Amours retranch. 2

A ton frere Pâris tu sembles en beauté,

A ta sœur Polyxene en chaste conscience,

A ton frere Helenin en prophete science,

A ton parjure ayeul en peu de loyauté,

 

A ton père Priam en brave Royauté,

Au viellard Antenor en mielleuse eloquence,

A ta tante Antigone en superbe arrogance,

A ton grand frere Hector en fiere cruauté.

 

Neptune n’assit onc une pierre si dure

Dedans le mur Troyen, que toy pour qui j’endure

Un million de morts, ny Ulysse vainqueur

 

N’emplit tant Ilion de feux, de cris, et d’armes,

De souspirs, et de pleurs, que tu combles mon cœur,

Sans l’avoir mérité, de sanglots, et de larmes

 

 

 

 

                                                                            You are like your brother Paris in beauty,

                                                                            Your sister Polyxena in chaste conscience,

                                                                            Your brother Helenus in prophetic skill,

                                                                            Your perjured grandfather [Laomedon] in faithlessness,

 

                                                                            Your father Priam in regal pride,

                                                                            Old Antenor in honeyed speech,

                                                                            Your aunt Antigone in magnificent arrogance,

                                                                            Your great brother Hector in proud cruelty.

 

                                                                            Neptune never placed a stone so hard

                                                                            In Troy’s walls as you, for whom I endure

                                                                            A million deaths, nor did conquering Ulysses

 

                                                                            Fill Ilium so full of fires, cries, arms,

                                                                            Sighs and laments, as you fill my heart –

                                                                            Which does not deserve it – with sobs and tears.

 

 

After that recent poem on reading Homer, another which demonstrates the effect of that reading! It’s possible that the family tree of the royal house of Troy may not be too familiar to you(!) so here’s a very useful quick summary:  several of the names above are highlighted to make navigation easy. The basic assumption is that ‘you’ (=Cassandre) are equivalent to the prophetess Cassandra of Troy.

 

Many of the references are not just to the characters but to the relevant myths:

 – Paris, so handsome that he was chosen to judge the goddesses’ beauty & gained Helen’s love;

 – Polyxena, whose calm wisdom encouraged Achilles (having captured her) to trust her with the information that led to his death, and who (in Euripides) nobly accepts her death as a sacrifice to Achilles’ ghost;

 – Helenus, Cassandra’s twin and also endowed with prophetic powers;

 – Laomedon, perjured because he persuaded Neptune to build Troy’s great walls (see line 9) but then refused to give the promised reward;

 – Priam, whose pride kept the war going (but who was capable of humbling himself before Achilles, to recover his son Hector’s body, in a truly noble/regal way);

 – Antenor, not a family member but Priam’s closest and wisest advisor (and an advocate for peace in the war);

 – Antigone, whose ‘arrogance’ is the centre of Sophocles’ play as her stubbornness leads to confrontation with the state and general tragedy;

 – Hector, generally considered a noble hero, but who of course has a long list of victims in the Iliad. Generally, Achilles not Hector is seen as the proudly cruel one!

 

Which leaves us only with the reference to Ulysses, who is responsible for the fall of Troy because he came up with the idea of the Trojan Horse.

 

Unusually for a poem that has been set aside, there is a variant in Blanchemain’s version at the beginning of the last line:

 

                          … que tu combles mon cœur,

De brasiers et de morts, de sanglots, et de larmes

 

                                                                                                    … as you fill my heart

                                                                            With fire and death, with sobs and tears.

 

 

 

 

Poems 1.20 – the Nightingale

 

