Golias Unbound:

The Personality of Golias

Stephen L. Cain

May 17, 1995

Golias Unbound

The Goliard poets create narrators in their poems who are impecunious students. These narrators are very fond of their noveau-trinity: Bacchus, Venus and Apollo. Some of these student narrators can be generalized into a single personality with discrete idiosyncrasies which is called "Golias." Some of his more prominent personality quirks include excessive love of drink, strong desires to sow wild oats, chronic lack of funds, cantankerous disposition, a streak of poetic inclination and a tendency toward wanderlust .

Our Golias is a drunk and due to advanced premature cirrhosis, he has a hole instead of a liver. Bacchus, is one of his favorite gods, and Golias worships him often at the temple-tavern. He sings hymns to the great god of the vine and the Goliard poets illustrate the wonders wrought by wine. Golias parodies a hymn to the Virgin in this poem:

Oh, how blest for bounteous uses

Is the birth of pure vine-juices!

Safe's the table which produces

Wine in goodly quality.

Oh, in color how auspicious!

Oh, in odor how delicious!

In the mouth how sweet, Propitious

To the tongue enthralled by thee!

(Symonds 157)

Every facet of drink is wonderful to him, and he enjoys seeing others as fascinated with his hobby as he is. In "In Taberna," Golias lists a few of his drinking partners:

Bibit hera, bibit herus,

Bibit miles, bibit clerus,

Bibit ille, bibit illa,

Bibit servus cum ancilla,

Bibit velox, bibit piger,

Bibit algus, bibit niger,

Bibit constans, bibit vagus,

Bibit rudis, bibit magus.

Bibit pauper et egrotus,

Bibit exul et ignotus,

Bibit puer, bibit canus,

Bibit presul et decanus

Bibit soror, bibit frater,

Bibit anus, bibit mater.

Bibit ista, bibit ille

Bibunt centum, bibunt mille.

(Zeydel 85-86)

He admires people who drink well, especially when he gets a free sample or six, although people who cannot or will not keep up with him are scorned and left by the wayside:

Where's the weakling quickly sated?

Here he won't be tolerated.

Feasts are meant for hearts elated,

Not the dour and sober-pated:

Sober among the illuminated-

How can they bear it?

Villainy must be meditated,

We all can swear it.

Any lad who's here detected

Shunning wine, or disaffected,

Let him forthwith be ejected,

Nor remain among the elected;

Better pack him off, neglected,

Than wrongly cherish;

Should he fail us, as expected,

Then let him perish.

(Whicher 235)

Notice how Golias calls his state of inebriation "illuminated" and he totally lacks understanding of an individual’s state of soberness when the rest of the crowd is "vernysshed." He also refers to those in the "illuminated" state as "elected," as though intoxication is an elite club; but "In Taberna" already stated how broad and eclectic the membership is. Golias has extreme reverence for his state of bliss. He affords it almost the same status as that of a religion, and he holds mass in his tavern-church amongst his congregation of drinkers. The song "Bacche Benevenies" is a parody of various prayers (Zeydel 286). It has a part for a "priest" to sing and a refrain to be sung by the "choir."

Drinking isn't just a recreation for Golias. It is also a way to cement friendships, build health, increase eloquence and melt women into accommodation. "Bacche Benevenies" has all these things in various verses:

Vassals pledge in cups of wine

Fealty to the end;

Partners drink when they combine;

Friend a health to friend.

Bacchus, at whose jolly nod

Bliss to man is sent,

Makes each drinker seem a god,

Wise and eloquent.

He makes female hearts incline

Fondly on occasions,

Generous souls, soon touched by wine,

Yield to men's persuasions.

(Whicher 231-235)

Wine does everything for Golias: improves his public speaking, increases his confidence with the opposite sex and builds social bonds with other people.

Women are another of Golias' hobbies and Venus is the second god in his Trinity. His will is weak when it comes to lovelies:

To be merely platonic in the presence of a maid,

So hard a rule simply cannot be obeyed;

We young men have never, will never, be so staid;

Lust of the flesh cannot, will not, be delayed.

(Salimbene 62-63)

Even though by classification Golias is an ecclesiast, he refuses flatly some of the ecclesiastical conventions. So, he uses Bacchus to get Venus, and quick wit, although sometimes, he relies on their exuberance of youth and springtime yearnings to tempt them into games:

The time is ripe for pleasure.

