Chanson (Am. 2.61a)

Si je t’assauls, Amour, Dieu qui m’es trop cognu,

Pour neant en ton camp je feray des allarmes :

Tu es un vieil routier et bien appris aux armes,

Et moy jeune guerrier mal appris et tout nu.

 

Si je fuy devant toy, je ne sçaurois aller

En lieu que je ne sois devancé de ton aile :

Si je veux me cacher, l’amoureuse etincelle

Qui reluist en mon cœur me viendra deceler.

 

Si je veux m’embarquer tu es fils de la mer,

Si je men-vole au Ciel ton pouvoir y commande,

Si je tombe aux enfers ta puissance y est grande :

Ainsi maistre de tout, force m’est de t’aimer.

 

Or je t’aimeray donq, bien qu’envis de mon cœur,

Si c’est quelque amitié que d’aimer par contrainte :

« Toutefois (comme on dit) on voit souvent la crainte

« S’accompagner d’amour et l’amour de la peur.

 

 

 

 

                                                                            If I assault you, o god of Love so well-known to me,

                                                                            To no purpose shall I raise alarms in your camp :

                                                                            You are a real veteran, well-used to alarms,

                                                                            And I’m a young warrior, poorly-taught and completely unarmed.

 

                                                                            If I flee before you, I won’t be able to go

                                                                            Anywhere your wings won’t reach first;

                                                                            If I try to hide myself, the spark of love

                                                                            Which shines in my heart will expose me.

 

                                                                            If I decide to take ship, you are the son of the sea;

                                                                            If I fly to heaven, your power rules there;

                                                                            If I fall into hell, your might is great there:

                                                                            As you are master of all, I must love you.

 

                                                                            So, I shall love you, though against my heart’s desire,

                                                                            If it is a form of love to be forced to love:

                                                                            “You often,” as they say, “see anxiety

                                                                            Accompanied by love, and love by fear.”

 

 

 

Here is a chanson built on 4 quatrains – not quite a madrigal, but the differences are slight 🙂  Structurally, though, we have a three-part design (1-8, 9-12. 13-16), hence a more significant contrast with the sonnet-form Ronsard uses.

 

The version printed by Blanchemain only differs slightly: line 2 reads “En vain je te feray dans ton camp des allarmes“, word order rather than meaning changing; and in line 10, “Si je m’enleve au Ciel …” (‘If I lift myself to heaven…’).

  

 

 

 

Amours 2:55

J’avois cent fois juré de jamais ne revoir

(O serment d’amoureux !) l’angelique visage

Qui depuis quinze mois en peine et en servage

Emprisonne mon cœur, et je ne puis r’avoir.

 

J’en avois fait serment : mais je n’ay le pouvoir

D’estre seigneur de moy : tant mon traistre courage

Violenté d’amour et conduit par usage,

Y reconduit mes pieds abusé d’un espoir.

 

Le destin, Pardaillan, est une forte chose :

« L’homme dedans son cœur ses affaires dispose,

« Le ciel faisant tourner ses desseins au rebours.

 

Je sçay bien que je fais ce que je ne doy faire,

Je sçay bien que je suy de trop folles amours :

Mais quoy, puis que le Ciel delibere au contraire ?

 

 

 

 

                                                                            I had a hundred times sworn never to see again

                                                                            (O, the vows of lovers!) the angelic face

                                                                            Which for fifteen months of pain and servitude

                                                                            Has imprisoned my heart, and I cannot have her again :

 

                                                                            I’ve made an oath. But I do not have the strength

                                                                            To master myself, so much does my traitorous courage,

                                                                            Assaulted by love and led by usage,

                                                                            Lead my feet back there, misled by hope.

 

                                                                            Fate, Pardaillan, is a powerful thing :

                                                                            “Man disposes his affairs within his heart,

                                                                            Heaven [goes] turning his plans upside down.”

 

                                                                            I know I’m doing exactly what I shouldn’t,

                                                                            I know I’m following too mad a love ;

                                                                            So what, since heaven has made different plans ?

