The Refectory

FRIAR PAUL sings.Ave! color vini clari,Dulcis potus, non amari,Tua nos inebriariDigneris potentia!

Not so much noise, my worthy freres,You'll disturb the Abbot at his prayers.

FRIAR PAUL sings.O! quam placens in colore!O! quam fragrans in odore!O! quam sapidum in ore!Dulce linguae vinculum!

I should think your tongue had broken its chain!

FRIAR PAUL sings.Felix venter quem intrabis!Felix guttur quod rigabis!Felix os quod tu lavabis!Et beata labia!

Peace! I say, peace!Will you never cease!You will rouse up the Abbot, I tell you again!

FRIAR JOHN.No danger! to-night he will let us alone,As I happen to know he has guests of his own.

Who are they?

FRIAR JOHN.A German Prince and his train,Who arrived here just before the rain.There is with him a damsel fair to see,As slender and graceful as a reed!When she alighted from her steed,It seemed like a blossom blown from a tree.

None of your pale-faced girls for me!None of your damsels of high degree!

FRIAR JOHN.Come, old fellow, drink down to your peg!But do not drink any further, I beg!

FRIAR PAUL sings.In the days of gold,The days of old,Crosier of woodAnd bishop of gold!

What an infernal racket and riot!Can you not drink your wine in quiet?Why fill the convent with such scandals,As if we were so many drunken Vandals?

FRIAR PAUL continues.Now we have changedThat law so goodTo crosier of goldAnd bishop of wood!

Well, then, since you are in the moodTo give your noisy humors vent,Sing and howl to your heart's content!

Funde vinum, funde!Tanquam sint fluminis undae,Nec quaeras unde,Sed fundas semper abunde!

FRIAR JOHN.What is the name of yonder friar,With an eye that glows like a coal of fire,And such a black mass of tangled hair?

FRIAR PAUL.He who is sitting there,With a rollicking,Devil may care,Free and easy look and air,As if he were used to such feasting and frolicking?

FRIAR JOHN.The same.

FRIAR PAUL.He's a stranger. You had better ask his name,And where he is going and whence he came.

FRIAR JOHN.Hallo! Sir Friar!

FRIAR PAUL.You must raise your voice a little higher,He does not seem to hear what you say.Now, try again! He is looking this way.

FRIAR JOHN.Hallo! Sir Friar,We wish to inquireWhence you came, and where you are going,And anything else that is worth the knowing.So be so good as to open your head.

LUCIFER.I am a Frenchman born and bred,Going on a pilgrimage to Rome.My homeIs the convent of St. Gildas de Rhuys,Of which, very like, you never have heard.

MONKS.Never a word.

LUCIFER.You must know, then, it is in the dioceseCalled the Diocese of Vannes,In the province of Brittany.From the gray rocks of MorbihanIt overlooks the angry sea;The very sea-shore where,In his great despair,Abbot Abelard walked to and fro,Filling the night with woe,And wailing aloud to the merciless seasThe name of his sweet Heloise,Whilst overheadThe convent windows gleamed as redAs the fiery eyes of the monks within,Who with jovial dinGave themselves up to all kinds of sin!Ha! that is a convent! that is an abbey!Over the doors,None of your death-heads carved in wood,None of your Saints looking pious and good,None of your Patriarchs old and shabby!But the heads and tusks of boars,And the cellsHung all round with the fellsOf the fallow-deer.And then what cheer!What jolly, fat friars,Sitting round the great, roaring fires,Roaring louder than they,With their strong wines,And their concubines,And never a bell,With its swagger and swell,Calling you up with a start of affrightIn the dead of night,To send you grumbling down dark stairs,To mumble your prayers;But the cheery crowOf cocks in the yard below,After daybreak, an hour or so,And the barking of deep-mouthed hounds,These are the soundsThat, instead of bells, salute the ear.And then all dayUp and awayThrough the forest, hunting the deer!Ah, my friends, I'm afraid that hereYou are a little too pious, a little too tame,And the more is the shame.'T is the greatest follyNot to be jolly;That's what I think!Come, drink, drink,Drink, and die game!

MONKS.And your Abbot What's-his-name?

LUCIFER.Abelard!