O maidens leave your chores;

Come, squire them to the revels,

You lusty bachelors.

For winter now is ended,

The season grim and gray,

And the new zest of springtime

Disposes men to play.

(Whicher 219).

Springtime is the natural season to sow the wild oats: all the animals are dancing to the tune of the mating call. The world is being reborn and the sweet breath of Zephyr gently encourages young men.

Sometimes, a little wine and money get Golias what he seeks. The poem "Dum Caupona Verterem" tells the story of one such excursion. Of course, those particular young ladies happen to be professionals. He comes out of the tavern, "reeling ripe with wine," goes to the local cathouse, pays his money and asks for help in deciding which young lady to enjoy:

"Here," I told her, "Take my purse

Crammed with coins unspent;

Blessed Venus, all is yours,

Given with free consent.

If you grant me your advice,

I shall be content

And will praise your godhead while

Life to me is lent."

(Whicher 257)

Golias takes his pleasure with the girl whose advice he initially asks. In the morning, he and his mistress-for-hire go swimming and eat. Unfortunately, he soon runs out of money and his ducat Venus throws him out.

The women aren't always so expensive, and the relationship isn't always based on florins-for-fun. Golias feels an idealized troubadour-like love sometimes. In "Amor Habet Superos," Golias says this about his love for a maiden "virginally":

When I play with Cecily

Prudent fears are needless:

Of her young transparency

Never am I heedless.

Lilies guard her purity--

I would keep them weedless.

(Whicher 167)

Cecily and a few other girls attract Golias and inspire the romance within him, but there are also some who stir the fires in him, almost enough to warm him despite his thin cloak. The young woman Flora captures him for a time:

Flora faultless as a blossom

Bares her smooth limbs for mine eyes;

Softly shines her virgin bosom,

And the breasts that gently rise

Like the hills of paradise.

Oh, the joys of this possessing!

How unspeakable the blessing

When my Flora is the prize!

(Symonds 131)

Sometimes the girl is nameless, like the eternal game of young springtime. Golias likes all kinds of young women and engages any one he can in the amorous arts:

When a young man, passion-laden,

In a chamber meets a maiden,

Then felicitous communion,

By Love's strain between the twain,

Grows from forth their union;

For the game, it hath no name,

Of lips, arms, and hidden charms.

(Symonds 129)

Our Golias does not want for female companionship when he needs it.

Unfortunately, he usually has a lack of ready cash. Golias pays a lot of money for school and books, begs for patronage and is forced to rely on handouts for such common items as clothing and beer money. Here he uses his academic skills and recently-gained knowledge in acquiring funds. The opening to one such "grant proposal," called "Exul Ego Clericus," goes like this:

I, a scholar far from home,

Born to toil profess me,

Yet the clutch of poverty

Sorely does distress me.

Learning is my joy, I would

Eagerly receive it

Were it not for want of means

Forces me to leave it.

(Whicher 225)

So, Golias attempts to increase the small money he gets by trusting to Decius of the dice. Even further, he looks to Decius while under the influence of the Bacchus, and his choices are bad: "I've bet my shirt and lost," he laments (Whicher 263).

However, he begs alms from passers-by and more well-to-do neighbors: "An excellent young man gave me this cloak. It isn't lined: / he had no fur, but he had a noble purpose in mind" (Adcock 51). Should Golias receive alms from a man who can give better but doesn't, watch the bile and curses flow! When a bishop gave him an unlined cloak, Golias opened full-bore on the man: "The scum of the priesthood, clerical dregs, a disgusting sore-- / the man who, in winter, gave me an unlined cloak to wear" (Adcock 5).

Golias is a poet, after all, since the God of Poetry is the last third of his trinity. His poetry is filled with classical allusions and biblical references; he packs his poetry with the things he's learned. Sometimes he claims he can't write without a bit of drink:

When I'm in my cups my curse is

That I simply slobber verses;

But I'm quickly sick of hic or

Haec or hoc when lacking liquor.

(Whicher 280)

He also has to apologize to the local bishop for that self-same sin:

Some finicky poets shun tavern and inn,

Seeking sacrosanct nooks away from the din,

And there sweat and slave, free of idle sin,

But to read their pallid product! oh my, but then, but then!

Nature bestows a single gift on every man;

Mine's writing poetry-Drink in hand!

And drinking the finest that I possibly can,

Then the words flow like a poetic caravan.

