Part 2

‘Be sure that Liberality is the head and greatness Of my mystery; so that I am little worth, And, if she aids me not, I should find scant acceptance. She is my foundation; and I am her gilding, And colour, and varnish. But, to say the very truth, If we have two names, we are well-nigh one thing.

But to thee, gentle friend, I say first That in thy speech thou be circumspect. Be not too great a talker, and think aforehand What thou wouldst be saying; for never Doth the word that is spoken return,—like the arrow Which goes and returns not. He who has a goodly tongue, Little sense suffices him, if by folly he spoils it not. Be thy speech gentle; and see it be not harsh In any position of command, for thou canst not Give people any graver annoy. I advise that he should die Who displeases by harshness, for he never conquers the habit: And he who has no moderation, if he acts well, he filches that. Be not exasperating; neither be a tell-tale Of what another person has spoken in thy presence; Nor yet use contumely; nor tell any one a lie, Nor slander of any,—for in sooth there is no one Of whom one might not say something offensive offhand. Neither be so self-sufficient as that even one hard word Affecting another person should issue from thy mouth; For too much self-sufficiency is contrary to good usage. And let him who is on the highway beware of speaking folly.

But thou knowest that I command thee, and put it as a strict precept, That thou honour to the utmost thy good friend On foot and on horseback: and be sure that for a small fault Thou bear no grudge—let not love fail on thy part. And have it always in mind to associate with people of honour, And from others hold aloof; so that (as with the crafts) Thou mayst not acquire any vice, whereof, before thou couldst amend it, Thou shalt have scathe and shame. Therefore at all hours Hold fast to good usage; for that advances thee In credit and honour, and makes thee better, And gives fair seeming,—for a good nature Becomes the clearer and more polished if it follows good habits. But see none the less that, if thou shouldst appear tedious To such or such a company, thou venture to frequent it no more, But procure thyself some other to which thy ways are pleasing. Friend, heed this well: with one richer than thyself Seek not to associate,—for thou shalt be as their merry-maker, Or else thou wilt spend as much as they; for, if thou didst not this, Thou wouldst be mean,—and reflect always That a costly beginning demands perseverance. Therefore thou must provide, if thy means allow it, That thou do this openly. If not, then mind Not to make such expenditure as shall afterwards be reproved; But adopt such a system as to be consistent with thyself. And, if thou art a little better off [than thy comrades], do not get away, But spend on the same scale; take no advantage:— And at all times take heed, if there is in thy company A man, in thine opinion, of inferior means, That, for God’s sake, thou force him not into more than he can meet; For, if, for thy convenience, he spends his money amiss, And comes to poverty, thou wilt be blamed therefor.

And in sooth there are persons of high condition Who call themselves “noble”: all others they hold cheap Because of this nobility. And, in that conceit, They will call a man “tradesman” who would sooner spend a bushel Of florins than they of halfpence,— Although the means of both might be of like amount. And he who holds himself noble, without doing any other good Save of the name, fancies he is making the cross to himself, But he does make the fig to himself. He who endures not toil For honour’s sake, let him not imagine that he comes Among men of worth, because he is of lofty race; For I hold him noble who shows that he follows the path Of great valour and of gentle nurture,— So that, besides his lineage, he does deeds of worth, And lives honourably so as to make himself beloved. I admit indeed that, if the one and other are equal in good deeds, He who is the better born is esteemed the higher: Not through any teaching of mine, but it seems to be the usage, Which conquers and overthrows many of my ways, So that I can no otherwise; for this world is so dense That the right is even judged of according to a little talking, For the great and the lesser live therein by rumour.

