Gabby's Villon

John Barrymore as Villon in a 1927 silent film

Excerpts from two poems by Francois Villon, a 15th c. French poet, are read in The Petrified Forest.  The first "pash" excerpt is read by Boze on pp. 13-14 and comes from Stanza VII of "The Complaint of the Fair Armouress" and the second excerpt is from "Ballad Written for a Bridegroom." Villon's poetry proved popular among Victorian poets in the 19th century and were translated by them.  The specific poems read by Gabby are translations by A. C. Swinburne, which means that the book that Gabby's mother sent her is one of two possible editions:  1. Ballads Done Into English from the French of Francois Villon, published by T. B. Mosher in 1904, or 2. A more costly special edition published by Spiral Press in 1933, The Lyrics of Francois Villon, Done Into English Verse By Algernon Charles Swinburne, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Ernest Henley, John Payne and Leonie Adams. The latter edition included wood-block prints by illustrator Howard Simon that accompanied each poem.  (It is, of course, somewhat odd that Gabby's mother was able to find either of these English editions in Bourges).

Francois Villon was a 15th c. French poet and outlaw, a fitting figure for The Petrified Forest. Shortly after Villon earned his MA at the University of Paris, he worked as a quasi-medical professional and as a teacher at the University.  This all came to an end around the age of 26 when he was involved in an incident that can only be described as a medieval alley rumble:  Villon, a woman named Isabelle, and a priest friend met up with another University man and another priest, some daggers were pulled, and the other priest died of his wounds.  Villon fled, was sentenced to banishment, and earned his living singing in inns. He was pardoned by the King for his crime and returned to Paris, but continued to get into trouble with the law for the rest of his life. He was most often accused and/or convicted of robbing churches.  He lived as a vagabond.  His poems reflect and even celebrate his world -- they are colloquial, full of language of the streets, and constantly refer to the prospect of death by hanging, the punishment for thievery.

Villon appeared in a few films and plays in the beginning of the 20th c. By the time Gabby's mother sent her the book, Americans had seen Villon in two silent films (1920 and 1927) and an operetta that was also later made into a silent film (1930).

The poem Gabby reads to Squier, "Ballad Written for  a Bridegroom" is actually subtitled "Which Villon Gave to a Gentleman Newly Married to Send to His Wife Whom He Had Won With the Sword." It refers to Robert VII d'Estouteville who may or may have not been acquainted with Villon personally.  There is no evidence to suggest, as Gabby does, that the Bridegroom was a friend of Villon's.  She might just like to think of it that way.

Gabby reads the first two stanzas of the "Bridegroom" to Squier because she likes it, but also because it signals the beginning of a relationship.  The poem serves to set up romance between the two characters. Other than that, the first two stanzas are not all that remarkable for a marriage poem.  The Villon poem is becomes more interesting because of its appearance in the final scene of the play.  Perhaps, we can think of the poem as book-ending the inclusion of romance, excitement, and possibility in Gabby's life. When Squier, a vagbond with an interesting story, appears in the middle of nowhere, she reads the two first stanzas. Later in the play, after Duke Mantee, the hostage situation, all the shooting, and Squier's sacrificial death, Gabby quotes part of the next stanza in the final scene (p. 73):

And, which is more, when grief about me clings

Through Fortune's fit or fume of jealousy,

You sweet kind eye beats down her threatenings

As wind doth smoke; such power sits in your eye.

Thus in your field my seed of harvestry

Thrives, for the fruit is like me that I set;

God bids me tend it with good husbandry;

This is the end for which we twain are met.

If we were reading this poem on its own outside of the play the image of marital fertility would be typical:  babies and the continuation of family lines.  Instead, Squier's death and bequest to Gabby enables her to get the hell out of Black Mesa and she prays that she will manage that inheritance well in order to live a fuller life:  They share a common piece of fate, but Squier's changes Gabby's for ever.