streetstyle bike culture

This bike site is doing a series of posts on cycling in Paris in general and Vélib' in particular. The blog's authors, man and wife, celebrate the high level of bike use in cities such as Copenhagen and advocate style over speed. For them "urban cycling is something to be done in your normal clothes and on normal bikes." To make their point they focus particularly on the huge numbers of women who have adopted cycling as as their normal way of getting about some of Europe's largest cities. Here's a link to today's post: Joie de Vivre Avec Vélo Libre. And here, the logo:


There, you can find this graphic showing the density of Vélib' stations in the city:


And a bunch of good photos. Here're a couple. In the first, notice that it's a rainy day.

topsy-turvy economics

This is brilliant. An editorial in the AARP Bulletin tells how much our economic well-being has deteriorated in the last 12 months: One Year Later, a New World.

The piece says the world is complex, fully interconnected, and volatile, enhancing the need for individuals to do what they can to ensure their own financial security. Here's the main graphic and excerpts:

In just 12 months, unemployment has risen from 4.5 percent with a growing workforce to 5.1 percent and a shrinking workforce as millions stopped seeking jobs. The average price of a gallon of gas has jumped 53 cents to $3.44, and crude oil has nearly doubled from $64 a barrel to

$115. Inflation is growing; medical costs are growing faster. Stock prices have dropped nearly 15 percent, and housing prices have plummeted more than 10 percent, part of a spiral of delayed payments, defaulted mortgages and home foreclosures. Banks and lenders around the world are in full retreat.

The U.S. trade deficit and the federal budget deficit continue to mushroom, and the national debt is $9.4 trillion—up 10 percent in a year. And the value of the dollar has fallen another 15 percent, driving the cost of imports ever higher and shaking the confidence of foreign investors.

If there is turmoil in the markets, there is chagrin and anxiety at home. Amid all the statistics, it is workers, home-owners, spouses, children and grandparents who feel the impact of this wrenching sequence of events—in lost jobs, postponed retirement, reduced wealth, delayed medication, lower confidence.

Vélib' update

It's been a while since I've given an update on Vélib', the wildly successful bike-sharing scheme in Paris. Heavily used last summer, I expected a severe fall-off in usage over the winter months, but that does not appear to have been the case. What follows is an update from Paul DeMaio's bike-sharing blog:

Updated Velib' Stats



The latest Velib' survey results are available and posted on the Velib' Website. Just in case you don't parlez Français, here's a summary:

* Trips to date: 20 million
* Average trips/day: 70,000
* Average trip time: 18 minutes
* 190,000 annual pass holders
* 42% of users are female, 58% are male
* 1/3 of users come from outside the central city
* 17% of users are 46+ years old
* 94% of users like the service

These results are highly impressive. The stats that amazed me the most are the number of trips to date and the percentage of female users. As Velib' is not yet one year old, there are still about two months of trips still to be made which could equate to another 5 million trips, or a total of 25 million trips, before the anniversary of it's launch date of July 15.

Having nearly the same percentage of female and male customers shows how mainstream bike-sharing has become in Paris. In cities where lesser bike cultures exist, such as those in North America, males tend to dominate bike usage by 3 to 1. Women are less likely to ride a bike when concerned about their safety compared to men. Men also tend to be generally more risk-taking and will ride in less safe street conditions. While not 50/50, this male/female customer demographic shows that women are using Velib' confidently, so Paris has done a good job in creating safe bike facilities before the launch of the program.

Fantastique!

image credit: Velib'
Posted by Paul DeMaio

Here are some women-on-Vélib' shots from a Google image search:





(Not a Vélib' bike, but I couldn't resist it.)

nice guys finishing first

Last year, a retired American pro cyclist formed a new team based on a clean-living/no cheating philosophy and now that newbie US team has taken the first stage of Italy's premier stage race, the Giro d'Italia. The event is of a type which is one of the most prestigious within the national tour frame: a team time trial, where each team competes against the clock and the winner is determined on the fifth rider to cross the line. It's an extremely difficult event and the team's success is a major achievement.

The American ex-pro is Jonathan Vaughters and the team is Slipstream.

Here are links to accounts on the team blog:
- Having fun chasing excellence
- Argyle Armada wins TTT! Christian in pink!

