Chanson (Amours retranch. 47)

Pourquoy tournez-vous voz yeux

       Gracieux

De moy quand voulez m’occire ?

Comme si n’aviez pouvoir

       Par me voir

D’un seul regard me destruire ?

 

Las ! vous le faites à fin

       Que ma fin

Ne me semblast bien-heureuse,

 Si j’allois en perissant

       Jouïssant

De vostre œillade amoureuse.

 

Mais quoy ? vous abusez fort,

       Cette mort,

Qui vous semble tant cruelle,

Ce m’est vrayment un bonheur

       Pour l’honneur

De vous, qui estes si belle.

 

 

 

 

                                                                           Why turn away your eyes,

                                                                                       My lady,

                                                                           From me when you wish to kill me?

                                                                           As if you had no power

                                                                                 In seeing me

                                                                           To destroy me with a glance.

 

                                                                           Alas, you do it so

                                                                                 That my end

                                                                           Should not seem fortunate to me,

                                                                           As I would die

                                                                                 Joyfully

                                                                           From your loving look.

 

                                                                           So what then? You very much misuse me.

                                                                                 This death

                                                                           Which seems to you so cruel

                                                                           To me is truly happiness

                                                                                 For your honour

                                                                           You who are so beautiful.

 

 

 

Only one variant to report: Blanchemain prints the slightly less-convinced “Me semble un gain de bon-heur” 3 lines from the end (‘To me seems an increase in happiness’)

 

 

 

Chanson (Amours retranch. 38a)

Plus tu connois que je brusle pour toy,

       Plus tu me fuis cruelle :

Plus tu connois que je vis en esmoy,

       Et plus tu m’es rebelle.

Te laisseray-je? Helas je suis trop tien,

       Mais je beniray l’heure

De mon trespas : au moins s’il te plaist bien

       Qu’en te servant je meure.

 

 

 

 

                                                                            The more you realise that I burn for you,

                                                                                  The more you avoid me cruelly;

                                                                            The more you realise that I live in agony

                                                                                  The more you rebel from me.

                                                                            Will I abandon you? Alas, I am too much yours

                                                                                   But I shall bless the hour

                                                                            Of my demise, at least if it pleases you

                                                                                   That I should die serving you.

 

 

 

Short & sweet – or rather, short and bitter!

 

Blanchemain’s version differs only in the punctuation of line 2, which he prints as “Plus tu me fuis, cruelle”  (‘The more you avoid me, cruel woman’)

 

 

 

 

Amours diverses: chanson 1 (12a)

(Numbered as ‘chanson 1’, this comes after sonnet 12, hence the 12a numbering.)

Petite Nymfe folâtre, Nymphette que j’idolâtre, Ma mignonne, dont les yeux Logent mon pis et mon mieux : Ma doucette, ma sucrée, Ma Grace, ma Citherée, Tu me dois pour m’appaiser Mille fois le jour baiser.    Tu m’en dois au matin trente, Puis apres disner cinquante, Et puis vingt apres souper. Et quoy ? me veux-tu tromper ?     Avance mes quartiers, belle, Ma tourtre, ma colombelle : Avance-moy les quartiers De mes paymens tous entiers.    Demeure, où fuis-tu Maistresse ? Le desir qui trop me presse, Ne sçauroit arrester tant, S’il n’est payé tout contant.    Revien revien mignonette, Mon doux miel, ma violette, Mon oeil, mon cœur, mes amours, Ma cruelle, qui tousjours Trouves quelque mignardise, Qui d’une douce feintise Peu à peu mes forces fond, Comme on voit dessus un mont S’escouler la neige blanche : Ou comme la rose franche Perd le vermeil de son teint, Des rais du soleil esteint.   Où fuis-tu mon Angelette, Ma vie, mon amelette ? Appaise un peu ton courroux, Assy-toy sur mes genoux, Et de cent baisers appaise De mon cœur la chaude braise.    Donne moy bec contre bec, Or’ un moite, ores un sec, Or’ un babillard, et ores Un qui soit plus long encores Que ceux des pigeons mignars, Couple à couple fretillars.    Hà Dieu ! ma douce Guerriere, Tire un peu ta bouche arriere : Le dernier baiser donné A tellement estonné De mille douceurs ma vie, Que du sein me l’a ravie, Et m’a fait voir à demi Le Nautonnier ennemy, Et les plaines où Catulle, Et les rives où Tibulle, Pas à pas se promenant, Vont encore maintenant De leurs bouchettes blesmies Rebaisotans leurs amies.

