Happy the man who, like Ulysses, has made a fine voyage, or has won the Golden Fleece, and then returns, experienced and knowledgeable, to spend the rest of his life among his family.

Du Bellay maintained that the French language as it was then constituted was too poor to serve as a medium for the higher forms of poetry but he contended that by proper cultivation it might be brought on a level with the classical tongues. Du Bellay died in Paris at the age of 38. With it were printed thirteen odes entitled Vers lyriques.

1522 – 1 January 1560) was a French poet critic and a member of the Pléiade. Joachim du Bellay (French: [ʒoaʃɛ̃ dy bɛlɛ]; c.