Helen 2:73

Il ne suffit de boire en l’eau que j’ay sacrée

A ceste belle Helene, afin d’estre amoureux :

Il faut aussi dormir dedans un antre ombreux,

Qui a joignant sa rive en un mont son entrée.

 

Il faut d’un pied dispos danser dessus la prée,

Et tourner par neuf fois autour d’un saule creux :

Il faut passer la planche, il faut faire des vœux

Au Pere sainct Germain qui garde la contrée.

 

Cela fait, quand un cœur seroit un froid glaçon,

Il sentira le feu d’une estrange façon

Enflamer sa froideur. Croyez ceste escriture.

 

Amour du rouge sang des Geans tout souillé,

Essuyant en ceste eau son beau corps despouillé,

Y laissa pour jamais ses feux et sa teinture.

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                            It’s not enough to drink from the water that I’ve consecrated

                                                                            To that fair Helen, in order to be in love:

                                                                            You must also sleep in a shaded cave

                                                                            Which has, adjoining a riverbank, its entry in a hillside.

 

                                                                            You must with eager foot dance over the meadow,

                                                                            And turn nine times around a hollow willow-tree;

                                                                            You must walk the plank, you must make vows

                                                                            To the Father St. Germain who watches over the countryside.

 

                                                                            That done, when her heart is a frozen icicle,

                                                                            It will feel fire, in some strange way,

                                                                            Inflaming its coldness. Believe this writing!

 

                                                                            Love, stained with the red blood of the Giants,

                                                                            Making clean in this water his fair body stripped bare,

                                                                            Left there forever his fires and his colour.

 

 

 

 

A spell with which to win your beloved, apparently. St. Germain is the patron saint of Paris (no surprise to football fans), and I guess by extension France. Love, in the final tercet, is Cupid again.

 

Blanchemain offers a variant in line 2, “A ceste belle Grecque …” (‘To that fair Greek…’), obviously still pointing to Helen.

 

A tiny detail: only the 8th poem on the blog whose first line begins with an ‘I’; however bizarre that seems.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A letter about the Helen sonnets

A little of Ronsard’s prose for a change – and ‘natural’ prose rather than literary prose. I mentioned recently that a lot of the Helen sonnets had already appeared in print before the Helen books – sonnets 18-25 and 41 in book one, and sonnets 21-37 and 61-64 in book two (at least) had been printed in the ‘Amours diverses’. That’s about 30 from 140, just over 20% – though nearly a third of the sonnets in book two …

 

It seems that Hélène complained! (Perhaps that’s not a surprise.) Whether she was irritated simply that they were not new, or that they were not written expressly for her, or that they had been addressed to other ladies, we do not know. But she apparently asked for them to be removed and/or alternative poems added. Ronsard responds dismissively: his point, in a nutshell, is that a book of poems is literature first of all, not a historical record, and art not literal historical truth is what must shape the contents.

 

Monsieur mon antien amy, c’est, disoit Aristophane, un faix insuportable de servir un maistre qui radoute. Parodizant la dessus, c’est un grand malheur de servir une maistresse, qui n’a jugement ny raison en nostre poësie, qui ne sçait pas que les poëtes, principallement en petis et menus fatras come elegies, epigrames et sonnetz, ne gardent ny ordre ny temps, c’est affaire aux historiographes qui escrivent tout de fil en eguille. Je vous suplie, Monsieur, ne vouloir croire en cela Mademoiselle de Surgeres et n’ajouter ny diminuer rien de mes sonnetz, s’il vous plait. Si elle ne les trouve bons, qu’elle les laisse, je n’ay la teste rompue d’autre chose. On dit que le Roy vient à Blois et à Tours, et pour cela je m’enfuy à Paris et y seray en bref, car je hay la court comme la mort. Si elle veult faire quelque dessaing de marbre sur la fonteine, elle le pourra faire, mais ce sont délibérations de femmes, qui ne durent qu’un jour, qui de leurs natures sont si avares qu’elles ne voudroyent pas despendre un escu pour un beau fait. Faittes luy voir cette lettre si vous le trouvez bon. Je vous baize les mains de toute affection. De vostre Croixval, ce cinquiesme de juillet. Vostre humble et antien amy à vous servir.