Frolicsome little Nymph, Nymphette I idolize, my sweetheart in whose eyes I see my best and my worst, my darling, my sweet, my graceful one, my Cytherea: to calm me you must kiss me a thousand times a day.   You owe me thirty of them in the morning, Then after dinner fifty, And then twenty after supper. What? Are you trying to cheat me?!   Pay me my quarters in advance, my fair one, My turtledove; Advance me all of the quarters Of my payment!   Wait! Where are you going, mistress? The desire which presses on me so Cannot stop like that If it is not happy with its payment.   Come back, come back, sweetie, My honey, my violet, Apple of my eye, my heart, my love: O my cruel one, who always Find some charming trick Which with its sweet deception Bit by bit overcomes my strength, Just as you see atop a mountain The white snow suddenly rush down, Or as the fresh rose Loses the redness of its colour, Faded by the sun’s rays.   Where are you going, my little angel, My life, my soul? Calm your anger a little, Sit on my knees, And with a hundred kisses calm The burning fire in my heart.   Give me lips against lips, One moist, one dry, One babbling, and one Which is still longer Than those of loving doves Fluttering couple by couple.   Oh god! my sweet warrior, Draw back your mouth a little: That last kiss you gave Has so overwhelmed My life with a thousand pleasures That it has torn it from my breast, And has made me half-see The Boatman, our enemy And the plains where Catullus And the banks where Tibullus Wandered pace by pace, And still go now Again, with their pallid lips Giving their lovers gentle kisses.

Another of Ronsard’s very famous songs. Incidentally, it became a cause célèbre when Nabokov’s Lolita emerged and was credited with introducing the word ‘nymphette’ into the language; French students actually demonstrated in public reclaiming the word for their own poet Ronsard!

The classical references in the final stanza are all to the classical underworld, where the Boatman (Charon) would ferry dead souls over to Hades. The Roman lyric poets Catullus and Tibullus are envisaged as among the privileged souls of poets who wander able still to recall their loves on earth.

 

There are some variants in Blanchemain. He [brackets] the second stanza (“Tu m’en dois…”) as this was added in 1578, after the date of the edition he takes as ‘standard’. Four stanzas later he has

 

Où fuis-tu mon Angelette,

Mon diamant, ma perlette ?

Là reviens, mon sucre doux,

Sur mon sein, sur mes genoux …

 

                                                                           Where are you going, my little angel,

                                                                           My diamond, my little pearl?

                                                                           Come back here, my sweetheart,

                                                                           Onto my breast, onto my knees …

 

Then there are minor changes at the start of the next stanza (“Donne m’en bec contre bec”, ‘Give me them lips against lips’) and the following one (“Hà là ! ma douce guerriere”, ‘Ho there! my sweet warrior’); and in the middle of that final stanza

 

Le dernier baiser donné

A tellement estonné

De mille douceurs ma vie,

Qu’il me l’a presque ravie, …

 

                                                                           That last kiss you gave

                                                                           Has so overwhelmed

                                                                           My life with a thousand pleasures

                                                                           That it has practically torn it from me …

 

 

 

 

 

Amours retranch. 37

Pour ce que tu sçais bien que je t’aime trop mieux,

Trop mieus dix mille fois que je ne fais ma vie,

Que je ne fais mon cœur, ma bouche, ny mes yeux,

Plus que le nom de mort, tu fuis le nom d’amie.  

 

Si je faisois semblant de n’avoir point envie

D’estre ton serviteur, tu m’aimerois trop mieux,

Trop mieux dix mille fois que tu ne fais ta vie,

Que tu ne fais ton cœur, ta bouche, ny tes yeus.  

 

C’est d’amour la coustume, alors que plus on aime

D’estre tousjours hay : je le sçay par moy-mesme

Qui suis tousjours banny du meilleur de tes graces 

 

Quand je t’aime sur toute : helas, que doy-je faire !

Si je pensois guarir mon mal par son contraire

Je te voudrois haïr à fin que tu m’aimasses.

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                            Because you know very well that I love you best,

                                                                            Ten thousand times as well as I do my life,

                                                                            As I do my heart, my lips, my eyes,

                                                                            You run from the word ‘beloved’ more than the word ‘death’.

