University of Virginia Library

My reader by experience is acquaint
That the fair god, whom as a child they paint,
(Though childish games are hardly all his sport)
Hath quivers two, of very different sort.
The one holds arrows, whose entrancing sting
Is felt with little risk or suffering;
These grow with time, and penetrate the heart,
Leaving the lively wounds they there impart.
Like raging fire, his other arrows fly,
Swift from the bow and burning instantly,
On senses five destruction fell they wreak,
With lively red illuminate the cheek;
With a new blood, men feel their bodies fired,
And with new being, hold themselves inspired.
Nothing they understand, their eyes are bright,
Gesture and action follow their mad flight.
Waters which boil tumultuous on the fire,
Which, o'er the copper's brink, rise and retire,
Which run away and leap and fall and waltz,
Are but an image, incomplete and false,
Of love's fierce fire, when once it agitates:
You know it, brethren mine, and all its states!
But this capricious god, our light love's king,
Contrived anon a far more pleasant thing:
Betwixt Cutendre and Blois, he caused to dwell
A beauteous maid, whose aspect amiable
Had left the charms of Agnes far behind,
If, with her beauty, her heart had been kind.
(A kind heart's worth much beauty in a dame!)
Foolish and young, Corisandre was her name.
Love's will it was, each king or cavalier,
Young bachelor or magistrate severe,
Should seek, grown foolish, being overfond
With this fair idiot a closer bond;
Servants, the people and the viler herd
Alone exempt were from this law absurd;
Gentle or kingly race one had to own
Thus to grow mad. Nor was it that alone:
The healing art, as much hemp as you will,
Brought little help and succour 'gainst this ill;
And worse and worse the brain would daily grow,
Till the fair fool would some complaisance show,
And such a time in destiny was writ
That, at the last, she might attain to wit.

On Loire's banks nurtured, lovers, more than one,
For Corisandre's sight, were all undone;
One, losing memory and sense, for food
Just as a stag, would pasture in the wood;
And one would think his buttocks were of glass,
And being jostled by the folk who pass,
Would weep because his back-side had been broke.
Goyon is sure he is of female folk,
Wears petticoats and dies of his despairs,
Because, to truss them up no lover cares:
A saddle Valori takes, by no means light;
He thinks himself an ass—is doubtless right—
Asks for his load, and ceases not to bray.
Sablé, transformed into a saucepot's way,
On three feet walks; upon the ground, one hand,
And one bow-legged. Alas, in this our land,
Amongst the madmen we might well have been,
Though the fair Corisandre we ne'er had seen.
Who is the sapient wit, who has not once,
Through his desires, been proved a very dunce?
Who has not had a check? In prose or verse,
All men are madmen, if they are not worse.

Now Corisandre a grandmother possessed,
Though stiff, a worthy dame by all confessed,
Whose pride, though she concealed it in the shade,
Was to behold the fools her daughter made.
But scruples 'gan her mind at last to urge,
Sorry she was for such a dismal scourge.
Her daughter then so fatal to the mind,
Within an hidden chamber she confined.
Before the castle she took care to place
Custodians two, with a forbidding face,
Ready the house's entrance to maintain
Against all comers, who would risk their brain.
The foolish Fair, to such seclusion brought,
Sang, sewed, embroidered, very little thought,
Regret or care, not e'en the least desire
Moved her to heal her lovers' maddened fire,
Though had the beauty had this tenderness,
All it had cost her, would be to say Yes.
The haughty Chandos, in high anger still
That his proud combatant had 'scaped his skill,
Straight to his Britons in his wrath returns;
E'en as the hound, whose savage jaw which yearns
Has snapped in vain at the escaping hare,
Turns, while his yelps of anger rend the air,
Then to his master with slow steps will go,
Head hanging down, and long tail drooping low.
Well his unworthy animal he cursed
Who, in soft duel, brought him off the worst.
His general withal, hastes to supply
A youthful colonel, happening to be by;
Bold Irishman, by name Paul Tirconel,
Whose chest was broad, who bore himself right well,
As stout of arm as limb, with iron spine,
Whose haughty brow was sealed with the consign
Of one who never such affronts would face,
As now made Chandos redden in disgrace.

