Companion dear! so happily sojourning,
So blest am I, I care not forth to speed:
Here brightest beauty reigns, her smiles adorning
Her dwelling-place,—then wherefore should I heed
The morn or jealous eyes?
—Tr. by Taylor.
FABLES AND TALES.
FABLES.
A large and popular class of writing of the French Middle Ages was that of FABLIAUX or Fables. A Fable is "a recital, for the most part comic, of a real or possible event occurring in the ordinary affairs of human life."[1] We possess some two hundred of these fables, varying in length from twenty to five hundred lines. They are generally mocking, jocular, freespoken, half satirical stories of familiar people, and incidents in ordinary life. The follies of the clergy are especially exposed, though the peasants, knights, and even kings furnish frequent subjects. They are commonly very free and often licentious in language. The following is an example of the simpler kind of Fables.
[1] Quoted by Saintsbury from M. de Montaiglon, editor of the latest collection of Fabliaux (Parts 1872-'88).
THE PRIEST WHO ATE MULBERRIES.
Ye lordlings all, come lend an ear;
It boots ye naught to chafe or fleer,
As overgrown with pride:
Ye needs must hear Dan Guerin tell
What once a certain priest befell,
To market bent to ride.
The morn began to shine so bright,
When up this priest did leap full light
And called his folk around:
He bade them straight bring out his mare,
For he would presently repair
Unto the market-ground.
So bent he was on timely speed,
So pressing seemed his worldly need,
He weened 't were little wrong
If pater-nosters he delayed,
And cast for once they should be said
E'en as he rode along.