Helen 2:(72a)

(This one is printed only by Blanchemain – it is a late sonnet added in, perhaps, a posthumous edition, so not part of Marty-Laveaux’s sequence. I think it is nevertheless worth including in this collection.)

 

 

 

Maistresse quand je pense aux traverses d’Amour,

Qu’ore chaude, ore froide, en aimant tu me donnes ;

Comme sans passion mon cœur tu passionnes,

Qui n’a contre son mal ny tréve ny sejour,

 

Je souspire la nuict, je me complains le jour

Contre toy, ma Raison, qui mon fort abandonnes,

Et, pleine de discours, confuse, tu t’estonnes

Dés le premier assaut sans defendre ma tour.

 

Non, si forts ennemis n’assaillent notre place

Qu’ils ne fussent vaincus si tu tournois la face,

Encores que mon cœur trahist ce qui est mien.

 

Une œillade, une main, un petit ris, me tue ;

Des trois foibles soudars ta force est combattue ;

Qui te dira divine il ne dira pas bien.

 

 

 

 

                                                                            My Lady, when I think of the encounters in love

                                                                            Which, now hot, now cold, you give me as I love you;

                                                                            How, passionless, you impassion my heart,

                                                                            Which has no truce or rest in its troubles,

 

                                                                            I sigh all night, I complain all day,

                                                                            Against you, my reason, who have abandoned my defence

                                                                            And, overwhelmed by argument and confused, have been stunned

                                                                            Since the first assault and not defended my tower.

 

                                                                            No, the enemies attacking our place are not so powerful

                                                                            That they could not be beaten if you turned to face them,

                                                                            Though my heart still betrays what is mine.

 

                                                                            A glance, a touch, a little smile and you kill me:

                                                                            By those three weak soldiers your strength is defeated:

                                                                            If someone called you godlike, he’d be lying.
 

 

 

 

A re-combination of familiar tropes, but neatly packaged with each section of the poem as distinct thought.

 

The first quatrain spoken to the passionless mistress; the second to his own mind which has surrendered ‘since the first assault’; the first tercet focused on the ‘enemies’ who have overwhelmed his reason; and the last identifying three of the mistress’s most powerful weapons (or ‘soldiers’), weak in themselves but strong in their effect on his reason – her glance, her touch, her smile … 

 

And a wonderful last line: so much for the humanist vision of a man’s godlike reason!

 

Richelet offers us a word of wisdom on line 8, concerning the ‘tower’: ‘he means that faculty of the soul [or perhaps mind], of which reason is the first and principal [example], which controls the intelligence and the will’. I think you’d figured that out …

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Helen 2:58

Seule sans compagnie en une grande salle

Tu logeois l’autre jour pleine de majesté,

Cœur vrayment genereux, dont la brave beauté

Sans pareille ne treuve une autre qui l’égalle.

 

Ainsi seul en son ciel le Soleil se devalle,

Sans autre compagnon en son char emporté :

Ainsi loin de ses Dieux en son Palais vouté

Jupiter a choisi sa demeure royale.

 

Une ame vertueuse a tousjours un bon cœur :

Le Liévre fuyt tousjours, la Biche a tousjours peur,

Le Lyon de soymesme asseuré se hazarde.

 

La peur qui sert au peuple et de frein et de Loy,

Ne sçauroit estonner ny ta vertu ny toy :

La Loy ne sert de rien, quand la vertu nous garde.

 

 

 

                                                                            Alone without company in a grand hall

                                                                            You waited the other day, full of majesty,

                                                                            A truly generous heart whose worthy beauty

                                                                            Without parallel can find no other to equal it.

 

                                                                            Thus alone in his heaven the Sun runs along

                                                                            Without other companion borne in his chariot;

                                                                            Thus, far from the gods in his vaulted palace,

                                                                            Jupiter has chosen his royal residence.

 

                                                                            A virtuous soul always has a good heart;

                                                                            The hare always runs away, the doe is always afraid,

                                                                            The lion, sure of himself, takes risks.

 

                                                                            The fear which acts for the people as a restraint and as law

                                                                            Could not take either your virtue or yourself by surprise;

                                                                            There’s no need for the Law, when virtue protects us.

 

 

 

A poem which is so consistently positive, so unbendingly in praise of his mistress’s virtues, is something of a rarity towards the end of the book. So let’s celebrate this occasion!

