Stances de la Fontaine d’Hélène (Helen 2:72b)

Ronsard heads these ‘stanzas on Helen’s fountain’ with the stage-direction “Pour chanter ou reciter à trois personnes“, ‘for singing or reciting by three people’ – though in fact the third (the poet himself) only appears at the very end.

I. Ainsi que ceste eau coule et s’enfuyt parmy l’herbe, Ainsi puisse couler en ceste eau le souci, Que ma belle Maistresse, à mon mal trop superbe, Engrave dans mon cœur sans en avoir mercy.   II. Ainsi que dans ceste eau de l’eau mesme je verse, Ainsi de veine en veine Amour qui m’a blessé, Et qui tout à la fois son carquois me renverse, Un breuvage amoureux dans le cœur m’a versé.   I. Je voulois de ma peine esteindre la memoire : Mais Amour qui avoit en la fontaine beu, Y laissa son brandon, si bien qu’au lieu de boire De l’eau pour l’estancher, je n’ay beu que du feu.   II. Tantost ceste fontaine est froide comme glace, Et tantost elle jette une ardante liqueur. Deux contraires effects je sens quand elle passe, Froide dedans ma bouche, et chaude dans mon cœur.   I. Vous qui refraischissez ces belles fleurs vermeilles, Petits freres ailez, Favones et Zephyrs, Portez de ma Maistresse aux ingrates oreilles, En volant parmy l’air, quelcun de mes souspirs.   II. Vous enfans de l’Aurore, allez baiser ma Dame : Dites luy que je meurs, contez luy ma douleur, Et qu’Amour me transforme en un rocher sans ame, Et non comme Narcisse en une belle fleur.   I. Grenouilles qui jazez quand l’an se renouvelle, Vous Gressets qui servez aux charmes, comme on dit, Criez en autre part vostre antique querelle : Ce lieu sacré vous soit à jamais interdit.   II. Philomele en Avril ses plaintes y jargonne, Et tes bords sans chansons ne se puissent trouver : L’Arondelle l’Esté, le Ramier en Automne, Le Pinson en tout temps, la Gadille en Hyver.   I. Cesse tes pleurs, Hercule, et laisse ta Mysie, Tes pieds de trop courir sont ja foibles et las : Icy les Nymphes ont leur demeure choisie, Icy sont tes Amours, icy est ton Hylas.   II. Que ne suis-je ravy comme l’enfant Argive ? Pour revencher ma mort, je ne voudrois sinon Que le bord, le gravois, les herbes et la rive Fussent tousjours nommez d’Helene, et de mon nom !   I. Dryades, qui vivez sous les escorces sainctes, Venez et tesmoignez combien de fois le jour Ay-je troublé vos bois par le cry de mes plaintes, N’ayant autre plaisir qu’à souspirer d’Amour ?   II. Echo, fille de l’Air, hostesse solitaire Des rochers, où souvent tu me vois retirer, Dy quantes fois le jour lamentant ma misere, T’ay-je fait souspirer en m’oyant souspirer ?   I. Ny Cannes ny Roseaux ne bordent ton rivage, Mais le gay Poliot, des bergeres amy : Tousjours au chaud du jour le Dieu de ce bocage, Appuyé sur sa fleute, y puisse estre endormy.   II. Fontaine à tout jamais ta source soit pavée, Non de menus gravois de mousses ny d’herbis : Mais bien de mainte Perle à bouillons enlevée, De Diamans, Saphirs, Turquoises et Rubis.   I. Le Pasteur en tes eaux nulle branche ne jette, Le Bouc de son ergot ne te puisse fouler : Ains comme un beau Crystal, tousjours tranquille et nette, Puissees-tu par les fleurs eternelle couler.   II. Les Nymphes de ces eaux et les Hamadryades, Que l’amoureux Satyre entre les bois poursuit, Se tenans main à main, de sauts et de gambades, Aux rayons du Croissant y dansent toute nuit.   I. Si j’estois un grand Prince, un superbe edifice Je voudrois te bastir, où je ferois fumer Tous les ans à ta feste autels et sacrifice, Te nommant pour jamais la Fontaine d’aimer.   II. Il ne faut plus aller en la forest d’Ardeine Chercher l’eau, dont Regnaut estoit si desireux : Celuy qui boit à jeun trois fois ceste fonteine, Soit passant ou voisin il devient amoureux.   I. Lune qui as ta robbe en rayons estoillée, Garde ceste fonteine aux jours les plus ardans : Defen-la pour jamais de chaud et de gelée, Remply-la de rosée, et te mire dedans.   II. Advienne apres mille ans qu’un Pastoureau desgoise Mes amours, et qu’il conte aux Nymphes d’icy pres, Qu’un Vandomois mourut pour une Saintongeoise, Et qu’encores son ame erre entre ces forests.   Le Poete. Garsons ne chantez plus, ja Vesper nous commande De serrer nos troupeaux, les Loups sont ja dehors. Demain à la frescheur avec une autre bande Nous reviendrons danser à l’entour de tes bords.   Fontaine, ce-pendant de ceste tasse pleine Reçoy ce vin sacré que je renverse en toy : Sois ditte pour jamais la Fontaine d’Heleine, Et conserve en tes eaux mes amours et ma foy.

