BALLADE OF THE HANGED (VILLON'S EPITAPH)
Brothers that live when we are dead,
don't set yourself against us too.
If you could pity us instead,
then God may sooner pity you.
We five or six strung up to view,
dangling the flesh we fed so well,
are eaten piecemeal, rot and smell.
We bones in a fine dust shall fall.
No one make that a laugh to tell:
pray God may save us one and all.
Brothers, if that's the word we said,
it's no disparagement to you
although in justice we hang dead.
Yet all the same you know how few
are men of sense in all they do.
Pray now we're dead that Jesu's well
of grace shall not run dry - nor Hell
open in thunder as we fall.
We're dead don't harry us as well:
pray God may save us one and all.
Showered and rinsed with rain, we dead
the sun has dried out black and blue.
Magpie and crow gouge out each head
for eyes and pluck the hair. On view,
never at rest a moment of two,
winds blow us here or there a spell;
more pricked than a tailor's thumb could tell
we're needled by the birds. Don't fall
then for our brotherhood and cell:
pray God may save us one and all.
Prince, Lord of Men, oh keep us well
beyond the sovereignty of Hell.
On him we've no business to call.
And, men, it's no joke now I tell:
pray God may save us one and all.
-
Brothers that live when we are dead,
don't set yourself against us too.
If you could pity us instead,
then God may sooner pity you.
We five or six strung up to view,
dangling the flesh we fed so well,
are eaten piecemeal, rot and smell.
We bones in a fine dust shall fall.
No one make that a laugh to tell:
pray God may save us one and all.
Brothers, if that's the word we said,
it's no disparagement to you
although in justice we hang dead.
Yet all the same you know how few
are men of sense in all they do.
Pray now we're dead that Jesu's well
of grace shall not run dry - nor Hell
open in thunder as we fall.
We're dead don't harry us as well:
pray God may save us one and all.
Showered and rinsed with rain, we dead
the sun has dried out black and blue.
Magpie and crow gouge out each head
for eyes and pluck the hair. On view,
never at rest a moment of two,
winds blow us here or there a spell;
more pricked than a tailor's thumb could tell
we're needled by the birds. Don't fall
then for our brotherhood and cell:
pray God may save us one and all.
Prince, Lord of Men, oh keep us well
beyond the sovereignty of Hell.
On him we've no business to call.
And, men, it's no joke now I tell:
pray God may save us one and all.
-