Sonnet 31

Ostez vostre beauté, ostez vostre jeunesse,
Ostez ces rares dons que vous tenez des cieux,
Ostez ce docte esprit, ostez moy ces beaux yeus,
Cet aller, ce parler digne d’une Deesse :

Je ne vous seray plus d’une importune presse
Fascheux comme je suis : vos dons si precieux
Me font en les voyant devenir furieux,
Et par le desespoir l’ame prend hardiesse.

Pource si quelquefois je vous touche la main,
Par courroux vostre teint n’en doit devenir blesme :
Je suis fol, ma raison n’obeyt plus au frein,

Tant je suis agité d’une fureur extrème.
Ne prenez, s’il vous plaist, mon offence à desdain,
Mais douce pardonnez mes fautes à vous-mesme.

 

 

 

                                                                               Take off your beauty, take off your youth,

                                                                               Take off those rare gifts that you received from Heaven,

                                                                               Take off that learned mind, take off those fair eyes,

                                                                               That way of walking, of speaking worthy of a goddess;

 

                                                                               I will no longer be as offensive, as importunately

                                                                               Demanding, as I am; your gifts so precious

                                                                               Make me, as I see them, become mad

                                                                               And through despair my soul gains boldness.

 

                                                                               So, if sometimes I touch your hand,

                                                                               You should not become pale with anger;

                                                                               I am mad, my reason no longer obeys the curb,

 

                                                                               So stirred am I by extreme passion;

                                                                               Do not hold my offence, I beg, to scorn;

                                                                               But sweetly pardon my faults towards you.

 

 

 

 Again, no changes from Blanchemain’s earlier text.  In the final line, depending on your punctuation around ‘douce’, the meaning can be as above or the line could become ‘But, sweet one, pardon…’

 

A note on the maddening business of translation: that first stanza! Is it ‘remove your beauty’? ‘Take away your beauty’? I’ve used ‘Take off’ to reflect the use of the verb in ‘taking off’ clothes; perhaps if we lived a few hundred years ago ‘Doff your beauty’ would have been best…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ode (1)

Je suis homme né pour mourir ;

Je suis bien seur que du trespas

Je ne me sçaurois secourir

Que poudre je n’aille là bas.

 

Je cognois bien les ans que j’ay,

Mais ceux qui me doivent venir,

Bons ou mauvais, je ne les sçay,

Ny quand mon âge doit finir.

 

Pour-ce fuyez-vous-en, esmoy,

Qui rongez mon cœur à tous coups,

Fuyez-vous-en bien loin de moy.

Je n’ay que faire avecque vous.

 

Au moins, avant que trespasser,

Que je paisse à mon aise un jour

Jouer, sauter, rire et dancer

Avecque Bacchus et Amour.

 

 

                                                           I am a man born to die;

                                                           I’m quite sure that from death

                                                           I cannot save myself

                                                           From going below as dust.

 

                                                           I know exactly how old I am,

                                                           But the years which should still come to me,

                                                           Good or bad,I know not,

                                                           Nor when my time will end.

 

                                                           Therefore begone, care,

                                                           You who gnaw my heart at every opportunity,

                                                           Begone far from me,

                                                           I have nothing to do with you.

 

                                                           At least before dying

                                                           Let me spend a day at my ease

                                                           Playing, leaping, laughing, dancing

                                                           With Bacchus and Love.

 

 

 

Blanchemain puts at the front of his edition of the ‘Odes retranchées’ this poem. It starts so strongly, and that opening line cries out to be quoted regularly and often! I wonder why Ronsard removed it from later editions?  Perhaps it is because the last stanza is relatively weak and unfocused – but only relatively.

 

 

 

 

Sonnet 30

L’arbre qui met à croistre a la plante asseuree :
Celuy qui croist bien tost, ne dure pas long temps,
Il n’endure des vents les souflets inconstans :
Ainsi l’amour tardive est de longue duree.

