Ronsard. Pour avoir trop aimé vostre bande inégale, Muses. Au nocher qui sans cesse erre sur la marine Le teint noir appartient; le soldat n'est point beau Ronsard. Mais quelle recompense aurois-je de tant suivre Muses. Vous aurez, en vivant, une fameuse gloire, Ronsard. O le gentil loyer! Que sert au viel Homère, 129 DIALOGUE WITH THE NINE SISTERS. Muses. Vous estes abusé. Le corps dessous la lame Pourry ne sent plus rien, aussy ne luy en chaut. Mais un tel accident n'arrive point à l'ame, Qui sans matière vist immortelle là haut. Ronsard. Bien! Je vous suyvray donc d'une face plaisante, Et ne fust-ce qu'à fin que la race suyvante Muses. Vela saigement dit, Ceux dont la fantaisie SEVEN years after Rabelais died, Ronsard wrote this offhand. I give it, not for its value, but because it connects these two great names. The man who wrote it had seen that large and honorable mouth worshipping wine: he had reverenced that head of laughter which has corrected all our philosophy. It would be a shame to pass such a name as Ronsard's signed to an epitaph on such a work as that of Rabelais, poetry or no poetry. Ronsard also from a tower at Meudon used to creep out at night and drink with that fellow-priest, vicar of the Parish, Rabelais: a greater man than he. By a memory separate from the rest of his verse, Ronsard was moved to write this Rabelaisian thing. For he had seen him "full length upon the grass and singing so.' " There is no need of notes, for these great names of Gargantua, Panurge and Friar John are household to every honest man. |