 

 

 

Apart from telling us that he has been in love with Marie for 15 months, this poem adds little to our knowledge of the affair: and if we note (with Belleau) that it is based on a Greek original (an incomplete poem by Callimachus) that need not mean that even that detail is invented.

 

We’ve met Pardaillan before, in the previous poem of the set.

 

Blanchemain offers a number of variants, which are set out below. Note that in the second quatrain Ronsard re-wrote much of the text while retaining not just the rhyme-scheme but the rhyme words! The change in line 3 is (probably) one of those Ronsard made to eliminate novel or unusual words in favour of plainer French. The little proverb in lines 10-11 has, in this earlier version, a clearer grammar which the later version (above), with its participle, loses – but the later version clearly sounds better as poetry. (I cheated in my translation, introducing a verb in the present tense to match that in the first half!)

 

 

J’avois cent fois juré de jamais ne revoir
(O serment d’amoureux !) l’angelique visage

Qui depuis quinze mois en penible servage

Emprisonne mon cœur, et je ne puis r’avoir.

 

J’en avois fait serment : mais je n’ay le pouvoir

D’estre seigneur de moy : car mon forcé courage,

Bien que soit maugré moy, surmonté de l’usage

D’Amour, tousjours m’y mène, abusé d’un espoir.

 

Le destin, Pardaillan, est une forte chose :

L’homme dedans son cœur ses affaires dispose,

Mais le Ciel fait tourner ses desseins au rebours.

 

Je sçay bien que je fais ce que je ne doy faire,

Je sçay bien que je suy de trop folles amours :

Mais quoy, puis que le Ciel delibere au contraire ?

 

 

 

 

                                                                            I had a hundred times sworn never to see again

                                                                            (O, the vows of lovers!) the angelic face

                                                                            Which for fifteen months of painful servitude

                                                                            Has imprisoned my heart, and I cannot have her again :

 

                                                                            I’ve made an oath. But I do not have the strength

                                                                            To master myself; because my forced courage,

                                                                            Although it is unlike me, overcome by the usages

                                                                            Of Love, always leads me back there, misled by hope.

 

                                                                            Fate, Pardaillan, is a powerful thing :

                                                                            Man disposes his affairs within his heart,

                                                                            But heaven turns his plans upside down.

                                                                           

                                                                            I know I’m doing exactly what I shouldn’t,

                                                                            I know I’m following too mad a love ;

                                                                            So what, since heaven has made different plans ?

 

 

 

 

 

Amours 2:49

Chacun qui voit ma couleur triste et noire,

Me dit, Ronsard, vous estes amoureux :

Mais ce bel œil qui me fait langoreux,

Le sçait, le voit, et si ne le veut croire.

 

Dequoy me sert que mon mal soit notoire

Quand à mon dam son œil trop rigoureux,

Par ne sçay quel desastre malheureux

Voit bien ma playe, et si la prend à gloire ?

 

J’ay beau pleurer protester et jurer,

J’ay beau promettre et cent fois asseurer

Qu’autre jamais n’aura sus moy puissance,

 

Qu’elle s’esbat de me voir en langueur :

Et plus de moy je luy donne asseurance,

Moins me veut croire, et m’appelle un moqueur.

 

 

 

 

                                                                            Everyone who sees my sad, dark colour

                                                                            Tells me, “Ronsard, you are in love !”

                                                                            But that fair eye which makes me pine

                                                                            Knows it, sees it, yet won’t believe it.

 

                                                                            What use to me that my misfortune is well-known

                                                                            When to my hurt her eyes, so harsh,

                                                                            See clearly the wound I got through

                                                                            Whatever unhappy disaster, yet glory in it?

 

                                                                            In vain I’ve wept, protested, sworn,

                                                                            In vain I’ve promised and assured her a hundred times

                                                                            That no other will ever have power over me,

 

                                                                            But she rejoices to see me pining;

                                                                            And the more I give her assurances about myself

                                                                            The less she believes me, and calls me a mocker.

