Wace

thumb| Wace (c. 1110 – after 1174), sometimes referred to as Robert Wace, was a Medieval Norman poet, who was born in Jersey and brought up in mainland Normandy (he tells us in the Roman de Rou that he was taken as a child to Caen), ending his career as Canon of Bayeux. Quotes thumb|Muscle is good, but craft is better. Por remembrer des ancessoursLi fez è li diz è li mours,Deit l'en li livres è li gestesE li estoires lire as festes. Who would remember his forbears,What deeds, what words, what life was theirs,Must chronicles and annals readAnd histories written for his need. Roman de Rou, line 1 (Tr. Harbottle and Dalbiac) Cil due vassals, ki tant cunquistrent,Tant orent terres, è tant pristrent;Emprès la mort, de lor enor,N'ont cescuns fors sa lunguor. These heroes twain, these conquerors grand,Who took and kept full many a land,Yet after death, for all their toilHave each but their own length of soil. Roman de Rou, line 53 (Tr. Harbottle and Dalbiac) Tote rien se torne en déclin,Tot chiet, tot meurt, tot vait à fin:Hom muert, fer use, fust porrist,Tur font, mur chiet, rose flaistrist,Cheval trebusche, drap viésist:Tot ovre fet od mainz périst. All things to their decline do tend,All falls, expires, comes to its end:Man dies, iron rusts, wood rots away,Tower sinks, wall falls, rose has its day.Horse stumbles, cloth wears out apace,No work of hands leaves lasting trace. Roman de Rou, line 65 (Tr. Harbottle and Dalbiac) N'ont terre de Seingnor ki ne se pot aidier. None lord it o'er the land but they who help themselves. Roman de Rou, line 3329 (Tr. Harbottle and Dalbiac) Ci faut le livre Maistre Wace;Qu'in velt avant fere, s'in face. Here endeth Master Wace his book;Who wanteth more to himself must look. Roman de Rou, line 16,546 (Tr. Harbottle and Dalbiac) Que force sormonte vertu.Bone est force et engins mius valt,Là vaut engins où force falt;Engins et ars font mainte coseQue force commenchier ne n'ose. Wit is more than strength! Muscle is good, but craft is better. Skill devises means when strength fails. Cunning and engines bring many matters to a good end, that strength would not venture even to begin. Roman de Brut, line 8262 (Tr. Eugene Mason) External links Thomas Benfield Harbottle; Philip Hugh Dalbiac, Dictionary of Quotations: French and Italian, 2nd ed. (London: Swann Sonnenschein & Co., Ltd., 1904), pp. 31, 32, 158, 180, 214 Eugene Mason, Arthurian Chronicles, Everyman's Library (London: J. M. Dent & Sons, Ltd.; New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1912), p. 27 Category:1170s deaths Category:Medieval poets