This martial pair, with gallant throng behind,
The gates of Corisandre's house now find;
They seek to enter, when the porters cry:
‘We bid you halt; bethink you ere you try
To enter here and Corisandre behold,
If you would wish what wits you have to hold.’
Proud Chandos this a further insult deems,
Onward he rushes, while his fury teems;
With one straight blow, he sends twelve yards away
One porter, with his arm put out of play;
Aching and bruised he lies upon the sand.
Paul Tirconel, with no less ruthless hand,
Spurs on his fiery steed and whips him twice,
Presses his knees, lets rein and in a trice
The courser like a lightning flash has sped,
And passes o'er the other porter's head;
Lifting his front, a moment still he gazed,
A moment rests astonished and amazed,
Then turning round receives a doughty blow,
Which, like his erstwhile colleague, lays him low.
So in the province, some gay officer,
A dandy, natty, fond of sport and stir,
Runs to the play amain, the porter beats
And, without paying, from his ravished seats
He hisses everything he contemplates.

The English suite within the courtyard swarm;
The ancient Dame descends in high alarm,
While Corisandre, affrighted at the noise,
Her kirtle dons and from her room deploys.
Chandos addresses her a salute short,
True Englishman! much speech was not his forte;
But when he saw a face so innocent,
That lily-skin, those charms so succulent,
Those budding breasts and arms of ivory,
Which nature's hands had rounded artfully,
A happy chance he vowed was his to seize;
When Corisandre, with mien not quite at ease,
Casts him a glance which little seemed to say.
For Paul Tirconel, in his courteous way,
Saluted both the daughter and the dame,
And ogled in his turn and felt love's flame.
What happened then? Alas, fell madness came.

Chandos, affected by that malady,
As horse-dealer, native of Normandy,
The youthful fair declares to be a horse,
Who must be saddled, mounted in due course,
He whips her fleshly saddle with a crack,
And in a trice is mounted on her back.
The fair cries out, and under Chandos falls.
Paul Tirconel, whom different mania calls,
A tavern-keeper holds himself to be,
And takes the fair, who's crouched upon her knee,
For a fat tun of wine, which he must bore,
Good wine and lees from th'orifice to draw.
Still straddling her, Chandos cries out: ‘Have done,
God dam! You're mad, I think the evil one
Has crossed your wits; you cannot even tell
From tun of wine, my white mare Isabel!...’
‘It is my tun, my tap's occasion.’
‘It is my horse...’ ‘My brother, 'tis my tun...’
Both were exactly certain they were right,
And for their mad opinion fain to fight,
With just such fire, as monks in angry vein,
Devotion of their scapular maintain,
Or d'Olivet upholds his Cicero.
Swift contradictions rattle to and fro,
And certain words, which, thank my modesty,
I spare my readers' ears; vocabulary
Which, loathed by proper pride, our Britons famed,
Who vaunt their sabres, look on unashamed.
As winds, which gather force, though erstwhile weak,
Are roused and growl and fragile vessels break,
Which toss too much the waters to withstand,
Horror is shed by them o'er all the land—
So our two Englishmen at first were viewed
In laughter's semblance and a joking mood;
Then vexed, delirious fancies on them steal,
They both rush on, determined death to deal.
Both are on guard, in a like posture shown,
With outstretched arms and bodies forward thrown,
In quart, in tierce, their tough skins they attack.
But soon all rule and measure 'gin to lack,
As hotter still, and fiercer, more incensed
With slashing blows of the keen steel they fenced.
Less fierce in Etna's forge the one-eyed crew,
Out of the anvil, fiery sparks pursue,
Beneath less heavy hammers, who prepare
For thunder's master his big cannon there.

On every side blood casts a lavish stain,
From neck and arm and from the riven brain,
But not one cry succeeded to the wound;
The worthy dame would cure them sans a sound,
To strip them of their armour she desired,
A Pater said, a confessor required:
Her daughter all the time, with languid view,
Bridled and sought her coiffure to renew.
Our British pair, exhausted, drenched in gore,
Were lying both full length upon the floor,
When who should come but the great King of France
With all his gallant knights, who bore the lance,
And those bright fair, within his court, who throve
Worthy of Mars and of the God of Love.
Beholding these, the beauteous Fool draws nigh,
And humbly drops a clumsy curtesy,
Bids them good day with utter nonchalance,
And looks at all things with indifference.
Who e'er had thought that nature would admit
Poison so much in eyes so lacking wit.
The beauty even hardly deigns to glance
At the distracted, handsome heads of France.
Heaven sheds its benign graces every day,
Which mortals take in very different way;
All things are fashioned to the time and place,
And very diverse are the effects of grace.
The self-same sap when nourished in the earth,
Of divers fruits the essences of birth,
Produces pinks, the thistle and the rose;
And d'Argens sighs when d'Arget laughter knows.
Maupertuis of folly's as prolific
As Newton of his theories scientific.
A certain king to use his soldiers knows
As often for his loves as 'gainst his foes.
All's variable; and in a different strain
Function the British and the Gallic brain:
Each one the customs of his country fits;
With Englishmen, of hard and sombre wits,
Madness is atrabilious, black as night;
But with the French, it lively is and light.