The blog is written by members of the team and its support people, not promotional flacks. Notice that one of the commenters points to a contrast with the US Postal team where all the riders were slaves to Armstrong rather than working together as a team for the team's success. Another makes an obvious point: nice guys do sometimes finish first. Another comment comes from Andy Hampsten, a pioneer American race winner in Europe and former winner of the Giro when leading 7-Eleven, the first successful US team. To his cost, he refused to take performance-enhancing drugs during his career in the sport. He says: "Respect -- Let me join in thanking you boys for showing respect in all you do, and how you race. Its been 20 lousy years since we got any respect in Pink and now the other families can all see how it should be done. With honor. And in the Old Country too. Don’t forget to eat well while you’re there too."

The Wikipedia article explains the team's drug-free orientation in brief: Slipstream Chipotle.

Cyclingnews.com explains just how extra-thorough is the team's testing program: Independent testing to continue alongside UCI's 'biological passports'.

And here's a more detailed account of The Slipstream Experiment.

The team has a photostream on flickr: Slipstream Sports/Chipotle's photostream

This one shows the team's discplined paceline:


The first guy across the line gets to wear the pink jersey of race leader. It's Christian Vande Velde


This shows good time trial form. It's Tom Peterson (photo credit: Velonews):


Here's Andy in 7-Eleven gear in a photo by Graham Watson:

we buy, we sell, we make society around us

I saw this photo while thinking about a review in Spiked Online of a book on shopping: Con$umed: How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults and Swallow Citizens Whole, by Benjamin Barber.

(Click image to view full size.)

The photo is by Rachel Leow, who is "a fledgling historian trying to understand herself and the world." It appears in an entry of hers on a blog called a historians craft. Here's the link: bookporn #32: NYC bookstore (I): somewhere on broadway.

The book review is an unusually good review essay not just of the one book but of the whole topic it covers. It's by Josie Appleton, who is identified as convener of the Manifesto Club, a humanist campaigning network and is found here: The cultural contradictions of consumerism.

Appleton says there's much to like in Barber's book. However she questions its basic thesis that the US economy "infantilizes" Americans as mindless consumers who throw their money away on frivolous purchases instead of using it wisely to help solve the world's problems. She admits that "the biggest trouble with consumption is that we really are consumed by it – we can’t see beyond it, but can only push it away in disgust."

But she goes on to point out:

It is not so much that we have an ethic of consumption, but that – by default – it remains as one of the few meaningful experiences in our lives. There is a tangibility and satisfaction to buying – to picking out a new shirt or a new album and taking it home – that means that shopping remains for individuals a confirmation of their power to make things happen in the world.

The power of consumption has been usefully theorised by the Marxist sociologist Georg Simmel. In The Philosophy of Money, he looks at how buying an object is an act of individual subjectivity, the person stamping himself on a thing and claiming his right to its exclusive enjoyment. Simmel cited the example of a friend he knew who would buy beautiful things, not to use them, but to ‘give an active expression to his liking of the things, to let them pass through his hands and, in so doing, to set the stamp of his personality upon them’.

This thought brings me to my contemplation of the bookshop photo. I think there's something wrong with the theses pushed by both Barber and Appleton. Yes, we're participants in a consumerist culture and yes we're manipulated by advertisers and victims of our own primitive, acquisitive greed to acquire more and more stuff. But there's more to us, more that's good, than this broad overview makes plain.

First, individual expression exists in selling as well as buying. Notice that the owner of the shop has obviously set a personal stamp of personality on the place. And consider how many sellers the world now has, especially all those of us who participate in online markets, not just eBay and Craigslist, and half.com, but also give-away sites such as bookmooch and freecycle.

Second, consider the long tail of retail. Wal-Mart may inhabit the top in terms of sales volume and numbers of customers, but niches predominate: some are upscale, glossy, and high-tech; others mall-oriented ranging from haut-bourgeois to teeny-jeansey; and many exist to satisfy hobbyists, craftspeople, do-it-yourselfers, and all who buy to make rather than just to wear or display. And of course many cater to those of us who suffer from book-lust, particularly lust for books that are passed-by and long-forgotten. All this under-market consumerism isn't evidence of the Marxist ravages of rampant end-stage capitalism, I don't think, but a positive cultural phenomenon. We engage in buying and selling to express ourselves and the expression isn't all bad. Appleton and Simmel suggest this but don't appear to give this social effusion its full due.