Therefore be heedful to keep among them so silent That they may have nothing to laugh at. Adopt their modes, For I rather advise thee to follow their wrongfulness. For, though thou shouldst be in the right, yet, as soon as it pleases not them, It avails thee nothing to speak well, nor yet ill. Therefore recount no tale, unless it appears good and fair To all who hear it; for somebody will censure thee for it, And add lies thereto when thou art gone, Which must assuredly grieve thee. So thou must know, In such company, to play the prudent part, And be heedful to say what will please. And as for the good, if thou knowest it, thou wilt tell it to others Where thou art known and held dear; For thou wilt find among people many fools Who take greater pleasure in hearing something scurrilous Than what is profitable. Pass on, and heed not, And be circumspect. If a man of great repute Should at any time do something that is out of bounds In street or church, follow not the example: For he has no excuse who conforms to the wrong-doing of others. And see that thou err not if thou art staying or going With a lady or lord, or other superior,— Also that, although he be but thine equal, thou observe to honour him, Each according to his condition. Be so heedful of this, Both of less and more, that thou lose not self-restraint. To thine inferior, however, render not more honour Than beseems him, nor such that he should hold thee cheap for it: And so, if he is the inferior, always walk a step in advance. And, if thou art on horseback, avoid every fault; And, if thou goest through the city, I counsel thee to go Very courteously. Ride decorously, With head a little bowed, for to go in that loose-reined way Looks most boorish; and stare not up at the height Of every house thou comest to. Mind that thou move not about Like a man from the country—wriggle not like an eel: But go steadily along the road and among the people.

When thou art asked for a loan, delay not. If thou art willing to lend, make not the man linger so long That the favour shall be lost before it is rendered.

And, when thou art in company, always follow Their modes and their liking; for thou must not want To be just suiting thine own taste, nor to be at odds with them.

And always be heedful that thou give not any gross glances At any woman living, in house or street; For he who does thus, and calls himself a lover, Is esteemed a blackguard. And I have seen before now A man lose position by a single act of levity; For in this country such goings-on are not admired. And take heed in every case that Love, with his arts, Inflame not thy heart. With severest pain Wouldst thou consume thy life; nor couldst thou be numbered In my following, wert thou in his power.

Now return in-doors, for it is the time; And be liberal and courteous, so that in every country All thy belongings be deemed pleasurable.’

We now pass from Florence to Lombardy—from Ser Brunetto Latini to Fra Bonvicino da Riva—from the lawyer and official to the friar and professor. The poem of Fra Bonvicino, The Fifty Courtesies for the Table, will be our principal pièce de résistance, and presented accordingly in its own garnishing of old Italian as well as in English. Not that it is by any means the best or most important piece of work that we have to bring forward; but its rarity, its dialectic interest for students of old Italian, and its precision and detail with regard to one of the essentials of courtesy—the art of dining—give it exceptional value for our direct purpose. The poem is supposed to have been written about 1290.

Unpolished as he is in poetic development, Fra Bonvicino is not to be altogether slighted from a literary point of view. Tiraboschi (Storia della Letteratura Italiana) believes that Bonvicino and one other were the two sole verse-writers of the Lombard or Milanese State in this opening period of Italian poesy; and Signor Biondelli, whom we have to thank for the publication of Bonvicino’s production after so many centuries of its hybernation in MS, can point to the choiceness of the old Friar’s vocabulary. In one couplet that well-qualified editor is able to find five expressions ‘which, for propriety and purity, would even at the present day beseem the most careful of writers;’ and hence he pronounces Bonvicino ‘the elegant writer of his time.’ It should be understood, however, that the MS reproduced by Signor Biondelli, and now again in the present volume, gives but an inadequate idea of the primitiveness of Bonvicino’s own actual idiom. Tiraboschi cites a harsher version of the first stanza from an earlier MS then existing in the Library of Santa Maria Incoronata in Milan, but which is now undiscoverable: the MS used by Signor Biondelli is of a much later date, the fifteenth century. It pertains to the Ambrosian Library in Milan.

