Ballad of Proverbs
GOATS scratch until they spoil their bed :Pitcher to well too oft we send:The iron's heated till it's redAnd hammered till in twain it rend:The tree grows as the twig we bend:Men journey till they disappearEven from the memory of a friend:We shout out 'Noël' till it's here.
Some mock until their hearts do bleed :Some are so frank that they offend:Some waste until they come to need :A promised gift is ill to spend :Some love God till from church they trend :Wind shifts until to North it veer:Till forced to borrow do we lend :We shout out 'Noël' till it's here.
Dogs fawn on us till them we feed :Song's sung until by heart it's kenned:Fruit's kept until it rot to seed :The leaguered place falls in the end:Folk linger till the occasion wend :Haste oft throws all things out of gear:One clips until the grasp's o'erstrained :We shout out 'Noël' till it's here.
Prince, fools live so long that they mend:They go so far that they draw near:They're cozened till they apprehend:We shout out 'Noël' till it's here.
Words in this poem
- twain a.
- Two;- nearly obsolete in common discourse, but used in poetry and burlesque. [OE. twein, tweien, tweyne, AS. twegen, masc. See Two.]
- trend v. i.
- To have a particular direction; to run; to stretch; to tend; as, the shore of the sea trends to the southwest. [OE. trenden to roll or turn about; akin to OFries. trind, trund, round, Dan. & Sw. trind, AS. trendel a circle, ring, and E. trendle, trundle.]
- borrow v. t.
- To receive from another as a loan, with the implied or expressed intention of returning the identical article or its equivalent in kind; -- the opposite of lend. [OE. borwen, AS. borgian, fr. borg, borh, pledge; akin to D. borg, G. borg; prob. fr. root of AS. beorgan to protect. Borough.]
- folk n.
- In Anglo-Saxon times, the people of a group of townships or villages; a community; a tribe. [AS. folc; akin to D. volk, OS. & OHG. folk, G. volk, Icel. f, Sw. & Dan. folk, Lith. pulkas crowd, and perh. to E. follow.]
- wend n.
- A large extent of ground; a perambulation; a circuit.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Ballad of Proverbs is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Poems of Master François Villon of Paris, now first done into English verse, in the original forms, with a biographical and critical introduction, by John Payne, Internet Archive, the John Payne translation; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: François Villon, Ballad of Proverbs, in The Poems of Master François Villon of Paris (1892), text of Internet Archive, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/villon-poems/ballad-of-proverbs.html, id L27070.
Form and metre
Ballad of Proverbs is 28 lines in 4 stanzas. The rhyme scheme is ABABBCBC, complete in 3 of its 4 stanzas. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 85%).
See other poems in iambic tetrameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 ABABBCBC bedA · sendB · redA · rendB · bendB · disappearC · friendB · hereC
- 2 ABABBCBC bleedA · offendB · needA · spendB · trendB · veerC · lendB · hereC
- 3 ABABBCBC feedA · kennedB · seedA · endB · wendB · gearC · o'erstrainedB · hereC
- 4 ABAB mendA · nearB · apprehendA · hereB
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| GOATS scratch until they spoil their bed : | 8 | ········ |
| Pitcher to well too oft we send: | 8 | /˘······ |
| The iron's heated till it's red | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| And hammered till in twain it rend: | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| The tree grows as the twig we bend: | 8 | ········ |
| Men journey till they disappear | 8 | ·/˘···˘/ |
| Even from the memory of a friend: | 8 | /··/˘··· |
| We shout out 'Noël' till it's here. | 8 | ········ |
| Some mock until their hearts do bleed : | 8 | ········ |
| Some are so frank that they offend: | 8 | ······˘/ |
| Some waste until they come to need : | 8 | ········ |
| A promised gift is ill to spend : | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Some love God till from church they trend : | 8 | ········ |
| Wind shifts until to North it veer: | 8 | ········ |
| Till forced to borrow do we lend : | 8 | ···/···· |
| We shout out 'Noël' till it's here. | 8 | ········ |
| Dogs fawn on us till them we feed : | 8 | ········ |
| Song's sung until by heart it's kenned: | 8 | ········ |
| Fruit's kept until it rot to seed : | 8 | ········ |
| The leaguered place falls in the end: | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Folk linger till the occasion wend : | 9 | ·/˘··˘/˘· |
| Haste oft throws all things out of gear: | 8 | ········ |
| One clips until the grasp's o'erstrained : | 8 | ········ |
| We shout out 'Noël' till it's here. | 8 | ········ |
| Prince, fools live so long that they mend: | 8 | ········ |
| They go so far that they draw near: | 8 | ········ |
| They're cozened till they apprehend: | 8 | ······˘/ |
| We shout out 'Noël' till it's here. | 8 | ········ |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.