He was national in that he depended upon companions, and stood for a crowd, and deplored all isolation. He was national in that he had nothing strenuous about him, and that he was amiable, and if he had heard of "earnest" men, he would have laughed at them a little, as people who did not see the whole of life.
He was especially national (and it is here that the poet returns) in that most national of all things--a complete sympathy with the atmosphere of the native tongue. Thus men debate a good deal upon the poetic value of Wordsworth, but it is certain, when one sees how bathed he is in the sense of English words, their harmony and balance, that the man is entirely English, that no other nation could have produced him, and that he will be most difficult for foreigners to understand. You will not translate into French or any other language the simplicity of:
"Glimpses that should make me less forlorn."
Nor can you translate, so as to give its own kind of grandeur
"Et arrivoit pour benistre la vigne."
Apart from his place in letters, see how national he is in what he does!
He buys two bits of land, he talks of them continually, sees to them, visits them. They are quite little bits of land. He calls one Clement, and the other Marot! Here is a whimsicality you would not find, I think, among another people.
He has the hatred of "sprawling" in his particular art which is the chief aesthetic character of the French; but he has the tendency to excess in opinion or in general expression which is their chief political fault.
It is thus, then, that I think he should be regarded and that I would desire to present him. It is thus, I am sure, that he should be read if one is to know why he has taken so great a place in the reverence and the history of the French people.
And it is in this aspect that he may worthily introduce much greater things, the Pleiade and Ronsard.
OF COURTING LONG AGO.
(_The Eighth of the Roundels._)
This is a fair enough specimen of Marot at his daily gait: an easy versifier "on a theme" and no more. I have said that it is unjust to judge him on that level, and I have said why; but I give this to give the man as he moved domestically to the admiration of the court and of his friends in a time which missed, for example, the epic character of the last six lines of "Le Beau Tettin," and which hardly comprehended of what value his pure lyric enthusiasms would be to a sadder and drier posterity.
_OF COURTING LONG AGO._
_Au bon vieulx temps un train d"amour regnoit, Qui sans grand art et dons se demenoit, Si qu"un boucquet donne d"amour profonde S"estoit donne toute la terre ronde: Car seulement au cueur on se prenoit._
_Et si, par cas, a jouyr on venoit, Scavez-vous bien comme on s"entretenoit?
Vingt ans, trente ans; cela duroit ung monde Au bon vieulx temps._
_Or est perdu ce qu"amour ordonnoit, Rien que pleurs fainctz, rien que changes on n"oyt.
Qui vouldra donc qu"a aymer je me fonde, Il fault, premier, que l"amour on refonde Et qu"on la meine ainsi qu"on la menoit Au bon vieulx temps._
NOeL.
(_The Second of the Chansons._)
But here, upon the contrary, is the spontaneity of his happy mind; it suggests a song; one can hardly read it without a tune in one"s head, so simple is it and so purely lyrical: there is a touch of the dance in it, too.
In these little things of Marot, which are neither learned (and he boasted of learning) nor set and dry (and his friends especially praised his precision), a great poet certainly appears--in short revelations, but still appears. Unfortunately there are not enough of them.
That he thought "like a Southerner," as I have maintained and as I shall show by a further example, is made the more probable from the value he lends to the feminine e. The excellent rhythm of this poem you will only get by giving the feminine e the value of a drawn out syllable:
"L"effect Est faict: La bel-le Pucel-le," etc.
So Spaniards, Gascons, Provencaux, Italians, rhyme, and all those of the south who have retained their glorious "a"s" and "o"s".
As for the spirit of it--G.o.d bless him!--it is a subject for perpetual merriment to think of such a man"s being taken for a true Huguenot and enmeshed, even for a while, in the nasty cobweb of Geneva. But in the last thing I shall quote, when he is Bacchic for the vine, you will see it still more.
_NOeL._
_Une pastourelle gentille Et ung bergier en ung verger L"autrhyer en jouant a la bille S"entredisoient, pour abreger: Roger Bergier Legiere Bergiere, C"est trop a la bille joue; Chantons Noe, Noe, Noe._
_Te souvient-il plus du prophete Qui nous dit cas de si hault faict, Que d"une pucelle parfaicte Naistroit ung enfant tout parfaict?
L"effect Est faict: La belle Pucelle A eu ung filz du ciel voue: Chantons Noe, Noe, Noe._
TWO EPIGRAMS.
(_The 41st of the First Book and the 46th of the Second._)
These two epigrams are again but examples of the readiness, the wit, the hard surface of Marot, and they needed no more poetry than was in Voltaire or Swift, but they needed style. It was this absolute and standard style which his contemporaries chiefly remarked in him: the marvel was, that being mainly such an epigrammatist and scholar, and praised and supported only in that guise, he should have carried in him any, or rather so much, fire.
The first was his reply to a Dixaine the king"s sister had sent him. The second explains itself.
_TWO EPIGRAMS._
_Mes creanciers, qui de dixains n"ont cure, Ont leu le vostre; et sur ce leur ay dict: "Sire Michel, sire Bonaventure, La soeur du Roy a pour moy faict ce dit."
Lors eulx cuydans que fusse en grand credict, M"ont appele monsieur a cry et cor, Et m"a valu vostre escript aultant qu"or; Car promis m"ont non seulement d"attendre, Mais d"en prester, foy de marchant, encor, Et j"ay promis, foy de Clement, d"en prendre._
_Paris, tu m"as faict maints alarmes, Jusque a me poursuivre a la mort: Je n"ay que blasonne tes armes: Un ver, quand on le presse, il mord!
Encor la coulpe m"en remord.
Ne scay de toy comment sera; Mais de nous deux le diable emport Celuy qui recommencera._
TO HIS LADY IN SICKNESS.
(_The 16th Epistle._)
It is the way this is printed that makes some miss its value. It is, like all the best he wrote, a song; it needs the varying time of human expression, the effect of tone, the repose and the re-lifting of musical notes; illuminated thus it greatly charmed, and if any one would know the order of such a tune, why, it should follow the punctuation: a cessation at the third line; a rise of rapid accents to the thirteenth, and then a change; the last three lines of the whole very much fuller and strong.
So I would hear it sung on a winter evening in an old house in Auvergne, and re-enter the sixteenth century as I heard.
_TO HIS LADY IN SICKNESS._
_Ma mignonne, Je vous donne Le bon jour.
Le sejour, C"est prison.
Guerison Recouvrez, Puis ouvrez Vostre porte Et qu"on sorte Vistement; Car Clement Le vous mande.