 

As so often, we begin with reality and then there is a mythological parallel; and then the sestet takes us in another (but parallel) direction. Helen, alone in glory in a grand hall (it could just be a large room, but let’s think grand hall instead), is like the Sun alone in the sky or Jupiter ruling alone in heaven. She sits ‘in majesty’, a ruler like them. She is like a lion, so full of virtue that virtue alone, unaided by law, protects her.

 

We might argue the toss about the lion’s virtue, in an age where power and strength need to be wedded with mercy and tolerance; but the sixteenth century was less subtle in these matters – especially in the midst of the Wars of Religion, effectively a French civil war. Which is where, too, the fear comes in – a fear which Helen’s virtue protects her from.

 

And it’s lovely poetry too: hear those long, slow, noble syllables pile up at the beginning; the assonance in the opening line repeated at the start of the second quatrain, and then on into the two halves of the sestet; the carefully-balanced lines, either in words (“tousjours .. tousjours”) or in weight.

 

Of course, Ronsard didn’t arrive here without effort: Blanchemain has an alternative version of the final tercet – same sense, different words:

 

 

Cela qu’au peuple fait la crainte de la loy,

La naïfve vertu sans peur le fait en toy.

La Loy ne sert de rien, quand la vertu nous garde.

 

 

                                                                            That which among the people creates fear of the law

                                                                            Naive virtue, fearless, creates in you.

                                                                            There’s no need for the Law, when virtue protects us.

 

 

It is, let’s say, a more difficult sense to unravel; but I think it has a weight about it that the simpler revision lacks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Le Blanc – Amour dy moy

Title

Amour dy moy de grace

Composer

Didier Le Blanc  (fl. 1575-85)

Source

Airs de plusieurs musiciens sur les Poësies de Ph. Desportes & autres des plus excellants Poëtes de nostre tems. Reduiz à 4 parties par M. D. Le Blanc, Le Roy & Ballard, 1579 (reprinted 1582)

(text on Lieder.net here)
(blog entry here)
(no recording available)

Another obscure composer makes his debut: so obscure, we know almost nothing about him. He produced 2 books for Le Roy & Ballard of airs ‘reduced to 4 parts’ – though it’s not clear where many of them came from and in how many parts they were before, so maybe he composed (some of) them in 4 parts.

You’ll notice that by now – it’s only 1579 – the airs are ‘by Philippe Desportes and others’, with Ronsard definitely demoted from first place. In fact, most of the texts are by Amadis Jamin, along with several more Pleiade poets, so Desportes hasn’t quite taken over. But the Ronsard boom is beginning to be over, before we’ve even left the 1570s.

This is another of the pieces which has switches of metre, as discussed in the context of La Grotte. Here there is more than a hint that Le Blanc is at times trying out musique mesurée, with the metrical changes reflecting only the shifting of long and short syllables. The piece is not consistent, however; my transcription simply assumes that black-note crotchets are equal to white-note crotchets, so that all black-note sections are in 3/4 against the 4/4 of the white-not sections.  [There’s one exception: in the 2nd bar, the Superius has black notes while all others have white: I’ve treated this as minor color, a dotted minim+crotchet in 4/4 instead of a triplet (effectively in 3/4 against the prevailing 4/4).]

Like La Grotte, Le Blanc offers a few more verses:

 

Helen 2:53

Belle gorge d’albastre, et vous chaste poictrine,

Qui les Muses cachez en un rond verdelet :

Tertres d’Agathe blanc, petits gazons de laict,

Des Graces le sejour, d’Amour et de Cyprine :

 

Sein de couleur de lis et de couleur rosine,

De veines marqueté, je vous vy par souhait

Lever l’autre matin, comme l’Aurore fait

Quand vermeille elle sort de sa chambre marine.

 

Je vy de tous costez le Plaisir et le Jeu,

Venus, Amour, la Grace armez d’un petit feu,

Voler ainsi qu’enfans, par vos coustaux d’yvoire,

 

M’esblouyr, m’assaillir et surprendre mon fort :

Je vy tant de beautez que je ne les veux croire.

Un homme ne doit croire aux tesmoins de sa mort.

 

 

 

 

                                                                            Fair throat of alabaster, and chaste breast

                                                                            Which the Muses hide in that swelling roundness;

                                                                            Breasts of white agate, small lawns of milky-white,

                                                                            The resting-place of the Graces, of Love and of Cyprian Venus:

 

                                                                            Breasts the colour of lilies and of roses,

                                                                            Inlaid with veins, I saw you, as I wished,

                                                                            Arise the other morning, like Dawn does

                                                                            When she redly leaves her watery bed.

