''Linquo coax ranis'' are the first words of a two-line poem in
internally rhymed hexameters by
Serlo of Wilton
Serlo of Wilton ( 1105–1181) was a 12th-century English poet, a friend of Walter Map and known to Gerald of Wales.Gerald of Wales, '' Speculum Ecclesiae'' 2.33. He studied and taught at the University of Paris. He became a Cluniac and then a Ci ...
. The complete text is:
:''Linquo coax ranis, cras corvis, vanaque vanis;
:Ad logicam pergo que mortis non timet ergo.''
:I leave croaking to frogs, crowing to crows, and vanity to the vain;
:I now go to the logic that does not fear the ''conclusion'' of death.
Attached to the poem is a story (which may be compared with the
razós attached to certain Occitan poems of the 12th and 13th centuries). The earliest known version of the story, in
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
, forms part of a manuscript collection, ''Liber narrationum de diversis visionibus et miraculis'', which itself is part of MS.
Troyes
Troyes () is a commune and the capital of the department of Aube in the Grand Est region of north-central France. It is located on the Seine river about south-east of Paris. Troyes is situated within the Champagne wine region and is near to ...
946 from the
Abbey of Clairvaux
Clairvaux Abbey (, ; la, Clara Vallis) was a Cistercian monastery in Ville-sous-la-Ferté, from Bar-sur-Aube. The original building, founded in 1115 by St. Bernard, is now in ruins; the present structure dates from 1708. Clairvaux Abbey was a ...
collection. This version was written at some date after 1173, when Serlo became abbot of
L'Aumône Abbey
L’Aumône Abbey (french: Abbaye Notre-Dame de l’Aumône, la, Eleemosynae; also known as french: Petit-Cîteaux, la, Cistercium minus) is a former Cistercian monastery in the commune of La Colombe, Loir-et-Cher, France, 34 kilometres north ...
, and before 1181, the year of his death.
According to the story, one of Serlo's disciples, who had died young, appeared to him in a vision. He was wearing a parchment cape covered with writing: on it were written all the sophistries of scholastic philosophy. The disciple told Serlo that the cape was painfully heavy and burning hot. Serlo reached out to touch his disciple, and withdrew his hand hastily, scalded by a drop of burning sweat. After seeing this vision, Serlo "converted", spoke these memorable lines, entered the
Cistercian Order
The Cistercians, () officially the Order of Cistercians ( la, (Sacer) Ordo Cisterciensis, abbreviated as OCist or SOCist), are a Catholic religious order of monks and nuns that branched off from the Benedictines and follow the Rule of Saint B ...
, and eventually became abbot of L'Aumône.
The legend was investigated by the French novelist and philologist
Marcel Schwob
Mayer André Marcel Schwob, known as Marcel Schwob (23 August 1867 – 26 February 1905), was a French symbolist writer best known for his short stories and his literary influence on authors such as Jorge Luis Borges, Alfonso Reyes, Roberto Bolaà ...
in his pamphlet ''La légende de Serlon de Wilton'' (Paris, 1899).
References
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Linquo Coax Ranis
12th-century Latin literature
Medieval legends