Augustine bids]
De Bury declaimed against the monks' neglect of books.
"Now slothful Thersites," he cries, "handles the arms of
Achilles and the choice trappings of war-horses are spread
upon lazy asses, winking owls lord it in the eagle's nest,
and the cowardly kite sits upon the perch of the hawk.
"Liber Bacchus is ever loved,
And is into their bellies shoved,
By day and by night.
Liber Codex is neglected,
And with scornful hand rejected
Far out of their sight."
"And as if the simple monastic folk of modern times
were deceived by a confusion of names, while Liber Pater
is preferred to Liber Patrum, the study of the monks
nowadays is in the emptying of cups and not the
emending of books; to which they do not hesitate to add
the wanton music of Timotheus, jealous of chastity, and
thus the song of the merrymaker and not the chant of the
mourner is become the office of the monks. Flocks and
fleeces, crops and granaries, leeks and potherbs, drink and
goblets, are nowadays the reading and study of the monks,
except a few elect ones, in whom lingers not the image
but some slight vestige of the fathers that preceded them.
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