4) [Francois Villon Selected Poems] translated by Peter Dale
Francois Villon (1431-1463) was a murderer, theif, brawler and jailbird, but he found the the time and inspiration to write poetry that has been acclaimed as some of the best of French lyricism. He was no fifteenth century courtier writing flowery verse to the lady of his dreams; no pandering powdered flunky, but a man steeped in the ordure of medieval Paris; more at home in the criminal underworld than the higher circles of society. His poetry is full of rage, of protest and a feel of a man banging his head against a wall, determined to be heard as he rails against the injustices that he sees all around him.

Villon held no official positions or place in society but we still know quite a bit about him from two sources; unfortunately one of these is the criminal records of the time and the other is his own version of events mainly in his long poem Le Testement. He was born in 1431 and his early education was on the streets of Paris. He was taken under the wing of a churchman Guillaume de Villon and received an education and in 1449 he received his degree in Paris, which also fortunately entitled him to the protection of the church as opposed to civil law. He led a riotous life as a student and surfaced officially again in 1455 as a result of his murder of a priest in a dagger fight. He fled Paris, but a plea of self defence was accepted and he was pardoned in 1446. In that same year he was implicated in the famous robbery of the college of Navarre, he fled again and this time he was banished, making whatever living he could as a clerk and vagabond. In 1460 he was found in Orleans and imprisoned for his part in the robbery, freed in a general amnesty he was subsequently imprisoned by the Bishop of Aussigny in Meung-sur-Loire. He was tortured and held in appalling conditions, until another amnesty secured his release. He then composed his famous Le Testement with its opening stanzas telling of his treatment at the hands of the Bishop. He slunk back to Paris but was soon arrested again for brawling and this time sentenced to death by strangulation and hanging. He escaped the gallows by yet another amnesty, but now broken in health he disappears from view in 1463.

Villons life of hard knocks gave him plenty to write about and most of this poured out of him in Le Testement. His earlier Le Lais was a dry run for his masterpiece, but these and a few other shorter poems notably: Villons Debate with his Heart and Ballad of the Hanged Man are all that his reputation is based on. He was writing 20 years before the invention of the printing press and he joked about his testement being heard throughout France, he could hardly have imagined that it would become one of the most famous poems in French literature.

Villons subject matter is the human condition; the unfairness of the haves and the have nots, the degradation of the human spirit through poverty and age, the ability of love to make a fool of both men and women and finally the futility of an existence when all that we have to look forward to is a painful death. These are themes as relevant today as they were for Villon and it is his incorrigible spirit, his defiance and his humour that hold us spellbound when we read his poems. The final lines of Le Testement show a man who is able to raise a glass of wine as the curtain falls on his life:

"Prince, gentle as a merlin hear
what part he did upon the pall
he swigged his wine, dark red and clear
prepared to leave this world and all.

The first 1000 lines of Le Testement are superb indeed; the poet uses them to reflect on his life and times. How much of this is authentic we cannot know for sure, after all it is Villons testement, but its intensity of feeling speaks in volumes to us. We learn of his imprisonement and torture in some biting irony:

"He fattened me for half a year
on one small loaf and water free
Generous? Tight? a sows ear
God deal with him as he with me."
(He was subjected to water torture in the Bishop of Aussigny's prison)

Villons testement however is no panegyric; on the one hand he says he is innocent and his conscience is clear and on the other he admits to the most apalling behaviour, the poems constant movement between these two positions gives it an authenticity and realism that is enthralling.

Many of the 205 stanzas are are of eight lines with a regular rhyming scheme and these are interspersed with a number of ballads that have become famous down the years. These ballads develop out of the longer poem and are an essential part of it. In one of these he speaks with the voice of an old woman; Le Regrets de la Belle Haulmiere (The old woman regrets the days of her youth). The old woman has outlived her lover who has treated her badly:

"But now he is dead this thirty year
While I survive grey haired and old
Oh, when I see what filth appears
When I am naked I grow cold:
Poor dry shrivelled, fold on fold
What once I was, what now in age:
Meagre and rank, nothing to hold
I almost lose my mind in rage."

The old woman almost loses her mind in rage and this is symptomatic of Villon's poetry; a railing against the world, against the human condition will break through the irony and humour. Villon as one would expect does no see love through the rose coloured glasses of the courtly lover; it is bawdy, bestial and not to be trusted; stanza 69 is a double ballade with the refrain "happy the man who has none of it.". His views on women are somewhat refreshing for a medieval man; all are decent and respectable to begin with, it is life and human nature that changes things. This is wonderful humanist poetry. Villon's ability to drop the reader right into the life and times of Medieval Paris is uncanny, with his trenchant observations of life, which he is able to portray in terse energetic lines.

I read the Penguin classics edition translated by Peter Dale. It has both the original french and the English translation on opposite pages. Dale has taken some liberties with the text to provide a strict metrical translation with the rhyming scheme in tact. This is fine because you can always refer back to the original french if you choose to do so. There is much for the modern reader to enjoy here and for me it was a five star read. ( )