Ma foy du premier jour ne vous fut pas donnee :
L’Amour et la Raison, comme deux combatans,
Se sont escarmouchez l’espace de quatre ans :
A la fin j’ay perdu, veincu par destinee.

Il estoit destiné par sentence des cieux,
Que je devois servir, mais adorer vos yeux :
J’ay, comme les Geans, au ciel fait resistance.

Aussi je suis comme eux maintenant foudroyé,
Pour resister au bien qu’ils m’avoient ottroyé
Je meurs, et si ma mort m’est trop de recompense.

 

 

 

                                                                               The tree which sets itself to grow is surely grounded,

                                                                               But one which grows quickly does not last long,

                                                                               It cannot endure the varied blows of the winds;

                                                                               Just so, a slow love is long-lasting.

 

                                                                               My troth was not given you from the first day;

                                                                               Love and Reason, like two duellists,

                                                                               Skirmished together the space of four years;

                                                                               In the end, I lost, overcome by fate.

 

                                                                               It was fated, by the decision of the heavens,

                                                                               That I should serve but love your eyes;

                                                                               Like the Giants, I resisted heaven.

 

                                                                               But, like them, I am now overwhelmed;

                                                                               For resisting the good that they had granted me

                                                                               I must die, and yet my death is too much reward for me.

 

 

 

 

One of this little cluster of sonnets where Blanchemain has the same text as the late versions.  The Giants resisting the gods are familiar from many mythologies (the frost giants – hrímþursar – & giants of Jotunheim in Norse mythology for instance) but Ronsard is clearly referring back to classical mythology. Whether he is being specific about the Thracian giants who fought with Heracles and the gods in the ‘gigantomachy’ familiar from many vase paintings, or referring rather to the Titans who ruled before the gods, and who were defeated by Jupiter, is perhaps not important.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Odelette (44)

Boivon, le jour n’est si long que le doy.

Je perds, amy, mes soucis quand je boy.

Donne-moy viste un jambon sous la treille,

      Et la bouteille

      Grosse à merveille

   Glougloute auprès de moy.

Avec la tasse et la rose vermeille

   Il faut chasser l’esmoy.

 

                                                           Let’s drink, day is not as long as a finger.

                                                           My friend, I lose my worries when I drink.

                                                           Give me quick some ham beneath the arbour

                                                                 And a bottle,

                                                                 Marvellously big,

                                                              Glugging beside me.

                                                           With a cup and a red rose

                                                              We must chase away care.

 

 

 

I thought I’d post this just because the first line mirrors one in the middle of the Ode to Simon Nicolas – and of course the sentiments too are mirrored!

 

 

Sonnet 29

De vos yeus, le mirouer du Ciel et de Nature,
La retraite d’Amour, la forge de ses dards,
D’où coule une douceur, que versent vos regards
Au cœur, quand un rayon y survient d’aventure,

 

Je tire pour ma vie une douce pasture,

Une joye, un plaisir, que les plus grands Cesars

Au milieu du triomphe, entre un camp de soudars,

Ne sentirent jamais : mais courte elle me dure.

 

Je la sens distiller goutte à goutte en mon cœur,

Pure saincte parfaicte angelique liqueur,

Qui m’eschaufe le sang d’une chaleur extrème.

 

Mon ame la reçoit avecque tel plaisir,

Que tout esvanouy je n’ay pas le loisir

Ny de gouster mon bien, ny penser à moymesme.

 

 

                                                                               From your eyes, the mirror of Heaven and Nature,

                                                                               Love’s retreat and the forge of his arrows,

                                                                               Whence flows a sweetness which your glances pour

                                                                               Into the heart, when some ray by chance reaches it,

 

                                                                               [From them] I draw sweet sustenance for my life,

                                                                               A joy, a pleasure, that the greatest Caesars

                                                                               In the midst of their triumphs, surrounded by their troops,

                                                                               Never felt; but it lasts only a short while.

