ng this refrain haunt you". "Que" might
possibly mean "de peur que", did not the whole sense of the poem forbid
such an interpretation.

AN EXCERPT FROM THE GRANT TESTAMENT.

Stanza 75, line 4. A charming example of those "flashes" which reveal
Villon.

Stanza 76, line 2. Note the spelling of _Grant_ in the feminine without
an _e_. Adjectives of the third declension whose feminine was not
distinguishable in Latin took no "e" in early French. A survival of this
is found in grand' rue, grand' messe, etc.

Line 5. _Grant erre_, "quickly", and the whole line reads: "Let it (my
body) be delivered to it (luy=la terre) quickly," the "erre" here is
from the popular late Latin "_iterare_"="_iter facere_". It survives in
the nautical idiom "reprendre son erre"="to get under weigh again."

Line 7. "_Erre_" here comes, on the contrary, from _errare_, to make a
mistake, to err.

Stanza 77, line 4. _Maillon._ Swaddling clothes.

Line 5. _Boullon_, scrape. The two lines are obscure but seem to read:
"He has got me out of many a scrape which gave him no joy" (_esioye_
from _esjouir_=_rejouir_).

Line 7 and 8. These are obscure but apparently="And beseech him on my
knees not to forsake all joy on that account."

Stanza 78, line 2. "_Le Romman du Pet au Deable_." The Pet au Deable was
a great stone at the door of a private house in the university. The
students took it away and all Paris fought over the matter. The "Roman"
was a set of verses, now lost, which Villon wrote on the quarrel.

Line 3. _Guy Tabarie_ who _grossa_ (wrote out), these verses was a
friend of Villon's: soon hanged.

Line 5. _Soubz._ The "b" is pedantic, the _ou_ indicates of itself the
loss of the _b_. The "z" (and the "s" in the modern _sous_) are due to
the derivation not from _sub_ but _subtus_.

THE BALLAD OF OUR LADY.

Stanza 2, line 3. _Egypcienne._ St. Mary of Egypt.

Line 4. _Theophilus._ This was that clerk who sold his soul to the Devil
and whom Our Lady redeemed. You may find the whole story sculptured on
the Tympanum of the exquisite northern door of Notre Dame in Paris.

Line 8. _Vierge Portant_="Virgin that bore a son".

Stanza 3, line 4. _Luz_="luthus". "S" becomes "z."

The Envoi. Note the Acrostic "Villon" in the first letters of the first
six lines. It is a trick he played more than once.

THE DEAD LORDS.

Stanza 1, line 1. _Calixte._ These names are of less interest. _Calixte_
was Pope Calixtus III, Alphonso Borgia, who died