Copy 1, Volume 1
Essays on subjects connected with the literature, popular superstitions, and history of England in the Middle Ages / By Thomas Wright.
- Thomas Wright
- Date:
- 1846
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Essays on subjects connected with the literature, popular superstitions, and history of England in the Middle Ages / By Thomas Wright. Source: Wellcome Collection.
155/324 page 139
![Marcheans,” -give us curious lists of the articles of food and dress which were then sold and bought, and throw much light on the domestic life and manners of former days. These are followed by a poem entitled “The proverbs of the count of Bretaigne.”’ It consists of stanzas of six lines, each followed by a proverb, which is sometimes in two lines, at others in one, and is always attributed to the villan—‘ ce dit li vilains.” The first stanza, which speaks of proverbs as old things, runs thus— * Qui les proverbes fist Premierement bien dist, Au tans qu’alors estoit; Or est tout-en respit, En ne chante ne lit D’annor en nul endroit: ‘Que [a] la bone denrée, A mauvaise oubliée,,— Ce dit li vilains.” **He who first made proverbs spoke well to the people of his time ; now all is forgotten, people neither sing nor read of honour in any place: ‘he who has the good ware, has forgotten the bad,’ says the villan.’’ In the first line of the proverb there seems to be an error in the MS., or in M. Crapelet’s transcript, which we have supplied by the addition between brackets. In one part of this poem the value of proverbs is strongly insisted upon : “ Qui par droit velt valoir, Il fera grant savoir S’au proverbes entent.” This, and the piece which follows it, are the only parts of M. Crapelet’s book which contain what are properly](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b33097963_0001_0155.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