So, here's to the contribution made by second-hand bookstores to make the world a more livable, humane, and maybe even civically-engaged place.

Bogey, Bacall, drunken Bill, and Raymond's big sleep

I keep a blog called Today in Literature in my aggregator. Today's article is on Faulkner in Hollywood. It's by the site's owner Steve King and it starts out thusly: "On this day in 1932 William Faulkner reluctantly arrived in Hollywood to begin work as a screenwriter, a labor that would last, on and off, for twenty years." The TinL formula doesn't give much space for extensive treatment of a subject. Still, I wish he had made room for my favorite anecdote on this subject.

Just after the close of World War II Faulkner worked on movies made from the famous detective novels of Raymond Chandler. One of the novels, The Big Sleep, was notoriously convoluted. In the movie, its almost incomprehensible plot was made even more difficult to follow by the absence of the hero as narrator; the whole complex mess had to be revealed to the viewer by dialogue. Worse yet, the producers decided to edit out a scene in which Chandler's detective, Philip Marlowe, runs down what's known about the case with a police inspector somewhere near the midpoint of the plot.

This situation generated the anecdote I missed seeing in the TinL article:

The most famous loose end in the story concerns a chauffeur, one Owen Taylor, who turns up dead in a water-logged Packard, "washing around off Lido Pier." Questions on the set arose as to who, in the carnival of conflicting motives that made the film a Chinese box of mayhem, actually did kill Owen Taylor? Hawks realized he didn't know, and successive calls were put in to screenwriters Leigh Brackett, Jules Furthman, and William Faulkner; they didn't know, either. Finally, Chandler himself was reached; no, he said, he guessed he didn't know, either. Editor Christian Nyby remembered years later that work on the film stopped for two days while a way out of this narrative cul-de-sac was sought. At that point, Hawks realized it didn't matter who killed Owen Taylor, and the film went ahead, its atmosphere of treachery somehow improved by the ambiguity.

My source: 10 Shades of Noir The Big Sleep

There is a ton of good sites on "The Big Sleep," Chandler, and Faulkner in Hollywood. One, a blog by Bernard Schopen, I particularly recommend for bits of dialogue. Some of these bits are with an 18-year-old bombshell named Lauren Bacall, whom Humphrey Bogart, the actor playing the hero, would soon marry, but this one is with the other lead actress. Here's how Schopen presents it:

Behind the credits, a silhouetted couple light cigarettes, and then leave them burning in an ashtray. In the opening sequence, an unidentified hand and finger press in the doorbell buzzer of a mansion doorway. A hard-boiled, laconic, intelligent, and cynical private detective Philip Marlowe (Humphrey Bogart) arrives at a lavish mansion. [Bogart played the part of Marlowe only once.] The Los Angeles gumshoe is there to consult with wealthy, aging and dying, dessicated, wheelchair-bound "General" Sternwood (Charles Waldron), a rich widower:

My name's Marlowe. General Sternwood wanted to see me.

On the way in, he meets one of the General's two alluring and sexy daughters, the younger, troubled, errant, thumb-biting, frequently doped-up nymphomaniacal heiress Carmen (Martha Vickers), wearing a white polka-dot miniskirt. He notices her legs after she descends the stairs. Capriciously, she tells him:

Carmen: You're not very tall, are you?
Marlowe: Well, I, uh, I try to be.
Carmen: Not bad looking. Oh you probably know it. (while twirling and biting a lock of her hair)
Marlowe: Thank you.
Carmen: What's your name?
Marlowe: Reilly. Doghouse Reilly.
Carmen: That's a funny kind of name.
Marlowe: You think so.
Carmen: Uh, uh. What are you? A prizefighter?
Marlowe: No, I'm a shamus.
Carmen: What's a shamus?
Marlowe: It's a private detective.
Carmen: You're making fun of me.
Marlowe: Uh, uh.
Carmen (she leans back and falls into his arms, throwing herself at him): You're cute.

Bogey's most famous line in the film comes a bit later in his first scene with Bacall:

Vivian: You know, I don't see what there is to be cagey about, Mr. Marlowe. And I don't like your manners.
Marlowe: I'm not crazy about yours. I didn't ask to see you. I don't mind if you don't like my manners. I don't like them myself. They're pretty bad. I grieve over them long winter evenings. And I don't mind your ritzing me, or drinking your lunch out of a bottle, but don't waste your time trying to cross-examine me.

