Qui le m'envoya,
Puis que jou ne puis aler la.
Qu'il en viengne a moi,
Chi droit,
A jour failli,
Pour faire tous ses boins,
Et il m'orra,
Quant il ert joins,
Canter a haute vois:
_Par chi va la mignotise,_
_Par chi ou je vois_.

[Sidenote: Ruteboeuf]

Ruteboeuf (whose name appears to be a nickname only) has been more
fortunate than most of the poets of early France in leaving a
considerable and varied work behind him, and in having it well and
collectively edited[74]. Little or nothing, however, is known about him,
except from allusions in his own verse. He was probably born about 1230;
he was certainly married in 1260; there is no allusion in his poems to
any event later than 1285. By birth he may have been either a Burgundian
or a Parisian. His work which, as has been said, is not inconsiderable
in volume, falls into three well-marked divisions in point of subject.
The first consists of personal and of comic poems; the second of poems
sometimes satirical, sometimes panegyrical, on public personages and
events; the third, which is apparently with reason assigned to the
latest period of his life, of devotional poems. In the first division
_La Pauvrete Ruteboeuf_, _Le Mariage Ruteboeuf_, etc., are
complaints of his woeful condition; complaints, however, in which there
is nearly as much satire as appeal. Others, such as _Renart le
Bestourne_, _Le Dit des Cordeliers_, _Frere Denise_, _Le Dit de
l'Erberie_, are poems of the Fabliau kind. In all these there are many
lively strokes of satire, and not a little of the reckless gaiety,
chequered here and there with deeper feeling, which has always been a
characteristic of a certain number of French poets. Ruteboeuf's
sarcasm is especially directed towards the monastic orders. The second
class of poems, which is numerous, displays a more elevated strain of
thought. Many of these poems are _complaintes_ or elaborate elegies
(often composed on commission) for distinguished persons, such as
Geoffroy de Sargines and Guillaume de Saint Amour. Others, such as the
_Complainte d'Outremer_, the _Complainte de Constantinople_, the _Dit de
la Voie de Tunes_, the _Debat du Croise et du Decroise_, are comments
on the politics and history of the time, for the most part strongly in
favour of the crusading spirit, and reproaching the nobility of France
with their degeneracy. 'Mort sont Ogier et C