by François Villon, translated by Peter Dale

Brother men who’re living when we’re dead,
Don’t harden in your hearts against us, too,
Since, if you pity us poor men instead,
The sooner God will show mercy to you.
You see us, five or six, strung up to view.
As for the flesh we used to feed too well,
Eaten it was a while back, putrid its smell,
And we bones turn to dust and ash so small.
Let no one make our woe a joke to tell
But pray that God forgive us, one and all.

And if we call you brothers don’t see red
In your disdain for us, although it’s true
That, in the way of justice, we hang dead,
Since, all the same, you know yourself how few
Are born as men of sense in all they do.
Plead for us now, since with the dead we dwell,
To Mary’s Son that still his grace may well
And save us from the Hellish bolt to fall.
We’re dead; yet no soul harry us to Hell
But pray that God forgive us, one and all.

The rain has soaked and rinsed us, then once shed,
The sun has blackened us and dried us through.
Crows, magpies gouged the eyes out of each head
And plucked the beard and eyebrows as their due.
Never are we at rest a moment or two;
Now here, now there, as shifts in wind impel,
Swayed on its whim with ceaseless ebb and swell;
More pricked than thimbles by the birds that call.
So don’t you join our brotherhood as well,
But pray that God forgive us, one and all.

Prince Jesus, Lord of all, oh guard us well
Beyond the sovereignty and realm of Hell.
We’ve no business to settle there or call.
Men, it’s no cue for laughter, jeer or yell,
But pray that God forgive us, one and all.