It’s yourself that bore Jesus, that has no end or death, and He the Lord Almighty, that took our weakness and gave Himself to sorrows, a young and gentle man. It’s Himself is our Lord surely, and it’s in that faith I’ll live always. VILLON AN OLD WOMAN’S LAMENTATIONS The man I had a love for--a great rascal would kick me in the gutter--is dead thirty years and over it, and it is I am left behind, grey and aged. When I do be minding the good days I had, minding what I was one time, and what it is I’m come to, and when I do look on my own self, poor and dry, and pinched together, it wouldn’t be much would set me raging in the streets. Where is the round forehead I had, and the fine hair, and the two eyebrows, and the eyes with a big gay look out of them would bring folly from a great scholar? Where is my straight, shapely nose, and two ears, and my chin with a valley in it, and my lips were red and open? Where are the pointed shoulders were on me, and the long arms and nice hands to them? Where is my bosom was as white as any, or my straight rounded sides? It’s the way I am this day--my forehead is gone away into furrows, the hair of my head is grey and whitish, my eyebrows are tumbled from me, and my two eyes have died out within my head--those eyes that would be laughing to the men--my nose has a hook on it, my ears are hanging down, and my lips are sharp and skinny. That’s what’s left over from the beauty of a right woman--a bag of bones, and legs the like of two shrivelled sausages going beneath it. It’s of the like of that we old hags do be thinking, of the good times are gone away from us, and we crouching on our hunkers by a little fire of twigs, soon kindled and soon spent, we that were the pick of many. COLIN MUSSET, AN OLD POET, COMPLAINS TO HIS PATRON _From the Old French_ I’m getting old in your big house, and you’ve never stretched your hand with a bit of gold to me, or a day’s wages itself. By my faith in Mary, it’s not that way I’ll serve you always, living on my pocket, with a few coppers only, and a small weight in my bag. You’ve had me to this day, singing on your stairs before you, but I’m getting a good mind to be going off, when I see my purse flattened out, and my wife does be making a fool of me from the edge of the door. It’s another story I hear when I come home at night and herself looks behind me, and sets her eye on my bag stuffed to bursting, and I maybe with a grey, decent coat on my back. It’s that time she’s not long leaving down her spinning and coming with a smile, ready to choke me with her two hands squeezing my neck. It’s then my sons have a great rage to be rubbing the sweat from my horse, and my daughter isn’t long wringing the necks on a pair of chickens, and making a stew in the pot. It’s that day my youngest will bring me a towel, and she with nice manners.... It’s a full purse, I tell you, makes a man lord in his own house. WALTER VON DER VOGELWEIDE