Page:The Waning of the Middle Ages (1924).djvu/140

118 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.

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.

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.