Alas, and with so
pitiful an experience of life, Villon can offer us nothing
but terror and lamentation about death! No one has ever more
skilfully communicated his own disenchantment; no one ever
blown a more ear-piercing note of sadness. This unrepentant
thief can attain neither to Christian confidence, nor to the
spirit of the bright Greek saying, that whom the gods love
die early. It is a poor heart, and a poorer age, that cannot
accept the conditions of life with some heroic readiness.
* * * *
The date of the LARGE TESTAMENT is the last date in the
poet's biography. After having achieved that admirable and
despicable performance, he disappears into the night from
whence he came. How or when he died, whether decently in bed
or trussed up to a gallows, remains a riddle for foolhardy
commentators. It appears his health had suffered in the pit
at Meun; he was thirty years of age and quite bald; with the
notch in his under lip where Sermaise had struck him with the
sword, and what wrinkles the reader may imagine. In default
of portraits, this is all I have been able to piece together,
and perhaps even the baldness should be taken as a figure of
his destitution. A sinister dog, in all likelihood, but with
a look in his eye, and the loose flexile mouth that goes with
wit and an overweening sensual temperament.
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