Ballade

		Pour être un digne et bon Crétien,
 		il faut à Christ être semblable,
 		il faut renoncer à tout bien,
 		à tout honneur qui est damnable;
 		à la dame belle et jolie,
 		à plaisir qui la chair émeut,
 		laisser, laisser honneurs, biens et l'amie.
 		Ne fait pas ce tout là qui veut.

		 Ses biens aux pauvres faut donner
 		d'un coeur joyeux et volontaire;
 		faut les injures pardonner
 		et à ses ennemis bien faire;
 		s'éjouir en mélancolie
 		et tourment dont la chair s'émeut,
 		aimer la mort, la mort comme la vie!
 		Ne fait pas ce tout là qui veut.

	
42   Chanson Spirituelle
     
(Pensées de la Reine de Navarre, étant dans sa litière durant la maladie du Roi.)
     
ODIEU, qui les vostres
aimez,
J'adresse à vous seul ma complainte;
Vous, qui les amis estimez,
Voyez l'amour que j'ai sans feinte,
Où
par votre loi suis contrainte,
Et par nature et par raison.
J'appelle chaque Saint et Sainte
Pour se joindre à
mon oraison.     
Las! celui que vous aimez tant
Est détenu par maladie,
Qui rend son peuple malcontent,
Et moi, envers
vous si hardie
Que j'obtiendrai, quoique l'on die,
Pour lui très parfaite santé.
De vous seul ce bien je mendie,
Pour
rendre chacun contenté.
     
     
Le désir du bien que j'attens
Me donne de travail matière.
Une heure me dure cent ans,
Et me semble que
ma litière
Ne bouge ou retourne en arrière,
Tant j'ai de m'avancer désir.
O! qu'elle est longue, la carrière
Où a la
fin gist mon plaisir!
     
     
Je regarde de tous costés
Pour voir s'il arrive personne;
Priant sans cesser, n'en doutez,
Dieu, que santé à
mon Roi donne;
Quand nul ne vois, l'oeil j'abandonne
A pleurer; puis sur le papier
Un peu de ma douleur
j'ordonne:
Voilà mon douloureux mestier.
     
     
O! qu'il sera le bienvenu,
Celui qui, frappant à ma porte,
Dira `Le Roi est revenu
En sa santé très bonne et
forte!'
Alors sa soeur, plus mal que morte,
Courra baiser le messager
Qui telles nouvelles apporte,
Que
son frère est hors de danger.
     
 Les prisons
  
[Hilda Dale has translated Les prisons, an allegory
  in which a male narrator describes three successive prisons from
  which he has been freed: changeable human love, worldly wealth
  and honor, and pride in human learning. Dale's introduction is
  thorough and her notes detailed:]
  
The Prisons of Marguerite de Navarre / translated by Hilda
  Dale. Reading: Whiteknights Press, 1989. (xix, 152 p.)

  LC#: PQ1631 .P713 1989;   ISBN: 0704901145 

  Includes bibliographical references (p.151-152).
  
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  "...would permit me to transgress because I had the means
  to make amends." 

  ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  
[After his first prison, human love, had been destroyed
  by fire, the narrator found that with wealth, he could do whatever
  he liked and still be acceptable to churchmen:]
  
And so quite soon there came into my mind

  Lady Hypocrisy who settled there

  And told me how much I should be revered 

  If I was pious and generous to the church.
  
Believing her, I thought I could rely

  On churches and the chantries I would build

  To keep my memory alive in stone,

  And I would gain through those same stones the bliss

  Of true salvation; for I thought those chants

  Would purge me of my greatest trespasses

  And even would permit me to transgress

  Because I had the means to make amends:

  A few pence would suffice to have Mass said

  And leave me free to break my promises;

  Or if I failed to keep my marriage vows

  I still could be absolved by making gifts---

  Some money, artefact or precious shrine

  Brought from great Cairo by King Charlemagne.       
  [ll.231-48; pp.25-26]
  
-------------------------------------------------------

  "Believing now that women should be used...."

  -------------------------------------------------------
  
[He came to accept the worldly view of women:]
  
For never did I wish to bind my heart

  Again or love and serve another friend,

  Believing now that women should be used,

  Not idolized nor wooed with flattery,

  But rather used as beasts are by their kind,

  No passion there....
  
Though I shall never marry, no indeed,

  Nor let myself be bound by any ties

  To wife or mistress or revered lady;

  I'll have them all, today or any time,

  And they shall give me pleasure when I will.       [ll.309-14,
  334-38; pp.27-28]
  
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  "The most used craft and guile, knowing the shortest way
  to reach the top."   

  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  
[And of power:]
  
Now I observed the majesty of kings

  And emperors, their triumphs and display,

  Their power to command, authority 

  To take, without a simple "by your leave";

  How they are served, receive obedience

  Often from those who hate them bitterly:

  So long as, under God, they keep their power,

  So long their subjects serve them and obey....
  
I saw men rising, climbing step by step,

  Until they gained supreme authority.

  Some came to high estate by force of arms,

  While other sought to reach it through their friends

  And make their way through influence and wealth;

  Some rose through learning and integrity,

  But they were few; the most used craft and guile,

  Knowing the shortest way to reach the top.      
  [ll.353-60; 385-92; pp.28-29]
  
----------------------------------------------------

  "Among them all was one, a woman's work."