 

— Sir, my old friend : it is, said Aristophanes, an unbearable thing to serve a master who fears [everything]. Pastiching the above, it is a great misfortune to serve a mistress who has neither judgement nor understanding of our poetry, who does not realise that poets, principally in small, unimportant stuff like elegies, epigrams and sonnets, have no regard for order or time: that’s a matter for writers of history, who write everything as if threaded with a needle. I beg you, Sir, not to believe Madame de Surgeres in that matter, and not to add or take away anything from my sonnets, please. If she does not find them good, then let her ignore them, it’s no skin off my nose. They say the King is coming to Blois and Tours, and for that reason I am running off to Paris and will be there very shortly, for I hate the court like death itself. If she wants to create some design in marble for the fountain, she may do so, but these are the plans of women which last but a day, who by their nature are so miserly that they don’t want to spend a penny on some good deed. Let her see this letter if you think that’s a good idea. I kiss your hands in all affection. From your Croixval, the fifth of July. Your humble old friend, at your service.

 

 

 

 

I do like seeing how Ronsard wrote when he was, simply, writing. This is not for publication or print, just a letter to a friend. The letter was found and first printed in 1923 by Nolhac, as one of “Deux lettres retrouvées de Ronsard”, ‘Two re-discovered letter of Ronsard’.

 

The connections in the thought jump around rather more – though we occasionally see that in the sonnets! – and so it’s not entirely obvious whether the second half of the letter is further insulting Hélène, or whether his barbs are aimed at someone else. (Grammatically, but not logically, the ‘she’ could even be the royal court (“la court”, which he hates in the previous sentence). It is nevertheless surprising to see quite so dismissive and insulting a tone in Ronsard’s references to Hélène, after reading all those love poems: a salutary reminder that the poems are, indeed, literature and we should not read too much biography into them.

 

The reference to hating court life also needs to be taken in context – though knowing the date of the letter would help in that regard. It is certainly late, as most of Ronsard’s Croixval letters seem to date from 1582-1584, in the few years before his death. But Gadoffre dates this one 1577, without explanation. It could be from just before publication of the Helen sonnets in 1578, but perhaps is more likely to be at a time when a new edition is being prepared. Whether in the 1570s or the 1580s, Ronsard was by then old, ill, and out of favour at court, hence perhaps the bitterness. 

 

Knowing who the letter is addressed to might also be relevant. It’s addressed Sainte-Marthe is probably Scévole de Sainte-Marthe, the poet (born 1536) not the historian & philosopher, born 1571 and of course far too young to be a correspondent of Ronsard’s). The letter seems to imply that Sainte-Marthe may have been preparing an edition, hence able to add or delete poems. Unfortunately there is no evidence, as far as I know, that he was: it was Gabriel Buon who published the collected works in 1584 and subsequently (as well as the 1578 set), and they contain no commentary on the Helen sonnets like that of Muret on Cassandre which might evidence the input of Sainte-Marthe. So, in the end, this doesn’t help to date the letter to the first or a subsequent edition.

 

(Incidentally, why ‘your Croixval’? Croixval is near Ronsard’s favourite Gastine forest, and the Loir valley. His links with the priory at Croix-Val or Croixval date to 1566 when he acquired it, after his brother inherited the family home at La Poissonnière. He spent much of the years 1578-1583 in retirement there. The building still stands: images are here. All this links Croixval to Ronsard; but not to Sainte-Marthe. I have not seen the original letter, but I would postulate that this is a mis-reading of a ‘v’ for an ‘n’, and that Ronsard wrote “nostre Croixval”, ‘my Croixval’.)

 

Finally, just to note that reference to his sonnets etc as ‘small, unimportant stuff’. Self-deprecation is something Ronsard does well; and he uses it here (of course) as part of his weaponry in the attack on Hélène. He doesn’t really think they’re unimportant; but she appears to, even while being upset that some of them are recycled…

 

 

 

 

 

 

Helen 2:74a – Elégie

It’s nice after all the love sonnets to get an extended nature-lyric to enjoy!