 

                                                                               I feel it distil drop by drop in my heart,

                                                                               A pure, holy, perfect, angelic liquor

                                                                               Which warms my blood with its excessive heat.

 

                                                                               My soul drinks it in with such pleasure

                                                                               That, entirely overcome, I have no time

                                                                               To taste my good-fortune, nor to think of myself.

 

 

 Blanchemain offers a minor variant in line 12, “Mon ame la reçoit avec un tel plaisir” – personally I think the line flows slightly better with this version, but I don’t have Ronsard’s ear!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sonnet 28

Si j’estois seulement en vostre bonne grace

Par l’erre d’un baiser doucement amoureux,

Mon cœur au departir ne seroit langoureux,

En espoir d’eschaufer quelque jour voste glace.

 

Si j’avois le portrait de vostre belle face,
Las ! je demande trop ! ou bien de vos cheveux,
Content de mon malheur je serois bien heureux,
Et ne voudrois changer aux celestes de place.

 

Mais je n’ay rien de vous que je puisse emporter,

Qui soit cher à mes yeux pour me reconforter,

Ne qui me touche au cœur d’une douce memoire.

 

Vous dites que l’Amour entretient ses accords

Par l’esprit seulement, je ne sçaurois le croire :

Car l’esprit ne sent rien que par l’ayde du corps.

 

 

                                                                               If I were only in your good graces

                                                                               Through the gain of a sweetly-loving kiss,

                                                                               My heart would not pine at your parting,

                                                                               In the hope that one day it might melt your ice.

 

                                                                               If I had a picture of your fair face –

                                                                               Oh, I ask too much! – well then, of your hair,

                                                                               Content in my misfortune I would be happy

                                                                               And would not want to change places with the gods.

 

                                                                               But I have nothing of yours which I could take with me,

                                                                               Which could be dear to me and bring me comfort,

                                                                               Or could touch my heart with a sweet memory.

 

                                                                               You say that Love maintains its ties

                                                                               Through the spirit alone; I cannot believe it;

                                                                               For the spirit feels nothing without the body’s help.

 

 

 

 I love the idea of a portrait of the back of Helen’s head being all he can hope for; and the last line is wonderful!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Odes 5:13 – À Simon Nicolas, Secretaire du Roy

I think this is the 200th poem I’ve posted, so here’s Ronsard in celebratory style, enjoying youth and drinking!

À Simon Nicolas Secretaire du Roy   Nicolas, faisons bonne chère Tandis qu’en avons le loisir; Trompon le soin et la misere, Ennemis de nostre plaisir.   Purgeon l’humeur qui nous enflame D’avarice et d’ambition; Ayon, philosophes, une ame Toute franche de passion.   Chasson le soin, chasson la peine, Contenton-nous de nostre rien : Quand nostre ame sera bien saine Tout le corps se portera bien.   Une ame de biens affamée Obscurcit tousjours la raison : Il ne faut qu’un peu de fumée Pour noircir toute la maison.   Faire conqueste sur conqueste De biens amassez sans propos, Ce n’est que nous rompre la teste, Et ne trouver jamais repos.   J’ay raclé de ma fantasie Le monde au visage éhonté, Pour vaquer à la poësie Quand j’en auray la volonté.   Voilà le bien que je desire, Sans plus en vain me tourmenter: Désormais sera mon empire Que savoir bien me contenter.   Quand ta fièvre (dont la mémoire Me fait encores frissonner) Ne t’auroit appris qu’à bien boire, Tu ne la dois abandonner.   A toutes les fois que l’envie Te prendra de boire, reboy ; Boy souvent, aussi bien la vie N’est pas plus longue que le doy.   C’est un grand bien d’estre hydropique Et d’eau s’enfler la ronde peau : Des elemens le plus antique Et le meilleur, n’est-ce pas l’eau?   Non seulement la maladie Qui nous surprend par ses efforts Ne rend nostre masse estourdie, Enervant les forces du corps,   Mais elle trouble la cervelle Et l’esprit qui nous vient des cieux : Il n’y a part qui ne chancelle, Quand les hommes deviennent vieux.   Puis la mort vient, la vieille escarce; Alors un chacun se repent Que mieux il n’a joué sa farce; Mais bon-temps, à Dieu t’y command’.