LE ROSSIGNOL chantant et faisant son nid dedans un genèvre   Gay Rossignol honneur de la ramée, Qui jour et nuit courtise ton aimée Par mon jardin hoste de sa verdeur, Quarante jours desgoisant ton ardeur Et t’esclatant d’une voix qui gringote Ores en haute ores en basse note, A bec ouvert d’un siffletis trenchant, Hachant coupant entrerompant ton chant De cent fredons, tu donnes à ta femme Un doux martel, amoureux de ma Dame.   Tu n’aurois point tant de faveur sinon Que les vieux Grecs t’ont nommé d’un beau nom : Mais bien de deux, t’appellent ce me semble, D’un mesme mot, Chantre et Poëte ensemble.   Et je dirois, si j’estois un bragard, Que Rossignol vient du nom de Ronsard.   Mais ce n’est moy qui ma Musique vante : Soit bien soit mal, Rossignolet, je chante Ainsi que toy pour me donner plaisir, Quand j’ay Madame argent et le loisir. Quoy ? qui t’esmeut de courtiser sans cesse Et d’enchanter Genévre ma Maistresse ?   En ce Genévre où tu chantes de nuit, Dessous l’escorce une pucelle vit, A qui l’amour la peur et l’avanture Ont fait changer de face et de nature.   Un jour ce Dieu tout bouquin par le front La poursuivoit d’un pied de chévre pront. Elle courant d’une fuite legere Ainsi pria Diane bocagere : Ou me transforme, ou bien fay moy mourir : La seule mort me pourra secourir Ains que l’ardeur de ce Bouquin je sente.   A-peine eut dit, qu’elle fut une plante : Ses doigts longuets, ses bras veneux et beaux, Comme ils estoyent, se changent en rameaux. Son pied devint une morne racine, Et une escorce entourna sa poitrine. Puis ses cheveux de crainte reboursez Espars se sont en fueilles herissez, Et la palleur qu’elle avoit en sa fuite, Vit sur l’escorce et tousjours y habite.   Un jour lassé de la chasse des loups, Seul à l’escart je m’endormi dessous L’ombre fatal de ce Genévre, et elle En corps humain m’apparut toute telle Qu’elle fut lors que le Bouc amoureux La poursuivoit par un taillis ombreux, Tant il avoit de flames dedans l’ame Pour la beauté d’une si jeune Dame. Depuis ce jour jamais je n’ay cessé D’avoir le cœur de son amour blessé, Et de languir pour un si beau visage.   Et toutefois brave de ton ramage Chantant sifflant et faisant mille tours, Tu veux tout seul jouyr de mes amours, Que de bon cœur, Rossignol, je te laisse : Car tu vaux mieux que ne fait ma Maistresse.   Et qui plus est, comme on voit un mary Plein de finesse entre Dames nourri, Faire secret l’amour à sa voisine : Quand il n’a pas une femme trop fine, La persuade avec un beau parler, De la hanter, visiter et d’aller Boire et manger souvent avecques elle, A fin d’avoir (par une ruse telle) Plus de moyen d’œillader les beaux yeux Qui de son cœur se font victorieux.   Ainsi rival ta femme tu ameines Dedans cest arbre, où d’un nid fait de laines Mousses, duvets, ses petits elle pond, Esclost, escouve, et qui apres se font Ainsi que toy au retour des fueillages Quarante jours Sereines des bocages.   Quoy ? Rossignol, la voix ne te defaut ! Et par despit tu t’efforces plus haut !   Puis qu’autrement ma verve poëtique Ne peut gaigner ton ramage rustique, Va, Rossignol, je laisse seul pour toy L’arbre amoureux qui n’a souci de moy, L’arbre gentil, et toutefois farouche, Qui fait saigner aussi tost qu’on le touche.   Tandis, Girard, que la fiévre me tient Reins, teste, flanc, la Muse m’entretient, Et de venir à mon lit n’a point honte.   Or des propos que sa bouche me conte Je t’en fais part, à fin qu’à l’advenir De ton Ronsard te puisses souvenir.

The Nightingale singing and making its nest in a juniper-bush   Happy nightingale, the branch’s pride, Who court your beloved day and night In my garden, the guest of its greenery, For forty days singing of your passion And crying out with a voice which chirps Now with a high, now with a low note, Your beak open in a piercing whistle, Chopping, cutting off and interrupting your song With a hundred twitterings, you give your wife A sweet jealousy, beloved of my Lady.   You’d not have such favour if The ancient Greeks had not given you a fine name ; Indeed with two, it seems to me, thay named you In a single word, Singer and Poet together.   And I would say – if I were a braggart – That ‘Rossignol’ [Nightingale] comes from the name ‘Ronsard’.   But it’s not myself my poems boast of : For good or bad, nightingale, I sing Like you to give myself pleasure, Since I have my Lady, money and leisure-time. What or who [ moved ] you to court unceasingly And to enchant my mistress, the Juniper ?   In that juniper where you sing at night, Beneath the bark there lives a maiden Whose form and nature have been changed By love, fear and mischance.   One day that god with horns on his brow Was pursuing her on his swift stag’s-foot. As she ran with light fleeing steps, She prayed thus to Diana, goddess of the woods : « Transform me, or let me die : Death alone can help me Such is this Horned God’s passion I feel. »   She had barely spoken when she became a plant : Her fingers long and thin, her arms veined and fair As they were, changed into branches. Her feet became a sad root, And bark encircled her breast. Then her hair, standing up in fear, Was spread out in bristling leaves And the pallor she had in her flight Lived on in the bark, and still remains there.   One day, tired from hunting wolves, Alone and apart i fell asleep beneath The fatal shade of this juniper, and she Appeared to me in human form just as She had been when the amorous Horned God Pursued her through a shady copse, Such a fire had he in his soul Because of so young a lady’s beauty. Since that day i have never ceased To bear a wound in my heart for her love, And to pine for so pretty a face.   And yet bold in your plumage, Singing, whistling and turning a thousand times, You want to be the only one enjoying that love of mine Which I happily resign to you, nightingale ; For you are worth more than my mistress !   And what is more, as one sees a married man Full of cunning, fostered among the ladies, Making secret love to his neighbour ; if he has a wife who is not too clever, He persuades her with fine words To visit and see her frequently, to go To eat and drink often with her, So that hem ay have (by such a ruse) More means of looking into the fair eyes Which have conquered his heart ;   Just so you are bringing your own wife as a rival To this tree, where in a nest made of wool, Moss, feathers she lays her little ones, Hatches, broods them, and after that becomes Like you, when the leaves come back, For forty days the Sirens of the woods.   May your voice not fail you, nightingale ! In envious competition, force yourself higher !   As otherwise my poetic inspiration Cannot beat your rustic plumage, Go on, nightingale – I leave for you alone The tree I love which has no care for me, The noble tree yet still timid Which bleeds as soon as it is touched.   Yet, Girard, while the fever grips my Guts, head, body, my Muse converses with me And is not ashamed to come to my bed. So, the words which her mouth relates I share with you, that in the future You may remember your Ronsard.

