The Paradise The translation of the blessed S. Bernardes Verses, conteinyng the vnstable felicitie of this wayfaring world. +The fourth and fifth stanzas were imitated by Samuel Rowland, A Terrible Battell (c. 1606): ‘Where’s old Methuselah that long liu’d man?/Whers’s al the fathers saw so many daies?/… Time , hew an ounce of dust of all their bones’ ( sig. D3r-v); alluded to by John Skelton, ‘Of the death of the noble Prince kynge Edward the forth, per Skeltonide Laureatum’, Pithy pleasaunt and profitable workes of maister Skelton, Poete Laureate (1568),: ‘Sainc Bernard, therof nobly doth treate/Sythe a man, is nothing but a sacke of stercorri/And shall returne, vnto wormes meate’ (sig. H2r). Another copy in O: Douce e.16, fols. 4-6 (later text). Author: attributed, among others, to Walter Map (d. 1209/10);Jacobus de Benedictis or Jacopone da Todi, a 13th century Franciscan monk and poet said to have composed the Latin hymn Stabat mater dolorosa ; and St. Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153), the reforming Cistercian monk. Structure: 48: 8×6 sx12
Cur mundus militat, sub væna gloria, cuius prosperitas est transitoria? Tam cito labitur, eius potentia quàm vasa figuli, quæ sunt fragilia . +Lines 1-2: ‘Cvr mundus…fragilia’: the Latin is freely translated in the following stanza.
W Hy doth eche state applie it selfe to worldly prayse? And vndertake such toyle, to heape vp honours gaine. (5) Whose seate though seeming sure, on fickle Fortune stayes, Whose giftes were neuer proued, perpetuall to remaine, But euen as yearthen pot, with euery fillipa sharp strike or blow made by flicking the finger against the thumb at object failes, So Fortunes fauour flits, and Fame with Honour quailesquails, gives way, declines, becomes feeble .
Plus crede litteris, scriptis in glacie quàm mundi fragilis, vanæ fallaciæ, (10)Fællax in præmiis, virtutis specie, quæ nunquam habuit, tempus fiduciæ. +Lines 9-10: ‘Plus crede … fiduciae’: the Latin is freely translated in the following stanza.
Thinke rather firme to finde, a figure grauen in Ise, Whose substaunce subiect is, to heate of shining Sunne, Then hope for stedfast staya quiet, steady position , in wanton worldes deuiseflase shows , Whose feigneddeceitful fonde delightes, from falsheades forge doe come, (15) And vnder vertues veile are largely dealt about, Deceiuing those, who thinke their dateallotted time will out.
Magis credendum est viris fallacibus, quàm mundi miseris prosperitatibus, Falsis insaniis & voluptatibus, falsisque studiis & vanitatibus. +Lines 17-18: ‘Magis credendum … vanitatibus’: the Latin is freely translated in the following stanza.
The trifely truthlesse tongue of rumours liyng lippes, (20) Deserues more trust then doth the highest happie hapfortune , That world to worldlingespeople devoted to the pleasures of the world giues, for see how honour slippes, To foolish fonde conceiptes, to pleasures poisoned sap, To studies false in proofe, to artes applied to game, To fickle fancies toyes, which wisedome deemeth vaine.
(25)Dic vbi Salomon, olim tam nobilis, vel vbi Sampson est, dux inuincibilis, Veldulcis Ionathas, multum amabilis, vel pulcher Absolon, vultu mirabilis. +Lines 25-26: ‘Dic vbi … mirabilis?’: the Latin is freely translated in the following stanza.
Where is the sacred kyng, that Salomon the wise? whose wisedome former time of duetie did commende, where is that Sampson strong, that monstrous man in size? (30) whose forcedstrained, exerted beyind ordinary limit; also sense of compelled arme did cause the mightie pillers bend,
