We observe how here already the motif of the simple life is coupled with that of natural love.
For later generations the poem of Philippe de Vitri remained the classic expression of the bucolic sentiment and of the happiness procured by security and independence, frugality and health, useful labour and conjugal love, without complications.
Eustache Deschamps imitated him in a number of ballads, of which one follows its model very closely.
"En retournant d'une court souveraine
Ou j'avoie longuement sejourné,
En un bosquet, dessus une fontaine
Trouvay Robin le franc, enchapelé;
Chapeauls de flours avoit cilz afublé
Dessus son chief, et Marion sa drue . . ." etc.[1]
He has enlarged the motif in adding to it an indictment of a knight's or a soldier's life; there is no worse condition than that of a warrior; he commits the seven deadly sins every day; avarice and vainglory are the essence of warfare.
". . . Je vueil mener d'or en avant
Estat moien, c'est mon opinion,
Guerre laissier et vivre en labourant:
Guerre mener n'est que dampnacion."[2]
Generally, however, he simply praises the golden mean.
"Je ne requier à Dieu fors qu'il me doint
En ce monde de lui servir et loer,
Vivre pour moy, cote entiere ou pourpoint,
Aucun cheval pour mon labour porter.
- ↑ Returning from a sovereign's court Where I had long sojourned, In a bush, near a fountain I found Robin the free, his head crowned; With chaplets of flowers had he adorned His head, and Marion, his beloved . . .
- ↑ Henceforth I will take up a Middle station, so I am resolved To leave off fighting and to live by labour; Waging war is but damnation.
decorated with paintings; I have no fear of treason hidden Under fine appearances, nor that I shall be poisoned In a gold cup. I do not bare my head Before a tyrant, nor bend my knee.
"No usher's rod ever turns me away, For no covetousness, Ambition, nor lechery entice me (to court). Labour holds me in joyous liberty; I love Helayne dearly, and she loves me without fail, And that is enough. We are not afraid of the grave." Then I said: "Alas! a serf of the court is not worth a doit, But Franc Gontier is worth a sure gem set in gold."