Six ans estoient coulez, et la septiesme annee Estoit presques entiere en ses pas retournee, Quand loin d’affection, de desir et d’amour, En pure liberté je passois tout le jour, Et franc de tout soucy qui les ames devore, Je dormois dés le soir jusqu’au point de l’aurore. Car seul maistre de moy j’allois plein de loisir, Où le pied me portoit, conduit de mon desir, Ayant tousjours és mains pour me servir de guide Aristote ou Platon, ou le docte Euripide, Mes bons hostes muets, qui ne faschent jamais : Ainsi que je les prens, ainsi je les remais. O douce compagnie et utile et honneste! Un autre en caquetant m’estourdiroit la teste.   Puis du livre ennuyé, je regardois les fleurs, Fueilles tiges rameaux especes et couleurs, Et l’entrecoupement de leurs formes diverses, Peintes de cent façons, jaunes rouges et perses, Ne me pouvant saouler, ainsi qu’en un tableau, D’admirer la Nature, et ce qu’elle a de beau : Et de dire en parlant aux fleurettes escloses, “Celuy est presque Dieu qui cognoist toutes choses, Esloigné du vulgaire, et loin des courtizans, De fraude et de malice impudens artizans.”   Tantost j’errois seulet par les forests sauvages Sur les bords enjonchez des peinturez rivages, Tantost par les rochers reculez et deserts, Tantost par les taillis, verte maison des cerfs.   ’aimois le cours suivy d’une longue riviere, Et voir onde sur onde allonger sa carriere, Et flot à l’autre flot en roulant s’attacher, Et pendu sur le bord me plaisoit d’y pescher, Estant plus resjouy d’une chasse muette Troubler des escaillez la demeure secrette, Tirer avecq’ la ligne en tremblant emporté Le credule poisson prins à l’haim apasté, Qu’un grand Prince n’est aise ayant prins à la chasse Un cerf qu’en haletant tout un jour il pourchasse. Heureux, si vous eussiez d’un mutuel esmoy Prins l’apast amoureux aussi bien comme moy, Que tout seul j’avallay, quand par trop desireuse Mon ame en vos yeux beut la poison amoureuse.   Puis alors que Vesper vient embrunir nos yeux, Attaché dans le ciel je contemple les cieux, En qui Dieu nous escrit en notes non obscures Les sorts et les destins de toutes creatures. Car luy, en desdaignant (comme font les humains) D’avoir encre et papier et plume entre les mains, Par les astres du ciel qui sont ses characteres, Les choses nous predit et bonnes et contraires : Mais les hommes chargez de terre et du trespas Mesprisent tel escrit, et ne le lisent pas. Or le plus de mon bien pour decevoir ma peine, C’est de boire à longs traits les eaux de la fontaine Qui de vostre beau nom se brave**, et en courant Par les prez vos honneurs va tousjours murmurant, Et la Royne se dit des eaux de la contree : Tant vault le gentil soin d’une Muse sacree, Qui peult vaincre la mort, et les sorts inconstans, Sinon pour tout jamais, au moins pour un long temps. Là couché dessus l’herbe en mes discours je pense Que pour aimer beaucoup j’ay peu de recompense, Et que mettre son cœur aux Dames si avant, C’est vouloir peindre en l’onde, et arrester le vent : M’asseurant toutefois qu’alors que le vieil âge Aura comme un sorcier changé vostre visage, Et lors que vos cheveux deviendront argentez, Et que vos yeux, d’amour ne seront plus hantez, Que tousjours vous aurez, si quelque soin vous touche, En l’esprit mes escrits, mon nom en vostre bouche.   Maintenant que voicy l’an septiéme venir, Ne pensez plus Helene en vos laqs me tenir. La raison m’en delivre, et vostre rigueur dure, Puis il fault que mon age obeysse à Nature.

