Now I ask those about to read
To separate the good from the mediocre,
If there's any, to please as they read
Forget the bad and choose the good.
For when something is well chosen,
A man with reason delights more therein
Appearing early in the text, this is good advice to be sure. And, for that matter, one that a good many poets and writers probably wish they had the nerve to insert. The speaker of the poem will eventually prove to have an agenda for this direct address to his reader, but for now that remains a mystery. It is sneaky, to be sure, with its implicit assertion that simply by having chosen to read this work, one has probably chosen well. And as the speaker makes clear: reading something well chosen is usually a more pleasant experience. The narrative voice is strong throughout the poem and that strength is really what this set-up is all about.
He sat down and made me to sit
To listen and look over
The fountain's design,
Which was hardly crude or shoddy,
And the place all around,
Designed and built just right.
The "he" here is based on Jean of Berry, the brother of France's King Charles V. As a third son, "John" was content to leave politics to his older brothers while he himself became an aesthete with an interest in poetry and architecture. The poet had become friendly with Charles, but it would be brother John who became his patron as well as devoted admirer of his work. The result of that relationship was this poem which, legend has it, actually paints a literal portrait of their introduction to each other.
And then I turned a little,
Readying my mind and eyes
To consider his manner,
His person, his rank, and his expression.
For never in all the days of my life
Had I seen a demeanor
More pleasant in any man or woman
And here would be the opening moments of that legendary introduction between the poet and the nobleman with a finer taste for art than war. By itself, these words are enough to spark the interest and raise some eyebrows of any who naturally assume that a relationship between two men accounted for in poetic verse must by definition move beyond the merely platonic. That impression is certainly not dampened by what comes next in which the descriptive process becomes even more intense: a body well-shaped, husky, and elegant.