 

                                                                            I saw on all sides Pleasure and Joy

                                                                            And Venus, Love, Grace, armed with their little fires

                                                                            Flying like children through those ivory hills of yours,

 

                                                                            To stun me, to assail me, to surprise my defences:

                                                                            I saw so much beauty that I could not believe it.

                                                                            A man should not believe in the presages of his death.

 

 

 

This time we have Cyprian Venus – the place she landed after birth at sea – and others in a poem absorbed with Helen’s breasts! Lawns and hills, neither are white… Interestingly, Ronsard’s use of “coustaux” tells us something of his origins: the usual word is “coteaux”, but the pronunciation is that of central France.

 

The last line seems to come out of nowhere: in what way are Helen’s breasts “presages of his death”? The point, simply, is that so much beauty is enough to kill someone.

 

Richelet offers a number of notes: on line 2, he suggests that the ‘swelling’ roundness means that her breasts are ‘not yet ripe’ (or ‘mature’ if you prefer); on the opening lines, he adds ‘that is the perfection of the breast, to be round, mid-size, firm and white’; and on line 6, he remarks that “marqueté” (inlaid) indicates ‘mixed with little purplish streams which can be seen through the delicate skin’.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

La Grotte – Quand ce beau printemps

Title

Quand ce beau printemps je voy

Composer

Nicolas de la Grotte  (1530-c.1600)

Source

Chansons de P. de Ronsard, Ph. Desportes et autres, Le Roy & Ballard 1569 (I’ve used the 1580 re-print)

(text on Lieder.net here)
(blog entry here)
(recordings here and here)

Another of those ‘hymn style’ settings by La Grotte, and at last one that you can hear, so that you can judge the effect. The two recordings are at very different tempi: the former, by the Ensemble Vocal du Pays de Thann, at a more hymn-like pace, and in full costume too; the latter by the La Croche Choeur, Arles, at a spanking pace which tries hard to disguise any similarity to a hymn! The acoustic doesn’t favour the speed they sing at, but well worth a listen.

It’s also quite a short setting. So, as well as setting 6 stanzas under the music, La Grotte provides 3 further pages of text, another 18 stanzas, for a total of 24 repeats of the tune!

 

 

 

 

 

Helen 2:46

Heureux le Chevalier, que la Mort nous desrobe,

Qui premier me fit voir de ta Grace l’attrait :

Je la vy de si loin, que la poincte du trait

Sans force demoura dans les plis de ma robe.

 

Mais ayant de plus pres entendu ta parole,

Et veu ton oeil ardent, qui de moy m’a distrait,

Au cœur entra la fleche avecque ton portrait,

Mais plustost le portrait de ce Dieu qui m’affole.

 

Esblouy de ta veuë, où l’Amour fait son ny,

Claire comme un Soleil en flames infiny,

Je n’osois t’aborder, craignant de plus ne vivre.

 

Je fu trois mois retif : mais l’Archer qui me vit,

Si bien à coups de traits ma crainte poursuivit,

Que batu de son arc m’a forcé de te suivre.

 

 

 

 

                                                                            Happy the knight, whom Death has stolen from us,

                                                                            Who first made me see the attraction of your gracefulness:

                                                                            I saw it from so far off, that the point of the arrow

                                                                            Lacking force stopped in the folds of my cloak.

 

                                                                            But having heard your speech from closer by,

                                                                            And seen your flashing eye, which made me forget myself,

                                                                            The arrow entered my heart together with your portrait,

                                                                            Or rather the portrait of that god who has maddened me.

 

                                                                            Dazzled by the sight of you, in whom Love made his nest,

                                                                            Bright like a Sun infinite in flames,

                                                                            I dared not approach you, fearing to survive no longer.

 

                                                                            I was on edge for three months; but the Archer who saw me

                                                                            So thoroughly chased out my fear with arrow-shots

                                                                            That he forced me, defeated by his bow,  to pursue you.

 

 

 

 

In the last two sonnets of book 2 (here and here) Ronsard explicitly mourns the dead King, Charles IX. Here, he alludes to his death – the King is obviously the ‘knight’ in line 1 – while acknowledging that the sonnet sequence was written as a result of Charles’s intervention. Of course, it’s dressed in the clothes of a love affair – the King pointing Helen out, Ronsard falling in love. 