Nicolas, let’s make good cheer While we still have the time ; Outwit care and misery, The enemies of our pleasure.   Sweep away the ill-humour which inflames us With avarice and ambition; Have, like philosophers, a soul Entirely free of passion.   Chase away care, chase away troubles, Content ourselves with the nothing we have; When our soul is pure The whole body will be well.   A soul hungry for possessions Always clouds the reason; Just a little smoke is needed To make the whole house dark.   Making conquest after conquest, Amassing possessions without purpose, It’s nothing but wearing yourself out And never finding rest.   I’ve scraped from my imagination The world with its shameless face, To focus on poetry Whenever I want.   That’s the possession I desire Without vainly troubling myself about more; In future my empire will be That which can readily satisfy me.   Since your fever (the memory of which Still makes me shiver) Would have taught you only to drink well, You should not give it up.   On every occasion when the desire To drink takes you, drink again! Drink often, and then life Is no longer than a finger.   It’s great to have dropsy And for your smooth skin to swell with water; The most ancient and best Of the elements, surely, is water!   Not only does the illness Which catches us unawares, by its efforts Wear down the stuff of which we’re made, Weakening the strength of the body,   But it also troubles the brain, And the spirit which comes to us from the heavens; There is no part which does not totter When men become old.   Then comes death, the old miser; And so each of us is sorry That he did not play out the farce better ; But enjoy yourself, and commend yourself to God.

 

 As usual with the Odes, I’m only using Blanchemain; yet (surprise) even so, there are variants! He footnotes beneath the 1584 version (above) a variant from 1587 in the 7th stanza – halfway through the poem. Note how cunningly Ronsard adapts ’empire’ to a whole new meaning by switching it from noun to verb, ’empire’ to ’em-pirer’ (to make worse)

 

 

Voilà le bien que je desire,

Sans plus en vain me tourmenter:

Afin que mon ame n’empire

Par faute de se contenter.

 

                                                                        That’s the possession I desire

                                                                       Without vainly troubling myself about more;

                                                                       So that my soul should not get worse,

                                                                       Through want, at satisfying itself.

 

 

 Incidentally, note that the next poem in the book is another drinking song, “Boy Janet“.  In the 1570s & 80s, under the poet-king Charles IX and his successor Henri III, last of the Valois, the ‘secretaires et notaires de la Chambre du Roi’ numbered around 70, and naturally interested themselves in poetry & poets. Nicolas was one such, though there seems little more known about him.

 

 

Chanson (6a)

Back to Helen, and an admission: I missed out this chanson earlier in the book, so here it is now to break up the sequence of sonnets!

Quand je devise assis aupres de vous,     Tout le cœur me tressaut ; Je tremble tout de nerfs et de genous,     Et le pouls me defaut. Je n’ay ny sang ny esprit ny haleine, Qui ne se trouble en voyant mon Helene,     Ma chere et douce peine.   Je devien fol, je pers toute raison :     Cognoistre je ne puis Si je suis libre, ou mort, ou en prison :     Plus en moy je ne suis. En vous voyant, mon œil perd cognoissance : Le vostre altere et change mon essence,     Tant il a de puissance.   Vostre beauté me fait en mesme temps     Souffrir cent passions : Et toutesfois tous mes sens sont contens,     Divers d’affections. L’œil vous regarde, et d’autre part l’oreille Oyt vostre voix, qui n’a point de pareille,     Du monde la merveille.   Voila comment vous m’avez enchanté,     Heureux de mon malheur : De mon travail je me sens contenté,     Tant j’aime ma douleur : Et veux tousjours que le soucy me tienne, Et que de vous tousjours il me souvienne,     Vous donnant l’ame mienne.   Donc ne cherchez de parler au Devin,     Qui sçavez tout charmer : Vous seule auriez un esprit tout divin,     Si vous pouviez aimer. Que pleust à Dieu, ma moitié bien-aimee, Qu’Amour vous eust d’une fleche enflamee     Autant que moy charmee.   En se jouant il m’a de part en part     Le cœur outrepercé : A vous s’amie il n’a monstré le dard     Duquel il m’a blessé. De telle mort heureux je me confesse, Et ne veux point que le soucy me laisse     Pour vous, belle Maistresse.   Dessus ma tombe engravez mon soucy     En memorable escrit : D’un Vandomois le corps repose icy,     Sous les Myrtes l’esprit. Comme Pâris là bas faut que je voise, Non pour l’amour d’une Helene Gregeoise,     Mais d’une Saintongeoise.