 

It’s the story of Daphne, pursued by Apollo, and turned into a laurel tree, which inspires this tale of a nymph turned into a juniper tree. As far as I know there isn’t a classical myth regarding the juniper, just Ronsardian invention.

 

As a footnote, it is possible there was a real lady Genèvre, with whom Ronsard flirted – though probably some time earlier than the late 1560s when he wrote this. There are two Elegies to her (though neither is especially ‘elegiac’ in tone); and she may have been the wife of Blaise de Vigenère, diplomat, scholar, alchemist and the “perfect incarnation of erudite genius in the Renaissance”.  His name may be familiar as the inventor (or rather improver) of the Vigenère cypher, which is an excellent simple cypher still useable today. But in his time he was known as translator of a range of Roman and Greek works, and author of works on alchemy (or perhaps chemistry) and comets, among others. Perhaps it would be appropriate for Ronsard to disguise his wife under a ‘cipher’, in the form of an anagram: Vigenère –> Genièvre.

 

The poem is dedicated to Jehan Girard, a friend of Robert Garnier (the tragedian, whom we’ve met before) and a councillor in Le Mans – not the Jehan Girard who  was printing protestant books in Geneva a decade or two earlier!

 

Back to the poetry. It’s odd that something which looks so much like an oocasional poem should have attracted so much revision by Ronsard. But let’s remember that what appears a little playful address to a bird, is in fact closely modelled on episodes in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, and aspires to similar heights. Blanchemain’s (early) version is set out below in full, so much variation is there. Note that this version carries a dedication to Claude Binet, poet and Ronsard’s first biographer.  But this is not the first time we’ve seen Ronsard adapt an earlier dedication to another subject later in life, reflecting the changing patterns or networks of influence and patronage over time.

 

 

LE ROSSIGNOL chantant et faisant son nid dedans un genévre de son jardin   A Claude Binet     Gay Rossignol honneur de la ramée, Qui jour et nuict courtises ton aimée Dans mon jardin desgoisant tes amours Au mois d’avril le père des beaux jours, Et t’esclatant d’une voix qui gringote Ores en haute, ores en basse note, A gorge ouverte, à pleins poulmons trenchant, Hachant coupant entre-rompant ton chant De cent fredons, tu donnes à ta femme Un doux martel. Amoureux de ma Dame, Tu m’es rival, d’où vient cela ? sinon Que les vieux Grecs t’ont nommé d’un beau nom : Mais bien de deux, t’appellant ce me semble, D’un mesme mot, Chantre et Poëte ensemble. Et je dirois, si j’estois un bragard, Que Rossignol vient du nom de Ronsard.   Mais ce n’est moy dont ma Muse se vante : Soit bien soit mal, Rossignolet, je chante Ainsi que toy pour me donner plaisir, Quand j’ay maistresse, argent et le loisir. Quoy ? qui t’esmeut de caresser sans cesse De tes fredons Genévre ma Maistresse ?   En ce Genévre où tu chantes de nuit, Dessous l’escorce une pucelle vit, A qui l’amour la peur et l’avanture Ont fait changer de face et de nature.   Un jour ce Dieu, qui a cornes au front La poursuivoit d’un pied de chévre pront. Elle courant, ayant recours aux larmes, Ainsi pria : « Diane, par tes charmes Ou me transforme, ou bien fay moy mourir : La seule mort me pourra secourir Ains que l’ardeur de ce Bouquin je sente. »   A-peine eut dit, qu’elle fut une plante : Ses doigts longuets, ses bras veineux et beaux, A longs fourchons se fendent en rameaux ; Son pied devint une morne racine, Et une escorce entourna sa poitrine. Ses longs cheveux de crainte rebroussez, Espars se sont en fueilles herissez, Et la palleur qu’elle avoit en sa fuite, Vit sur l’escorce et tousjours y habite.   Un jour lassé de la chasse des loups, Seul à l’escart je m’endormi dessous L’ombre fatal de ce Genévre, et elle En corps humain m’apparut toute telle Qu’elle fut lors que le Bouc amoureux La poursuivoit par un taillis ombreux, Tant il avoit de flames dedans l’ame Pour la beauté d’une si jeune Dame. Depuis ce jour jamais je n’ay cessé D’avoir le cœur de son amour blessé, Et de languir pour un si beau visage.   Et toutefois hautain de ton ramage Chantant sifflant et faisant mille tours, Tu veux tout seul jouyr de mes amours, Que de bon cœur, Rossignol, je te laisse : Car ton fredon merite ma Maistresse.   Et qui plus est, comme on voit un mary Plein de finesse entre Dames nourri, Faire secret l’amour à sa voisine : Quand il n’a pas une femme trop fine, La persuade avec un beau parler, De la hanter, visiter et d’aller Boire et manger souvent avecques elle, A fin d’avoir (par une ruse telle) Plus de moyen d’œillader les beaux yeux Qui de son cœur se font victorieux.   Ainsi rival ta femme tu ameines Dedans cest arbre, où d’un nid fait de laines Mousses, duvet, ses petits elle pond, Esclost, escouve, et abeche, qui sont Un an après, au retour des fueillages Quarante jours Sereines des bocages.   Quoy ? Rossignol, la voix ne te defaut ! Et par despit tu t’efforces plus haut !   Puis qu’autrement ma verve poëtique Ne peut gaigner ton ramage rustique, Va, Rossignol, tu auras seul pour toy L’arbre amoureux qui n’a souci de moy, L’arbre gentil, et toutefois farouche, Qui fait saigner aussi tost qu’on le touche.   Tandis, Binet, que la fiévre me tient Reins, teste, flanc, la Muse m’entretient, Et de venir à mon lit n’a point honte.   Or des propos que sa bouche me conte Je t’en fais part, à fin qu’à l’advenir De ton Ronsard te puisse souvenir.

