Et si ne suis marry de me voir en servage :
Seulement je me deuls des ailes de mon âge,
Qui me laissent le chef semé de cheveux gris.
Si tu me vois ou palle, ou de fiévre surpris,
Quelquefois solitaire, ou triste de visage,
Tu devrois d’un regard soulager mon dommage :
L’Aurore ne met point son Thiton à mespris.
Si tu es de mon mal seule cause premiere,
Il faut que de mon mal tu sentes les effets :
C’est une sympathie aux hommes coustumiere.
Je suis (j’en jure Amour) tout tel que tu me fais :
Tu es mon cœur mon sang ma vie et ma lumiere :
Seule je te choisi, seule aussi tu me plais.
Three years have already passed since your glance took me prisoner And yet I am not sorry to see myself in servitude; I am only saddened by the swift wings of age Which leave my head sprinkled with grey hairs. If you see me pale or taken with fever, Sometimes solitary or sad of face, You ought to soothe my hurt with a look; Dawn never scorns [blames] her Tithonus. As you are first cause of my troubles, You should feel the effects of my pain; That is the kind of sympathy normal among mankind. I am (I call Love to witness) entirely what you make me; You are my heart, my blood, my life, my light, You alone I love, and you alone charm me.
Blanchemain’s text is identical but there is another version which offers “Tu ne dois imputer ta faute à mon dommage” for line 7 – something like ‘You should not blame my ills for your own misdeed’. We’ve met Aurora (Dawn) and her aged lover Tithonus before – Ronsard choosing this pair not from any mythological evidence that Dawn never blamed (or scorned) her lover, but simply because Tithonus is grey-haired and old while his girl is young and beautiful.
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