Or els of stronge Sampson, who can tell?
Were not wormes ordeyned theyr flesh to frete?
And of Salomon, that was of wyt the well?
Absolon profferyd his heare for to sell,
Yet for al his bewte wormys ete him also]
—stercorry, i. e. dung: frete, i. e. eat, devour: heare, i. e. hair.—In cap. iii. of Meditationes piissimæ de cognitione humanæ conditionis, a piece attributed to Saint Bernard, we find, “Nihil aliud est homo, quam sperma fœtidum, saccus stercorum, cibus vermium.... Cur ergo superbis homo.... Quid superbis pulvis et cinis,” &c. Bernardi Opp. ii. 335-36. ed. 1719. In a Rythmus de contemptu mundi, attributed to the same saint, are these lines;
“Dic ubi Salomon, olim tam nobilis?
Vel ubi Samson est, dux invincibilis?
Vel pulcher Absalon, vultu mirabilis?
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