 

It provides, of course, an interesting sense of the timing of the affair (or the poetry): it must have begun before 1574, and elsewhere late in the book Ronsard talks of being 6 years in love (‘6 years have passed…’), so some estimate as early as 1568 for the beginning of the affair, or the sequence. How biographical is the poem – or the story of the affair? Did Ronsard really teeter for three months then fall truly in love? It’s possible. But let’s remember that the poetry is primarily literary, the story of how things might have been rather than the story of how things actually were. The realities can intrude, can inspire, or can occasionally be swept aside; but the literary journey is what we have.

 

This is one of the few poems in the Helen series that Ronsard re-worked quite substantially. For simplicity, here’s the whole poem in his version:

 

 

Ha ! que je suis marry que la Mort nous desrobe,

Celuy qui le premier me fit voir ton attrait :

Je le vy de si loin, que la poincte du trait

Demeura, sans entrer, dans les plis de ma robe.

 

Mais ayant de plus pres entendu ta parole,

Et veu ton oeil ardent, qui de moy m’a distrait,

Au cœur tomba la fleche avecque ton portrait,

Heureux d’estre l’autel de ce Dieu qui m’affole.

 

Esblouy de ta veuë, où l’Amour fait son ny,

Claire comme un Soleil en flames infiny,

Je n’osois t’aborder, craignant de ne plus vivre.

 

Je fu trois mois retif : mais l’Archer qui me vit,

Si bien à coups de traits ma crainte poursuivit,

Que batu de son arc m’a forcé de te suivre.

 

 

                                                                            Oh, how unhappy I am that Death has stolen from us

                                                                            He who first made me see your attractiveness:

                                                                            I saw it from so far off, that the point of the arrow

                                                                            Stopped, without piercing, in the folds of my cloak.

 

                                                                            But having heard your speech from closer by,

                                                                            And seen your flashing eye, which made me forget myself,

                                                                            The arrow struck my heart together with your portrait,

                                                                            Happy to be the altar of that god who has maddened me.

 

                                                                            Dazzled by the sight of you, in whom Love made his nest,

                                                                            Bright like a Sun infinite in flames,

                                                                            I dared not approach you, fearing to survive no longer.

 

                                                                            I was on edge for three months; but the Archer who saw me

                                                                            So thoroughly chased out my fear with arrow-shots

                                                                            That he forced me, defeated by his bow,  to pursue you.

 

 

Two small notes: see how in the opening Ronsard revised (Marty-Laveaux’s version) to emphasise happiness rather than unhappiness; and in line 11, swapping “craignant de plus ne vivre” for “craignant de ne plus vivre”, he regularised the stress-pattern (at the cost of what seems to me a better word-flow). In English we enjoy patterns like “craignANT de ne PLUS VIVre”, but Ronsard preferred the strict alternation of “craignANT de PLUS ne VIVre”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Helen 2:37

Maintenant que l’Hyver de vagues empoulées

Orgueillist les Torrens, et que le vent qui fuit,

Fait ores esclatter les rives d’un grand bruit,

Et ores des forests les testes esveillées :

 

Je voudrois voir d’Amour les deux ailes gelées :

Voir ses traicts tous gelez, desquels il me poursuit,

Et son brandon gelé dont la chaleur me cuit

Les veines que sa flame a tant de fois bruslées.

 

L’Hyver est tousjours fait d’un gros air espessi,

Pour le Soleil absent ny chaud ny esclairci :

Et mon ardeur se fait des rayons d’une face,

 

Laquelle me nourrit d’imagination.

Tousjours dedans le sang j’en ay l’impression,

Qui force de l’Hyver les neiges et la glace.

 

 

 

 

                                                                            Now that winter, swollen with waves,

                                                                            Emboldens the torrents, and the fleeting wind

                                                                            Makes the riverbanks crash with great noise

                                                                            And so too the uncovered crowns of the forests,

 

                                                                            I would like to see the twin wings of Love frozen,

                                                                            His arrows frozen stiff, with which he pursues me,

                                                                            And frozen too his torch, whose heat bakes

                                                                            My veins which his fires have so often burned.

