Luis d'Antin van Rooten (1906-1973) No.1: "Un Petit d'Un Petit"

d'Antin's verse: Un petit d'un petit1 S'étonne aux Halles2 Un petit d'un petit Ah! degrés te fallent3 Indolent qui ne sort cesse4 Indolent qui ne se mène5 Qu'importe un petit d'un petit Tout Gai de Reguennes.6

"strangely familiar" homophone:

L. d'A. van Rooten's illuminating notes: 1.  The inevitable result of a child marriage. 2.  The subject of this epigrammatic poem is obviously from the provinces, since a native Parisian would take this famous old market for granted. 3.  Since this personage bears no titles, we are led to believe that the poet writes of one of those unfortunate idiot-children that in olden days existed as a living skeleton in their family's closet. I am inclined to believe, however, that this is a fine piece of misdirection and that the poet is actually writing of some famous political prisoner, or the illegitimate offspring of some noble house. The Man in the Iron Mask, perhaps? 4, 5.  Another misdirection. Obviously it was not laziness that prevented this person's going out and taking himself places. 6.  He was obviously prevented from fulfilling his destiny, since he is compared to Gai de Reguennes. This was a young squire (to one of his uncles, a Gaillard of Normandy) who died at the tender age of twelve of a surfeit of Saracen arrows before the walls of Acre in 1191.