I. Just as this water flows and runs off amidst the grass, So let flow in this water the care Which my fair mistress, to my too magnificent harm, Engraves in my heart without any mercy.   II Just as in this water I pour some of the same water, So from vein to vein Love who has hurt me, And who all at once overturns his quiver for me, Has poured into my heart his drink of love.   I I wished to extinguish the memory of my pain: But Love who had drunk in the fountain Left there his brand so firmly that, instead of drinking Of the water to quench it, I have drunk only fire.   II Sometimes this fountain is cold as ice, And sometimes it throws up a burning liquid: Two opposite effects I feel as it passes, Cold within my mouth, and warm in my heart.   I You who refresh these fair crimson flowers, Little winged brothers, Fauns and Zephyrs, Bear to the ungrateful ears of my mistress, Flying through the air, some one of my sighs.   II You children of the Dawn, go and kiss my lady: Tell her that I am dying, recount my sadness to her, And how Love is transforming me into a soul-less rock, Not, like Narcissus, into a fair flower.   I You frogs who gossip as the year renews itself, You tree-frogs who act as charms, as they say, Shout your ancient quarrels in some other place: May this sacred place be forbidden to you forever.   II Let Philomela [the nightingale] in April chatter her lament there, Let your banks never be found song-less: The swallow in summer, the pigeon in autumn, The chaffinch at all times, the robin in winter.   I Stop weeping, Hercules, leave your Mysia, Your feet from too much running are now week and tired: Here the nymphs have chosen their home, Here are your Loves, here is your Hylas.   II Why am I not in love like the Argive child? To avenge my death, I would wish only That the shore, the gravel, the grass and the banks Should always be named after Helen and my own name!   I Dryads who live beneath the holy bark, Come and bear witness, how many times a day Have I troubled your woods with the cry of my laments, Having no other pleasure than to sign of Love?   II Echo, daughter of the Air, solitary inhabitant Of the rocks, where often you see me retiring, Say how many times a day, lamenting my wretchedness, Have I made you sigh as you see me sigh?   I Neither sticks nor reeds border your banks, But rather the gay iris, friend of shepherdesses; Always in the heat of the day the god of this wood, Playing on his flute, can sleep there.   II Fountain, may your spring be forever paved Not with small gravel-stones from the foaming water, nor grass; But rather with many a pearl lifted by the waves, With diamonds, sapphires, turquoises and rubies.   I May the shepherd throw no branches in your waters, May the buck not be able to tread in you with his spurs; So, like a fine crystal, always calm and clear, May you be able to flow eternal among the flowers.   II The Nymphs of these waters and the Hamadryads Whom the amorous Satyr pursues in the woods, Holding one another’s hands, in leaps and gambols Dance all night in the rays of the crescent moon.   I If I were a great prince, I would want to build you A proud edifice, where I would make every year Altars and sacrifices smoke at your festival, Naming you forever the Fountain of Love.   II We need no longer go to the forest of Ardenne To seek the water for which Rinaldo was so eager: He who when young drinks thrice from this fountain, Be he passer-by or neighbour, will fall in love.   I O moon, who have your robe spangled in moonbeams, Protect this fountain in the hottest days; Defend it forever from heat and ice, Fill it with dew, and admire yourself in it.   II May it happen that, after a thousand years , a shepherd acts out My love-affairs, and recount to the Nymphs nearby How a man of Vendôme died for a lady from Saintonge, And how still his soul wanders in these forests.   The Poet Boys, sing no more, already the Evening Star commands us To draw up our troop, the wolves are now out. Tomorrow in the freshness [of morning], with another band We shall return to dance around your banks.   Fountain, now from this full glass Receive this sacred wine which I pour into you; Be called forever the Fountain of Helen, And preserve in your waters my love and my faithfulness.

 

 

 I find the ‘tone’ of this poem a little hard to read: yes, it is obviously another nature poem, or rather one of those ‘nature filled with myth’ poems, where everything is imbued with the flavour of classical mythology. Yet overall it seems to jar slightly with the surrounding love poems, at least to me.

 

We begin with the familiar lovers’ opposites – pain and happiness together, hot and cold, ice and fire. The ungrateful mistress is invoked (and mythological messengers sent to visit her). But by the end this is a fountain sanctified to Helen, rather than simply reflecting the opposites.

 

The tale of Narcissus is beautifully transformed – Helen’s obduracy makes her lover a hard rock, rather than a soft flower. But then the nature poetry takes over – oddly, at first, with frogs, but then with a large cast of carefully-identified birds appropriate to the seasons. Then suddenly Hercules is invoked (he is presumably also the ‘Argive child’, being a native of that city), and we’re back to the spurned lover – though quite why his death should be memorialised by naming the fountain after Helen is not obvious.

