Roman de Mahommet, l. 301.
[7944]. Avynet. In the 14th and 15th centuries, as any grammar was called a Donet, because the treatise of Donatus was the main foundation of them all, so, from Esop and Avienus from whom the materials were taken, any collection of fables was called an Avionet or an Esopet. The title of one of these collections in a MS. of the Bibl. du Roi at Paris is, Compilacio Ysopi alata cum Avionetto, cum quibusdam addicionibus et moralitatibus. (Robert, Fabl. Inéd. Essay, p. clxv.) Perhaps the reference in the present case is to the fable of the Peacock who complained of his voice, the 39th in the collection which M. Robert calls Ysopet, in the morality to which are the following lines:—
Les riches conteront
Des biens qu'il aront
En ce siecle conquis.
Cil qui petit ara,
De petit contera
Au Roy de paradis.
Qui vit en povreté,
Sans point d'iniquité,