The Nightingale singing and making its nest in a juniper-bush in his garden   To Claude Binet     Happy nightingale, the branch’s pride, Who court your beloved day and night In my garden, singing of your passion In the month of April, father of fine days, And crying out with a voice which chirps Now with a high, now with a low note, Your throat open, whistling fit to burst, Chopping, cutting off and interrupting your song With a hundred twitterings, you give your wife A sweet jealousy. Beloved of my Lady, You are my rival – why is that ? unless because The ancient Greeks gave you a fine name ; Indeed two, naming you, it seems to me, In a single word, Singer and Poet together. And I would say – if I were a braggart – That ‘Rossignol’ [Nightingale] comes from the name ‘Ronsard’.   But it’s not myself my Muse boasts of : For good or bad, nightingale, I sing Like you to give myself pleasure, Since I have a mistress, money and leisure-time. What or who inspired you to caress unceasingly With your chirping my mistress, the Juniper ?   In that juniper where you sing at night, Beneath the bark there lives a maiden Whose form and nature have been changed By love, fear and mischance.   One day that god who has horns on his brow Was pursuing her on his swift stag’s-foot. As she ranhaving recourse to tears, She prayed thus : « Diana, by your charms Transform me, or let me die : Death alone can help me Such is this Horned God’s passion I feel. »   She had barely spoken when she became a plant : Her fingers long and thin, her arms veined and fair Split into long-forked branches. Her feet became a sad root, And bark encircled her breast. Her long hair, pulled back in fear, Was spread out in bristling leaves And the pallor she had in her flight Lived on in the bark, and still remains there.   One day, tired from hunting wolves, Alone and apart i fell asleep beneath The fatal shade of this juniper, and she Appeared to me in human form just as She had been when the amorous Horned God Pursued her through a shady copse, Such a fire had he in his soul Because of so young a lady’s beauty. Since that day i have never ceased To bear a wound in my heart for her love, And to pine for so pretty a face.   And yet proud of your plumage, Singing, whistling and turning a thousand times, You want to be the only one enjoying that love of mine Which I happily resign to you, nightingale ; For your chirping is worthy of my mistress.   And what is more, as one sees a married man Full of cunning, fostered among the ladies, Making secret love to his neighbour ; if he has a wife who is not too clever, He persuades her with fine words To visit and see her frequently, to go To eat and drink often with her, So that hem ay have (by such a ruse) More means of looking into the fair eyes Which have conquered his heart ;   Just so you are bringing your own wife as a rival To this tree, where in a nest made of wool, Moss, down, she lays her little ones, Hatches, broods and cuddles those who are A year later, when the leaves come back, For forty days the Sirens of the woods.   May your voice not fail you, nightingale ! In envious competition, force yourself higher !   As otherwise my poetic inspiration Cannot beat your rustic plumage, Go on, nightingale – you shall have for yourself alone The tree I love which has no care for me, The noble tree yet still timid Which bleeds as soon as it is touched.   Yet, Binet, while the fever grips my Guts, head, body, my Muse converses with me And is not ashamed to come to my bed.   So, the words which her mouth relates I share with you, that in the future It may remind you of your Ronsard.