As I chatter, sitting beside you,   My heart is entirely quivering; My nerves and knees are all a-tremble,   My heartbeat fails, I haver no blood, no spirit, no breath Which is not disturbed on seeing my Helen,   My dear, sweet care.   I become mad, I lose all reason,   I cannot work out If I am free, or dead, or in prison;   I am no longer in myself. Seeing you, my eyes lose all understanding; Your eyes alter and change my very essence,   They have such power.   Your beauty makes me suffer a hundred loves   All at once; And all the time my senses are happy   In their various affections. My eyes watch you, and elsewhere my ear Hears your voice, which has no equal,   The wonder of the world.   Thus, thus, you have bewitched me,   Happy in my misfortune; I am contented in my troubles,   So much do I enjoy my sadness, And I wish this care would occupy me always, And always remind me of you,   While giving you my soul.   So, don’t seek to speak to a soothsayer,   Who can charm all things; You alone could have the divine spirit   If only you could love. May it please God, my beloved other-half, That Love with his burning arrow might   Charm you as he has me.   Playing around, he has pierced my heart   Through and through; To you, his friend, he has not shown the dart   With which he wounded me. In such a death I confess I am happy And have no wish that my love for you,   Fair mistress, should leave me.   Upon my tomb engrave this my love   In noteworthy script: The body of a Vendôme-man lies here,   His spirit beneath the myrtles’ shade. Like Paris, I must go below, Not for love of some Grecian Helen,   But for a lady of Saintonge.

 

 The Grecian Helen at the end is of course Helen of Troy, in defence of whom Paris was killed; Ronsard’s Helen hails from Saintonge, he from the Vendômois.  Blanchemain refers to Richelet’s footnote on the myrtles of the same stanza: “Myrtles – where lovers’ souls rest after their death“.

 

Blanchemain has only minor changes: in the second stanza, “Si je suis libre, ou captif en prison” (‘If I am free, or captive in prison’); and then a number of variants in the final stanza, which opens

 

 

Dessus ma tombe engravez mon soucy

   En lettres grossement :

Le Vandomois lequel repose icy,

  Mourut en bien aimant.

 

                                                                  Upon my tomb engrave this my love

                                                                    Large in writing:

                                                                 The man of Vendôme who lies here

                                                                    Died loving truly.

 

 

 

 

 

Sonnet 44 (Marie)

For no particular reason other than I was reading something other than Helen, here’s a beautiful sonnet from the Marie set:

 

Marie, baisez-moy : non, ne me baisez pas,

Mais tirez moy le cœur de vostre douce haleine :

Non, ne le tirez pas, mais hors de chaque veine

Succez-moy toute l’ame esparse entre vos bras :

 

Non, ne la succez pas : car apres le trespas

Que serois-je sinon une semblance vaine,

Sans corps desur la rive, où l’amour ne demeine

(Pardonne moy Pluton) qu’en feintes ses esbas ?

 

Pendant que nous vivons, entr’aimons nous, Marie,

Amour ne regne point sur la troupe blesmie

Des morts, qui sont sillez d’un long somme de fer.