 

                                                                            Winter is always made of a heavy, thick air,

                                                                            Neither hot nor clear with the sun absent;

                                                                            But my passion is made from the rays of a face

 

                                                                            Which feeds me, in imagination.

                                                                            Still within my blood I have its impression

                                                                            Which drives off the snow and ice of winter.

 

 

 

A poem in two parts – or three. The octet and sestet are linked loosely, by the contrast of winter and summer, hot and and cold; but then the two quatrains are only loosely linked also.

 

Ronsard is always good in his nature-poetry, and the first four lines capture something of winter on the wooded banks of a river; the next four lines switch into mythological territory, and the image of winged Cupid – all metaphor and less realistic than the opening lines (can a flaming brand really freeze?)

 

And then the sestet: although it starts with winter, it’s actually all about the heat of the sun and the parallel warmth generated by imagining ‘the rays of a face’ – obviously Helen’s. That’s the ‘it’ in line 13, the impression of her face. The image it conjures up for me is the way, on a cold day, you can shut your eyes and look towards the sun, and the warm glow of light on your eyelids actually makes you feel warmer.

 

In the end, then, a charming image with an immediacy to balance that of the nature poetry at the beginning.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Helen ‘non encor imprimez’ 4

 

Mon Page, Dieu te gard’, que fait nostre Maistresse ?

Tu m’apportes tousjours ou mon mal ou mon bien:

Quand je te voy je tremble, et je ne suis plus mien,

Tantost chaud d’un espoir, tantost froid de tristesse.

 

Ça baille moy la lettre, et pourtant ne me laisse,

Contemple bien mon front par qui tu pourras bien

Cognoistre en le fronçant ou defronçant, combien

La lettre me contente ou donne de detresse.

 

Mon page, que ne suis-je aussi riche qu’un Roy ?

Je feroy de porphyre un beau temple pour toy,

Tu serois tout semblable à ce Dieu des voyages:

 

Je peindrois une table où l’on verroit pourtraits

Nos sermens, nos accords, nos guerres et nos paix,

Nos lettres, nos devis, tes tours et tes messages.

 

 

 

                                                                           Well page, God preserve you; what’s our mistress doing?

                                                                           You always bring something good or something bad for me;

                                                                           When I see you I tremble, and am no longer my own,

                                                                           Sometimes hot with hope, sometimes cold with sadness.

 

                                                                           Open the letter there for me, but don’t leave me,

                                                                           Watch my brow carefully, from which you’ll be well able

                                                                           To know, as I frown or un-frown, how much

                                                                           The letter pleases me or gives me distress.

 

                                                                           So lad, if I were as rich as a king

                                                                           I’d make a fine temple of porphyry for you,

                                                                           And you’d be just like that god of travels:

 

                                                                           I’d paint a picture in which you could see portrayed

                                                                           Our words, our agreements, our fights and our making-up,

                                                                           Our letters, our plans, your journeys and your messages.

 

 

 

 

 

Sometimes, it seems obvious that one reason the ‘sonnets not before printed’ were not printed before, is that they can be inconsequential. And this is perhaps a case in point.

 

Yes, Ronsard rarely tells us how his messages and poems travelled between his mistress and himself; and here we meet the messenger who travels back and forth carrying them. But, that said, what do we learn? That the messenger travels back and forth, that he carries messages of disagreements and making-up, that he carries letters detailing their plans and hopes; and little else …

 

But, inconsequentiality apart, this is an attractive little poem, well-written and charming.

 

Blanchemain even offers a small alternative, at the beginning of line 8 – “Sa lettre” instead of “La lettre” (‘Her’, not ‘the’, letter).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Helen 2:61

Je suis pour vostre amour diversement malade,

Maintenant plein de froid, maintenant de chaleur :

Dedans le cœur pour vous autant j’ay de douleur,

Comme il y a de grains dedans vostre Grenade.

 

Yeux qui fistes sur moy la premiere embuscade,

Des-attisez ma flame, et desseichés mes pleurs :

Je faux, vous ne pourriez : car le mal dont je meurs,

Est si grand qu’il ne peut se guarir d’une œillade.

 

Ma Dame croyez moy je trespasse pour vous :

Je n’ay artere nerf tendon veine ny pous,

Qui ne sente d’Amour la fiévre continue.

 

La Grenade est d’Amour le symbole parfait :

Ses grains en ont encore la force retenue,

Que vous ne cognoissez de signe ny d’effait.