Kuusankosken kaupunginkirjasto, from Finland, has the best web page on Raymond Chandler. I leave it to you to find other pages on Faulkner, Chandler, Bacall and Bogart, and the rest.

Some publicity stills from various sites, including Bernard Schopen's blog. These are from "The Big Sleep":

Martha Vickers twirling her hair.

This is from the most famous scene in "To Have and Have Not;" it's unforgettable:


A couple of Faulkner shots from the brightlightsfilm site:

Faulkner's publicity photo for Sanctuary

Faulkner in Hollywood

there is none so subtle but love doth him abuse

I'm drafting my thesis these days. I just completed a first-draft section on the English writing masters of the early-modern period. These were men who taught good penmanship. Their students, who mostly aimed at employment in the business world, needed to be able to make documents that were legible and accurate without taking a long time in doing it. I'm just starting a second section on the commercial arithmetic that these writing masters also taught. During the period, use of roman numerals was giving way to arabic ones and side-by-side use of tally sticks, counting boards, and abacuses was giving way to computing with pen on paper. No matter how they were done, multiplication and particularly division were very difficult to master. Only with the gradual adoption of algebra would these tasks be made easy.

So, in doing this draft I've been putting some last touches on the research that supports it. And in doing this I searched the word "casting" in a database of early modern books. Casting was what you did on a counting board: you placed the counters (small stones or the like) in columns representing numerical place as you would when using an abacus. But the word casting shows up in lots of other documents of the time, mostly having to do with casting out devils, or feigning to cast out devils, or pretending devilry in order to take credit for casting it out ... like that.

And I came across the following fragment, which is one page someone saved from a larger text. Why they saved it and how it came to be in the database I do not know.

I could not resist taking a few moments to at least determine what it is and what it says.

Turns out it is a page from a poem from Robert Copland. He was an associate of England's first printer William Caxton and a printer himself. The book carries the very early date of 1530. You can read about him here. John Payne Collier gives more information about the man and his poem in his Illustrations of Early English Popular Literature, of 1863. The poem is a translation from an anonymous French author, though Copland does not trouble to tell us this (England's early printing was rife with unacknowledged translations). Just for context: the year of its publication was in the middle of the reign of Henry VIII and the heyday of the Protestant Reformation. His daughter Elizabeth, future Elizabeth I, Queen of England, would not be born for another three years.

Here is my fragment, followed by the whole text of the poem:


My fragment reads:

With her eyen pleasaunte castynge a regarde
In chastynge a laughter amerous,
Than with a praty smyle she doth me larde,
And that maketh me somewhat joyous;
But comynge to a bed delycyous
For to holde the spere in a full hande,
It plyeth and fayleth, for wyll not stonde.
Whan I herde her bable and langage,
Her gentyll termes spoken so properly,
I do me wyshe for to be in to the age

Of eyghten, neyntene, or foure and twenty:
Suche assautes than gyue wolde I,
That for it sholde haue no nede to craue
Of the grete pleasure that she sholde haue.
If that she go to banckettes and daunces,
She doth none offence therin certayne:
Nedes she must haue her pleasaunces
In some place to make her glad and fayne;
Wherfore I dare well say and susteyne
That after with me I wolde haue her ledde,
If ony soner I had ben to her wedde.
We twayne sholde haue all our yongenesse,
After maryage custome and ryght,
Passed in joye, solace, and gladnesse,
And is wherfore I haue me pyght:
Force it is to me that the fyre be night,
That at a nede I can not haue quenched.
To late maryed is for to be complayned.

Here's the whole (lengthy) work:

Copland, R.

Here begynneth the complaynte of them that ben to late maryed.

