Lives of Fair and Gallant Ladies. Vol 1Brantôme, Pierre de Bourdeille
History
Lives of Fair and Gallant Ladies. Vol 1
Brantôme, Pierre de Bourdeille
Erotic literature
◆This pun is difficult to explain.
[121] P. 231:
◆Lucian, _Amours_, XV.
[122] P. 235:
◆Marguerite, wife of Henri IV., whose elegance drew from the old
Queen Catherine this remark: “No matter where you may go, the court
will take the fashion from you, and not you from the court.”
(Brantôme, _Elogé de la reine Marguerite_.)
◆Brantôme alludes to the Duke d’Anjou.
◆Jeanne de Navarre, wife of Philippe le Bel, King of France,
daughter and sole heiress of Henri I. of Navarre, was born
1272, died 1305 at the early age of 33. She was a beautiful and
accomplished Princess, and the tales told by some historians
reflecting on her character are apparently quite without foundation.
◆The _Divorce satyrique_ attributes this contrivance to Queen
Marguerite, who adopted it to make her husband, the King of
Navarre, more deeply enamoured and more naughty.
[123] P. 236:
◆These are taken from an old French book entitled: _De la louange
et beauté des Dames_ (“Of the Praise and Beauty of Ladies”).
François Corniger has put the same into 18 Latin lines. Vencentio
Calmeta has rendered them also into Italian verse, commencing with
the words: _Dolce Flaminia_.
◆Pliny speaks of this Helen of Zeuxis.
[124] P. 237:
◆Ronsard, _Œuvres_, 1584 edition, p. 112. It is a poem addressed to
the famous painter Clouet, according to Janet, in which the poet
sings the praises of his fair lady. This poem has more than one
point in common with the present chapter of the _Dames_.
[125] P. 238:
◆Marot had arranged this Spanish proverb into a quatrain, and at the
time of the Ligue it was applied to the Infanta of Spain:
Pourtant, si je suis brunette,
Amy, n’en prenez esmoy,
Car autant aymer souhaitte
Qu’une plus blanche que moy.
[126] P. 239:
◆Raymond Lulle was a native of Majorca, and lived towards the end
of the thirteenth century: he was reputed to be a magician. The
story that Brantôme tells was taken from the _Opuscula_ by Charles
Bovelles, fol. XXXIV. of the in-4^o edition of 1521. The famous
Raimond Lulle (generally known in England as Raimond Lully),
philosopher and schoolman, was celebrated throughout the Middle
Ages for his logic and his commentary on Aristotle, and above all
for his art of Memory, or Ars Lulliana. He was born at Palma, the
capital of Majorca, in 1235. He travelled in various countries, and
died (1315) in Africa after suffering great hardships, having gone
there as a missionary.
[127] P. 240:
◆Or Charles de Bouvelles. His life of Raymond Lulle is a quarto,
printed at Paris, and published by Ascencius. It is dated 3rd of
the Nones of December, 1511. Several other works by the same author
are extant.
◆Arnauld de Villeneuve, a famous alchemist of the end of the
thirteenth century; he died in a shipwreck, in 1313.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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