“Je vous suis garant
Qu’un sot savant est sot plus qu’un sot ignorant.”
“I’ll be sworn
A learned fool’s the biggest fool that’s born.”
“Jean s’en alia comme il etait venu,
Mangea le fonds avec le revenu.”
“Just as he came so away John went,
Both capital and income spent.”
“Jeune on conserve pour la vieillesse : vieux on epargne pour la mort.
L’heritier prodigue paye de superbes funerailles, et dévore le
reste.”
“Young we save up for old age; old we hoard for death. The spendthrift
heir pays for a handsome funeral, and devours the rest.”
“(Qui tient le) juste milieu.”
“Juste milieu.”
“The happy mean.”
“Ki felun Hume od li aquieut
Ne s’en ist mie qant il vieut.”
Marie de France. Fables, VIII.
“Who of a rogue doth comrade make
Not when he would shall him forsake.”
“Ki haut monte de haut descent,
Froit a le pied ki plus l’estent,
Ke ses covretoirs n’a de lone.”
“Mount high, from height thou must descend;
Cold feet hath he who doth extend
Them further than his blanket’s end.”
“Ki li bien set, dire le doit.”
Jacquemart Gielée. Renart le Nouvel, line 1.
“What one well knoweth, he should tell.”
“L abit le moine ne fait pas.”
“’Tis not the robe that makes the monk.”
“L’absenee est a l’amour ce qu’est au feu le vent;
Il eteint le petit, il allume le grand.”
“Love’s served by absence as by wind the fire;
The small ’s extinguished, but the great mounts higher.”