Six years have passed, and the seventh year Had returned almost entire to the beginning, When far from affection, desire and love, I spent the whole day in pure liberty And free of all worry which devours the soul I slept from evening to the very moment of dawn, For sole master of myself I wandered at leisure Wherever my feet took me, led by my desire, Having always at hand to act as my guide Aristotle or Plato or learned Euripides, My good mute hosts, who never get annoyed: As [often as] I take them up, just so I put them back. O sweet, useful, honest company! Any other, chattering on, would make my head whirl.   Then, bored of my book, I look at the flowers, Leaves, stems, branches, their kinds and colours, And the intersections of their varying forms Painted a hundred ways, yellow, red, violet, Unable to sate myself – just as in a picture – With admiring Nature and her beauties; And with saying, as I talk to the blooming flowers, “He is almost an all-knowing God, Far from the common horde, far from courtiers, Traders in fraud and impudent malice.”   Now I wandered alone through wild forests, On the flower-strewn borders of painted river-banks, Now by far-off deserted rocks Now by coppices, green houses of the deer.   I liked the course followed by a long river, And seeing wave upon wave lengthening its journey, And one stream attaching itself to another as it rolled on, And draped on the bank I was happy fishing there, Enjoying more the quiet hunt As I disturbed the hidden homes of shellfish, Or drew in trembling with a line the quicksilver Trusting fish, taken with a baited hook, Than might a great prince be pleased having taken in the hunt A stag which he has pursued, panting, all day. Happy you if you had with mutual excitement Swallowed the bait of love as well as I, Whicb I alone swallowed when, all too eagerly, My soul drank in your eyes the poison of love.   Now that Evening has come and darkened our eyes, Fastened in the sky, I contemplate the heavens, In which God writes for us in no osbcure way The fates and destinies of all creatures. For he, unwilling (as men do) To have ink and paper and pen in hand, Through the stars in heaven which are his writing He predicts events for us, both good and bad; But men, laden with earthly matter and with death Mistake these writings, or don’t read them. So the greatest good for me, to deceive my pain, Is to drink long draughts of the waters of the spring Which competes with your fair name , and running Through the meadows flows always murmuring your honours And calls itself the queen of streams in the country: Such is worth the gentle care of a sacred Muse Who can overcome death and inconstant fate If not forever, at least for a long time. There, laid on the grass, as I reason I think That for loving much I have little return, And that putting one’s heart before the ladies so much Is like wanting to paint the sea or stop the wind: Telling myself all the while that once old age Has like a wizard changed your appearance, And when your hair has become silvered, And your eyes are no longer haunted by love, Then still you will have, even if care touches you, My words in your soul, my name in your mouth.   Now that here has come this seventh year, Think not, Helen, to hold me in your snares. Reason has freed me from them – that and your harshness, And then too my age must obey Nature.

 

A few notes. In stanza 1 it is a little odd that Euripides, rather than Aristotle or Plato, is ‘learned’ – for beside the 2 philosophers, he is merely a playwright and poet. But isn’t that Ronsard’s point … ? But also note that Ronsard puts down his classics and enjoys Nature instead: literature has its place, but here we are invited to pretend with Ronsard that this is unadorned naturerather than a literary picture of it.

 

In stanza 3, the word “enjonchez” is a Ronsardian coinage – ‘be-flowered’ might be a more exact transaltion.

 

At ** in stanza 5 Marty-Laveaux prints “se brave” – the waters of the spring ‘challenge’ Helen’s fair name? He might mean that the spring is named after Helen – but I wonder if this could have been instead “s’abreuve”, ‘flow from’ her fair name?

 

And Ronsard ends as I began at the top of this post: farewell to sonnets, hello to nature poetry!

 

 

 

 

 

Helen 2:77

Je chantois ces Sonnets amoureux d’une Helene,

En ce funeste mois que mon Prince mourut :

Son sceptre, tant fust grand, Charles ne secourut,

Qu’il ne payast la debte à la Nature humaine.

 

La Mort fut d’un costé, et l’Amour qui me meine,

Estoit de l’autre part, dont le traict me ferut,

Et si bien la poison par les veines courut,

Que j’oubliay mon maistre, attaint d’une autre peine.

 

Je senty dans le cœur deux diverses douleurs,

La rigueur de ma Dame, et la tristesse enclose

Du Roy, que j’adorois pour ses rares valeurs.

 

La vivante et le mort tout malheur me propose :

L’une aime les regrets, et l’autre aime les pleurs :

Car l’Amour et la Mort n’est qu’une mesme chose.