1: After playes, sportes, and daunces of solace,
2: We must thynke to come to prosperyte,
3: After that God of his haboundaunte grace
4: Wyll prouyde how that I may gouerne me,
5: In mynde I purpose wedded to be.
6: In a better lyfe may no man lyue in
7: Than to be maryed, and lyfe out of synne.
8: All yonge louers sholde them so affyle,
9: That they loue trewely, and so for to lyue;
10: With ardaunte wytte and perfyte style,
11: All vnto goodnesse themselfe for to gyue:
12: Than may they be sure that they shall thryue.
13: So wyll I lyue in maryage clene and pure,
14: To Goddes be houe and increasinge of nature.
15: To longe haue I lyued without ony make,
16: All to longe haue I vsed my yonge age;
17: I wyll all for go, and a wyfe to me take
18: For to increase both our twoos lynage:

page 4

19: For saynt Iohn sayth that he is sage
20: That ayenst his wyll doth him gouerne,
21: And our Lordes preceptes hym selfe for to learne.
22: There is no greter pleasure than for to haue
23: A wyfe that is full of prudence and wysdome.
24: Alas, for loue nygh I am in poynte to raue!
25: These cursed olde men haue an yll custome
26: Women for to blame, both all and some;
27: For that they can not theyr myndes full fyll,
28: Therfore they speke of them but all yll.
29: Now syth that I haue my tyme vsed
30: For to folowe my folyshe pleasaunces,
31: And haue my selfe oftentymes sore abused
32: At plaies and sportes, pompes and daunces,
33: Spendynge golde and syluer and grete fynaunces,
34: For faut of a wyfe the cause is all:
35: To late maryed, men may me call.
36: The holy sacramente of maryage,
37: Before holy chyrche, was ordeyned
38: For to increase humayne lynage:
39: He that doth other wyse is not receyued
40: Before God: thus was man guerdoned
41: With woman for to lyue at his owene wyll:
42: He is a fole that elles where doth nature spyll.

page 5

43: I haue done as the labourer doth
44: That somtyme is payned with trobyll grete,
45: For he leseth his payne, for certayne soth,
46: That in the hye waye soweth his whete:
47: Well I perceyue that I dyde me forgete,
48: Or that I put me in to housholde;
49: I haue lost my seed, my worke is but colde.
50: Women and maydens, both good and yll,
51: With me I helde my selfe for to please,
52: The one dyde rebell, the other abode styll,
53: Other made me well at myn ease.
54: Cupydo than came me for to cease,
55: Venus lyghted her bronde of fyre:
56: For such seruyce, suche guerdon and hyre.
57: Thus rauysshed in this sayd abusion,
58: I was taken with a cantelous wyle,
59: That me thought to make conclusyon
60: Of my weddynge within a whyle.
61: But yet dyde they me begyle;
62: They caused me for to make grete dyspence,
63: For I was no soner wed, through my neglygence,
64: I wolde do make comune, I wys,
65: My proper goodes; so was I lyght
66: Of wytte, and was all wayes redy, as is

page 6

67: A man of armes in poynt to fyght.
68: Other whyles I went me ryght
69: In to places my selfe solysytynge;
70: But nother frequented that beynge.
71: Yf I withhelde ony praty one,
72: Swetely ynough she made me chere,
73: Sayenge that she loued no persone
74: But me; and therto she dyde swere:
75: But whan I wente fro that place there,
76: Vnto another she dyde as moche,
77: For they loue none but for theyr poche.
78: I had fyue or sixe companyons
79: That haunted with me euery houre;
80: But I haue knowen to suche garsons
81: In secrete they haue done socoure,
82: Yf that they enioyed my paramoure,
83: With grete payne durste I it to them saye:
84: Force me was to kepe counseyll alwaye.
85: I wote well that I haue ryght sore varyed,
86: For to haue wylled for to lyue alone,
87: For to haue ben to late maryed,
88: For that I haue herde so longe a gone,
89: For she that abandoneth to more then one,

page 7

90: I dare wyll swere, and ther with it sust[a]yne,
91: That she abandoneth vnto a dosayne.
92: Folysshe regardes, full of vanyte,
93: I kest ouer twarte and eke contrauers;
94: To daye I had peas, rest and vnyte,
95: To morowe I had plete and processe dyuers:
96: Breke I dyde dores and fenesters;
97: Sargeauntes met me by the waye,
98: And enprysoned both me and my praye.
99: Subiecte I was to a meyny of bawdes,
100: And vnto a grete company of brothelles,
101: Whiche to me brought an hepe of rybaudes,
102: Dronkardes that loued well good morselles,
103: Knaues and theues that wolde pyke quarelles.
104: I gaue them clothes, I knewe not theyr vse;
105: There is none so subtyll but loue doth hym abuse.
106: Alas! I haue all my tyme spent and lost,
107: Whiche for to recouer is impossyble;
108: Spent haue I nature, at grete expens and cost;
109: Agenst the ryght canon and of the holy byble,
110: Offens done to God neuer ceasyble;
111: In daunger for to forfayte bothe soule and lyfe,
112: By defaute for to haue taken vnto me a wyfe.

