Wace Quotes

Que force sormonte vertu.
Bone est force et engins mius valt,
Là vaut engins où force falt;
Engins et ars font mainte cose
Que force commenchier ne n'ose.

Por remembrer des ancessours
Li fez è li diz è li mours,
Deit l'en li livres è li gestes
E li estoires lire as festes.

N'ont terre de Seingnor ki ne se pot aidier.

Ci faut le livre Maistre Wace;
Qu'in velt avant fere, s'in face.

These heroes twain, these conquerors grand,
Who took and kept full many a land,
Yet after death, for all their toil
Have each but their own length of soil.

Cil due vassals, ki tant cunquistrent,
Tant orent terres, è tant pristrent;
Emprès la mort, de lor enor,
N'ont cescuns fors sa lunguor.

Wit is more than strength! Muscle is good, but craft is better. Skill devises means when strength fails. Cunning and engines bring many matters to a good end, that strength would not venture even to begin.

Tote rien se torne en déclin,
Tot chiet, tot meurt, tot vait à fin:
Hom muert, fer use, fust porrist,
Tur font, mur chiet, rose flaistrist,
Cheval trebusche, drap viésist:
Tot ovre fet od mainz périst.

Who would remember his forbears,
What deeds, what words, what life was theirs,
Must chronicles and annals read
And histories written for his need.

All things to their decline do tend,
All falls, expires, comes to its end:
Man dies, iron rusts, wood rots away,
Tower sinks, wall falls, rose has its day.
Horse stumbles, cloth wears out apace,
No work of hands leaves lasting trace.