 

C’est abus que Pluton ait aimé Proserpine,

Si doux soing n’entre point en si dure poitrine :

Amour regne en la terre et non point en enfer.

 

 

 

 

                                                                                Marie, kiss me ; no, don’t kiss me

                                                                                But draw out my heart with your sweet breath;

                                                                                No, don’t draw it out, but from each vein

                                                                                Suck out my whole soul, spread within your arms;

 

                                                                                No, don’t suck it out; for after my death

                                                                                What would I be but an empty shade

                                                                                With no body, upon the river where love dances

                                                                                (Pardon me, Pluto) its frolics only in sham.

 

                                                                                While we live, let us love one another, Marie,

                                                                                Love does not reign at all over the pallid company

                                                                                Of the dead, who are buried in a long, iron-hard sleep.

 

                                                                                It’s a lie that Pluto loved Proserpina;

                                                                                So sweet a care never entered so harsh a breast;

                                                                                Love reigns with the ladies, never in Hades.

 

 

 

Ronsard’s friend Remy Belleau, in his edition of Ronsard’s Marie (quoted by Blanchemain), said “this sonnet is among the most beautiful to be found, for being full of noble, contrary repetitions”.  The last line I have translated freely: literally it should be something like ‘Love reigns in the world, never in the underworld’, to try (clumsily) to catch that internal half-rhyme on ‘terre/enfer’. But I read that as rather a sly, tongue in cheek, half-rhyme, which is why I’ve gone with a less accurate but livelier rhyme in my text 🙂 

 

The story of Pluto running away with Proserpina (Persephone), the daughetr of Ceres, is a well-known legend, a trope for the changing seasons: Persephone returns to her mother in Spring, the corn (Ceres) happily re-grows, and then in autumn Pluto takes Persephone back under the ground while winter hardens the ground and nothing grows. It is perhaps strange that Ronsard should be so rude to Pluto in the last tercet, after begging his pardon a few lines earlier. Once again, late tinkering is to blame, for in the earlier version (below) there is no begging of pardon.

 

Naturally Blanchemain’s text has some other minor changes too, perhaps most surprisingly (given this is in the middle of the Amours de Marie), in addressing the poem to Sinope not Marie! Mythologically, Sinope is a minor legendary figure, ancestor of the race of the Syrians; but in Ronsard she is an older, fading beauty to whom he addresses a short cycle of sonnets.

 

As the changes in Blanchemain’s version are scattered through the text it will do least violence to your enjoyment of the poem if I print it in full in his version:

 

 

Sinope, baisez-moy : non, ne me baisez pas,

Mais tirez moy le cœur de vostre douce haleine :

Non, ne le tirez pas, mais hors de chaque veine

Succez-moy toute l’ame esparse entre vos bras :

 

Non, ne la succez pas : car apres le trespas

Que serois-je sinon une semblance vaine,

Sans corps desur la rive, où l’amour ne demeine

Comme il fait icy haut, qu’en feintes ses esbas ?

 

Pendant que nous vivons, entr’aimons nous, Sinope ;

Amour ne regne point sur la debile trope

Des morts, qui sont sillez d’un long somme de fer.

 

C’est abus que Pluton ait aimé Proserpine,

Si doux soing n’entre point en si dure poitrine :

Amour regne en la terre et non point en enfer.

 

 

                                                                               Sinope, kiss me ; no, don’t kiss me

                                                                               But draw out my heart with your sweet breath;

                                                                               No, don’t draw it out, but from each vein

                                                                               Suck out my whole soul, spread within your arms;

 

                                                                               No, don’t suck it out; for after my death

                                                                               What would I be but an empty shade

                                                                               With no body, upon the river where love dances,

                                                                               As it doesn’t up here, its frolics only in sham.

 

                                                                               While we live, let us love one another, Sinope,

                                                                               Love does not reign at all over the feeble company

                                                                               Of the dead, who are buried in a long, iron-hard sleep.