 

Echo, of course, is also known for laments: but then the context suddenly shifts to the sanctification of the fountain – its rocks replaced by precious jewels, its waters undisturbed by sticks or animals. The reference to Rinaldo (Regnaut in the French version) recalls the entire plot of ‘Orlando furioso’, which opens with Rinaldo drinking from an enchanted fountain and falling in love with Angelica, and ends with the spell lifted by drinking from another magic fountain. (As Richelet explains, ‘Ariosto in his first canto says that in this forest there are two fountains so different in effect that whoever drinks from the one falls in love, and from the other loses his love’.) And then the heavens are called on to protect the newly-sanctified spring, before the poet sacrifices wine as a sign of its holiness.

 

Something of a developing train of thought, then …

 

Gilbert Gadoffre makes the point that Ronsard is not like the seventeenth-century poets, ‘mathematicians and logicians’ who structure their poems accordingly; he is a poet of nature, whose poems grow like nature, developing almost in random directions as the moment takes them. I think this is a helpful way to look at this poem and it’s shifting focus. 

 

Worth adding, too, that for Gadoffre this is the high point of French poetry before about 1650: “With this poem he gives us the most miraculously beautiful stanzas before Racine in the French repertoire.”

 

Blanchemain has a number of variants, beginning with the title: “Stances sur la fontaine…” (though it has no impact on the translation). In the first stanza of the third pair, we have “Portez vers ma Maistresse aux ingrates oreilles”, so that instead of carrying sighs ‘to the ungrateful ears of my mistress’ they are to be carried ‘to my mistress with her ungrateful ears’. In the second stanza of the next pair, “Et ses bords …” seems odd: Helen’s fountain has been ‘you’ so far, so whose are ‘her banks’? Presumably still the same fountain?

 

No such problem at the start of the pair of stanzas featuring Rinaldo: “Si j’estois grand monarque …”, a ‘great monarch’ instead of a great prince. And then in the second of these stanzas, “Celuy qui boit à jeun trois fois à la fonteine”, ‘He who when young drinks thrice at the fountain’. 

 

 

 

 

Ode 5:3

The mention of Nicolas Denisot in a recent post sent me off looking for more information. I was fascinated to discover that Ronsard had been one of several Pleiade poets (others were du Bellay and Baif) who contributed poems to a book Denisot saw through the presses in 1551. It was of course early days for the Pleaide poets but it’s still an impressive list! And it secured Denisot’s reputation as a poet.

The book was the Tombeau de Marguerite de Valois Royne de Navarre; you can read it here. But this book was itself a translation (or rather a set of translations) by these French poets of the Hecatodistichon composed by Denisot’s erstwhile pupils in England. For he had spent two or three years there as their tutor before being recalled to France, and their poem in memory of Margaret of Navarre, who died late in 1549 shortly after Denisot’s return to France, no doubt reflected Denisot’s own style and preferences as much as their own. At any rate, Denisot enthusiastically saw the Hecatodistichon through the presses in 1550, and then prevailed on his humanist friends to pull together the Tombeau, whose subtitle is: “Composed first in Latin Distichs by three sisters and Princesses in England; then translated into Greek, Italian and French by several excellent poets of France.” Daurat provided the Greek translation; du Bellay, Denisot and Baif the French; and Jean Pierre de Mesme (who had previously translated Ariosto into French) provided the Italian.

The three princesses were the Seymour sisters – Anne, Margaret and Jane; it’s believed their father hoped to marry Jane to Edward VI, so the family certainly did move in the highest circles. Ronsard’s ode sets their work up as the dawn of culture in England, hitherto ‘barbarous’, and he indicates hopes for an Anglo-French literary rapprochement built on these foundations. Richelet adds notes on the ode (re-published in 1552 in Ronsard’s book 5) to the effect that the ode is “for three learned daughters of England, instructed and taught by Denisot, count of Alsinois”; “because at that time these three ladies had composed a book in Christian distichs, in Latin, terrifically well written, which were soon translated into Greek, Italian and French, and were dedicated to Mme Marguerite, only sister of king Henry II”.

 

