Villon’s Snows of Times Past

Woodcut from the Grand Testament de Maistre François Villon of 1489

Dictes moy ou n’en quel pays

Est Flora le belle Romaine

Archipiades, ne Thaïs,

Qui fut sa cousine germaine,

Echo parlant quant ruyt ou maire

Dessus riviè ou sus estan,

Que beaultè ot trop plus qu’humaine.

Mais ou sont les neiges d’antan?

Tell me from where I could entice

Flora the famous Roman whore,

or Archipiada or Thaïs

who they say was just as fair;

or Echo answering everywhere

across stream and pool and mere,

whose beauty was like none before -

where are the snows of yesteryear?

–François Villon, Ballade des dames du temps jadis (1460) (A. Weir, transl.)