 

 

 

 

 

Amours 1.175

Je ne suis point, Muses, accoustumé

De voir vos sauts sous la tarde serée :

Je n’ay point beu dedans l’onde sacrée,

Fille du pied du cheval emplumé.

 

De tes beaux rais vivement allumé,

Je fu Poëte : et si ma voix recrée,

Et si ma lyre en t’enchantant t’agrée,

Ton œil en soit, non Parnasse, estimé.

 

Certes le Ciel te devoit à la France,

Quand le Thuscan, et Sorgue, et sa Florence,

Et son Laurier engrava dans les cieux :

 

Ore trop tard, beauté plus que divine,

Tu vois nostre age, helas ! qui n’est pas digne

Tant seulement de parler de tes yeux.

 

 

 

 

                                                                            I am not at all accustomed, Muses,

                                                                            To watch you leaping in the late evening ;

                                                                            I have not drunk from the sacred waters,

                                                                            Springing from the foot of the winged horse.

 

                                                                            Excited and aroused by your fair eyes, [my love],

                                                                            I became a poet ; and if my voice entertains,

                                                                            And my lyre as it sings to you pleases you,

                                                                            Your eyes, not Parnassus, deserve the praise.

 

                                                                            Surely heaven owed France your presence,

                                                                            Since the Tuscan [Petrarch] had engraved in the heavens

                                                                            The Sorgue, his Florence, and his laurels.

 

                                                                            Yet too late, more-than-divine beauty,

                                                                            You see our age which, alas, is not worthy

                                                                            Even just to speak of your eyes.

 

 

 

Here Ronsard stakes his claim to be firmly in the line of the great poets: though typically he does it while undermining the traditional classical image and placing himself in the petrarchan line of love poets. So (first quatrain) he denies inspiration from the Muses – whose Hippocrene spring on Mount Helicon was created when Pegasus struck the ground with his hoof –  while (second quatrain) deriving it from his lady-love – or, as we might say in English, his ‘muse’… In English the transition from “vous / Muses” to “tu / Cassandre” is not obvious, so I have added a few words at the end of line 5 to make the translation clear. Parnassus, like Helicon, is home to the Muses.

 

In the sestet, the focus moves forward to the Italian renaissance, with Petrarch as the comparator. Though mostly associated with Florence, Petrarch lived for many years in Avignon (seat of the anti-Popes), and the Sorgue flows through Avignon. His ‘laurels’ are both the laurels won by the greatest poets (hence ‘poet laureate’), and a reference to Laura, his lady and ‘muse’. The final tercet point to the length of time between Petrarch and Ronsard – some two centuries – and another hint of a classical theme with the ‘golden age’ descending to a later ‘silver age’ and so forth, the later ages clearly not as great or as worthy as the former.

 

Blanchemain’s version offers variants in the octet:

 

 

Je ne suis point, Muses, accoustumé

Voir vostre bal sous la tarde serée ;

Je n’ay point beu dedans l’onde sacrée,

Fille du pied du cheval emplumé.

 

De tes beaux rais chastement allumé,

Je fu poëte ; et si ma voix recrée,

Et si ma lyre aucunement agrée,

Ton œil en soit, non Parnasse, estimé

 

 

                                                                            I am not at all accustomed, Muses,

                                                                            To watch your dance in the late evening ;

                                                                            I have not drunk from the sacred waters,

                                                                            Springing from the foot of the winged horse.

 

                                                                            Chastely aroused by your fair eyes, [my love],

                                                                            I became a poet ; and if my voice entertains

                                                                            And my lyre pleases a little,

                                                                            Your eyes, not Parnassus, deserve the praise.

 

 

Worth noting that in line 7, “agrée” teeters between both ‘to please’ and ‘to harmonise’ – whereas in the revised version at the top of this post there is less room for ambiguity, though perhaps “harmonises with you” is just about implied…

 

 

 

 

 

Amours retranch. 43

Je veux lire en trois jours l’Iliade d’Homere,

Et pour-ce, Corydon, ferme bien l’huis sur moy :

Si rien me vient troubler, je t’asseure ma foy

Tu sentiras combien pesante est ma colere.

 

Je ne veux seulement que nostre chambriere

Vienne faire mon lit, ton compagnon, ny toy,

Je veux trois jours entiers demeurer à requoy,

Pour follastrer apres une sepmaine entiere.

 

Mais si quelqu’un venoit de la part de Cassandre,

Ouvre-luy tost la porte, et ne le fais attendre,

Soudain entre en ma chambre, et me vien accoustrer.

 

Je veux tant seulement à luy seul me monstrer :

Au reste, si un Dieu vouloit pour moy descendre

Du Ciel, ferme la porte, et ne le laisse entrer.

 

 

 

 

                                                                            I want to read Homer’s Iliad in three days :

                                                                            So, Corydon, close tight the door upon me.

                                                                            If anything comes to trouble me, I give you my word

                                                                            You will feel how heavy my anger is.