page 8

113: Lyke vnto a best, an hors, or an asse,
114: That careth not for to tomble in the fen,
115: Yf that ony with me playenge there was,
116: An other to helpe I wolde go then:
117: Mo gallantes a man sholde se than ren
118: After a wentche, and lepe and hytche,
119: Than dogges do about a farowenge bytche.
120: She wolde to no maner a man escondyte;
121: Eche one she appetyted for to receyue,
122: Takynge therein pleasure and delyte,
123: To the ende theyr syluer for to haue:
124: But in the stede chyldren to conceyue,
125: Botches, pockes and goutes they engendre,
126: In hedes and in legges and in euery membre.
127: In this maner of sykenesse many ther be
128: That ben Impotentes hanged and dede,
129: But lytell semblaunce they make on to se
130: Taken as they ben, not beggynge theyr brede.
131: Hast you to be wedded, thus I you rede,
132: Vnto the ende that ye be not cappable
133: Of this grete daunger, deedly and vncurable.
134: Now am I out of this daunger so alenge,
135: Wherfore I am gladde it for to perseuer;
136: Longe about haue I ben me for to renge,

page 9

137: But it is better to late than to be neuer.
138: Certes I was not, in my lyfe tyll hyther,
139: So full of ioye that doth in my herte inspyre:
140: Wedded folke haue tyme at theyr desyre.
141: Out am I now of thought, dole and mone,
142: Lyuynge euer more ryght amorously,
143: For I haue a wyfe by my selfe alone,
144: At my commaundement both late and erely;
145: And yf it happen that I loke heuely,
146: My wyfe me kysseth, and than she me colleth,
147: And ryght woman there she me consolleth.
148: To that I wyll haue done she is redy,
149: Neuer wyll she ayenst my wyll saye:
150: She doth to me the best that she can truely,
151: Nothing of my volenty she doth me naye.
152: Yf I be angred or trobled ony waye,
153: Redy she is to chaunge my purpose,
154: Vnto the ende that I may haue all my repose.
155: I haue me all to longe refrayned;
156: Furnysshe I can not to all her pleasyre,
157: And for to promyse her I am constrayned
158: More then I can do to her desyre.
159: She appetyteth it moche, and doth me enspyre,

page 10

160: Gorgyously shewynge her fayre corsage,
161: But I am all caduc, and wery for age.
162: I ought to haue by this many chyldren,
163: Some sporte and playe, & some at fyre syttynge,
164: Other in the felde to shote, lepe and ren,
165: And some hardy, some mery and tryumphynge,
166: In whom I sholde haue all my delytynge;
167: But to late maryd, withouten dout,
168: May neuer se his chyldren ren out.
169: My wyfe shewed to me her proper dugge,
170: On the mornynge her delyte for to make,
171: And to haue me for to playe nugge a nugge.
172: Alas! I wolde it full fayne forsake,
173: But force it is suche lessons to take,
174: And to ryse vp erly, as I thynke best,
175: In the mornynge, and go vnto my rest.
176: Whan I se her lye in shetes fayre and whyte,
177: As rede as the button of the rose,
178: With good wyll wolde I take than delyte;
179: Neuertheles I lete her haue her repose,
180: For it is force that I cast agayne on the close,
181: And to make a pawse than I am conioynt,
182: For thynstrument is not yet well in poynt.

