Читать книгу Geofroy Tory. Painter and engraver; first royal printer; reformer of orthography and typography under François I онлайн

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WAYFARER

He is certainly well deserving of some Mæcenas.

GENIUS

Few are the Mæcenases who live in the French world. No one to-day either encourages the liberal arts by appropriate gifts or undertakes to encourage them in any way. Uprightness and fair virtue are in no esteem. So powerful is the sway of unhappy Avarice. Treachery, deceit, and vice are in the ascendant. Virtues are put in the background, and every form of wretched evil creeps abroad.

WAYFARER

What, therefore, does he who is trained by the charming Muses?

GENIUS

He takes pleasure in being able to live in his own house.

WAYFARER

He ought to go with hurried step to the courts of kings.

GENIUS

He does not care to, because he has a free heart. Your potentates sometimes take pleasure in looking at songs, but what then? They requite them with nods. Golden songs, drawn from the high heavens, they should reward with jewels and with pure gold. But, frivolous as they are, they instead foolishly give their grand gifts to fools, spendthrifts, and rogues.[51]