Quand les filles d’Achelois, Les trois belles chanteresses, Qui des homme par leurs vois Estoient les enchanteresses, Virent jaunir la toison, Et les soldars de Jason Ramer la barque argienne Sur la mer Sicilienne,   Elles, d’ordre, flanc à flanc, Oisives au front des ondes, D’un peigne d’yvoire blanc Frisotoient leurs tresses blondes, Et mignotant de leurs yeux Les attraits delicieux, Aguignoient la nef passante D’une œillade languissante.   Puis souspirerent un chant De leurs gorges nompareilles, Par douce force alléchant Les plus gaillardes aureilles ; Afin que le son pipeur Fraudast le premier labeur Des chevaliers de la Grece Amorcés de leur caresse.   Ja ces demi-dieux estoient Prests de tomber en servage, Et jà domptés se jettoient Dans la prison du rivage, Sans Orphée, qui, soudain Prenant son luth en la main, Opposé vers elles, joue Loin des autres sur la proue,   Afin que le contre-son De sa repoussante lyre Perdist au vent la chanson Premier qu’entrer au navire, Et qu’il tirast des dangers Ces demi-dieux passagers Qui devoient par la Libye Porter leur mere affoiblie.   Mais si ce harpeur fameux Oyoit le luth des Serenes Qui sonne aux bords escumeux Des Albionnes arenes, Son luth payen il fendroit Et disciple se rendroit Dessous leur chanson chrestienne Dont la voix passe la sienne.   Car luy, enflé de vains mots, Devisoit à l’aventure Ou des membres du Chaos Ou du sein de la Nature ; Mais ces vierges chantent mieux Le vray manouvrier des cieux, Et sa demeure eternelle, Et ceux qui vivent en elle.   Las ! ce qu’on void de mondain Jamais ferme ne se fonde, Ains fuit et refuit soudain Comme le branle d’une onde Qui ne cesse de rouler, De s’avancer et couler, Tant que rampant il arrive D’un grand heurt contre la rive.   La science, auparavant Si long temps orientale, Peu à peu marchant avant, S’apparoist occidentale, Et sans jamais se borner N’a point cessé de tourner, Tant qu’elle soit parvenue A l’autre rive incogneue.   Là de son grave sourcy Vint affoler le courage De ces trois vierges icy, Les trois seules de nostre âge, Et si bien les sceut tenter, Qu’ores on les oit chanter Maint vers jumeau qui surmonte Les nostres, rouges de honte.   Par vous, vierges de renom, Vrais peintres de la mémoire, Des autres vierges le nom Sera clair en vostre gloire. Et puis que le ciel benin Au doux sexe feminin Fait naistre chose si rare D’un lieu jadis tant barbare,   Denisot se vante heuré D’avoir oublié sa terre, Et passager demeuré Trois ans en vostre Angleterre, Et d’avoir cogneu vos yeux, Où les amours gracieux Doucement leurs fleches dardent Contre ceux qui vous regardent.   Voire et d’avoir quelquefois Tant levé sa petitesse, Que sous l’outil de sa vois Il polit vostre jeunesse, Vous ouvrant les beaux secrets Des vieux Latins et les Grecs, Dont l’honneur se renouvelle Par vostre muse nouvelle.   Io, puis que les esprits D’Angleterre et de la France, Bandez d’un ligue, ont pris Le fer contre l’ignorance, Et que nos roys se sont faits D’ennemis amis parfaits, Tuans la guerre cruelle Par une paix mutuelle,   Advienne qu’une de vous, Nouant la mer passagere, Se joigne à quelqu’un de nous Par une nopce estrangere ; Lors vos escrits avancez Se verront recompensez D’une chanson mieux sonnée, Qui cri’ra vostre hymenée.

When the daughters of Achelous, The three fair singers Who were with their voices Enchantresses of men, Saw the fleece growing golden, And Jason’s soldiers Rowing the ship, the Argo, On the Sicilian sea,   Lined up side by side Lazily at the front of the waves, With combs of white ivory They were curling their blonde tresses And, hinting with their eyes At their delicious attractions, Making signs to the passing ship With a languishing look.   Then they sigh a song From their peerless throats, With its sweet force alluring The strongest ears; So that the snaring sound Draws the Greek knights From their primary task, Attracted by their caresses.   Now would those half-gods have been Ready to fall into slavery, Now overcome would they have thrown themselves Into the river’s prison, Unless Orpheus, suddenly Taking up his lute in his hand, Opposing the ladies had played Far from the others on the [ship’s] prow,   So that the counter-tune Of his lyre, repelling it, Lost in the wind the song Which first came aboard the ship, And drew away from danger Those half-god travellers Who needed to take Through Libya their enfeebled mother.   But if that famous harper Heard the lute of the Sirens Which plays on the foamy edges Of Albion’s sands, His pagan lute he would break And would become a disciple Of their Christian song Whose tones surpass his own.   For he, full of empty words, Invented at random Out of the limbs of Chaos Or the heart of Nature; But these maids sing better Of the true maker of the heavens And his eternal home And those who live in it.   Alas, what you see in the world Never rests firm on its foundations, But ebbs and flows suddenly Like the motion of the waves Which never stop rolling, Advancing and falling back, As long as they come crashing With a great shock against the shore.   Knowledge, hitherto For so long a thing of the East, Little by little moving forward Now appeared in the West, And without ever limiting itself Never stopped changing, So that it arrived At the other shore unknown.   There with its haughty gravity It arrived to bewilder the courage Of these three maids here, The only three of our age, And so well did it tempt them That soon you could hear them singing Many a paired verse which outdid Our own, which blush with shame.   Through you, maidens of renown, True painters of memory, The fame of other maidens Will be bright in your glory. And since benign heaven Made to be born so rare a thing In the sweet feminine sex, And in a place hitherto so barbarous,   Denisot boasts himself happy To have forgotten his own land And remained a traveller For three years in your England, And to have known your eyes From which gracious cupids Softly dart their arrows Against those who look on you.   Indeed sometimes [he boasts] of having So raised up his own littleness That with the tool of his own talent He polished up your youthfulness, Opening to you the fair secrets Of the ancient Latins and Greeks, Whose honour is renewed In your new muse.   Ah, since the spirits Of England and of France, Bound in a league, have taken up Arms against ignorance, And since our kings have become, Instead of enemies, perfect friends Killing cruel war Through a mutual peace,   May it come about that one of you, Swimming the passage of the sea, Might join herself with some one of us In a foreign marriage; Then your precocious writings Will see themselves rewarded With a song better played, Which will announce your wedding.