 

                                                                            If I pretended to have no desire at all

                                                                            To be your servant, you would love me better,

                                                                            Ten thousand times better than you do your life,

                                                                            Than you do your heart, your lips, your eyes.

 

                                                                            That’s the custom in love, the more you love

                                                                            The more you’re always hated; I know it from my own case,

                                                                            As I am always banished from the best of your grace

 

                                                                            Though I love you above all. Alas, what to do?

                                                                            If I thought I might cure my ills by their opposite,

                                                                            I’d want to hate you, that you might love me.

 

Pretty much a classic sonnet! The octet balanced exactly by the sestet, the last lines recalling but re-working the opening; even a rather attractive tension between the line and the meaning as we cross between the tercets with an enjambement. Another odd choice to delete from the main text, but that’s what happened…

 

 

 

Amours retranch. 46

Las! sans espoir je languis à grand tort,

Pour la rigueur d’une beauté si fiere,

Qui sans ouïr mes pleurs ny ma prière

Rid de mon mal si violent et fort. 

 

De la beauté dont j’esperois support,

Pour mon service et longue foy premiere,

Je ne reçoy que tourment et misere,

Et pour secours je n’attens que la mort. 

 

Mais telle Dame est si sage et si belle

Que si quelqu’un la veut nommer cruelle

En me voyant traitté cruellement, 

 

Vienne au combat, icy je le deffie,

Il cognoistra qu’un si dur traittement

Pour ses vertus m’est une douce vie.

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                            Alas!  Hopeless, I pine in great wrong

                                                                            For the harshness of a beauty so proud

                                                                            Who, not listening to my weeping nor my prayer,

                                                                            Laughs at my ills so violently, so hard.

 

                                                                            From the beauty from which I’d hoped for support

                                                                            For my service, and for my first and long-lasting faithfulness.

                                                                            I receive nothing but torment and wretchedness

                                                                            And I expect succour only from death.

 

                                                                            But that lady is so wise and beautiful

                                                                            That if anyone tried to call her cruel,

                                                                            Seeing me cruelly treated,

 

                                                                            Let him come and fight, here I challenge him;

                                                                            He will understand that such harsh treatment

                                                                            For her virtues is for me a sweet life.

 

 

 

A lovely take on the old chivalric love theme, mixed in with the ‘lover’s torment’. The switch between first and second halves is managed beautifully, the challenge & defiance at the end so natural, I cannot imagine why he chose to remove this one from the ‘core’ collection of Amours…

 

 

 

Amours retranch. 21

O ma belle Maistresse, à tout le moins prenez

De moy vostre servant ce Rossignol en cage :

Il est mon prisonnier, et je vis en servage

Sous vous, qui sans mercy en prison me tenez :

 

Allez donc, Rossignol, en sa chambre, et sonnez

Mon dueil à son aureille avec vostre ramage,

Et s’il vous est possible émouvez son courage

A me faire mercy, puis vous en revenez.

 

Non, non, ne venez point, que feriez-vous chez moy ?

Sans aucun reconfort, vous languiriez d’esmoy :

« Un prisonnier ne peut un autre secourir.

 

Je n’ay pas, Rossignol, sur vostre bien envie,

Seulement je me hay et me plains de ma vie,

Qui languit en prison, et si n’y peut mourir.

 

 

 

 

                                                                            O my fair mistress, whatever you do take

                                                                            From me, your servant, this nightingale in a cage;

                                                                            He is my prisoner, and I live in service

                                                                            Under you who, without mercy, keep me in prison.

 

                                                                            Go then, nightingale, to her bedroom and sing

                                                                            Warbling of my sorrow into her ear,

                                                                            And if you can, stir up her courage

                                                                            To grant me pity – and then come back.

 

                                                                            No, do not come back, what would you do here with me?

                                                                            With no comfort you would pine away from grief;

                                                                            “One prisoner cannot help another.”

 

                                                                            I am not jealous, nightingale, of your good fortune,

                                                                            I just hate myself and bemoan my life

                                                                            Pining away in prison, and yet unable to die.

 

 

An attractive play on the double imprisonment of bird and master.  Only minor variations in Blanchemain’s version: in line 1 “à tous les moins”, not affecting the meaning, and in lines 3-4 Ronsard says he is “en servage / De vous” (‘in service to you’, rather than ‘under you’).