 

 

 

 

                                                                            I sang these sonnets of love for a Helen

                                                                            In the baleful month when my Prince died:

                                                                            His sceptre [power], though great, did not prevent Charles

                                                                            From paying the debt of human nature.

 

                                                                            Death stood on one side, and Love which has led me

                                                                            Was on the other, whose dart had wounded me;

                                                                            And the poison ran in my veins so well

                                                                            That I forgot my master, struck by other pain.

 

                                                                            I felt in my heart two different sorrows,

                                                                            My Lady’s harshness and the stifling sadness

                                                                            For my King, whom I adored for his rare merits.

 

                                                                            The living lady and the dead man set out for me every misfortune:

                                                                            She offers regrets, he offers tears:

                                                                            For Love and Death are but the same thing.

 

 

 

 

The second of the two closing sonnets of book 2, this one is more successful in integrating the themes of the King’s death and love for Helen, not lesat because it does just that: it integrates them, or aletrnates them throughout, rather than devoting half the poem to each in turn.

 

It again strikes the epic note, opposing Love and Death as great mythic figures, one on each side of the poet competing to cause the greater pain. This time there is no Fate, nothing abstract of that kind: just the two simple but powerful figures – opposites like black and white.

 

And the final tercet brings it all ogether so neatly, so powerfully: magnificent.

 

Would you believe, though, that Ronsard even tinkered with that? Blanchemain offers a small but very significant variant in line 13, so that his version inverts the position of King and lover: in this version,

 

 

L’un aime les regrets, et l’autre aime les pleurs

                                                                            He offers regrets, she offers tears

 

 

It works both ways, of course, the opposition is still there – and we can debate whether tears or regrets for the lost King are more appropriate, whether regrets or tears better suit the un-returned love…

 

There is one other minor change in Blanchemain’s version, back at line 5: it doesn’t really change the meaning, though I have found a different word to reflect Ronsard’s choice of a different word:

 

 

La Mort fut d’une part, et l’Amour …

                                                                            Death was on the one hand, and Love …

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Helen ‘non encor imprimez’ 1

 

Maistresse, embrasse-moy, baise-moy, serre-moy

Haleine contre haleine, échauffe moy la vie,

Mille et mille baizers donne moy je te prie,

Amour veut tout sans nombre, amour n’a point de loy.

 

Baize et rebaize moy; belle bouche pourquoy

Te gardes tu là bas, quand tu seras blesmie,

A baiser (de Pluton ou la femme ou l’amie),

N’ayant plus ny couleur, ny rien semblable à toy?

 

En vivant presse moy de tes levres de roses,

Begaye, en me baisant, à levres demy-closes

Mille mots trançonnez, mourant entre mes bras.

 

Je mourray dans les tiens, puis, toy resuscitee,

Je resusciteray, allons ainsi là bas,

Le jour tant soit il court vaut mieux que la nuitee.

 

 

 

                                                                           Mistress, embrace me, kiss me, hold me

                                                                           Breath against breath, warm up my life,

                                                                           Thousands and thousands of kisses give me, I beg;

                                                                           Love wants them all, numberless kisses: Love has no law.

 

                                                                           Kiss and re-kiss me! Fair mouth, why

                                                                           Are you keeping yourself for kissing down below,

                                                                           When you’ll be pale, the wife or girlfriend of Pluto,

                                                                           No longer having colour or anything else which is like yourself?

 

                                                                           While you’re alive, press on me your rosy lips,

                                                                           Stammer as you kiss me with half-closed lips

                                                                           A thousand chopped-up words, as you die in my arms.

 

                                                                           I shall die in yours, then when you are revived

                                                                           I shall revive. Let’s go together down below:

                                                                           The day, however short it is, is worth more than the night-time.

 

 

 

 

 

Collected together after Ronsard’s death were a number of “Sonnets du feu P. de Ronsard, pour Heleine de Surgeres, non encor imprimez” (‘Sonnets of the late P. de Ronsard for Helen de Surgeres, not printed before’). Blanchemain printed 9, Marty-Laveaux appears to have 15 – though several certainly were ‘encor imprimez’ as they had appeared among the ‘Sonnets for Astrée’!