  ----------------------------------------------------
  
[Having realized that worldly ambition was also a prison,
  the narrator became a scholar. At first, he was happy gathering
  all human knowledge and proud of what he has attained; gradually,
  though, he learned that there was knowledge beyond the human,
  and that for this, intellectual training was not enough. He began
  to look at books based on Scripture, and found an old, anonymous
  work written by a woman. Navarre didn't know who the woman was;
  scholars now agree that it was Marguerite Porete, and the book
  Miroir des simple ames:]
  
Among them all was one, a woman's work,

  Composed some hundred years ago and filled

  With such a burning charity, a flame

  So bright that love was its whole argument,

  From first to last the substance of her words;

  And, reading it, one felt the foolish pride

  That filled the heart was burnt away, consumed

  By that great love which strikes so suddenly

  That from the rock the living water springs.
  
How ready to receive such love she was,

  And take it to her heart, wherein it burned

  And fired the hearts of those to whom she spoke.

  How well she knew, touched by the Spirit's breath,

  The friend, true friend, whom she called graciousness,

  Her own Far-Near---the best of names for Him

  Whom more than any other we must love....
  
Gracious Far-near! Oh, she who names you thus

  Described you better, so it seemed to me,

  Than many a learned man whose days were spent

  In study of his books; I marveled then

  How that could be--a lowly maiden's mind

  So wondrously endowed with heavenly grace!
  
For those whose studies have been long and hard

  Must have the due reward of so much work

  And be extolled for labouring as they did

  To make their own a knowledge so divine;

  Not so with her, a woman, ignorant,

  Who seemed to have no scholarship, a mind

  Untutored in the ways of any school

  Except the Spirit's light, the Comforter;...       [ll.1315-1330;
  1375-1388, pp.84-86]
  
=========================================================================
  
[Another translation of Les Prisons, by Claire Lynch
  Wade, perhaps most useful for the original French text it gives:]
  
Les Prisons / Marguerite de Navarre; [translated by] Claire
  Lynch Wade. A French and English ed (American university studies.
  Series II, Romance languages and literature, 0740-9257; vol.
  99). New York: P. Lang, 1989. (xxi, 141 p.)

  LC#: PQ1631 .P713 1989;   ISBN: 0820408026 

  Text in English and French. Includes indexes. Bibliography: p.
  136-141.
  
========================================================================
  
Heptameron des nouvelles
  
[An easily available translation, by P.A. Chilton, of
  Heptameron des nouvelles; Chilton gives a useful introduction,
  brief information on the various story-tellers, and a summary
  of each tale:]
  
The Heptameron / Marguerite de Navarre; translated with an
  introduction by P.A. Chilton (Penguin classics). Harmondsworth,
  Middlesex, England; New York, N.Y., U.S.A.: Penguin Books, 1984.
  (542 p.)

  LC#: PQ1631.H3 E5 1984;   ISBN: 014044355X 

  Bibliography: p. 41-44.
  
---------------------------------------------------------------------

  "I have seen couples like this live together with no regrets."


  ---------------------------------------------------------------------
  
[Five men and five women found themselves stranded in the
  Pyrenees; to pass the time, they decided to tell each other stories,
  as Boccaccio's characters had done in the Decameron. Between
  the tales, the story-tellers commented on the story they had
  just heard, revealing a variety of views on love, marriage, and
  religion. The last story of the fourth day was on a young man
  who married above his station; it led to an exchange about marriage.
  Among the men, Saffredent is a cynic, Dagoucin a young idealist,
  and Geburon an older sophisticate; the woman Parlemente usually
  expresses what seem to be Navarre's own views:]
  
"It astonishes me," Saffredent said, "that
  anyone should so disapprove of an ordinary gentilhomme,
  who after all used neither subterfuge nor coercion other than
  devoted service, merely because he succeeded in marrying a woman
  of high birth. For all the philosophers assert that the lowliest
  of men is worth far more than the highest born and most virtuous
  woman in the world."
  
"The reason is," said Dagoucin, "that in order
  to maintain peace in the state, consideration is given only to
  the rank of families, the seniority of individuals and the provisions
  of the law, and not to men's love and virtue, in order that the
  monarchy should not be undermined. Consequently, in marriages
  between social equals which are contracted according to the human
  judgement of the family concerned, the partners are often so
  different in the feelings of the heart and in temperament that
  far from entering into a state leading to salvation, they frequently
  find themselves on the outskirts of Hell."
  
"Equally," said Geburon, "there have been many
  couples who are extremely close in their feelings and in their
  temperament, couples who marry for love without considering differences
  of family and lineage, and who have never stopped regretting
  it. Great but indiscreet love of this kind frequently turns into
  violent jealousy."
  
"In my opinion," said Parlamente, "neither
  of these kinds of marriages is praiseworthy. If people submit
  to the will of God, they are concerned neither with glory, greed,
  nor sensual enjoyment, but wish only to live in the state of
  matrimony as God and Nature ordain, loving one another virtuously
  and accepting their parents' wishes. Even though there is no
  condition in life that is without some tribulation, I have seen
  couples like this live together with no regrets."       [pp.373-74]