Our folk the hands of one and other seize,
Dance in a ring, sing choruses that please.
The fat Bonneau exertions makes immense,
Though just as scant of breath as of cadence;
While Father Bonifoux, psalter in hand,
Dances with slower steps with the mad band;
Him doth the page, above the rest, beguile,
Though by his pious language and his smile,
His accent, gestures and his eyes so kind,
It seemed the Father had a rag of mind.

That novel ill which fascinates the view
Of this most royal and fantastic crew,
Leads them the castle's great court-yard to deem
A garden, wherein flows a pleasant stream.
They wish to bathe, their clothes and corslets pass,
And nakedly disport them on the grass,
Swim in the void, and lift aloft the chin,
Thinking clear water covers them within.
The monk, the while he swam, 'tis meet to note,
From the enchanting page was ne'er remote.

At such a mass of noddles without brain,
Such nudity, our modest fair with pain,
The Maid and Agnes and fair Dorothy
Discreetly turned their head and shut the eye,
Then looked again, then after once again
Eyes, heart and hand to the celestial plain.
‘Have I then come’, cried Joan, ‘to such a pass?
I have St. Denis for me and mine ass;
And many an impious Briton I have braved,
Avenged my prince, and many a convent saved;
T'wards Orléans' walls my stressful way I've ta'en;
And Destiny must make my labour vain—
Our heroes mad?’ Agnes and Dorothy
Contained themselves with certain difficulty;
Sometimes they laughed, sometimes were passing sad
To see great kings and noble heroes mad.
But what to do? Where fly? Oh, whither get?
Cutendre's castle they might well regret;
Had not a servant, of her secret lore,
Taught them the art wits wandering to restore.
‘Good sense once lost,’ she said, ‘'tis Fate's decree,
To brains whence it has flown, restored can be,
Only when Corisandre the fair will deign
In snares of love to let herself be ta'en.’

This good advice was not without avail,
The muleteer to heed it did not fail:
Doubtless you know that lecher of remark
Was always amorous of Joan of Arc,
And jealous of the ass, discreet of walk,
That Amazon he never ceased to stalk.
When thus he heard, in confidence arrayed,
He starts forthwith his King and France to aid.
Just in a corner chanced the fair to lie,
Whom from afar he had been pleased to spy;
T'wards her he runs, well armed with fire and rage.
They thought him mad, who was the only sage.
O muleteer! on thee what treasures rare
Kind nature had bestowed with partial care,
Thy lowly fortune compensating well.
With one swift bound he subjugates the belle.

To her, in fine, the pleasing moment came
To learn and know; and scarce was lit that flame
Of pleasure, whereof previous ignorance
In her young soul had dulled intelligence,
Than the enchaunting spell prevails no more,
And every brain is almost as before;
Almost I say, for there was slight mistake.
King Charles, forsooth, the sturdy sense must take
Of old Bonneau, who, for his part received
Wits of the monk; and thus were all deceived.
Little advantage came of this exchange;
The human reason, God's great gift, 'tis strange,
Is a small thing, but grudgingly bestowed,
And every mortal's content with his load.
So change had with the lovers no effect;
Each one preserved for his fair dame elect
His former taste and sweet significance:
And what has love to do with common sense?
For Corisandre, new knowledge she procured
Of good and ill; a confidence assured
Of art and taste, an excellent reward
For all her previous innocence ignored;
All this the presents of a muleteer!
Thus Adam's silly partner, so we hear,
In garden lived and pleasure came not near,
Until the Devil hove within her sight,
And made her charming, subtile, witty, light,
As are the women whom to day we meet,
Who have no need the Devil to entreat.