 

 

 

There’s not much to coment on in the text; though I am intrigued that here Ronsard is ‘dark’ with illness not pale as usual! (Nothing to do with the rhyme of course…)  Blanchemain offers a number of variants, which I’ll put in context below:

 

 

Chacun qui voit ma couleur triste et noire,

Me dit, Ronsard, vous estes amoureux :

Mais ce bel œil qui me fait langoreux,

Le sçait, le voit, et si ne le veut croire.

 

Hé ! que me sert que mon mal soit notoire

A un chacun, quand son trait rigoureux,

Par ne sçay quel desastre malheureux

Me fait la playe, et si la prend à gloire ?

 

J’ay beau pleurer protester et jurer,

J’ay beau promettre et cent fois asseurer

Qu’autre jamais n’aura sus moy puissance,

 

Elle s’esbat de me voir en langueur :

Et plus de moy je luy donne asseurance,

Moins me veut croire, et m’appelle un moqueur.

 

 

                                                                            Everyone who sees my sad, dark colour

                                                                            Tells me, “Ronsard, you are in love !”

                                                                            But that fair eye which makes me pine

                                                                            Knows it, sees it, yet won’t believe it.

 

                                                                            What use to me that my misfortune is well-known

                                                                            To each and every one, when her harsh blow,

                                                                            Through whatever unhappy disaster,

                                                                            Gave me this wound, yet glories in it?

 

                                                                            In vain I’ve wept, protested, sworn,

                                                                            In vain I’ve promised and assured her a hundred times

                                                                            That no other will ever have power over me;

 

                                                                            She rejoices to see me pining;

                                                                            And the more I give her assurances about myself

                                                                            The less she believes me, and calls me a mocker.

 

 

In line 5 Ronsard has as usual swapped out an exclamation, and found a neat way or replacing it. I rather like the earlier version of the rest of the stanza! And he tidies up the grammar in lines 9-12, another late-Ronsard feature.

 

His commentators tell us this derives from a Petrarchan original; but as so often it takes ideas from the original without really ‘translating’ it. In fact Ronsard’s poem corresponds to the first half of Petrarch’s: apologies for the slightly loose translation, I’m not sure I have really understood all of Petrarch’s Italian!

 

 

Lasso, ch’i’ ardo, et altri non me ‘l crede;

sí crede ogni uom, se non sola colei

che sovr’ogni altra, et ch’i’ sola, vorrei:

ella non par che ‘l creda, et sí sel vede.

 

Infinita bellezza et poca fede,

non vedete voi ‘l cor nelli occhi mei?

Se non fusse mia stella, i’ pur devrei

al fonte di pietà trovar mercede.

 

Quest’arder mio, di che vi cal sí poco,

e i vostri honori, in mie rime diffusi,

ne porian infiammar fors’anchor mille:

 

ch’i’ veggio nel penser, dolce mio foco,

fredda una lingua et duo belli occhi chiusi

rimaner, dopo noi, pien’ di faville.

 

 

 

                                                                            Alas, how I burn, yet others won’t believe me;

                                                                            And if every man believed, yet still she alone does not

                                                                            Who is above all others, and whom alone I wish to.

                                                                            She seems not to believe it, and yet she sees…

 

                                                                            Infinite beauty and little faith,

                                                                            Don’t you see my heart in my eyes?

                                                                            If it were not my destiny, surely I ought

                                                                            At the fountain of pity to find my reward [mercy?].

 

                                                                            This burning passion of mine, about which you care so little,

                                                                            And your praises spread throughout my verse

                                                                            Might yet, perhaps, inflame a thousand others;

 

                                                                            What I see in my thoughts, o sweet flame,

                                                                            Is one cold tongue and two fair closed eyes

                                                                            Remaining after us, full of sparks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Amours 2:48

Ha ! que je porte et de haine et d’envie

Au medecin qui vient soir et matin

Sans nul propos tastonner le tetin,

Le sein le ventre et les flancs de m’amie.

