Produced by Suzanne L. Shell, Charles Franks and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team. With thanks to the McCain
Library, Agnes Scott College.
A Comedy of Justice
By
1922
"Of JURGEN eke they maken mencioun,
That of an old wyf gat his youthe agoon,
And gat himselfe a shirte as bright as fyre
Wherein to jape, yet gat not his desire
In any countrie ne condicioun."
Before each tarradiddle,
Uncowed by sciolists,
Robuster persons twiddle
Tremendously big fists.
"Our gods are good," they tell us;
"Nor will our gods defer
Remission of rude fellows'
Ability to err."
So this, your JURGEN, travels
Content to compromise
Ordainments none unravels
Explicitly … and sighs.
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"Others, with better moderation, do either entertain the vulgarhistory of Jurgen as a fabulous addition unto the true and authenticstory of St. Iurgenius of Poictesme, or else we conceive the literalacception to be a misconstruction of the symbolical expression:apprehending a veritable history, in an emblem or piece of Christianpoesy. And this emblematical construction hath been received by mennot forward to extenuate the acts of saints."
"A forced construction is very idle. If readers of The HighHistory of Jurgen do not meddle with the allegory, the allegorywill not meddle with them. Without minding it at all, the whole isas plain as a pikestaff. It might as well be pretended that wecannot see Poussin's pictures without first being told the allegory,as that the allegory aids us in understanding Jurgen."
"Too urbane to advocate delusion, too hale for the bitterness ofirony, this fable of Jurgen is, as the world itself, a book whereineach man will find what his nature enables him to see; which givesus back each his own image; and which teaches us each the lessonthat each of us desires to learn."
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