La Male Regle

主題 Topic	Poem
書刊名 Title	“La Male Regle” (1406)
作者 Author	Thomas Hoccleve (1405–1406)
出版社 Publisher
出版年 Year	1406
語言 Language	English
裝訂 Binding	□ 平裝 Paperback　　　　□ 精裝 Hardcover
頁數 Pages
ISBN (10 / 13)	無
Bibliography Reference	Laurel Amtower. La Male Regle of Hoccleve. http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/~amtower/hocregle.html
來源網址 Web Link	http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/~amtower/hocregle.html
劇本簡介撰稿者	王儀君
撰寫日期 Date	2015-08-09

A.   簡介 

 “La Male Regle” was written by Thomas Hoccleve, a fourteenth century poet and clerk. His best known work is Regement of Princes, a work written for Henry V of England. Among the 15th century writers, Hoccleve and John Lydgate are among those who prefer to see everyday life of his people. Lydgate wrote epic poems and satirical poems such as “Pickpenny,” in which the narrator came back to London for a case of fraud trading, but he finds that without money, people cannot get justice without money. Comparatively, Hoccleve writes about London in terms of his own experience as a clerk in bureaucratic system.
 
Hoccleve’s work involves production of writing on commission, and the poem may have a special purpose which is to request Lord Fourneval to pay for his overdue funds. This autobiographical account, however, not merely reveals the material life in London but also his relationship with the other people. The major themes of “La Male Regle” include construction of self in the society, the entertainment among the elite and the commoners, as well as vulnerability of the civil servants in administrative systems. In this poem, work behavior and social order, the two most significant elements in men’s world, actually involve not only financial security of those who hold administrative jobs but also anxieties in self-expression. Thomas Hoccleve comments upon flattery in the power system as well as the role of an honest petitioner whose dignity and sense of self are easily shattered by the society. In “La Male Regle,” Thomas Hoccleve thus addresses to his fragmented self, disclosing late medieval masculinity as structured by power system and manipulation of language.  

B.   文本摘錄 Extracts (4-6 Pages)

La Male Regle of Hoccleve
(Translation: Laurel Amtower )
O precious treasure incomparable!
O ground and root of prosperity!
O excellent riches, commendable
Above all that are in the earth!
Who may sustain thine adversity,
What man may vaunt his worldly wealth,
Unless he fully stand in your grace,
Earthly god, pillar of life, thou Health?
While thy power and excellent vigor 9
As was pleasant unto thy worthiness
Reigned in me and was my governor,
Then was I well, though I felt no duress,
Though I was stuffed with my heart's gladness.
And now my body is empty and barren
Of joy and full of sickly heaviness,
All poor of ease and rich with evil fare.
If your favor be separated from a man,
Small is his ease and great his grievance.
Thy love is life, thine hate slays downright.
Who may complain of thy severance
Better than I who in mine ignorance
Unto sickness am knit, thy mortal foe?
Now can I know feast from penance,
And while I was with thee I knew not so.
My grief and busy quotidian pain
So labor and sorely torment me
That what you now are, I well remember,
And what fruit is in keeping with thy lore.
Had I the power to know of this of yore,
As your foe compels me now to know,
Though his limb has cleved to my gown,
For all his art he has never brought me so low.
But I have heard men say, long ago,
Prosperity is blind and may not see,
And I can well verify that this is so.
For I have assayed it myself.
When I was well, could I consider it? Nay.
But what, I longed for novelty
As the young years yearn day by day,
And now my pain accuses my folly.
My unwary youth knew not what it wrought, 41
This I know well, when she separated from thee.
But in her ignorance she herself sought
And knew nat what she was dwelling with thee;
For to a man it were a great nicety
To wittingly offend his lord or friend
Lest that the weight of his adversity 
Oppress the fool and make an end of him.
From henceforth will I do reverence
Unto thy name and hold thee in chief,
And make war and sharp resistence
Against your foe and mine, that cruel thief
That has held me in mischief underfoot,
So thou shalt reconcile to me in thy grace.
O now thine help, thy succor, and relief,
And I for misrule will exile.
But your mercy exceeds mine offence,
The keen assaults of thine adversary
Oppress me with her violence.
No wonder though thou be an enemy to me,
My lust's blindness has caused thee to vary
From me through my folly and imprudence,
Wherefore I, wretch, curse and lament
The seed and fruit of childish wisdom.
As for the most part youth is a rebel
Unto reason and hates her doctrine:
Reigning which, it may not stand well
With youth, as far as wit can imagine.
O youth, alas! Why will thou not incline
And bow unto ruled reason,
Since reason is the very straight line
That leads folk into felicity?
Full seldom is it seen that youth takes heed
Of perils into which it will likely fall.
For had he taken a purpose that must of necessity
Be executed, no council will he call; 
His own wit he deems the best of all,
And forth therewith he runs bridleless,
And he cannot judge between honey and gall,
Nor war from peace.
All the other men's wits he despises;
They answer nothing to his intent.
His rakish wit only suffices him.
His high presumption prefers not to consent
To do as Solomon wrote and intended,
That men read by council to work by.
Now youth, now you sorely shall repent
Your lightless, dull wits, from dark reason.
My friends said unto me full often
That my misrule would cause me a fit,
And they advised me in easy ways and soft
To withdraw it little by little.
But that might not sink into my wit,
So was the lust rooted in my heart,
And now I am so ripe in my pit
That scarcely can I start from it.
Who such clear eyes has and cannot see,
Full small avails your office.
Right so, since reason is give to me
So as to discern virtue from vice,
If I cannot with reason choose
But willfully withdraw from reason,
Though I have no benefice of her,
No wonder, nor no favor in her law.
REason bade and advised me as for the best
To eat and drink temperately in time,
But willful youth prefered not to obey
That advice, nor to settle thereby.
I have taken of both outrageously
And out of time not two or three years
But continually, twenty winters past.
Excess at board hath laid his knife with me.