 

Las ! il n’est pas si songneux de sa vie

Comme elle pense, il est mechant et fin :

Cent fois le jour il la visite, afin

De voir son sein qui d’aimer le convie.

 

Vous qui avez de sa fiévre le soin,

Parens, chasser ce medecin bien loin,

Ce medecin amoureux de Marie,

 

Qui fait semblant de la venir penser.

Que pleust à Dieu pour l’en recompenser,

Qu’il eust mon mal, et qu’elle fust guarie !

 

 

 

 

                                                                            Oh what hatred and envy I bear

                                                                            Towards the doctor who comes morning and night

                                                                            With no excuse to touch my love’s

                                                                            Breast, chest, stomach and sides.

 

                                                                            Ah, he’s not so worried for her life

                                                                            As she thinks, he is wicked and cunning;

                                                                            A hundred times a day he visits her, to

                                                                            Look at her breasts, eager to make love to them.

 

                                                                            You who have the care of her fever,

                                                                            Her parents, chase this doctor far away,

                                                                            This doctor who’s in love with Marie,

 

                                                                            Who pretends to come and put a dressing on her.

                                                                            May God please to pay him back

                                                                            With my illness, while she is cured!

 

 

 

 It seems that Marie did not just have an eye condition: here a doctor is visiting to check on a chest complaint. This time, though, the malady may be fictional, because the poem is based on one by Ovid – one of the Heroides, a series of invented letters between famous mythological characters.

 

Blanchemain offers some minor variants. In lines 7-8 he has

 

Cent fois le jour ne la vient voir qu’afin

De voir son sein qui d’aimer le convie.

 

                                                                            A hundred times a day he comes to see her only to

                                                                            Look at her breasts, eager to make love to them.

 

 

The later change (above) removes the clumsy “voir … voir” (which I’ve hidden by using two different words in the translation!). Then in line 10 the early version has “Je vous supply de me chasser bien loin” (‘ I beg you to chase this doctor far away for [or ‘from’] me’).  Blanchemain helpfully re-spells the word “panser/penser” in line 12: no change in meaning, simply one of orthography. Clearly there was no (or very little) difference in pronunciation, though the meaning is conveyed more clearly when the word is not spelled the same as “penser”=’to think’!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Amours 2:57

Si j’avois un haineux qui machinast ma mort,

Pour me contre-venger d’un si fier adversaire,

Je voudrois qu’il aimast les yeux de ma contraire,

Qui si fiers contre moy me font si doux effort.

 

Ceste punition, tant son regard est fort,

Luy seroit un enfer et se voudroit desfaire :

Ny le mesme plaisir ne luy sçauroit plus plaire,

Seulement au trespas seroit son reconfort.

 

Le regard monstrueux de la Meduse antique

N’est rien au pris du sien que fable Poëtique :

Meduse seulement tournoit l’homme en rocher :

 

Mais ceste-ci en-roche, en-eauë, en-fouë, en-glace

Ceux qui de ses regars osent bien approcher.

De quel monstre, Lecteur, at-elle pris sa race ?

 

 

 

                                                                             If I had someone who hated me and plotted my death,

                                                                             To avenge myself on so bold an adversary

                                                                             I would like him to fall in love with my contrary lady’s eyes

                                                                             Which, so bold against me, make on me so sweet an effect.

 

                                                                             This punishment, so powerful is her gaze,

                                                                             Would be hell for him and he would want to release himself ;

                                                                             Nor could the same pleasures please him any more,

                                                                             Only in death would there be comfort for him.

 

                                                                             The monstrous gaze of ancient Medusa

                                                                             Is nothing compared to hers but a poetic fable:

                                                                             Medusa only turned men into rocks,

 

                                                                             But this lady turns to rock, to water, to fire, to ice

                                                                             Those who dare to come near her glance.

                                                                             From which monster, o Reader, is she descended?

 

 

From one Greek image to another, much more familiar one. Our commentators tell us that each of the verbs in line 12 is a Ronsardian innovation – though perhaps only the third (‘turn into fire’) is unusual. In the last line of the Marty-Laveux version above, “a-t-elle” (as we would spell it today) is apparently also an innovation by Ronsard, to avoid the hiatus in “a-elle”: it’s so much a part of the language now, it’s hard to realise someone invented it – and yet here is it’s first appearance.

