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:
“A poem should not mean
But be.”
—Archibald MacLeish (1892–1982)
“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)