 

                                                                               It’s a lie that Pluto loved Proserpina;

                                                                               So sweet a care never entered so harsh a breast;

                                                                               Love reigns with the ladies, never in Hades.

 

 

 

 [ PS  I’m sure that Ronsard had a wry smile on his face as he re-wrote the opening of line 8 to echo the beginning of this poem in his Cassandre set. The echo is entirely deliberate, I am certain. ]

 

 

 

 

Sonnet 27

Chef, escole des arts, le sejour de science,
Où vit un intellect qui foy du Ciel nous fait,
Une heureuse memoire, un jugement parfait,
D’où Pallas reprendroit sa seconde naissance.

 

Chef, le logis d’honneur, de vertu, de prudence,
Ennemy capital du vice contrefait :
Chef, petit Univers, qui montres par effet
Que tu as du grand Tout parfaite cognoissance :

 

Et toy divin esprit qui du Ciel es venu,
En son chef comme au Ciel sainctement retenu,
Simple rond et parfait, comme icy nous ne sommes

 

Où tout est embrouillé, sans ordre ny sans loy :
Puisque tu es divin, ayes pitié de moy :
Il appartient aux Dieux d’avoir pitié des hommes.

 

 

                                                                                O Head, the school of the arts, the home of understanding,

                                                                                Where lives the intellect which grants us faith in Heaven,

                                                                                Happy memory, perfect judgement,

                                                                                From where Pallas had her second birth;

 

                                                                                Head, the place where honour, virtue and prudence live,

                                                                                Mortal enemy of deformed vice;

                                                                                Head, that little universe, you show by your actions

                                                                                That you have perfect understanding of the great All;

 

                                                                                And you, divine spirit who came from Heaven,

                                                                                Resting in the head with no less holiness than in Heaven,

                                                                                Plain, straightforward and perfect, as we cannot be here

 

                                                                                Where all is confusion, without order or law;

                                                                                Since you are divine, have pity on me;

                                                                                It is the function of the gods to have pity on men.

 

 

 

 A lovely poem, though I confess to having some difficulty with the syntax – the address is to Head and Spirit, but only the second seems to be addressed in the last lines, while the opening address to the Head seems to be left high and dry. Maybe I’ve missed something….

 

In line 4, the reference is to Pallas Athene. Her mother Metis conceived her after a visit from Jupiter, but then Jupiter, fearing a prophecy that the child of Metis (‘crafty thought’) would be greater than its father, swallowed Metis! Developing a massive headache some time later, Jupiter eventually called on Vulcan to hit his head with his great hammer – or, sometimes, an axe – and out leapt Athene, fully-armed and fully-grown; a ‘second birth’ after her presumed original birth in the normal fashion inside him.

 

This is the last of the batch of 1578 poems which Blanchemain added into his (earlier) text.  He offers a different line 11-12, and a small change in line 10, providing “ce chef” instead of “son chef” (‘this head’ not ‘his/her head’); but in the above translation I have effectively used Blanchemain’s version anyway, since I cannot see how ‘son’ fits in as a possessive and have assumed it is in effect a ‘pointer’ like ‘this’.

 

He also offers in a footnote a different version of line 10:  so here is the sestet with Blanchemain’s footnoted line 10, and the 11-12 he adopts in his text, to show all the variant lines in one place:

 

 

Et toy divin esprit, qui du Ciel es venu,
Dedans un autre ciel où tu es retenu,
Simple, sans passions, comme icy bas ne sommes

 

Mais tout prompt et subtil, tout rond et tout en toy,
Puis que tu es divin, ayes pitié de moy :
Il appartient aux Dieux d’avoir pitié des hommes.

 

 

                                                                               And you, divine spirit who came from Heaven,

                                                                               Within that other heaven where you rest

                                                                               Plain, passion-free, as we are not here below

 

                                                                               But quick and discerning in all, all straightforwardness, and at one with yourself;

                                                                               Since you are divine, have pity on me;

                                                                               It is the function of the gods to have pity on men.