LXXV.
To vndirtake to avance werre, |f. 56.|
Make thou not Paris the begynner;
Better he cowde (take vittenes aboue)
Disporte in the feyre armes of his loue.
Paris was nothyng condicionned to armes, but all to loue. Therefor it is seide to the goode knyght that he shuld not make a cheuetayne of his host ne of his bateilles a knyght the whiche is not apte to armes. And therefor Aristotyl seith to Alizaunder, “Thou shuldest make hym connestabil of thyne oste that thou knowes is wyse and experte in armes.”
That ye shulde not make Paaris to begynne yowre werres, it is to vnderstonde that the good knyght gostly, tendyng only to the knyghthode of heuen, shuld be holly drawen fro the worlde and ches contemplatyue lyffe. And Seynt Grigore seith vpon Ezeciell that the lyffe contemplatyue is of ryght preferred afore the actiue liue as for the worthier and the gretter, for the actiue life travellith hymselfe in the laboure of this present lyfe, but the contemplatyve lyfe farith as he that tristith[[458]] the sauour of the reste that is for to come. Wherefor the Gospell seith off Mary Magdalene, be whom contemplacion is figured, [“Optimam partem elegit sibi Maria, quæ non auseretur ab ea”].[[459]]