(Let me admit that the second line of that last stanza is a bit of a paraphrase! “Nouer” was an antique word even in Ronsard’s day, equivalent to “nager” (‘to swim’).)

The poem falls into three equal sections: the classical introduction, the generalities about the awakening of culture in England; and then the specific praise of the three ladies. In the classical opening, Achelous was the chief river-deity of classical myth and father of the Sirens.  The legend of Jason and the Argonauts, in search of the Golden Fleece, is well-known, though it’s usually the meeting of Odysseus and the Sirens we read; less well-known is that Orpheus was one of the Argonauts.

 

 

 

Sonnet 150

En ce printemps qu’entre mes bras n’arrive

Celle qui tient ma playe en sa verdeur,

Et ma pensée en oisive langueur,

Sur le tapis de ceste herbeuse rive ?

 

Et que n’est-elle une Nymphe native

De ce bois verd ? par l’ombreuse froideur

Nouveau Sylvain j’alenterois l’ardeur

Du feu qui m’ard d’une flamme trop vive.

 

Et pourquoy, cieux ! l’arrest de vos destins

Ne m’a faict naistre un de ces Paladins,

Qui seuls portoyent en crope les pucelles ?

 

Et qui tastant baisant et devisant,

Loin de l’envie et loin du mesdisant,

Par les forests vivoyent avecques elles ?

 

 

 

                                                                            In this springtime, why does she not come into my arms,

                                                                            She who keeps my wound fresh

                                                                            And my thoughts in idle listlessness

                                                                            On the carpet of this grassy bank?

 

                                                                            And why is she not a Nymph, native

                                                                            Of this green wood? With its shady cool

                                                                            I, a new Wood-dweller, would retard the heat

                                                                            Of the fire which burns me with too bright a flame.

 

                                                                            And why, heavens, did the judgement of fate

                                                                            Not make me born one of those Paladins

                                                                            Who alone carry maidens behind them,

 

                                                                            And who – touching, kissing, chatting,

                                                                            Far from envy and those who speak ill –

                                                                            Live with them in the forests?

 

 

 

 Another allusion to Ariosto, perhaps, in the reference to Paladins on chargers. His wry humour amuses me – why is it OK for heroes in storybooks to go off alone into the woods with maidens, without people whispering suspiciously about what they might get up to, but not for real people to do it…?

 

In line 11, the maiden is ‘en crope’ : in case horse-jargon isn’t your thing, that is ‘on the crupper’, behind the saddle on the horse’s back.  We might also say, ‘riding pillion’.

 

Blanchemain has a few variants, including the opening, but they leave the sense unchanged: here are his opening lines

 

 

Entre mes bras que maintenant n’arrive

Celle qui tient ma playe en sa verdeur,

Et ma pensée en gelant tiedeur

Sur le tapis de ceste herbeuse rive !

 

Et que n’est-elle une nymphe native

De quelque bois ! Par l’ombreuse froideur …

 

 

 

                                                                            Why does she not now come into my arms,

                                                                            She who keeps my wound fresh

                                                                            And my thoughts in freezing warmth

                                                                            On the carpet of this grassy bank?

 

                                                                            And why is she not a Nymph, native

                                                                            Of some wood? Through the shady cool …

 

And so we complete 150 sonnets from book 1; I shall update the ‘complete’ pdf shortly.  [Edit:  pdf uploaded.]  Such is the size of Amours I that, even after more than 150 poems, we’re still less than two-thirds of the way through, however…!

 

 

 

Chanson (146a)

Ronsard put together a sequence of 135 sonnets before his first lyric in the book; now, barely 10 sonnets later, comes a second!