 

 

 

Amours 2:40

Quand ravy je me pais de vostre belle face,

Je voy dedans vos yeux je ne sçay quoy de blanc,

Je ne sçay quoy de noir, qui m’esmeut tout le sang,

Et qui jusques au cœur de veine en veine passe.

 

Je voy dedans Amour qui va changeant de place,

Ores bas ores haut tousjours me regardant,

Et son arc contre moy coup sur coup desbandant.

Si je faux, ma raison, que veux-tu que je face ?

 

Tant s’en faut que je sois alors maistre de moy

Que je ni’rois les Dieux et trahirois mon Roy,

Je vendrois mon pays, je meurtrirois mon pere :

 

Telle rage me tient apres que j’ay tasté

A longs traits amoureux de la poison amere,

Qui sort de ces beaux yeux dont je suis enchanté.

 

 

 

 

                                                                            When exalted I nourish myself with your beautiful face,

                                                                            I see within your eyes something white,

                                                                            Something black which affects all my blood

                                                                            And which passes from vein to vein right to my heart.

 

                                                                            I see within them Love, continually changing place,

                                                                            Now low now high, always watching me

                                                                            And his bow loosing shot after shot against me.

                                                                            If I am wrong what, my rightness, do you want me to do?

 

                                                                            I am so far from master of myself

                                                                            That I would deny the gods and betray my king,

                                                                            Sell my country and murder my father;

 

                                                                            Such passion seizes me after I have sampled,

                                                                            In long loving draughts, the bitter poison

                                                                            Which flows from your eyes by which I am bewitched.

 

 

 

I ought to have done better with the opening line:  I tried “I could eat your beautiful face” but that’s not really what Ronsard means, it’s the wrong image. He’s saying, just the sight of your face is all I need to live on, it is my food, my nourishment.  The right words haven’t (yet) come to me!

 

Line 8 is another tricky one to translate. Picking up the white/black opposites of the previous lines, Ronsard opposes “faux” and “raison”, wrong and right; but “raison” is also reason, the faculty of reasoning. So he is simultaneously setting Marie up as his standard of rightness, his model of reason, and also appealing to his own reason. Blanchemain’s version simplifies things with one minor change, offering only one of those meanings as Ronsard appeals to Reason.

 

There are also a number of changes in the ‘betrayal’ section in the first tercet; and a different, simpler image in line 1. (Also, yet another simple ‘when I…’ opening, instead of the more unusual ‘when, exalted…’ opening of the revised version – check the index of first lines to see how many “Quand …” poems use the simple “Quand je” + verb!)  Here’s Blanchemain’s text:

 

 

Quand je suis tout baissé sur vostre belle face,

Je voy dedans vos yeux je ne sçay quoy de blanc,

Je ne sçay quoy de noir, qui m’esmeut tout le sang,

Et qui jusques au cœur de veine en veine passe.

 

Je voy dedans Amour qui va changeant de place,

Ores bas, ores haut, tousjours me regardant,

Et son arc contre moy coup sur coup desbandant.

Las ! si je faux, Raison, que veux-tu que j’y face ?

 

Tant s’en faut que je sois alors maistre de moy

Que je vendrois mon père et trahirois mon roy,

Mon païs et ma sœur, mes frères et ma mère ;

 

Tant je suis hors du sens après que j’ay tasté

A longs traits amoureux de la poison amere,

Qui sort de ces beaux yeux dont je suis enchanté.

 

 

 

                                                                            When I am bowed over your beautiful face,

                                                                            I see within your eyes something white,

                                                                            Something black which affects all my blood

                                                                            And which passes from vein to vein right to my heart.

 

                                                                            I see within them Love, continually changing place,

                                                                            Now low now high, always watching me

                                                                            And his bow loosing shot after shot against me.

                                                                            Alas, if I am wrong what, Reason, do you want me to do there?

 

                                                                            I am so far from master of myself

                                                                            That I would sell my father and betray my king,

                                                                            My country, my sister, brothers and mother;

 

                                                                            I am so senseless after I have sampled,

                                                                            In long loving draughts, the bitter poison

                                                                            Which flows from your eyes by which I am bewitched.

