Laudator Temporis Acti

Verses by Marbod of Rennes (1035-1123), translated and quoted by Erwin Panofsky, Renaissance and Renascences in Western Art (New York: Harper & Row, 1972), pp.74-75, with his note:

My uncle has a farm out in the woods,
Where I withdraw, having cast off the squalor
Of all the worries that torment mankind.
Its verdant grass, the silent woods, the gentle
And playful breezes, and the spring, vivacious
Amidst the herbs, refresh the weary mind—
Restore my self to me and make me rest
Within me ...

Rus habet in silva patruus meus; huc mihi saepe
Mos est abjectis curarum sordibus, et quae
Excruciant hominem, secedere ruris amoena;
Herba virens, et silva silens, et spiritus aurae
Lenis et festivus, et fons in gramine vivus
Defessam mentem recreant, et me mihi reddunt,
Et faciunt in me consistere...

For Marbod of Rennes, see Manitius, op. cit., III, p. 719ff. and passim; Raby, Christian-Latin Poetry, p. 273 ff.; idem, Secular Latin Poetry, I, p. 329ff. The beautiful poem partly quoted and translated in my text is found in Patrologia Latina, CLXXI, col. 1665 ff. (cf. also another poem, ibidem, col. 1717, extensively quoted by Raby, Secular Latin Poetry, I, p. 336). For the tendency of learned men of the twelfth century to withdraw into monastic or pastoral seclusion, see the life histories of Marbod of Rennes and Baudry of Bourgueil (Raby, Christian-Latin Poetry, p. 273 ff., particularly p. 278) and, more especially, E.H. Kantorowicz, Die Wiederkehr gelehrter Anachorese im Mittelalter, Stuttgart 1937.

Hat tip: Eric Thomson.