 

                                                                            I do not just wish our chambermaid won’t

                                                                            Come and make my bed, nor your fellows, nor you :

                                                                            I want to stay in peace for three whole days,

                                                                            Then, afterwards, I’ll play the fool for a whole week.

 

                                                                            But if someone should come from Cassandre,

                                                                            Quickly open the door to him, don’t make him wait !

                                                                            Rush into my room, come and get me dressed :

 

                                                                            To him alone am I willing to show myself.

                                                                            For the rest, if a god chose to come down to me

                                                                            From heaven, shut the door and don’t let him in !

 

 

Lovely. Ronsard the litterateur, keen to read his Homer; but also Ronsard the tongue-in-cheek love-poet – Cassandre, yes, a mere god, no …   Yet another poem where I wonder, why did he withdraw it?! More importantly, yet another poem which reminds us that the withdrawn poems are as well-worth reading as the sets Ronsard selected in the various complete editions.

 

 

 

 

 

To his soul (Dernier vers)

Amelette Ronsardelette,

Mignonnelette doucelette,

Treschere hostesse de mon corps,

Tu descens là bas foiblelette,

Pasle, maigrelette, seulette,

Dans le froid Royaume des mors :

Toutesfois simple, sans remors

De meurtre, poison, ou rancune,

Mesprisant faveurs et tresors

Tant enviez par la commune.

 

Passant, j’ay dit, suy ta fortune

Ne trouble mon repos, je dors.

 

 

 

 

                                                                            Little soul of little Ronsard

                                                                            Darling and sweet,

                                                                            Dearest guest within my body

                                                                            You are going down below weak,

                                                                            Pale, small, thin and lonely,

                                                                            Into the cold kingdom of the dead:

                                                                            And yet modest, not remorseful

                                                                            For murder, poison or malice,

                                                                            Despising favours and treasures

                                                                            So envied by the common herd.

 

                                                                            Traveller, I have spoken: follow your fortune,

                                                                            Trouble not my rest, I sleep.

 

 

 

His very last poem – at least, the last poem in the Dernier Vers, placed at the end of his collected works; though these days followed by a mountain of pieces he’d cut from earlier editions, not published, published but not collected…! Are the last two lines an address to his soul, or to a passing traveller (like an inscription for his tomb)? It’s ambiguous: read it both ways.

 

– – – –

 

I hadn’t till now realised – though I’m sure Ronsard’s much better-educated classicist friends would have spotted it immediately – that this poem is, inevitably, an imitation of a classical original. The emperor Hadrian, he of the Wall, wrote his version in AD138: as you can see, the first half of Ronsard’s poem follows it very closely (except for the final line, Hadrianic humour which somehow doesn’t fit Ronsard!)

 

 

Animula vagula blandula

Hospes comesque corporis

Quae nunc abibis in loca

Pallidula rigida nudula

Nec ut soles dabit iocos.

 

 

                                                                            Little soul, little wanderer, little charmer

                                                                            Guest and companion of the body,

                                                                            Into what places do you now depart –

                                                                            Dark little, cold little, empty little ones,

                                                                            And you won’t as usual be making jokes.

 

 

 

If you’re interested, here are 43 other translations, from 1625 to 2012! Obviously my former ignorance of the poem is not shared …

 

 

 

Odes 3.21

 

A GASPAR D’AUVERGNE   Gaspar, qui, loin de Pegase, As les filles de Parnase Conduites en ta maison, Ne sçais-tu que moy, poête, De mon Phoebus je souhéte Quand je fais une oraison ?   Les moissons je ne quiers pas Que le faux arrange à bas Sur la Beauce fructueuse ; Ny tous les cornus troupeaux Qui sautent sur les coupeaux De l’Auvergne montueuse ;   Ny l’or sans forme qu’ameine La mine pour nostre peine ; Ny celuy qui est formé Portant d’un roy la figure Ou la fiere pourtraiture De quelque empereur armé ;   Ny l’ivoire marqueté En l’Orient acheté Pour parade d’une sale ; Ny les cousteux diamans Magnifiques ornemens D’une majesté royale ;   Ny tous les champs que le fleuve Du Loir lentement abreuve ; Ny tous les prez emmurez Des plis de Braye argentine ; Ny tous les bois dont Gastine Void ses bras en-verdurez ;   Ny le riche accoustrement D’une laine qui dément Sa teinture naturelle Ez chaudrons du Gobelin, S’yvrant d’un rouge venin Pour se disguiser plus belle   Que celuy dans une coupe Toute d’or boive à la troupe De son vin de Prepatour, A qui la vigne succede, Et près Vendôme en possede Deux cents arpens en un tour.   Que celuy qui aime Mars S’enrolle entre les soldars, Et face sa peau vermeille D’un beau sang pour son devoir, Et que la trompette, au soir, D’un son luy raze l’aureille.   Le marchant hardiment vire Par le mer de sa navire La proue et la poupe encor ; Ce n’est moy, bruslé d’envie, A tels despens de ma vie, Rapporter des lingots d’or.   Tous ces biens je ne quiers point, Et mon courage n’est poingt De telle gloire excessive. Manger o mon compagnon Ou la figue d’Avignon, Ou la provençale olive,   L’artichôt et la salade, L’asperge et le pastenade, Et les pompons tourangeaux, Me sont herbes plus friandes Que les royales viandes Qui se servent à monceaux.   Puis qu’il faut si tost mourir, Que me vaudroit d’acquerir Un bien qui ne dure guere, Qu’un heritier qui viendroit Après mon trespas vendroit Et en feroit bonne chere ?   Tant seulement je desire Une santé qui n’empire ; Je desire un beau sejour, Une raison saine et bonne Et une lyre qui sonne Tousjours le vin et l’amour.

