Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 1 1883.djvu/169

 Rh us, we go through all the night singing at the arrival of sweet spring."

The antiquary in search of May-songs will turn to the Motets and Pastorals of that six-hundred-year- old Comic Opera "Li gieus de Robin et de Marion." Its origin was not illiterate, but in Adam de la Halle's time and country poets who had some letters and poets who had none did not stand widely apart. The May-month, the summer sweetness, the lilies of the valley, the green meadows—these constituted pretty well the whole idea which the French rustic had formed to himself of what poetry was. It cannot be denied that he came to use these things occasionally as mere commonplaces, a tendency which increased as time wore on. But he has his better moods and some of his ditties are not wanting in elegance. Here is an old song preserved in Burgundy:

In the France of the sixteenth century, the planting of the May took a literary turn. At Lyons for instance the printers were in the habit of setting up what was called "Le Mai des Imprimeurs" before the door of some distinguished person. The members of the illustrious Lombard house of Trivulzi, who between them held the government of Lyons for more than twenty-five years, were on several occasions chosen as recipients of the May-day compliment. "Le Grand Trivulce," marshal of France, was a great patron of literature, and the encouragement of the liberal arts grew to be a tradition in the family. In 1529 Theodore de Trivulce had a May planted in his honour bearing a poetical address from the pen of Clement Marot,