page 11

183: But yet somtyme I me constrayne
184: To take nature solace, thus thynke I,
185: But all sodeynly I me refrayne,
186: For I do fere to be to soone wery,
187: And than I slepe with courage all drery,
188: And yet am I, I can not passe
189: Vpon women more than euer I was.
190: Constrayned I am to be full of Ialousy,
191: Seynge that I can not content her mynde
192: Touchynge the playe of loue all softely:
193: Often ynough, the experyence to fynde,
194: She me assayeth and tourneth by kynde,
195: Castynge vnto me her beggynge legge,
196: But I do slepe; I care not for suche a begge.
197: With her eyen pleasaunte castynge a regarde
198: In chastynge a laughter amerous,
199: Than with a praty smyle she doth me larde,
200: And that maketh me somewhat joyous;
201: But comynge to a bed delycyous
202: For to holde the spere in a full hande,
203: It plyeth and fayleth, for wyll not stonde.
204: Whan I herde her bable and langage,
205: Her gentyll termes spoken so properly,
206: I do me wyshe for to be in to the age

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207: Of eyghten, neyntene, or foure and twenty:
208: Suche assautes than gyue wolde I,
209: That for it sholde haue no nede to craue
210: Of the grete pleasure that she sholde haue.
211: If that she go to banckettes and daunces,
212: She doth none offence therin certayne:
213: Nedes she must haue her pleasaunces
214: In some place to make her glad and fayne;
215: Wherfore I dare well say and susteyne
216: That after with me I wolde haue her ledde,
217: If ony soner I had ben to her wedde.
218: We twayne sholde haue all our yongenesse,
219: After maryage custome and ryght,
220: Passed in joye, solace, and gladnesse,
221: And is wherfore I haue me pyght:
222: Force it is to me that the fyre be night,
223: That at a nede I can not haue quenched.
224: To late maryed is for to be complayned.
225: It is sayd, that a man in seruytude
226: Hym putteth whan he doth to woman bende;
227: He ne hath but only habytude
228: Vnto her the whiche well doth hym tende.
229: Who wyll to householde comprehende,

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230: And there a bout studyeth in youth alwayes,
231: He shall haue honoure in his olde dayes.
232: Some chyldren vnto the courtes hauntes,
233: And ben puruayed of benefyces;
234: Some haunteth markettes and be marchauntes,
235: Byenge and fellynge theyr marchaundyses,
236: Or elles constytuted in offyces;
237: Theyr faders and moders haue grete solace,
238: That to late maryed by no waye hase.
239: I be wayll the tyme that is so spent
240: That I ne me hasted for to wedde,
241: For I shall haue herytage and rente,
242: Both golde and syluer and kynred;
243: But syth that our Lorde hath ordeyned
244: That I this sacrament take me vpon,
245: I wyll kepe it trewely at all season.
246: Theophrastus vs sheweth in his prose
247: That in maryage all is out of tune;
248: So doth also the romanute of the rose,
249: Composed by mayster Iohan de mehune:
250: Yet neuertheles it is all comune,
251: That they neuer were in bonde of maryage,
252: Wherfore at all auentures is theyr langage.

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253: Matheolus, that was holden so wyse,
254: For to blame women was all his ebate,
255: Suppose that he was maryed twyse,
256: For he was so olde that balde was his pate;
257: For he came the last tyme so very late,
258: That in hym there was no puyssaunce,
259: Amyte, solace, joye ne pleasure.
260: But whan that a man may do no more,
261: He blame that that he can not do:
262: To late wedded the surplus, therfore,
263: May not furnysshe as other may do;
264: For whan he wened to satysfye, lo,
265: Nature at nede wyll not hym preuayle:
266: Suche wenes do to well that other whyle fayle.
267: Yf that there be ony tryfelers
268: That haue wylled for to blame maryage,
269: I dare well saye that they ben but lyers,
270: Or elles God fayled in the fyrste age:
271: Adam bereth wytnesse and tesmonage,
272: Maryed he was, and comen we ben;
273: God dyde choyse maryage vnto all men.
274: Now sith it is thus befall,
275: Why than ought we it to blame,
276: Vs for to put we ben holden all,

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277: So sholde we alwayes holde with the same;
278: Or elles holy scrypture sayeth it is shame,
279: And that alleggeth all predycatours,
280: Our Lorde God hateth all fornycatours.
281: I am now sory that I haue no rathe
282: Put my selfe into maryages rout,
283: For many a folysshe loke it hathe:
284: It hath me cost here and there about;
285: But yet my soule is in grete doute,
286: For God fornycatures punyssheth,
287: And out of this realme he them banyssheth.
288: There is no man lyuynge that can commyt
289: Without outen the worke of nature,
290: But he in maryage doth commyse it,
291: As vs telleth the holy Scripture:
292: It is than foly to ony creature
293: Thus for to blame his creason
294: For ony maner of folysshe opynyon.
295: All they that by theyr subtyll artes
296: Hath wylled for to blame maryage,
297: I wyll susteyne that they be bastardes,
298: Or at least waye an euyll courage,
299: For to saye that therin is seruage

