TWO EPIGRAMS.
(The 41st of the First Book and the 46th of the Second.)
These two epigrams are again but examples of the readiness, the wit, the hard surface of Marot, and they needed no more poetry than was in Voltaire or Swift, but they needed style. It was this absolute and standard style which his contemporaries chiefly remarked in him: the marvel was, that being mainly such an epigrammatist and scholar, and praised and supported only in that guise, he should have carried in him any, or rather so much, fire.
The first was his reply to a Dixaine the king's sister had sent him. The second explains itself.
TWO EPIGRAMS.
Mes créanciers, qui de dixains n'ont cure,
Ont leu le vostre; et sur ce leur ay dict:
"Sire Michel, sire Bonaventure,
La soeur du Roy a pour moy faict ce dit."
Lors eulx cuydans que fusse en grand crédict,
M'ont appelé monsieur à cry et cor,
Et m'a valu vostre escript aultant qu'or;
Car promis m'ont non seulement d'attendre,
Mais d'en prester, foy de marchant, encor,
Et j'ay promis, foy de Clément, d'en prendre.
Paris, tu m'as faict maints alarmes,
Jusque à me poursuivre à la mort:
Je n'ay que blasonné tes armes:
Un ver, quand on le presse, il mord!
Encor la coulpe m'en remord.
Ne scay de toy comment sera;
Mais de nous deux le diable emport
Celuy qui recommencera.