 

The quality is, as with many of the poems which Ronsard withdrew from his other books of Amours, generally hard to separate from that of the other poems which did get printed! Here, I think he may have kept it back only because the theme is one he had used elsewhere – though (as often) the detail is different: I don’t recall another one in which he marries Helen (or another lover) to Pluto! Another reason might be that the ending has something of the feel of a random collection of thoughts, rather than tying the poem up neatly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Helen 2:68

Ah, belle liberté, qui me servois d’escorte,

Quand le pied me portoit où libre je voulois !

Ah, que je te regrette ! helas, combien de fois

Ay-je rompu le joug, que malgré moy je porte !

 

Puis je l’ay rattaché, estant nay de la sorte,

Que sans aimer je suis et du plomb et du bois,

Quand je suis amoureux j’ay l’esprit et la vois,

L’invention meilleure et la Muse plus forte.

 

Il me faut donc aimer pour avoir bon esprit,

Afin de concevoir des enfans par escrit,

Pour allonger mon nom aux despens de ma peine.

 

Quel sujet plus fertil sçauroy-je mieux choisir

Que le sujet qui fut d’Homere le plaisir,

Ceste toute divine et vertueuse Helene?

 

 

 

 

                                                                            Oh fair liberty, which acted as my escort

                                                                            When my feet would carry me where I wanted to be free!

                                                                            Oh how I regret it, oh the number of times

                                                                            I have broken the yoke which despite myself I bear!

 

                                                                            But then I have put it on again, being born with the fate

                                                                            That, without loving, I am like lead or wood,

                                                                            But when in love I have spirit and voice,

                                                                            Finer invention and a stronger Muse.

 

                                                                            I must, then, love to be in good spirits,

                                                                            To conceive my children in writing,

                                                                            To make my fame greater at the expense of my pain.

 

                                                                            What subject more fertile could I better choose

                                                                            Than the subject which was Homer’s pleasure,

                                                                            The totally divine and virtuous Helen?

 

 

 

What a terrific poem! One of my favourites, I think. If anything could be said to sum up Ronsard’s creed as a poet, this might be it: without the inspiration of love, invention is weak; without the pain of love, he cannot conceive children (poems) – what a great image that is, since real children come from the pain of love (i.e. the resulting childbirth) too…  More than a little disingenuous of course, as Ronsard was perfectly able to write fine poetry about other topics too, and no doubt wrote better about being in love when he wasn’t actually in love: both things he knew well himself.

 

The idea of throwing off the yoke of love – Cassandra, then Marie, and the others – but then voluntarily putting it back on to gain the consequent inspiration is fine too. Even the Homeric reference is sharp and clear, rather than obscure and demanding thought. And the way the poem moves from Liberty at the start of line 1 to Helen at the end of line 14 neatly encapsulates the tension between freedom and invention.

 

Richelet offers two thoughts in his commentary: on line 8 he adds that “Plato in his Banquet [Symposion] says that Love is a very fine poet” (a completely unnecessary classical source for the idea, I think!); and on line 10 he explains that the ‘children’ are “his books, his spiritual offspring”…

 

More interestingly, but a little sadly, Blanchemain offers an entirely different (and in my view inferior) version of the last 4 lines:

 

 

… Prolongeant ma memoire aux despens de ma vie.

 

Je ne veux m’enquerir s’on sent après la mort ;

Je le croy, je perdroy d’escrire toute envie :

Le bon nom qui nous suit est nostre reconfort.

 

                                                                            Prolonging memory of me at the expense of my life.

 

                                                                            I do not want to enquire if we feel after our death;

                                                                            I believe it, I shall lose all desire to write:

                                                                            The good name which follows us is our comfort.

 

 

Sadly, after the neat ‘paragraph’ about Homer and Helen, this reads a bit like a miscellany of proverbial thoughts – several disconnected musings, rather than a substantive conclusion to the poem with that link back to the beginning.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Helen 2:6

Anagramme

 

Tu es seule mon cœur, mon sang et ma Deesse,

Ton œil est le filé et le RÉ bien-heureux,

Qui prend quand il luy plaist les hommes genereux,

Et se prendre des sots jamais il ne se laisse. 

