe delitable
Lez ru bruiant et prez clere fontaine
Trouvay fichee une borde portable,
Ilec mengeoit Gontier o dame Helayne
Fromage frais, laict, burre fromaigee,
Craime, matton, pomme, nois, prune, poire,
Aulx et oignons, escaillongne froyee
Sur crouste bise, au gros sel, pour mieux boire."[1]
After the meal they kiss "both the mouth and the nose, the soft and the shaggy," then Gontier goes off to fell a tree, while Helayne goes to do the washing.
"J'oy Gontier en abatant son arbre
Dieu mercier de sa vie seüre:
'Ne'sçay', dit-il, 'que sont pilliers de marbre,
Pommeaux luisans, murs vestus de paincture;
Je n'ay paour de traïson tissue
Soubz beau semblant, ne qu'empoisonné soye
kin vaisseau d'or. Je n'ay la teste nue
Devant thirant, ne genoil qui's'i ploye.
'Verge d'uissier jamais ne me deboute,
Car jusques la ne m'esprent convoitise,
Ambicion, ne lescherie gloute.
Labour me paist en joieuse franchise;
Moult j'ame Helayne et elle moy sans faille,
Et c'est assez. De tombel n'avons cure.'
Lors je dy: 'Las! serf de court ne vault maille,
Mais Franc Gontier vault en or jame pure.'"[2]
- ↑ Under green leaves, on delightful grass Near a noisy brook and a clear fountain I found a portable board, There Gontier took his meal with dame Helayne On fresh cheese, milk, cream and cheese, curds, apple, nut, plum, peer, Garlic and onions, chopped shallots On a brown crust, with coarse salt, to drink the better.
- ↑ I heard Gontier in felling his tree Thank God for his life of security: "I do not know," he said, "what are pillars of marble, Shining pommels, walls
