Here treason disguises itself with a thousand masks.
Here a thousand crimes multiply in abundance.
Here they do not punish homicide or poison.
And riches are here acquired by usury.
Icy de mille fards la traison se desguise,
Icy mille forfaitz pullulent à foison,
Icy ne se punit l'homicide ou poison,
Et la richesse icy par usure est acquise.
"A peculiar anthologic maze, an amusing literary chaos, a farrago of quotations, a mere olla podrida of quaintness, a pot pourri of pleasant delites, a florilegium of elegant extracts, a tangled fardel of old-world flowers of thought, a faggot of odd fancies, quips, facetiae, loosely tied" (Holbrook Jackson, Anatomy of Bibliomania) by a "laudator temporis acti," a "praiser of time past" (Horace, Ars Poetica 173).
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Wednesday, November 22, 2023
Here
Joachim du Bellay (1522-1560), Regrets 127, lines 1-4 (tr. Richard Helgerson):