MONKS.Did he drink hard?

LUCIFER.Oh, no! Not he!He was a dry old fellow,Without juice enough to get thoroughly mellow.There he stood,Lowering at us in sullen mood,As if he had come into BrittanyJust to reform our brotherhood!

But you seeIt never would do!For some of us knew a thing or two,In the Abbey of St. Gildas de Rhuys!For instance, the great adoWith old Fulbert's niece,The young and lovely Heloise.

FRIAR JOHN.Stop there, if you please,Till we drink so the fair Heloise.

ALL, drinking and shouting.Heloise! Heloise!

LUCIFER, starting.What is that bell for! Are you such assesAs to keep up the fashion of midnight masses?

It is only a poor unfortunate brother,Who is gifted with most miraculous powersOf getting up at all sorts of hours,And, by way of penance and Christian meekness,Of creeping silently out of his cellTo take a pull at that hideous bell;So that all monks who are lying awakeMay murmur some kind of prayer for his sake,And adapted to his peculiar weakness!

FRIAR JOHN.From frailty and fall--

ALL.Good Lord, deliver us all!

And before the bell for matins sounds,He takes his lantern, and goes the rounds,Flashing it into our sleepy eyes,Merely to say it is time to arise.But enough of that. Go on, if you please,With your story about St. Gildas de Rhuys.

LUCIFER.Well, it finally came to passThat, half in fun and half in malice,One Sunday at MassWe put some poison into the chalice.But, either by accident or design,Peter Abelard kept awayFrom the chapel that day,And a poor young friar, who in his steadDrank the sacramental wine,Fell on the steps of the altar, dead!But look! do you see at the window thereThat face, with a look of grief and despair,That ghastly face, as of one in pain?

MONKS.Who? where?

LUCIFER.As I spoke, it vanished away again.

It is that nefariousSiebald the Refectorarius,That fellow is always playing the scout,Creeping and peeping and prowling about;And then he regalesThe Abbot with scandalous tales.

LUCIFER.A spy in the convent? One of the brothersTelling scandalous tales of the others?Out upon him, the lazy loon!I would put a stop to that pretty soon,In a way he should rue it.

MONKS.How shall we do it!

LUCIFER.Do you, brother Paul,Creep under the window, close to the wall,And open it suddenly when I call.Then seize the villain by the hair,And hold him there,And punish him soundly, once for all.

As Saint Dunstan of old,We are told,Once caught the Devil by the nose!

LUCIFER.Ha! ha! that story is very clever,But has no foundation whatsoever.Quick! for I see his face againGlaring in at the window-pane;Now! now! and do not spare your blows.

FRIAR PAUL opens the window suddenly, and seizes SIEBALD.They beat him.

Help! help! are you going to slay me?

FRIAR PAUL.That will teach you again to betray me!

Mercy! mercy!

Rumpas bellorum lorumVim confer amorumMorum verorum rorumTu plena polorum!

LUCIFER.Who stands in the doorway yonder,Stretching out his trembling hand,Just as Abelard used to stand,The flash of his keen, black eyesForerunning the thunder?

THE MONKS, in confusion.The Abbot! the Abbot!

And what is the wonder!He seems to have taken you by surprise.

Hide the great flagonFrom the eyes of the dragon!

Pull the brown hood over your face!This will bring us into disgrace!

ABBOT.What means this revel and carouse?Is this a tavern and drinking-house?Are you Christian monks, or heathen devils,To pollute this convent with your revels?Were Peter Damian still upon earth,To be shocked by such ungodly mirth,He would write your names, with pen of gall,In his Book of Gomorrah, one and all!Away, you drunkards! to your cells,And pray till you hear the matin-bells;You, Brother Francis, and you, Brother Paul!And as a penance mark each prayerWith the scourge upon your shoulders bare;Nothing atones for such a sinBut the blood that follows the discipline.And you, Brother Cuthbert, come with meAlone into the sacristy;You, who should be a guide to your brothers,And are ten times worse than all the others,For you I've a draught that has long been brewing,You shall do a penance worth the doing!Away to your prayers, then, one and all!I wonder the very convent wallDoes not crumble and crush you in its fall!