From "Bisclavret" by Marie de France, lines 1-14

From "Bisclavret" by Marie de France, lines 1-14

[Original text in Anglo-Norman]

Quant des lais faire m'entremet,
Ne voil ublier Bisclavret;
Bisclavret ad nun en bretan;

Garwaf l'apelent li Norman.

Jadis le poeit hum oïr

E sovent suleit avenir,

Hume plusur garval devindrent

E es boscages meisun tindrent.

Garwalf, ceo cest beste salvage;

Tant cum il est in cele rage,

Hummes devure, grant mal feit,

Es granz forez converse e vait.

Cest afere les ore ester;

Del islavret vus voil cunter.

[English translation by Dorothy Gilbert]

In crafting lays, I won't forget

—I mustn’t—that of Bisclavret;

Bisclavret: so named in Breton;

But Garwaf in the Norman tongue.

One used to hear, in times gone by

—it often happened, actually—

men became werewolves, many men,

and in the forest made their den.

A werewolf is a savage beast;

in his blood-rage, he makes a feast

of men, devours them, does great harms,

and in vast forests lives and roams.

Well, for now, let us leave all that;

I want to speak of Bisclavret.

Source of the text - Marie de France, Poetry (A Norton critical edition), translated and edited by Dorothy Gilbert.  New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2015, pages 48-49.

TJB: Chatty, personable, singsong-y, the poet raises the subject of toxic masculinity—sorry, werewolves—and calls attention to changing subjects.