Ma Dame je n’eusse pensé, Opiniastre en ma langueur, Que ton cœur m’eust recompensé D’une si cruelle rigueur, Et qu’en lieu de me secourir Tes beaux yeux m’eussent fait mourir.   Si prevoyant j’eusse apperceu, Quand je te vy premierement, Le mal que j’ay depuis receu Pour aimer trop loyalement, Mon cœur qui franc avoit vescu, N’eust pas esté si tost veincu.   Tu fis promettre à tes beaux yeux Qui seuls me vindrent decevoir, De me donner encore mieux Que mon cœur n’esperoit avoir : Puis comme jalous de mon bien Ont transformé mon aise en rien.   Si tost que je vy leur beauté, Amour me força d’un desir D’assujettir ma loyauté Sous l’empire de leur plaisir, Et décocha de leur regard Contre mon cœur le premier dard.   Ce fut, Dame, ton bel accueil, Qui pour me faire bien-heureux, M’ouvrit par la clef de ton œil Le paradis des Amoureux, Et fait esclave en si beau lieu, D’un homme je devins un Dieu.   Si bien que n’estant plus à moy, Mais à l’œil qui m’avoit blessé, Mon cœur en gage de ma foy A luy mon maistre j’ai laissé, Où serf si doucement il est Qu’une autre beauté luy desplaist.   Et bien qu’il souffre jours et nuis Mainte amoureuse adversité Le plus cruel de ses ennuis Luy semble une felicité, Et ne sçauroit jamais vouloir Qu’un autre œil le face douloir.   Un grand rocher qui a le doz Et les pieds tousjours outragez, Ores des vents, ores des flots Contre les rives enragez, N’est point si ferme que mon cueur Sous l’orage de ta rigueur.   Car luy sans se changer, aimant Les beaux yeux qui l’ont en-rethé, Semble du tout au Diamant, Qui pour garder sa fermeté Se rompt plustost sous le marteau, Que se voir tailler de nouveau.   Ainsi ne l’or qui peut tenter, Ny grace, beauté, ny maintien Ne sçauroyent dans mon cœur enter Un autre portrait que le tien, Et plustost il mourroit d’ennuy, Que d’en souffrir un autre en luy.   Il ne faut donc pour empescher Qu’une autre Dame en ait sa part, L’environner d’un grand rocher, Ou d’une fosse, ou d’un rempart : Amour te l’a si bien conquis, Que plus il ne peut estre acquis.   Chanson, les estoiles seront La nuict sans les Cieux allumer, Et plustost les vents cesseront De tempester dessus la mer, Que de ses yeux la cruauté Puisse amoindrir ma loyauté.

My Lady, I would not have thought, Stubborn in my languishing, That your heart would have repaid me With such cruel severity, And that instead of coming to my aid Your eyes would have done me to death.   If, looking ahead, I had perceived When first I saw you The wrongs which I have since received From loving too faithfully, My heart, which had lived free, Would not have been to quickly overcome.   You promised with your fair eyes Which came only to deceive me To give me still better Than my heart could hope to have; Then as if envious of my happiness They transformed my comfort to nothing.   As soon as I saw their beauty, Love forced me through desire To make my fidelity subject To the rule of their pleasure, And shot from their glance The first dart into my heart.   It was, my Lady, your fair welcome Which to make me happy Opened for me, with the key of your eyes, The paradise of lovers; Made a slave in so fair a place, Instead of a man I became a god.   So happily that, no longer being my own But belonging to the eyes which had struck me, My heart as pledge of my faithfulness I left to them, my masters, Where as a serf so sweetly it rests That any other beauty displeases it.   And although it suffers night and day So many a lover’s reverse, The cruellest of its pains Seems to it bliss, And it can never wish That any other eyes should make it unhappy.   A great rock whose back And feet are always struck Now by winds, now by waves Furiously against the banks, Is not so firm as my heart Beneath the storm of your severity.   For he, unchanging, loving The fair eyes which have netted him, Seems entirely like the Diamond Which to maintain its firmness Would rather break beneath the hammer Than be cut anew.   Thus, neither gold which can tempt Nor grace, beauty and bearing Can place in my heart Any other picture but your own, And rather would it die of its troubles Than suffer any other [picture] in it.   It is not necessary to prevent Another Lady from having part of it By encircling it with a great stone [wall] Or a ditch or rampart; Love has conquered it so well for you That it can no longer be bought.   My song, the stars will light The night without the heavens, And sooner will the winds cease Storming over the sea, Than the cruelty of her eyes Can lessen my fidelity.

 

 Muret informs us that this poem is based on a letter (in verse, of course) in Ariosto’s ‘Orlando Furioiso’, sent by Bradamante to Ruggiero.

 

 Blanchemain’s version shows that Ronsard re-wrote much of the first stanza, but elsewhere only made minor changes. To avoid a long list & complicated back-and-forth referencnig to the version above, here’s the whole of the earlier version:

 

