The Poem
Civilized Man is a 3,000 line Latin verse poem that gives proper advice on a wide range of social situations the typical medieval person may encounter in day to day life.
Examples include:
- 'If you wish to belch, remember to look up to the ceiling.'
- 'Do not attack your enemy while he is squatting to defecate.'
- 'If there is something you do not want people to know, do not tell it to your wife.'
- 'Say thank you to your host.'
- 'Don't mount your horse in the hall.'
- 'If visitors had already eaten, give them drink anyway.'
- 'Loosen your reins when riding over a bridge.'
- 'Receive gifts from great men with gratitude.'
- 'If you are a judge, be just.'
- 'Eating at the table of the rich, speak little.'
- The book ends with 'Old King Henry first gave to the uncourtly the teaching written in this book.'
Read more about this topic: Book Of The Civilized Man
Famous quotes containing the word poem:
“The poem of the mind in the act of finding
What will suffice. It has not always had
To find: the scene was set; it repeated what
Was in the script.
Then the theatre was changed
To something else. Its past was a souvenir.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“the hunger of this poem is legendary
it has taken in many victims
back off from this poem
it has drawn in yr feet
back off from this poem
it has drawn in yr legs”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)