 

Blanchemain’s version is rather different in detail throughout: you can see why he would (for instance) have re-worked “du sien n’est rien” in line 10; the reference to hell in line 6 is (perhaps) a rare moment of the later Ronsard being more vivid than the younger; and the later last line is much more effective!

 

 

Si j’avois un haineux qui me voulust la mort,

Pour me venger de luy je ne voudrois luy faire

Que regarder les yeux de ma douce contraire,

Qui, si fiers contre moy, me font si doux effort.

 

Ceste punition, tant son regard est fort,

Luy seroit une horreur, et se voudroit défaire ;

Ny le mesme plaisir ne luy sçauroit plus plaire,

Seulement au trespas seroit son reconfort.

 

Le regard monstrueux de la Meduse antique

Au prix du sien n’est rien que fable poëtique :

Meduse seulement tournoit l’homme en rocher :

 

Mais ceste-cy en-roche, en-eauë, en-glace, en-foue,

Ceux qui de ses regards osent bien approcher,

Et si en les tuant la mignonne se joue.

 

 

 

                                                                             If I had someone who hated me, who wanted me dead,

                                                                             To avenge myself on him I’d only want to make him

                                                                             Gaze upon my sweet, contrary lady’s eyes

                                                                             Which, so bold against me, make on me so sweet an effect.

 

                                                                             This punishment, so powerful is her gaze,

                                                                             Would be a horror for him and he would want to release himself ;

                                                                             Nor could the same pleasures please him any more,

                                                                             Only in death would there be comfort for him.

 

                                                                             The monstrous gaze of ancient Medusa

                                                                             Compared with hers is nothing but a poetic fable:

                                                                             Medusa only turned men into rocks,

 

                                                                             But this lady turns to rock, to water, to ice, to fire

                                                                             Those who dare to come near her glance,

                                                                             And yet, as she kills them, the darling enjoys herself.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Amours 2:47

Vos yeux estoient moiteux d’une humeur enflammee,

Qui m’ont gasté les miens d’une semblable humeur,

Et pource que vos yeux aux miens ont fait douleur,

Je vous ay d’un nom Grec Sinope surnommee :

 

Mais cest’ humeur mauvaise au cœur est devallee,

Et là comme maistresse a pris force et vigueur,

Gastant mon pauvre sang d’une blesme langueur,

Qui ja par tout le corps lente s’est escoulee.

 

Mon cœur environné de ce mortel danger,

En voulant resister au malheur estranger,

A mon sang converty en larmes et en pluye :

 

Afin que par les yeux autheurs de mon souci

Mon malheur fust noyé, ou que par eux aussi

Fuyant devant le feu j’espuisasse ma vie.

 

 

 

 

                                                                            Your eyes were weeping with an inflammation

                                                                            And they have spoiled mine with a similar infection,

                                                                            And since your eyes have made mine ill

                                                                            I’ve surnamed you with the Greek name Sinope.

 

                                                                            But this illness has hurtled down to my heart,

                                                                            And there like its mistress gained strength and vigour,

                                                                            Spoiling my poor blood with a pallid inertia

                                                                            Which has now slowly flowed through all my body.

 

                                                                            My heart, besieged by this mortal danger

                                                                            And wanting to resist the foreign illness,

                                                                            Has converted my blood into tears and weeping;

 

                                                                            So that through my eyes, the creators of my trouble,

                                                                            My illness might be drowned, or through them too,

                                                                            Fleeing before the fire, I might extinguish my life.

 

 

 

 

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned Marie’s eye condition: this is the poem which Belleau annotates, as I mentioned there, with an explanation of the name ‘Sinope’; and also the one in which Ronsard offers the most explicit of links between Marie and Sinope – unless of course you believe that the Sinope poems were addressed to another lady, and then simply transferred to the Marie set. He does not, after all, explicitly name Marie…  Belleau’s footnote in full:  ‘Marie had trouble with her eyes, and as the poet watched her intently the illness in those afflicted eyes entering his own made them ill too. And so he called Marie Sinope, which is to say ‘losing the eyes’.’