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300: In maryage, but I it reny,
301: For therin is but humayne company.
302: Yf ther be yll women and rebell,
303: Shrewed, dispytous and eke felonyous,
304: There be other fayre and do full well,
305: Propre, gentyll, lusty and joyous,
306: That ben full of grace and vertuous;
307: They ben not all born vnder a sygnet:
308: Happy is he that a good one can get.
309: To late maryed now helpe than me
310: To make my sorowes and complayntes;
311: For by my fayth, I swere to the,
312: I haue suffred many dolours and crayntes,
313: And haue sustayned mo attayntes
314: Than euer dede Wat after the hounde:
315: At dyspence I lyued, and that haue I founde.
316: Galantes, playne ye the tyme that ye haue lost,
317: Marry you be tyme, as the wyse man sayth:
318: Tossed I haue ben fro pyler to post
319: In commyssynge natures werke alwayes:
320: I haue passed full many quasy dayes,
321: That now vnto good I can not mate,
322: For mary I dyde my selfe to late.

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323: Rychely in a raye ought for to go
324: These women that be obedyent;
325: Better than these cursed wyues do
326: That ben not to theyr husbandes pacyent.
327: To take a wyfe was myn intent,
328: Goddes lawes to kepe and them to obserue,
329: Sauynge of nature, and heuen to preserue.
330: Afore that euer I was maryed
331: Bordeles I haunted, and places of infame,
332: But I am now vnto a wyfe alayed,
333: The worde to holde, and honoure Goddes neme.
334: That wycked man I holde to blame
335: That foloweth eyyll ruell, and wyll not amende,
336: Vnto his soulles helth, and honoure to pretende.
337: Whan a man to olde age is faden and fall,
338: Lerne this lesson, herken my sentence;
339: Fewe frendes meteth he with all
340: That wyll to his pouerte take ony intellygence.
341: Wo worthe, than crye they, of the expence
342: That they haue spent vnto youthes lust!
343: And now they must dye for hunger and thurst.
344: Better it is in youth a wyfe for to take,
345: And lyue with her to Goddes pleasaunce,

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346: Than to go in age for Goddes sake,
347: In wor[l]dely sorowe and perturbaunce,
348: For youthes loue and vtteraunce,
349: And than to dye at the last ende,
350: And be dampned in hell with the foule fende.

The auctour
351: Rychenes in youth, with good gouernaunce,
352: Often helpeth age whan youth is gone his gate;
353: Both yonge and olde must haue theyr sustenaunce
354: Euer in this worlde, soo fekyll and rethrograte:
355: Ryght as an ampte, the whiche all gate,
356: Trusseth and caryeth for his lyues fode,
357: Eny thynge that whiche hym semeth to be good.
358: Crysten folke ought for to haue
359: Open hertes vnto God almyght,
360: Puttynge in theyr mynde thyr soule to saue,
361: Lernynge to come vnto the eternall lyght,
362: And kepe well theyr maryage and trouth plyght;
363: Nothynge alwaye of theyr last ende,
364: Durynge theyr lyues how they the tyme spende.
365: Here endeth the complaynt of to late maryed,
366: For spendynge of tyme or they a borde,

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367: The sayd holy sacramente haue to long taryed,
368: Humayne nature tassemble, and it to accorde.
369: Enprynted in Fletestrete by Wynkyn de Worde,
370: Dwellynge in the famous cyte of London,
371: His hous in the same at the sygne of the Sonne.
FINIS.

Source:
English Poetry Database
Copland: Complaynte of them that ben to late maryed
Poet: Robert Copland
fl.1505?-1547
The Assemble of Foules. Here foloweth the assemble of foules veray pleasaunt and compendyous to rede or here compyled by the preclared and famous clerke Geffray Chaucer
City: London
Publisher: Imprynted ... by ... Wynkyn de Worde
Date: 1530
Description: [27] p.
Only introductory and concluding poems by Copland included