TO GASPAR OF AUVERGNE   Gaspar, who – without Pegasus – Has brought the daughters of Parnassus Into your home, Do you not know what I, a poet, Ask of my Apollo When I make him a prayer ?   Crops I don’t request, Those which the scythe cuts down Upon the fruitful Beauce ; Nor do I ask for all the horned troop Which leap upon the scarps Of the mountainous Auvergne ;   Nor shapeless gold which the mine Provides for our trouble ; Nor do I ask to be one made To bear a king’s figure Or the proud appearance Of some armed emperor ;   Nor inlaid ivory Bought in the East For some dishonest woman’s display ; Nor costly diamonds, Magnificent ornaments Of royal majesty ;   Nor all the fields which the river Loir slowly waters ; Nor all the meadows walled in By the bends of the silvery Braye ; Nor all the woods with which Gastine Sees his arms greened ;   Nor the rich clothing Of wool which gives the lie to Its natural colour In Gobelin’s cauldrons, Drinking in the red poison To disguise itself, more beautiful   Than his wine of Prepatour, Which he himself, in a cup Made all of gold, drinks to his troop – The vines to which he succeded And possesses near Vendome Two hundred acres of them.   Let he who loves Mars [war] Enrol among his soldiers, And print his pink skin With bright blood for his work, And let the evening trumpet With its call crash on his ear.   Let the merchant boldly steer Over the sea his ship’s Prow and poop too ; It’s not for me, burning with desire At such cost to my life, To bring back golden ingots.   All these good things I seek not at all, And my courage is not pricked To such excessive glory. Eating with my friend Figs from Avignon Or olives from Provence,   Artichokes and salad, Asparagus and parsnip And melons from Tours, These are tastier foods Than the king’s meat Which is served in mountains.   Since we must die so soon, What use to me is gaining Some good thing which hardly lasts, Which my inheritor will come After my death and sell And make a great deal from ?   I simply desire Health which doesn’t worsen ; I desire a fine time here, My reason unimpaired, And a lyre which sings Always of wine and love.

 

 

Blanchemain reprints several footnotes from Richelet’s commentary.In the 4th stanza, he notes that “tous les champs” are ‘the fields of his Vendome region’ (as we’d have guessed from the references to the Braye & Gastine); in the following stanza he tells us that Gobelin was  ‘formerly the famous & rich dyer of Paris’, though we now think of his Belgin tapestry factory; and explains that the “rouge venin” (‘red poison’) is scarlet dye in which the wool is soaked for a long time. A stanza later, he epxlains that Prepatour is ‘an excellent wine, whose vine belongs to the king & is in his domain in the Vendome’.

 

The stanzas 3rd & 4th from last also deserve a note or two: Ronsard says “Manger o mon compagnon”, which I guess to be Provençal dialect (“o” for “au”?), suited to the Avignon/Provencal food mentioned in the following lines, and or the Auvergne form which Gaspar hails. “Pastenade” is also Provençal, and there is even today a special variety of melon (“pompon”) grown around Tours: see here.

 

And what of Gaspar himself? Ronsard’s friend Gaspar (or Gaspard) was another of that learned circle of humanists, known among other things for translating Machiavelli into French – particularly ‘Le Prince’ and “Les discours de l’estat de paix et de guerre”, the former apparently undertaken between 1547 and 1553 but not published till the 1560s, one of three roughly contemporary translations of the notorious work.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Muret – Las, je me plain

Title

Las, je me plain de mille et mille et mille

Composer

Marc Antoine Muret (1526-85)

Source

Supplement musical to the 1552 edition of Les amours de P de Ronsard Vandomoys, ensemble le cinquiesme de ses Odes, 1552

(text on recmusic.org/lieder site here)
(blog entry here)
(recorded extract here – from Pierre de Ronsard et la musique, Kühn chamber choir)

The second of only two settings we have by Ronsard’s friend, fellow-poet, editor and humanist Muret. Muret was a gentleman-composer rather than a professional: some of his lines look (to my ignorant eyes) relatively hard to sing as they do not follow the usual stepwise progress with occasional leaps, but leap more often than not!  More tellingly, I suspect also he breaks some of the ‘rules’ of polyphonic composition: there are several places where he moves to a new syllable immediately after a melisma, rather than closing the melisma on a longer note first – which is at least uncommon elsewhere in the settings we’re looking at here, and in (most?) sixteenth-century polyphony. (It is at least possible that this is in Tiersot’s transcription rather than Muret’s composition.)