 

Like the last poem I posted, Blanchemain’s earlier version varies only in two places, and one of them is the first line!  In his version, Marie/Sinope’s eyes have been ‘struck’ with illness rather than the more precise ‘weeping’ in the later version: “Vos yeux estoient blessez d’une humeur enflammée“. The other change, in line 11, is mostly about sound and rhythm, inverting some of the words:  “A couvert mon sang en larmes et en pluye” (‘Has covered my blood with tears and weeping’); but the change from a rather odd ‘covering’ image to the sharper ‘converted’ may have been Ronsard’s initial spur to change.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Amours 2:58

J’auray toujours en l’ame attachez les rameaux

Du lierre où ma Dame osa premier escrire

L’amour qu’elle n’osoit de sa bouche me dire

Pour crainte d’un seigneur, la cause de mes maux.

 

Sur toy jamais Hyboux Orfrayes ny Corbeaux

Ne se viennent brancher, jamais ne puisse nuire

Le fer à tes rameaux, et à toy soit l’empire,

O lierre amoureux, de tous les arbrisseaux.

 

Non pour autre raison le grand fils de Semelle

Environne de toy sa perruque immortelle,

Que pour recompenser le bien que tu luy fis,

 

Quand sus les bords de Die Ariadne laissée,

Comme sur un papier luy conta ses ennuis,

Escrivant dessus toy s’amour et sa pensée.

 

 

 

                                                                            My soul will always be attached to the branches

                                                                            Of the ivy on which my lady first dared to write

                                                                            The love which she dared not tell me with her mouth

                                                                            For fear of a lord, the cause of my ills.

 

                                                                            May owls, ospreys and crows never

                                                                            Come and live in you, may iron never harm

                                                                            Your branches, and may you have power,

                                                                            O lovers’ ivy, over all trees.

 

                                                                            For no other reason did Semele’s great son

                                                                            Encircle with you his immortal coiffure

                                                                            Than to repay the good that you did him,

 

                                                                            When on the banks of Dia abandoned Ariadne

                                                                            As if on paper related her woes to him,

                                                                            Writing on you her love and her thoughts.

 

 

 

Never seeming to be at a loss for a mythological parallel, Ronsard may sometimes have resorted to inventing what was not explicitly handed down from antiquity…  Is there any version of the story of Ariadne being abandoned by Theseus on Naxos, in which she wrote her complaints on ivy?  I’m not aware of one! Still, it helps Ronsard to have a classical precedent for what his Marie apparently did, and so he produces one.

 

However, Ariadne’s story does include her rescue by Dionysus (the son of Zeus and Semele) though normally he discovers her there by chance. Here, Naxos is ‘Dia’ (a name applied to many small Greek islands – you can see one to the north of Crete from Heraklion/Iraklion and the beaches east of it – and generally assumed to mean either ‘a goddess’s [island]’ or perhaps to refer to Zeus).

 

This was one of the (slighter?) poems Ronsard did not rework much: Blanchemain’s earlier version varies only in two places: in line 1 where his heart, rather than his soul, is attached (“J’auray toujours au cœur attachez les rameaux“); and in the penultimate line where Ariadne ‘writes’, rather than ‘relates’, her troubles (“luy trassa ses ennuis”).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Amours 2:54

Quiconque voudra suivre Amour ainsi que moy,

Celuy se delibere en penible tristesse

Vivre comme je vy, il pleust à la Déesse

Qui tient Cypre en ses mains, d’ordonner telle loy.

 

Apres avoir souffert les maux que je reçoy,

Il mourra de langueur, et sa fiere maistresse,

Le voyant trespassé sautera de liesse,

Se moquant du tombeau du mort et de sa foy.

