De long repas immodere,” etc., etc.
In another scene the drunken revelry of the Banqueters is re-enacted, on the return of the convicts from exile, and another temptation to the weak and young and foolish. In fact, one of the youths present, Folly (Le Fol), is attacked and badly used up by the villain Gravel. The poor fellow cries:
“Alarme! Je ne puis pisser
La Gravelle me tient aux rains!
Venez ouyr mes piteux plains,
Vous, l’Orfevre et l’Appoticaire.”
Then follows a comical scene of suffering, couched in such language as would offend modern ears polite, and, therefore, out of respect to the reader omitted.
In this play are many dialogues between Hippocrates, Galen, Avicenna, and Averrhoes, who discuss medical topics at length, but these are too lengthy for reproduction in this epitomized translation.
The morality of Nicole de la Chesnaye is full of good intentions, but it is questionable whether he accomplished any considerable result in reforming the morals of the Middle Ages; he perhaps fell as short in his aim as modern hygienists on the morality of our own epoch. The same instincts predominate now as in days of antiquity; the society man of to-day is generally a mere digestive tube, serving to keep alive the more or less badly served vital organs.