 

 

 

Helen 2:3

I really should have saved the New Year’s wish poem for now! Still, happy new year everyone & here’s a beautiful opening to the year.

 

Amour, qui as ton regne en ce monde si ample,

Voy ta gloire et la mienne errer en ce jardin :

Voy comme son bel œil, mon bel astre divin,

Surmonte de clairté les lampes de ton Temple. 

 

Voy son corps des beautez le portrait et l’exemple,

Qui ressemble une Aurore au plus beau d’un matin ;

Voy son esprit, seigneur du Sort et du Destin,

Qui passe la Nature, en qui Dieu se contemple. 

 

Regarde-la marcher toute pensive à soy

T’emprisonner de fleurs et triompher de toy

Pressant dessous ses pas les herbes bien-heureuses. 

 

Voy sortir un Printemps des rayons de ses yeux :

Et voy comme à l’envy ses flames amoureuses

Embellissent la terre et serenent les cieux.

 

 

 

 

                                                                            Love, you who have the rule of this wide world,

                                                                            See your glory and mine wandering in this garden

                                                                            See how her lovely eye, my own heavenly star,

                                                                            Outshines in brightness the lamps of your temple.

 

                                                                            See her body, the very portrait and example of beauty,

                                                                            Like the dawn at its most beautiful in the morning;

                                                                            See her spirit, master of fate and destiny,

                                                                            Which surpasses nature and in which God recognises himself.

 

                                                                            Look at her walking alone, so pensive,

                                                                            Imprisoning you in flowers, triumphing over you,

                                                                            Pressing beneath her feet the fortunate grass.

 

                                                                            See how the rays of her eyes release a sort of Spring,

                                                                            And how enviably her loving flames

                                                                            Enhance the world and calm the heavens.

 

 

 

Blanchemain’s version has only a few variants:  line 4 becomes “Reluit comme une lampe ardente dans un temple” (‘Shines out like a flaming lamp in a temple’); the end of line 6 is slightly different (“au plus beau du matin”, ‘at the most beautiful time of morning’); and line 11 becomes “Voy naistre sous ses pieds les herbes bienheureuses ” (‘See the fortunate grass grow beneath her feet’).  But Blanchemain also offers us a further (footnoted) variant, a complete re-write of lines 7-9:

 

 

Voy son front, mais un ciel seigneur de mon destin,

Où comme en un mirouer Nature se contemple.

 

Voy-le marcher pensive, et n’aimer rien que soy.

 

 

 

                                                                            See her brow, rather the heaven which rules my destiny,

                                                                            In which as in a mirror nature regards herself.

 

                                                                            See her walking pensively, loving none but herself.

 

 

 

So many alternatives, all of them equally beautiful, makes for twice the pleasure. What a good way to start 2015!  Still better, I have an excuse to add a sonnet by Petrarch, which seems to have been Ronsard’s starting-point for his own sonnet.

 

 

Stiamo, Amor, a veder la gloria nostra,

cose sopra natura altere et nove:

vedi ben quanta in lei dolcezza piove,

vedi lume che ‘l cielo in terra mostra,

 

vedi quant’arte dora e ‘mperla e ‘nostra

l’abito electo, et mai non visto altrove,

che dolcemente i piedi et gli occhi move

per questa di bei colli ombrosa chiostra.

 

L’erbetta verde e i fior’ di color’ mille

sparsi sotto quel’ elce antiqua et negra

pregan pur che ‘l bel pe’ li prema o tocchi;

 

e ‘l ciel di vaghe et lucide faville

s’accende intorno, e ‘n vista si rallegra

d’esser fatto seren da sí belli occhi.

 

 

                                                                            Shall we stop, Love, to see our glory,

                                                                            Things strange beyond nature and new?

                                                                            See how much sweetness rains upon her,

                                                                            See the light which heaven shows on earth,

 

                                                                            See with what art is gilded and pearled our lady’s

                                                                            Chosen dress, never seen elsewhere,

                                                                            As she sweetly moves her feet and eyes

                                                                            Through this shady cloister of lovely hills.

 

                                                                            The soft green grass and flowers of a thousand colours

                                                                            Scattered under this ancient, black holm-oak

                                                                            Even pray that her fair foot will flatten or touch them;

 

                                                                            And the heavens blaze all around with bright,

                                                                            Wandering sparks and openly rejoices

                                                                            In being made calm by such fair eyes.