Satirical poems of Walter of Chatillon. Best know for his epic, the Alexandreis , Walter of Chatillon also composed lyrical, moral, and satirical poems see the editions by K.
Strecker, Berlin , and Heidelberg The ones translated below were composed in four-line stanzas; the first three lines of each stanza are in rhythmic verse and the fourth is usually a line of classic, quantitative verse, taken from Horace, Juvenal, Ovid, or another standard author in the medieval curriculum.
Tanto viro locuturi studeamus esse puri, set et loqui sobrie, carum care venerari, et ut simus caro cari, careamus carie. We who are about to speak to such a man are eager to be pure, but to speak wisely, to show the dear one dear respect, to be dear to the dear one, we must be without fault. Decet enim, et hoc unum est inprimis oportunum, ut me ipsum iudicem; homo vetus exuatur, homo novus induatur ante tantum iudicem. For it is proper, and the correct way to begin, to judge myself; let the old man be stripped away, and the new man be put on in front of such a judge.
I might praise the ways of the world, but I grieve that the lovers of virtue are few; if I blame evildoers and do not bow before them, I see that I shall have trouble. Set, o iudex equitatis, propagator veritatis, lenis aura seculi, esto michi in asilum, te rectore sumpsi stilum, te duce signa tuli. But O judge of justice, spreader of the truth, gentle breeze of the world, be as a refuge for me, and under your guidance I shall take up the pen, and led by you I shall bear the banners.
But who I am who dare to speak in the presence of such a man? Who am I to risk his life by publically attacking the wicked, a voice crying in the wilderness, "take the right path? Propter Sion non tacebo,. Degraded in the mud sits the princely city, now become a forced laborer [2] ;. I have seen it, I have seen the head of the world, like the sea and the deep, the ravenous throat of Siculus;.
