the Middle Ages is closely akin to a memento mori. Thus we find it in a ballad by Eustache Deschamps, where Adam addresses his posterity:
"Enfans, enfans, de moy, Adam, venuz,
Qui après Dieu suis peres premerain
Créé de lui, tous estes descenduz
Naturelment de ma coste et d'Evain;
Vo mere fut. Comment est l'un villain
Et l'autre prant le nom de gentillesce
De vous, freres? dont vient tele noblesce?
Je ne le'sçay, se ce n'est des vertus,
Et les villains de tout vice qui blesce:
Vous estes tous d'une pel revestuz.
"Quant Dieu me fist de la boe ou je fus,
Homme mortel, faible, pesant et vain,
Eve de moy, il nous crea tous nuz,
Mais l'esperit nous inspira a plain
Perpetuel puis eusmes soif et faim,
Labour, dolour, et enfans en tristesce;
Pour noz pechiez enfantent a destresce
Toutes femmes; vilment estes conçuz.
Vous estes tous d'une pel revestuz.
"Les roys puissans, les contes et les dus,
Le gouverneur du peuple et souverain,
Quant ilz naissent, de quoy sont ilz vestuz?
D'une orde pel.
. . . .Prince, pensez, sans avoir en desdain
Les povres gens, que la mort tient le frain."[1]
- ↑ Children, descended from me, Adam, Who am the first father, after God, Created by him, you are all born Naturally of my rib and of Eve; She was your mother. How is it that one is a villein And the other assumes the name of gentility, Of you, brothers? Whence comes such nobility? I do not know, unless it springs from virtues And the villeins from all vice, which wounds: You are all covered by the same skin.
When God made me out of the mud where I lay, A mortal man, feeble, heavy and vain, Eve out of me, he created us quite nude, But the spirit fully inspired us, Afterwards we were perpetually thirsty and hungry, We laboured, suffered, children were born in sorrow; For our sins, all women bear children In pain; vilely you are conceived. Whence then comes this name: villein that wounds the hearts? You are all covered by the same skin.
The mighty kings, the counts and the dukes, The governor of the people and sovereign, When they are born, with what are they clothed? By a dirty skin. . . . Prince, remember, without disdaining The poor people, that death holds the reins.