 

 

 

 

                                                                            I am ill in various ways because of love for you,

                                                                            Now cold all over, now hot;

                                                                            Within my heart I have as much sadness because of you

                                                                            As there are seeds in that pomegranate of yours.

 

                                                                            Oh eyes which make the first ambush on me,

                                                                            Un-kindle my flame, and dry my tears:

                                                                            I’m wrong – you cannot: for the illness of which I’m dying

                                                                            Is so great that it cannot be cured with a glance.

 

                                                                            My Lady, believe me, I am dying for you:

                                                                            I have no artery, nerve, tendon, vein or pulse

                                                                            Which does not feel Love’s endless fever.

 

                                                                            The pomegranate is Love’s perfect symbol:

                                                                            Its seeds have still retained all its force,

                                                                            Which you can recognise neither by its sign or by its effect.

 

 

 

It had never really clicked – until this – that the pomegranate is a “pomme-grenade”. And yet here Ronsard does not make the link to the apple, a more common symbol of love.

 

Does line 10 sound familiar? But I think this is the only time he puts all of these in one line, frequent as it is to see a couple of them together.

 

Blanchemain offers a few small variants: in lines 2-3, the final words become plurals – “de chaleurs … de douleurs” – though this has no impact on the translation. 

 

The last three lines also get modified, but again with no significant impact:

 

 

L’Amour à la grenade en symbole estoit joint.

Ses grains en ont encore la force retenue,

Que de signe et d’effect vous ne cognoissez point.

 

                                                                            Love and the pomegranate are joined in one symbol:

                                                                            Its seeds have still retained all its force,

                                                                            Which neither by its sign or by its effect can you recognise.

 

 

I have to admit, I still have no real idea what that last couplet actually means …

 

 

 

 

 

Helen 2:50

Je voy mille beautéz, et si n’en voy pas-une

Qui contente mes yeux : seule vous me plaisez,

Seule quand je vous voy, mes Sens vous appaisez :

Vous estes mon destin, mon Ciel et ma Fortune,

 

Ma Venus mon Amour ma Charite ma brune,

Qui tous bas pensemens de l’esprit me rasez,

Et de belles vertus l’estomac m’embrasez,

Me soulevant de terre au cercle de la Lune.

 

Mon œil de vos regards goulument se repaist :

Tout ce qui n’est pas vous luy fasche et luy desplaist,

Tant il a par usance accoustumé de vivre

 

De vostre unique douce agreable beauté.

S’il peche contre vous affamé de vous suivre,

Ce n’est de son bon gré c’est par necessité.

 

 

 

 

                                                                            I see a thousand beauties, and yet see not one

                                                                            Who pleases my eye : only you please me,

                                                                            Only when I look at you, do you calm my senses,

                                                                            You are my destiny, my heaven, my luck,

 

                                                                            My Venus, my beloved, my love, my dark beauty,

                                                                            Who erase all low thoughts from my soul,

                                                                            And set my heart ablaze with fair virtues,

                                                                            Lifting me from the earth to the orbit of the moon.

 

                                                                            My eye feeds greedily on your glances;

                                                                            Everything which isn’t you irritates and displeases it,

                                                                            So accustomed has it been through familiarity to live

 

                                                                            On your unique, sweet, pleasant beauty.

                                                                            If it sins against you, desperate to follow you,

                                                                            It is not by its own choice but by necessity.

 

 

 

By way of contrast with what he will do in his next poem, Ronsard here maintains throughout the tone of admiration for his mistress. Is it relevant that the poem (possibly) derives from some lines by Pietro Bembo – which themselves maintain that tone throughout?

 

Bembo’s lines – in the middle of a long ‘canzon’ in his “Asolani” – are

 

 

        … Soave sguardo

Lieto cortese e tardo

Armavansi felici e cari lumi;

Che quant’ io vidi poi,

Vago, amoroso, et pellegrin fra noi,

Rimembrando di lor tenni ombre et fumi …

                                                                                    … Sweet look
                                                                            Joyous, courteous and slow,
                                                                            Arming such happy and dear lamps;
                                                                            How much I saw then,
                                                                            Wandering amorously, a pilgrim among us,
                                                                            Remembering their tender shade and mists…

 

 

As so often when presented with a ‘source’ for Ronsard’s poem, I’m left thinking that the only thing in common is the theme, in this case the eyes of the mistress – because almost every other word, and certainly all the phraseology, is different!