Las ! je n’eusse jamais pensé, Dame qui causes ma langueur, De voir ainsi recompensé Mon service d’une rigueur, Et qu’en lieu de me secourir Ta cruauté m’eust fait mourir.   Si, bien-accort, j’eusse apperceu, Quand je te vy premierement, Le mal que j’ay depuis receu Pour aimer trop loyalement, Mon cœur, qui franc avoit vescu, N’eust pas esté si tost vaincu.   Mais tu fis promettre à tes yeux, Qui seuls me vindrent decevoir, De me donner encore mieux Que mon cœur n’esperoit avoir ; Puis comme jaloux de mon bien, Ont transformé mon aise en rien.   Si tost que je vis leur beauté, Amour me força d’un desir D’assujettir ma loyauté Sous l’empire de leur plaisir, Et decocha de leur regard Contre mon cœur le premier dard.   Ce fut, Dame, ton bel accueil, Qui, pour me faire bien-heureux, M’ouvrit par la clef de ton œil Le paradis des amoureux, Et, fait esclave en si beau lieu, D’un homme je devins un dieu.   Si bien que, n’estant plus à moy, Mais à l’œil qui m’avoit blessé, Mon cœur en gage de ma foy A mon vainqueur j’ai délaissé, Où serf si doucement il est Qu’autre liberté luy desplaist ;   Et, bien qu’il souffre jours et nuis Mainte amoureuse adversité, Le plus cruel de ses ennuis Luy semble une felicité, Et ne sçauroit jamais vouloir Qu’un autre œil le face douloir.   Un grand rocher qui a le doz Et les pieds tousjours outragez, Ores des vents, ores des flots Contre les rives enragez, N’est point si ferme que mon cœur Sous l’orage d’une rigueur :   Car luy, de plus en plus aimant Les beaux yeux qui l’ont en-reté, Semble du tout au diamant, Qui pour garder sa fermeté Se rompt plustost sous le marteau, Que se voir tailler de nouveau.   Ainsi ne l’or qui peut tenter, Ny grace, beauté, ny maintien, Ne sçauroit dans mon cœur enter Un autre portrait que le tien, Et plustost il mourroit d’ennuy, Que d’en souffrir un autre en luy.   Il ne faut donc, pour empescher Qu’une autre dame en ait sa part, L’environner d’un grand rocher, Ou d’une fossé, ou d’un rempart : Amour te l’a si bien conquis, Que plus il ne peut estre acquis.   Chanson, les estoiles seront La nuict sans les cieux allumer, Et plustost les vents cesseront De tempester dessus la mer, Que de ses yeux la cruauté Puisse amoindrir ma loyauté.

Alas, I’d never have thought (my Lady, you who cause my languishing) To see repaid in this way My service with severity, And that instead of coming to my aid Your cruelty would have done me to death.   If, fine and attractive, I had perceived When first I saw you The wrongs which I have since received From loving too faithfully, My heart, which had lived free, Would not have been to quickly overcome.   But you promised with your eyes Which came only to deceive me To give me still better Than my heart could hope to have; Then as if envious of my happiness They transformed my comfort to nothing.   As soon as I saw their beauty, Love forced me through desire To make my fidelity subject To the rule of their pleasure, And shot from their glance The first dart into my heart.   It was, my Lady, your fair welcome Which to make me happy Opened for me, with the key of your eyes, The paradise of lovers; Made a slave in so fair a place, Instead of a man I became a god.   So happily that, no longer being my own But belonging to the eyes which had struck me, My heart as pledge of my faithfulness I abandoned to my conqueror, Where as a serf so sweetly it rests That any other [kind of] freedom displeases it.   And although it suffers night and day So many a lover’s reverse, The cruellest of its pains Seems to it bliss, And it can never wish That any other eyes should make it unhappy.   A great rock whose back And feet are always struck Now by winds, now by waves Furiously against the banks, Is not so firm as my heart Beneath the storm of severity:   For he, loving more and more The fair eyes which have netted him, Seems entirely like the Diamond Which to maintain its firmness Would rather break beneath the hammer Than be cut anew.   Thus, neither gold which can tempt Nor grace, beauty and bearing Can place in my heart Any other picture but your own, And rather would it die of its troubles Than suffer any other [picture] in it.   It is not necessary to prevent Another Lady from having part of it By encircling it with a great stone [wall] Or a ditch or rampart; Love has conquered it so well for you That it can no longer be bought.   My song, the stars will light The night without the heavens, And sooner will the winds cease Storming over the sea, Than the cruelty of her eyes Can lessen my fidelity.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sonnet 125

Du feu d’amour, impatient Roger

(Pipé du fard de magique cautelle)

Pour refroidir ta passion nouvelle,

Tu vins au lict d’Alcine te loger.

 

Opiniastre à ton feu soulager,

Ore planant, ore noüant sus elle,

Entre les bras d’une Dame si belle,

Tu sceus d’Amour et d’elle te vanger.

 

En peu de temps le gracieux Zephyre,

D’un vent heureux em-poupant ton navire,

Te fit surgir dans le port amoureux :

 

Mais quand ma nef de s’aborder est preste,

Tousjours plus loin quelque horrible tempeste

La single en mer, tant je suis malheureux.

 

 

 

 

                                                                            From the fire of love, impatient Ruggiero

                                                                            (Snared by the trickery of some sly magic)

                                                                            To cool down your new passion

                                                                            You came to lie on the bed of Alcina.

 

                                                                            Determined to assuage your burning,

                                                                            Now floating, now swimming near her,

                                                                            Between the arms of a Lady so fair,

                                                                            You recognised how to avenge yourself on Love and on her.

 

                                                                            In a short time the graceful Zephyr,

                                                                            Filling your sails with a lucky breeze,

                                                                            Made your love’s port come into view;

 

                                                                            But when my ship is ready to come in,

                                                                            Some awful tempest always drives it

                                                                            Far off in the sea, so unlucky am I.

