Feb22
Helen 2:74
Adieu cruelle adieu, je te suis ennuyeux :C’est trop chanté d’Amour sans nulle recompense.Te serve qui voudra, je m’en vais, et je penseQu’un autre serviteur ne te servira mieux. Amour en quinze jours m’a fait ingenieux,Me jettant au cerveau de ces vers la semence :La Raison maintenant me r’appelle, et me tanse :Je ne veux si long temps devenir furieux. Il ne faut plus nourrir cest Enfant qui me ronge,Qui les credules prend comme un poisson à l’hain,Une plaisante farce, une belle mensonge, Un plaisir pour cent maux qui s’en-vole soudain :Mais il se faut resoudre; et tenir pour certainQue l’homme est malheureux qui se repaist d’un songe. Farewell, cruel one, farewell : I irritate you. I’ve sung too much of Love without reward. Let he who wishes serve you, I’m going, and I think No other servant will serve you better. Love has in two weeks made me inventive, Throwing into my brain the seed of these lines: Reason now calls me back, and scolds me: I don’t wish to become mad for so long a time. I must no longer feed this Child who gnaws at me, Who catches the unwary like a fish on a hook, A pleasing joke, a pretty lie, A pleasure which suddenly flies away, replaced by a hundred troubles; But I must be resolute, and remain certain That the man is unhappy who feeds himself on a dream. The last two sonnets – apart from the two on the king’s death – turn sharply towards the futility of love and the foolishness of wasting time on ‘a dream’. But this is Ronsard: while he can see love as ‘a pleasing joke, a pretty lie, / A pleasure which suddenly flies away’, in the next breath he has to remind himself that living this dream leads to unhappiness, and resolve (again) to reject it. It’s very neat: rejection of the dream, but underlining just how seductive it is. A fine balancing act, bringing to an end a finely-balanced book.