THE ABBOT OF COCKAIGNE.
No. 55.
I am the Abbot of Cockaigne,
And this is my counsel with topers;
And in the sect of Decius (gamesters) this is my will;
And whoso shall seek me in taverns before noon;
After evensong shall he go forth naked,
And thus, stripped of raiment, shall lament him:
Wafna! wafna!
O Fate most foul, what hast thou done?
The joys of man beneath the sun
Thou hast stolen, every one!
XXI.
The transition from these trivial and slightly interesting comic songs to poems of a serious import, which played so important a part in Goliardic literature, must of necessity be abrupt. It forms no part of my present purpose to exhibit the Wandering Students in their capacity as satirists. That belongs more properly to a study of the earlier Reformation than to such an inquiry as I have undertaken in this treatise. Satires, especially medieval satires, are apt, besides, to lose their force and value in translation. I have therefore confined myself to five specimens, more or less closely connected with the subjects handled in this study.
The first has the interest of containing some ideas which Villon preserved in his ballad of the men of old time.