 

Allez donc Amoureux faire service aux Dames,

Offrez leur pour present et vos corps et vos ames,

Vous en receverez un salaire bien doux.

 

« Je croy que Dieu les feit à fin de nuire à l’homme :

« Il les feit (Pardaillan) pour nostre malheur, comme

« Les Tygres les Lions les Serpens et les Loups.

 

 

 

                                                                            Whoever would like to follow Love as I do,

                                                                            Let him plan to live like I live,

                                                                            In vexed sadness ; for it pleases the goddess

                                                                            Who holds Cyprus in her hands to ordain this law.

 

                                                                            Having suffered the ills which I receive

                                                                            He will die of weakness and his proud mistress,

                                                                            Seeing him dead, will leap with happiness

                                                                            Mocking the dead man’s tomb and his faithfulness.

 

                                                                            So go on, lovers, do service to your ladies,

                                                                            Offer them your souls and bodies as a gift,

                                                                            You will receive a sweet payment :

 

                                                                            “I believe God made them to destroy man,

                                                                            He made them, Pardaillan, for our misfortune, like

                                                                            Tigers, lions, serpents and wolves.”

 

 

Ronsard in frustrated mood again, finding yet another way of complaining about a lover’s ills – and particularly, of course, about how he (Ronsard) is the most ill-served of all!  (The goddess of Cyprus is Venus.)

 

The Pardaillan family was an ancient one even in Ronsard’s time; though its most famous representative was still to make his mark – Antoine-Arnaud de Pardaillan de Gondrin, who commanded the king’s armies in Picardy, Savoy and Spain at the end of the century and raised the family to the marquisate, was son of Hector de Pardaillan, who is Ronsard’s addressee.

 

Blanchemain’s earlier version is considerably different in detail, though none of Ronsard’s later amendments really change the content. Note however how line 8’s older version switches the ‘faithfulness’/’loyalty’ under consideration – hers not his; and how in line 11, by adjusting the spelling of the future tense “recev(e)rez”, Ronsard re-balances the motion of the entire line!

 

 

Quiconque voudra suivre Amour ainsi que moy,

Celuy se delibere en penible tristesse

Mourir ainsy que moy : il pleut à la déesse

Qui tient Cypre en ses mains, d’ordonner telle loy.

 

Apres avoir souffert maint deuil et maint emoy,

Il lui faudra mourir, et sa fiere maistresse,

Le voyant au tombeau, sautera de liesse,

Sur le corps trespassé pour luy garder sa foy.

 

Allez donc maintenant faire service aux dames,

Offrez-leur pour present et vos corps et vos ames,

Et vous en recevrez un salaire bien doux !

 

Je croy que Dieu les feit à fin de nuire à l’homme :

Il les feit, Pardaillan, pour nostre malheur comme

Les tigers, les lions, les serpens et les lous.

 

 

 

                                                                            Whoever would like to follow Love as I do,

                                                                            Let him plan to die like I do,

                                                                            In vexed sadness ; for it pleases the goddess

                                                                            Who holds Cyprus in her hands to ordain this law.

 

                                                                            Having suffered much grief and much distress

                                                                            He will have to die, and his proud mistress,

                                                                            Seeing him in the tomb, will leap with happiness

                                                                            On the corpse which died to preserve her loyalty.

 

                                                                            So go on now, do service to your ladies,

                                                                            Offer them your souls and bodies as a gift,

                                                                            And you will receive a sweet payment :

 

                                                                            I believe God made them to destroy man,

                                                                            He made them, Pardaillan, for our misfortune, like

                                                                            Tigers, lions, serpents and wolves.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

600 posts!

Apparently that was my 600th post!

Well, those 600 posts, spread erratically over the last four years, have covered all of Amours 1 (Cassandre) and most of Amours 2 (Marie); and all of the first book of Helen’s sonnets. There are also a variety of other longer and shorter poems on the blog, and a growing number of song-settings which feature Ronsard’s poetry. As my son would say, “Are we nearly there yet?”  Not really: I reckon I might have worked through about 10% of Ronsard’s output, and about 25% of the songs. So there’s plenty more to take us to 1,000 posts and beyond …

Amours 2:45 (madrigal)

Comme d’un ennemy je veux en toute place

M’eslongner de vos yeux, qui m’ont le cœur deceu,

Petits yeux de Venus, par lesquels j’ay receu

Le coup mortel au sang qui d’outre en outre passe.