My verses are as good as the wine I drink;

Without feasting and wine I can't even think;

Poems I've written, fasting, are not worth a zinc,

But heady with wine, Ovid nods, while I jauntily wink.

(Salimbene 63-64)

It seems that Golias has made a mistake in this poem: Golias' has two natural endowments rather than one: he can write and drink. Composing is one of Golias' outlets, a way to let down his hair and his defenses, along with getting really drunk. It shows that Golias isn't just another peasant with aspirations to the clergy; he is a curious and creative man. He is capable of producing works of art and things to be sung while drinking. Creating is a way to vent all those images he learned from the professors, of internalizing and reproducing the feelings Golias found in his homework. Poetry and its creation are integral to his existence:

Should a tyrant rise and say,

"Give up wine!" I'd do it;

"Love no girls!" I would obey,

Though my heart should rue it.

"Dash thy lyre!" suppose he saith,

Naught should bring me to it;

"Yield thy lyre or die!" my breath,

Dying, my breath should thrill through it!

(Symonds 163)

On occasion, versification takes precedence over the beauties of wine and women. Although this devotion to verse is a very noble sentiment, I suspect that Golias is exaggerating how far he would go.

Golias isn't always devoted to poetry for the poetic aspects of it. He can turn his eloquent tongue from celebrations of sex and drink to withering curses quite readily. His curses are well developed. He is poor, so he doesn't have the option of resorting to the law. Golias invokes curses and hopes that a Higher Court will exact revenge for him. After all, it worked for Dido. The curses he makes bear the full fruit of his learning and move with the creativity of his regular poetry. In "Raptor Mei Pilei," Golias invokes the Fates, the Furies, underworld judges, Cerberus, all the rights of excommunication and the Almighty Himself. All the man did was steal his hat, although Golias probably had to gamble for a month to get it out of hock. If Golias has any influence, the thief is certainly going directly to hell.

When the situation demands or his credit runs low, Golias begins to wander. His roots aren't that deep, so moving around does not bother him too much. Travel enriches Golias, it shows him the world. However, he can no more deny it than comely wenches or undiluted wine: "Down the broad road do I run, / As the way of youth is" (Symonds 67). Golias' youthful folly includes movement and transience:

Since it is a wise man's task

With consideration

Firm to set upon a rock

Home and its foundation,

I, a fool, may be compared

To a flowing river,

Always in the self-same bed,

Transient yet forever.

(Zeydel 59)

Golias leaves one tavern when the winds blow in the right direction and heads for a new one and a new woman.

So here we have a personality for the composite character Golias. He is a young man of extremes. He is castigated in a work by Alvarus Pelagius about bad students:

They frequently learn what they would better ignore such as forbidden sciences, amatory discourses and superstitions. On feast days they don't go to church to hear divine service and sermons and above all the full mass which all Christians are supposed to attend, but gad about town with their fellows or attend lectures or write up their notes at home. Or, if they do go to church, it is not for worship but to see the girls or swap stories.

(Tierney 315-316)

That Franciscan friar certainly has Golias pegged. He lives to excesses with the means he is allowed. Using charm, and sometimes money, he seduces the local daughters. If he's in a fabliau, he seduces everything in the town of menstrual age. He is poor and thus wanders, spending little time in any one place. Golias writes poetry by necessity, for it is one of his creative outlets. However, his tongue isn't always benign. He formulates some severe curses against those who do him wrong, for sometimes that is all he can do to prosecute them.

Golias is certainly not dead. In the world of academia, there remain among the reborn Christians, vegetarians and accountants a few lowly Goliard poets. Their poetry isn't as widely read, but then no poetry is as widely read as it used to be. Golias is adaptable, so he moves to other things, like music and prose. He's still a drunk, but he has cut down on his wenching because he fears the teeming sexually-transmitted diseases. Golias isn't dead; he’s alive and thriving.

Bibliography

Adcock, Fleur. Hugh Primas and the Archpoet. London. Cambridge University Press: 1994.

Salimbene de Adam. The Chronicle of Salimbene de Adam. Binghamton. Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies: 1986.

Symonds, John Addington. Wine, Women and Song. London. Chatto and Windus: 1931.

Tierney, Brian. The Middle Ages Volume I: Sources of Medieval History. New York. McGraw-Hill: 1992.

Whicher, George F. The Goliard Poets: Medieval Latin Songs and Satires. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press: 1949.