Camélion c'est une beste fière
Qui vit tansoulement de l'air sanz plus;
Ensi pour dire en mesme la manière,
De soule espoir qe j'ai d'amour conçuz
Sont mes pensers en vie sustenuz.
Ballad xvi; what a chameleon is, was thus explained in a Vocabulary of the fifteenth century: "Hic gamelion, animal varii coloris et sola aere vivit—a buttyrfle" (Th. Wright, "Vocabularies," 1857, 4to, p, 220).
[617] "Poema quod dicitur Vox Clamantis," ed. Coxe, Roxburghe Club, 1850, 4to. He also wrote in Latin verse "Chronica Tripartita" (wherein he relates, and judges with great severity, the reign of Richard II., from 1387 to the accession of Henry IV.), and several other poems on the vices of the time, the whole printed by Th. Wright, in his "Political Poems," vol. i. Rolls. The "Chronica" are also printed with the "Vox Clamantis."
[618] P. 31. He jeers at the vulgarity of their names:
Hudde ferit, quos Judde terit, dum Cobbe minatur ...
Hogge suam pompam vibrat, dum se putat omni
Majorem Rege nobilitate fore.
Balle propheta docet, quem spiritus ante malignus
Edocuit ...
(p. 50.)
The famous John Ball is here referred to, the apostle of the revolt, who died quartered. See below, p. 413.
Est sibi crassus equus, restatque scientia macra ...
Ad latus et cornu sufflans gerit, unde redundant
Mons, nemus, unde lepus visa pericla fugit....