La Male Regle of Hoccleve
(my translation)

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.

The custom of my replete abstinence,
My greedy mouth, reciting such outrages,
And my two hands, as my negligence knows,
Has guided me and brought me into servitude
Under her who worries every age;
Sickness, I mean, riotous whip,
Abundantly has paid me my wage,
So that I neither dance nor skip.

The outward sign of Bacchus and his allure
That hangs at his door day after day
Excites people to taste of his moisture
So often that men cannot well say nay.
As for me, I say that I was inclined always
To hie myself thither without caution,
Unless such charge lay upon my back
To forego it for the time being.

Unless I was made naked
By the force of the penniless malady;
For then in my heart I could not be glad
Nor had any desire to hie to Bacchus's house.
Fie! Lack of coin departed my company,
And heavy purse with liberal heart
Quenches the thirsty heat of the dry heart,
Whereas a niggardly heart has but small thereof.

I dare not tell how the fresh repast
Of Venus's lusty dear children,
Who were so goodly, so shapely and fair,
And so pleasant in their comport and manners,
And could feed all the world with cheer,
And outfitted passingly well in attire,
At Paul's Head I often made my appearance
To talk of mirth, and to disport and play.

There was sweet wine enough throughout the house
And thick wafers, for this company
That I speak of was somewhat lecherous.
Wherever they might spy a drought of wine
Sweet and hot enough for the company
To warm a stomach with, thereof they drank.
To suffer themselves pain had been no courtesy;
That charge to took to win love and thanks.

Of love's art yet I touched no part;
I could not, and also there was no need.
Had I a kiss I was full well content,
Better than I would have been with the deed.
Thereof knew I but little, it is no dread.
When men spoke of it in my presence
I waxed as red as the gleed for shame.
Now will I turn again to my material.

For he who customarily haunts the tavern
The profit, in short words, is this:
In double wise it shall consume his bags
And make his tongue speak amiss ofd the people,
For in the cup is seldom found
That any man might commend his neighbor.
Behold and see what advantage is his
That God, his friend, and also himself offends.

But one advantage in this situation I have.
I was so afraid to fight with any man,
That I kept myself close, nor might dare deprave any man,
But quietly I spoke of nothing aloud.
But yet my will was good, if that I might,
in order to hide my manly cowardice,
Impress the man with his strokes,
So that I dared not meddle in any way.

What better master was there than I, 177
Or better acquainted at Westerminster Gate?
Among the taverners namely
And the cooks, when I came early or late,
I pinched not in my accounts
But payed them as they asked;
Therefore I was always the welcomer
And held for a very gentleman.

And if it happened on the summer's day
That I had been thus at the tavern,
When I had to depart and go on my way
Home to the Privy Seal, so was I wooed
By heat and laziness and superfluity
To walk to the bridge and take a boat,
That dared I not argue against all three
But did as they stirred me, God knows.

And in the winter, because the way was deep,
Unto the bridge I dressed myself also
and there the boatmen took keep of me,
For they knew of my riots from far ago.
With them I was tugged to and fro,
So well was it with him with whom I would fare;
For riot pays largely, evermore,
He never stints until his purse is bare.

I was never called anything but master
Among these men in my audience.
I thought I was made a gentleman forever.
So tickled I was that by nice reverence
That it made me the larger in dispense
Than I thought to have been. O flattery,
The guise of thy traitorous diligence
Is a mischief to folk who hasten and hie to you.

All though my years were but young,
Yet did I see men in high degree
How the venom of the faultless tongue
Mortified their prosperity
And brought them into such sharp adversity
That it also threw down their lives.
And yet there is no man in this country
Who needs not shun this confusion.

Many a servant says unto his lord
That all the world speaks of his honor
When the contrary, in faith, is true.
And lightly does this lounger believe it,
his honey words, wrapped in error,
Are blindly conceived, to his greater harm/.
O thou foul thief, author of lies,
You cause your lord to fare amiss all day.

Though cumberworlds are called enchanters
In books that I own or have read,
That is to say subtle deceivers,
By whom the people are misguided and led
And with pleasance so fostered and fed
That they forget themselves and cannot feel
The truth of the condition bred within them,
No more than if their wits were in their heel.

Whosoever likes can read in the Book of Nature
About beasts, where he may see,
If he takes heed unto the scripture
Where it speaks of mermaids in the sea,
How that so merrily she sings
That hte shipman falls asleep therewith
And is afterward devoured by her.
From all such songs keep good men.

Right so the feigned words of pleasantness
Annoy us afterward, though they please for a time
Those who are unwise in their governance.
Lords, be wary: let favel not lyme you.
If you are involved in crime,
You may not deem that men speak well of you.
Though favel paints her tale in prose or rhyme,
Ful wholesome it is to trust her not at all.

