Translation.—It is my design to turn the arts of an unskilful race to the fruit of a better life, and so proceed ye to each of the arts in order: O youth who have been deceived, come to my lessons.—Every class of the clergy is opposed to the laws, of whom the condition to-day is worse than it was yesterday; every priest will hold his own rites: envy detracted from the talents of great Homer.—When the sailor spreads his sail against the north wind, and the ass thinks to conquer the camel in the race, then the hand fears not to put the face towards heaven; I am wounded and carry the weapon shut up in my breast.—The shaggy she-goat wishes to be preferred to the sheep, in her folly not considering with what she is clothed; so fine a fleece has not been given to her: as the tortoise once said to the winged birds.—Although the logicians are satisfied with naked glory, and live under the garb of the needy, nevertheless they envy the rich. Envy seeks the summit, the wind blows vehemently on lofty places.—It is always the manner of envy, that they aim from the bottom upwards, the last speak against the first: he who is elevated does not think it worth while to envy him who is most low. The envious man becomes lean by regarding the fatness of another.—If you do not desire to live poor and beggarly, always labouring like the servant Stichus, a fig-tree without fruit worthy to be cast in the fire; love others so that thou mayest be a dear friend to thyself.—It is good for poor men to adhere to the law; I have chosen to labour much on the arts. I am ignorant therefore how I may be guided, who once composed verses, while my study flourished.—If any one will expend his labour upon logic, will it not produce him thorns and brambles? in too much sweat he will eat his bread; and even that his talkative tongue will hardly give him.—The logician in vain sows his seed in the sand, for in harvest time there will be no fruit; upon a barren fig-tree all labour is lost. Such as is the tree, such will be the fruit it bears.—Although you be arrived at the summit of the arts, you will be in a short time despised by the younger aspirants; they will say of thee, “he doats, affected with old age.” Old age, why do you emulous cease to hasten the end?—Thou sittest in the chair of a true pestilence, who readest the tragedy of Thebes or of Troy; [whilst] the seats of the legists abound in riches, and now he goes on horseback who used to go on foot.—He who sits up at night to study the arts is truly a fool; why do you yawn over the Georgic? thus the field may lie neglected and barren, while by chance you may be desirous of understanding the culture of the earth.—It is right that we should labour upon the laws; a field that produces a hundred-fold is not to be set aside. The book of the poor is to be read by the poor man; this chiefly is the book to be devotedly cultivated by thee.—Why do you consume your time upon dialectics, thou who receivest no income from other sources? Let him cultivate it who is born of high family in the country, rich in land and rich in money laid out at interest.—Let the rich man learn to be strong in fallacies; let him learn to make a she-goat of the person of chance. Let him never desert the arts, before the hour of his death. Satisfied with fame, let Lucan lie hid in the gardens.—If imbued in the arts he should chance to fail, he will fly to the legists if he will be safe: because he knows no more how to defend himself than one who is dumb, having pursued too much and too often the study of the Greeks.—I see the halls of the nobles open; when the legist comes, the bolts are undone; thou, shut out, mayest sit at the door, although thou thyself, Homer, shouldst come along with the muses.—The logician may be compared to a spider, which learns to spin subtle webs, that are made out of its own bowels; the reward is a fly, if by chance it can be netted.—If fortune favour a logician in his kindred, for she looks upon the logician with a benignant countenance; if a logician be rich under this sign of the heavens; he is a rare bird upon earth, and very like a black swan.—If you wish to know the secrets of nature, study physic which gives health to the limbs; what man’s need requires is enough, Galen and the sanction of Justinian are riches enough.
The following English verses, composed at the same period, seem also intended as a satire upon the studies and arguments of the dialectitians.
THE SONG OF “NEGO.”
[From MS. Harl. No. 913, fol. 58, vo. written in 1308.]
Hit nis bot trewth, I wend, an afte
For te sette nego in eni crafte;
Trewth so drawith to heven blisse,
Nego doth noȝt so i-wisse.
For-sak and save is thef in lore,