Bonvicino belonged to the third order of the Friars named Umiliati, and lived (as he himself informs us) in Legnano, a town of the Milanese district. Hence he went to Milan, and became a distinguished professor of grammar in the Palatine schools. The only other poem of his published in Signor Biondelli’s volume is On the dignity of the Glorious Virgin Mary: but Tiraboschi specifies other productions in verse—Dialogues in praise of Almsgiving, between the Virgin and Satan, between the Virgin and the Sinner, between the Creator and the Soul, between the Soul and the Body, between the Violet and the Rose, between the Fly and the Ant; also the Legends of Job and of St Alexius; and various works in Latin, of which some have been published.

DE LE ZINQUANTA CORTEXIE DA TAVOLA

DE FRA BONVEXINO DA RIVA

Fra bon Vexino da Riva, che stete in borgo Legniano De le cortexie da descho ne dixe primano; De le cortexie cinquanta che se den servare a descho Fra bon Vexino da Riva ne parla mo’ de frescho. 4

La primiera è questa: che quando tu è a mensa, Del povero bexognoxo imprimamente inpensa; Che quando tu pasci lo povero, tu pasci lo tó Segnore, Che te passerà, poxe la toa morte, in lo eternal dolzore. 8

La cortexia segonda: se tu sporze aqua alle man, Adornamente la sporze; guarda no sia vilan; Asay ghe ne sporze, no tropo, quando el è tempo d’estae; D’inverno per lo fregio in pizina quantitae. 12

La terza cortexia si è: no sì tropo presto De corre senza parola per asetare al descho; Se alchun te invida a noxe, anze che tu sie asetato, Per ti no prende quello axio, d’onde tu fuzi deschazato. 16

L’ oltra è: Anze che tu prendi lo cibo aparegiao Per ti, over per tò mayore, fa sì ch’ el sie segniao. Tropo è gordo e vilan, e incontra Cristo malegna Lo quale alli oltri guarda, ni lo sò condugio no segna. 20

La cortexia zinquena: sta aconzamente al descho, Cortexe, adorno, alegro, e confortoxo e frescho; No di’ sta convitoroxo, ni gramo, ni travachao; Ni con le gambe in croxe, ni torto, ni apodiao. 24

La cortexia sexena: da poy che l’ omo se fiada, Sia cortexe no apodiasse sovra la mensa bandia; Chi fa dra mensa podio, quello homo non è cortexe, Quando el gh’apodia le gambe, over ghe ten le braze destexe. 28

La cortexia setena si è: in tuta zente No tropo mangiare, ni pocho; ma temperadamente; Quello homo en ch’ el se sia, che mangia tropo, ni pocho, No vego quentro pro ghe sia al’anima, ni al corpo. 32

La cortexia ogena si è: che Deo n’ acrescha, No tropo imple la bocha, ni tropo mangia inpressa; Lo gordo che mangia inpressa, e che mangia a bocha piena, Quando el fisse apellavo, no ve responde apena. 36

La cortexia novena si è: a pocho parlare, Et a tenire pox quello che l’ à tolegio a fare; Che l’ omo tan fin ch’ el mangia, s’ el usa tropo a dire, Le ferguie fora dra bocha sovenzo pon insire. 40

La cortexia dexena si è: quando tu è sede, Travonde inanze lo cibo, e furbe la bocha, e beve. Lo gordo che beve inpressa, inanze ch’ el voja la chana; Al’ oltro fa fastidio che beve sego in compagnia. 44

E la undexena è questa: no sporze la copa al’ oltro, Quando el ghe pò atenze, s’ el no te fesse acorto; Zaschuno homo prenda la copa quando ghe plaxe; E quando el l’ à beudo, l’ à de mete zoxo in paxe. 48

La dodexena è questa: quando tu di’ prende la copa, Con dove mane la rezeve, e ben te furbe la bocha; Con l’una conzamente no se pò la ben receve; Azò ch’ el vino no se spanda, con doe mane di’ beve. 52

La tredexena è questa: se ben tu no voy beve, S’ alchun te sporze la copa, sempre la di’ rezeve; Quando tu l’à receuda, ben tosto la pò mete via; Over sporze a un’ altro ch’ è tego in compagnia. 56