Holcot speaks in his book also
Of Sapience, as can be testified,
When Ulysses sallied to and fro
Byd the mermaids, this was his policy:
All the ears of the men in his company
He stopped up with wax, so that they might not
Hear their songs, lest the harmony
Of them might bring them into a deep sleep;

And he bound himself unto his ship's mast.
Lo, thus his prudence saved them all.
The wise man is sorely aghast of peril.
Oh flattery! Oh lurking pestilence!
If some man did his cure and diligence
To stop up his ears from thy poesy,
And hearkened not a word of your utterances,
It would be a remedy to his grief.

A nay! Although thy tongue were gone
Yet can'st thou gloss in good countenance and cheer.
Thou supports with looks evermore
They lord's words in each matter,
Although they might be too dear for you.
And thus your guise is both private and public.
Preferable are the words and looks among our lords here
Though there be no dessert.

But when the sober, true and well advised
With sad visage informs his lord plainly
How his governance is despised
Among the people, and says to him as they say,
As a true man ought to unto his sovereign,
Counseling him to amend his governance,
The lord's heart swells for disdain
And bids him void blyue with mischance.

Men set nothing by truth nowadays,
Men love it not, men will not cherish it,
And yet is truth always the best assay.
When that false Favel, the sustainer of vice,
Chooses not to show her to you,
Full boldly shall truth bear up her head.
Lords, lest Favel trick you full well,
Suffer not to nestle your ears.

Be this as it may, nor more of this now, 289
But to my misrule will I refer.
Where I was in ease enough now,
Before excess was preferred and dear to me
And before I knew of his earnest manner,
My purse had won reasonable coins,
But now they appeared but scant therein.
Excess had exiled them each one.

The fiend and excess are interchangeable,
As my fantasy explained to me.
This is my skill, if it be admittable:
Excess in meat and drink is gluttony;
Gluttony awakens melancholy;
Melancholy engenders war and strife;
Strife causes mortal hurts through her folly.
Thus may excess deprive a soul of her life.

No force in all this, we now go to watch
By nighttime, all out of measure.
For as I could find no equal
In all the Privy Seal who could endure with me,
And to the cup always I took my heed and cure
For that the drink should abate not.
But when the pot was emptied fo moisture,
It did not occur to my thoughts to awaken afterwards.

But when the cup had thus sped my need
A little more than necessary,
With a replete spirit I went to my bed
And bathed there in superfluity.
But in the morning no man in any degree
Was as loth as I to separate from my couch
By any means I knew. But wait, let me see.
There were two as loath as I am who I could touch upon.

I dare not say Pretys and Arondel
Counterfeited me and went in such ways as I,
But often they loved their beds so well
That the day drew near prime
Before they rose up. Nor can I tell the time
When they went to bed, it was so late.
Oh lord of health, thou sees them in that crime,
And yet though art loth to debate with them.

And why not? It sits not with me,
Who am the mirror of riot and excess,
To know god's secrets,
But thus much I imagine and guess:
Though art moved of tender gentleness
To forbear them, and will not chastise them,
For they in their mirth and virtuous gladness
Comfort lords in sundry ways.

But to my purpose. Since my sickness
Both in my purse and body had restrained
Me from the tavern and other wantonnesses,
Among the heap is my name now slandered.
Allas, that ever was I knit and chained
To excess, or did obedience to him.

Large dispense enhances a man's reputation
While it endures, and when it is gone
His name is dead, men keep their mouths closed
As if he had not spent a penny before.
My thanks is quenched, my purse has lost its stuffing,
And my carcass is replete with heaviness.
Be wary, Hoccleve, I advise you therefore,
And address yourself to a stringent rule.

Whosever desires passing restraint,
As, witness, these old clerks know,
Encumbers often his sighs and his mirth.
And therefore let the mean suffice you.
If such a conceit rises in your heart,
As which might hinder your profit or renown
If it were executed in any manner,
With manly reason, thrust it down.

Thy annual rents, as thou well knows,
Scarcely are great costs to sustain,
And in your coffer, pardee, is cold roast.
And of your manula labor, I know,
Your lucre is such that it is scarcely seen
Nor felt. Of gifts I say also the same.
And still, because the reward is so keen,
Never dare to beg for shame.

Then will it seem that you have borrowed
Much of that which you have dispended
In outrage and excess and very waste.
Advise thee, for whatever thing is lent
By rights must be sent home again;
You have no perpetuity in thee.
Pay your debts, lest you be destroyed
Or thereto compelled.

Some folk dread more offence in this situation
Of other men for their wily wrenching of the law
That they do of either God or conscience,
For by those two they set no store.
If your conceit be such, withdraw it,
I advise, and void it clean out of your heart
And first have God and then of man,
Lest that they both make you smart.

Now let this be a painful warning to you,
And if you must be relieved...