The Talents, or Processus Talentorum, is a play from the Middle English recitals The Towneley Plays (ca. 1460).[1][2]
This play contains an early example of macaronic English-Latin verse, spoken by the character Pontius Pilate:
- ...
- Stynt, I say! gyf men place
- quia sum dominus dominorum!
- he that agans me says
- rapietur lux oculorum;
- Therfor gyf ye me space
- ne tendam vim brachiorum,
- And then get ye no grace
- contestor Iura polorum,
- Caueatis; Rewle I the Iure,
- Maxime pure,
- Towne quoque rure,
- Me paueatis.
- Stemate regali
- kyng atus gate me of pila;
- Tramite legali
- Am I ordand to reyn upon Iuda,
- Nomine wlgari
- pownce pilate, that may ye well say,
- Qui bene wlt fari
- shuld call me fownder of all lay.
- ...