 

 

 

Ariosto’s ‘Orlando furioso’ is embedded in renaissance thought, but less so in today’s reading-lists. Alcina may be familiar through Handel’s opera, but otherwise the story is probably little known. The episode of Ruggiero (Roger) and Alcina is modelled on that of Odysseus and Circe in Homer – Alcina lures the brave warrior Ruggiero to her magic island, ensnares him with her spells, and he has to break the charm to escape. Of course in Ronsard’s version escaping the beloved is not the objective: the aim is to win her, in which Ruggiero has been lucky and Ronsard not. His readers would of course recognise that he has turned Ariosto’s tale on its head by presenting Ruggiero as the lucky lover!

 

Blanchemain does not print this poem in his Cassandre; it slips into the Pièces retranchées. There he prints a rather different text for the opening quatrains:

 

 

Entre tes bras, impatient Roger

(Pipé du fard de magique cautelle)

Pour refroidir ta chaleur immortelle,

Au soir bien tard Alcine vint loger.

 

Opiniastre à ton feu soulager,

Ore planant, ore noüant sus elle,

Dedans le gué d’une beauté si belle,

Toute une nuit tu appris à nager.

 

                                                                            Into your arms, impatient Ruggiero

                                                                            (When you were snared by the trickery of sly magic)

                                                                            To cool down your immortal heat

                                                                            Late at night Alcina came to stay.

 

                                                                            Determined to assuage your burning,

                                                                            Now floating, now swimming near her,

                                                                            Within the ford of so fair a beauty

                                                                            You learned all night how to swim.

 

 

 

In this version, the first quatrain is rather clearer and I prefer it.  The ‘ford’ in line 7 carries ideas of a safe place to learn – the ‘shallow end’ (though I wanted to avoid the word ‘shallow’ which we tend to link with beauty in a moral or intellectual sense!), as well as a means of ready access… 

 

 

 

 

 

Sonnet 73

Pipé d’Amour, ma Circe enchanteresse

Dedans ses fers m’arreste emprisonné,

Non par le goust d’un vin empoisonné,

Non par le jus d’une herbe pecheresse.

 

Du fin Gregeois l’espée vangeresse,

Et le Moly par Mercure ordonné,

En peu de temps du breuvage donné

Peurent forcer la force charmeresse :

 

Si qu’à la fin le Dulyche troupeau

Reprint l’honneur de sa premiere peau,

Et sa prudence au-paravant peu caute.

 

Mais pour mon sens remettre en mon cerveau,

Il me faudroit un Astolphe nouveau,

Tant ma raison est aveugle en sa faute.

 

 

 

 

                                                                            Snared by Love, my enchantress, my Circe

                                                                            Holds me imprisoned within her chains;

                                                                            She did not use the taste of poisoned wine,

                                                                            Nor the juice of a sinful herb.

 

                                                                            The avenging sword of the wily Greek

                                                                            And the cure for the enchantment ordained by Mercury

                                                                            In a short while were able to overpower

                                                                            The power of the charm in the drink they were given;

 

                                                                            So that, in the end, the Dulychean troop

                                                                            Recovered the honour of its original shape

                                                                            And its prudence, though formerly so incautious.

 

                                                                            But to put my sense back in my brain

                                                                            I would need a new Astolpho,

                                                                            So blind is my reason to its failing.

 

 

Circe is the enchantress who transforms Odysseus’ crew into pigs in the 10th book of the ‘Odyssey’.  She uses a potion and a magic wine-cup. Note that the pigs run free, and are not kept chained; but they are metaphorically chained by the enchantment. They are rescued by Odysseus (the wily Greek) who – at Mercury’s recommendation – uses the plant ‘molu’ or ‘moly’ to prevent the witch’s magic affecting him.  [Some argue that the men were only metaphorically transformed into pigs, their humanity taken away by a hallucinogen of some kind; the snowdrop has anti-hallucinogenic properties (apparently!) so may be ‘moly’.] Dulichium was one of the islands of which Odysseus was king; possibly one of the Echinades, or nearby Cephalonia?

 

Astolpho takes us to a rather more modern epic – Ariosto’s ‘Orlando Furioso’. Astolpho is the powerful champion who restores Orlando to his senses after he has been maddened by love. Originally one of Charlemagne’s paladins, Astolpho/Astolfo in Ariosto has acquired a range of magical weapons and steeds. He flies on a hippogriff, meets St John the Apostle, then takes Elijah’s chariot to the moon, where he finds Orlando’s lost wits in a bottle…!

 

Blanchemain’s version has only 3 minor changes – though one affects the very beginning of the poem!  The early version begins “Du tout changé, ma Circe…” (‘Changed in every way, my Circe holds me…’). In line 8 Odysseus’ sword and ‘moly’ “Forcèrent bien la force charmeresse” (‘overpowered easily the power of the charm’) – not noticeably better or worse than the alternative repetition of ‘forcer’! And in line 10 the troop “reprit” instead of “reprint” (recovered) its honour – a difference only between treating ‘troop’ as plural or singular.