Throughout his complaint, although he laments over the decline of liberality among his contemporaries, he nevertheless turns his poverty into a joke. In several other pieces of verse he speaks in the same way, half joking and half lamenting over his condition, and he does not conceal that the love of gambling was one of the causes of it. "The dice," he says, "have stripped me entirely of my robe; the dice watch and spy me; it is these which kill me; they assault and ruin me, to my grief." _Li dé que li détier ont fet, M'ont de ma robe tout desfet; Li dé m'ocient. Li dé m'aguetent et espient; Li dé m'assaillent et dessient, Ce poise moi._--Ib., vol. i. p. 27. And elsewhere he intimates that what the minstrels sometimes gained from the lavish generosity of their hearers, soon passed away at the tavern in dice and drinking. One of Rutebeuf's contemporaries in the same profession, Colin Muset, indulges in similar complaints, and speaks bitterly of the want of generosity displayed by the great barons of his time. In addressing one of them who had treated him ungenerously, he says, "Sir Count, I have fiddled before you in your hostel, and you neither gave me a gift, nor paid me my wages. It is discreditable behaviour. By the duty I owe to St. Mary, I cannot continue in your service at this rate. My purse is ill furnished, and my wallet is empty." _Sire quens, j'ai vielé Devant vos en vostre ostel; Si ne m'avez riens donné, Ne mes gages acquitez, C'est vilanie. Foi que doi sainte Marie, Ensi ne vos sieurré-je mie. M'aumosnière est mal garnie, Et ma male mal farsie._ He proceeds to state that when he went home to his wife (for Colin Muset also was a married minstrel), he was ill received if his purse and wallet were empty; but it was very different when they were full. His wife then sprang forward and threw her arms round his neck; she took his wallet from his horse with alacrity, while his lad conducted the animal cheerfully to the stable, and his maiden killed a couple of capons, and prepared them with piquant sauce. His daughter brought a comb for his hair. "Then," he exclaims, "I am master in my own house." _Ma fame va destroser Ma male sans demorer; Mon garçon va abuvrer Men cheval et conreer; Ma pucele va tuer Deux chapons por deporter A la sause aillie. Ma fille m'aporte un pigne En sa main par cortoisie. Lors sui de mon ostel sire._