OF COURTING LONG AGO.
(The Eighth of the Roundels.)
This is a fair enough specimen of Marot at his daily gait: an easy versifier "on a theme" and no more. I have said that it is unjust to judge him on that level, and I have said why; but I give this to give the man as he moved domestically to the admiration of the court and of his friends in a time which missed, for example, the epic character of the last six lines of "Le Beau Tettin," and which hardly comprehended of what value his pure lyric enthusiasms would be to a sadder and drier posterity.
OF COURTING LONG AGO.
Au bon vieulx temps un train d'amour regnoit,
Qui sans grand art et dons se démenoit,
Si qu'un boucquet donné d'amour profonde
S'estoit donné toute la terre ronde:
Car seulement au cueur on se prenoit.
Et si, par cas, à jouyr on venoit,
Sçavez-vous bien comme on s'entretenoit?
Vingt ans, trente ans; cela duroit ung monde
Au bon vieulx temps.
Or est perdu ce qu'amour ordonnoit,
Rien que pleurs fainctz, rien que changes on n'oyt.
Qui vouldra donc qu'à aymer je me fonde,
Il fault, premier, que l'amour on refonde
Et qu'on la meine ainsi qu'on la menoit
Au bon vieulx temps.