Eventez ceste plaine
Eventez ce séjour,
Ce pendant que j'ahanne
A mon blé que je vanne
A la chaleur du jour.
THE FUNERAL ODES OF THE DOG AND THE CAT.
Here are extracts from those two delightful and tender things to which allusion has already been made. The epitaphs upon his little dog and his little cat.
It was a character in this sad man to make little, humble, grotesque, pleasing images of grief; as it were, little idols of his goddess; and he fashioned them with an exquisite humour and affection. What animal of the sixteenth century lives so clearly as these two? None, I think, except some few in the pictures of the painters of the low countries.
I wish I had space to print both these threnodies in full, but they are somewhat long, and I must beg my reader to find them in the printed works of Du Bellay. It is well worth the pains of looking.