Nevertheless it is an accomplished piece. I particularly like the way it sways between 2-time and 3-time – the barring adopted by Tiersot suggests a far greater regularity than there is . Just consider the number of times all parts together are singing in semibreves which have to break over the barline (e.g around bar 50); this isn’t everyone singing ‘off the beat’, it’s a place where there ought to have been more rapid alternation between the time signatures – something accomplished far more easily in the un-barred original than in modern transcriptions, which would just look very fussy switching back and forth every other bar…

The recorded extract is from a 1980s disc: this segment is the beginning of the sestet just after the repeat of the quatrain finishes, where Muret breaks into running melismas overlapping in several voices.

Amours 1.185

Puis qu’aujourd’huy pour me donner confort,

De ses cheveux ma maistresse me donne :

D’avoir receu, mon cœur, je te pardonne,

Mes ennemis au dedans de mon Fort :

 

Non pas cheveux, mais un filé bien fort,

Qu’Amour me lasse, et que le ciel m’ordonne,

Où franchement captif je m’abandonne

En si beau poil, le lien de ma mort.

 

De tels cheveux le Dieu que Déle honore,

Son col de laict blondement ne decore,

Ny les flambeaux du chef Egyptien,

 

Quand de leurs feux les astres se couronnent,

Maugré la nuict ne reluisent si bien

Que ces beaux nœuds qui mes bras environnent.

 

 

 

 

                                                                            Since today, to give me comfort,

                                                                            My mistress gave me some of her hair

                                                                            I pardon you, my heart, for having allowed

                                                                            My enemies within my fort.

 

                                                                            Hair ? No, it is a very strong cord

                                                                            Which Love ties me with and Heaven ordains

                                                                            And I abandon myself, freely captive

                                                                            To such lovely hair, the bond of death for me.

 

                                                                            With such locks the blonde god whom Delos worships

                                                                            Does not decorate his milky neck ;

                                                                            Nor do the flames of the Egyptian hair

 

                                                                            When the stars crown themselves with its fire

                                                                            So brightly shine, in spite the night,

                                                                            As these lovely knots which encircle my arms.

 

 

 

 

The ‘Delian god’ is Apollo (blonde, because he is the sun-god), and the ‘Egyptian hair’ belonged to Berenice, Queen of Ptolemy III of Egypt, whose hair was supposed to have been transformed into the constellation Coma Berenices (Berenice’s hair).

 

Blanchemain’s version is identical.

 

 

 

Janequin – Nature ornant

 

Title

Nature ornant

Composer

Clément Janequin (c1485-1558)

Source

Supplement musical to the 1552 edition of Les amours de P de Ronsard Vandomoys, ensemble le cinquiesme de ses Odes, 1552

 

(text on recmusic.org/lieder site here)
(blog entry here)
(recorded extract here)

 

Another of the set of musical arrangements offered with the 1552 edition of Ronsard’s amours, by the ‘old guard’ representative Janequin.  This one balances its polyphonic and homophonic sections, and also has a nice piece of imitation in the sestet setting between Superius and Tenor, as both (rather daringly!) descend a complete octave step-wise not once but twice.

Oddly, having just posted a link to Costeley on YouTube for a piece where I was spoiled for choice, I am returning to YouTube for this one – because it’s the the only recording of it I can find! The lower parts are a bit skimpy, but the tune comes through well. (Those octave descents are around 2mins into the video.)

 

 

 

 

Costeley – Mignonne allon voir si la roze

Some time back I posted Rinaldo del Melle’s setting of Mignonne. Here, for contrast, is Costeley’s version.

Title

Mignonne allon voir si la roze

Composer

Guillaume Costeley (1530-1606)

Source

Musique de Guillaume Costeley, Le Roy & Ballard 1570

(text on recmusic.org/lieder site here)
(blog entry here)
(recorded extract here)

 

A generation earlier than del Melle, Costeley’s setting – while progressive – is in the classic French style, alternating passages of flowing polyphony with sections in chordal writing. Interestingly, in this setting the bass is used only to add resonance to the chordal sections, and the remainder of the song is effectively in 3 voices.

This is an attractive setting, and has been recorded many times. For a change, I’ve included a link to YouTube where you can hear a Japanese choir treating it very sensitively.

Is it something to do with settings of this song? After the typo(?) in the print of del Melle score, the original print has a figure in the tenor part (first half of bars 23, 47 & 101) which has 3 adjacent notes sounding at the same time (E-F-G)! Daring, but I’ve left it untouched.