 

Je voy, les regardant, Amour qui me menasse,

Aumoins voyant son arc je l’ay bien apperceu :

Mais remparer mon cœur contre luy je n’ay sceu,

Dont le trait fausseroit une forte cuirasse.

 

Or pour ne les voir plus, je veux aller bien loing

Vivre desur le bord d’une mer solitaire :

Encore j’ay grand’peur de ne perdre le soing,

Qui m’est par habitude un mal hereditaire,

 

Tant il a pris en moy de force et de sejour.

« On peut outre la mer un long voyage faire,

« Mais on ne peut changer ny de cœur ny d’amour.

 

 

                                                                            Like an enemy I want at every point

                                                                            To distance myself from your eyes, which have deceived my heart,

                                                                            Those little Venus-eyes through which I received

                                                                            The mortal wound in my blood which runs me through and through.

 

                                                                            I see as I look at them Love menacing me,

                                                                            And I well know his bow having seen it ;

                                                                            But how to fortify my heart against him I have never known,

                                                                            Whose blow can defeat a strong breastplate.

 

                                                                            So, too see them no more, I shall go far off

                                                                            To live on the edge of some lonely sea;

                                                                            Yet still I’m afraid it will be wasted effort,

                                                                            A thing which is for me a common, inherited flaw,

 

                                                                            So strong his hold and for so long over me.

                                                                            “You can make a long voyage beyond the sea

                                                                            But you can’t change your heart or your love.”

 

 

For Marty-Laveaux, this is a madrigal; for Blanchemain, whose version has not yet been amplified with line 12 above, it is a sonnet. I find myself unable to see why Ronsard added that line: it doesn’t seem to be there to add to or amplify the sense of the piece. Even though the change links to further modifications of  the tercet at the end, it is – even in that context – just an extra line, an extra thought. (And, in my view, the more complex thought of the later evrsion isn’t even an improvement.)

 

Well, so much for literary criticism:  here’s Blanchemain’s earlier version complete, despite the small number of differences, to encourage you to read it complete and see what you think about the ‘missing’ line …

 

 

Comme d’un ennemy je veux en toute place

M’eslongner de vos yeux, qui m’ont le cœur deceu,

Petits yeux de Venus, par lesquels j’ay receu

Le coup mortel au sang qui d’outre en outre passe.

 

Je voy toujours dans eux Amour qui me menasse,

Aumoins voyant son arc je l’ay bien apperceu :

Mais remparer mon cœur contre luy je n’ay sceu,

Dont le trait fausseroit une forte cuirasse.

 

Or pour ne les voir plus, je veux aller bien loing

Vivre desur le bord d’une mer solitaire :

Encore j’ay grand’peur de ne perdre le soing,

 

Qui, hoste de mon cœur, y loge nuict et jour.

On peut bien sur la mer un long voyage faire,

Mais on ne peut changer ny de cœur ny d’amour.

 

 

 

                                                                            Like an enemy I want at every point

                                                                            To distance myself from your eyes, which have deceived my heart,

                                                                            Those little Venus-eyes through which I received

                                                                            The mortal wound in my blood which runs me through and through.

 

                                                                            I see always in them Love menacing me,

                                                                            And I well know his bow having seen it ;

                                                                            But how to fortify my heart against him I have never known,

                                                                            Whose blow can defeat a strong breastplate.

 

                                                                            So, too see them no more, I shall go far off

                                                                            To live on the edge of some lonely sea;

                                                                            Yet still I’m afraid it will be wasted effort,

 

                                                                           That guest in my heart stays there night and day;

                                                                            You might well make a long voyage on the sea

                                                                            But you can’t change your heart or your love.”