 

Aussi honneur vertu prevoyance et sagesse,

Logent en ton esprit, lequel rend amoureux

Tous ceux qui de nature ont un cœur desireux

D’honorer les beautez d’une docte Maistresse. 

 

Les noms ont efficace et puissance et vertu;

Je le voy par le tien lequel m’a combatu

Et l’esprit et le corps par armes non legeres. 

 

Son destin m’a causé mon amoureux souci.

Voila comme de nom d’effect tu es aussi

LE RÉ DES GENEREUX, Elene de Surgeres.

 

 

                                                                            Anagram

 

                                                                            You alone are my heart, my blood, my goddess;

                                                                            Your eye is the happy line and net

                                                                            Which catches noble men whenever it wants

                                                                            And never allows itself to be caught by fools.

 

                                                                            Honour too, and virtue, foresight and wisdom

                                                                            Live within your soul, which makes all those

                                                                            Fall in love who naturally have a heart eager

                                                                            To honour the beauties of a learned mistress.

 

                                                                            Names have effect and power and magic;

                                                                            I see this through yours, which has overcome

                                                                            Me, body and soul, with its substantial weapons.

 

                                                                            It was the fate which caused my wound of love.

                                                                            So too by effectual name you are

                                                                            THE NET OF NOBLE SOULS, Elene de Surgeres.

 

 

A neat anagram.  Both Marty-Laveaux and Blanchemain print LE RÉ DES GENEREUX, but actually it needs to be LE RÉ DES GENEREUS (a common plural form in Ronsard anyway) for the anagram to work!

 

Elsewhere Blanchemain’s version diverges from Marty-Laveaux’s, with changes at the start of each ‘stanza’ but the first:

 

 

Tu es seule mon cœur, mon sang et ma deesse,

Ton œil est le filé et le ré bien-heureux

Qui prend, quand il lui plaist, les hommes genereux,

Et se prendre des sots jamais il ne se laisse. 

 

L’honneur, la chasteté, la vertu, la sagesse,

Logent en ton esprit, lequel rend amoureux

Tous ceux qui de nature ont un cœur desireux

D’honorer les beautez d’une docte maistresse. 

 

Les noms (a dit Platon) ont très grande vertu ;

Je le voy par le tien, lequel m’a combatu,

Et l’esprit et le corps par armes non legeres. 

 

Sa deïté causa mon amoureux soucy.

Voila comme de nom, d’effect tu es aussi

LE RÉ DES GENEREUX, Elene de Surgeres.

 

 

 

                                                                           You alone are my heart, my blood, my goddess;

                                                                           Your eye is the happy line and net

                                                                           Which catches noble men whenever it wants

                                                                           And never allows itself to be caught by fools.

 

                                                                           Honour, chastity, virtue, wisdom

                                                                           Live within your soul, which makes all those

                                                                           Fall in love who naturally have a heart eager

                                                                           To honour the beauties of a learned mistress.

 

                                                                           Names (said Plato) have very great magic;

                                                                           I see this through yours, which has overcome

                                                                           Me, body and soul, with its substantial weapons.

 

                                                                           It was the deity which caused my wound of love.

                                                                           So too by effectual name you are

                                                                           THE NET OF NOBLE SOULS, Elene de Surgeres.

 

 

 

Blanchemain also offers a second variant of line 12 (the opening of the final tercet): “Sa force à moy fatale a causé mon soucy” (‘Its power, fatal to me, caused my wound’).

 

 

 

 

 

Sonnet 52

Dessus l’autel d’Amour planté sur vostre table
Me fistes un serment, je vous le fis aussi,
Que d’un cœur mutuel à s’aimer endurcy
Nostre amitié promise iroit inviolable.

Je vous juray ma foy, vous feistes le semblable,
Mais vostre cruauté, qui des Dieux n’a soucy,
Me promettoit de bouche, et me trompoit ainsi :
Ce-pendant vostre esprit demeuroit immuable.

O jurement fardé sous l’espece d’un Bien !
O perjurable autel ! ta Deité n’est rien.
O parole d’amour non jamais asseuree !

J’ay pratiqué par vous le proverbe des vieux :
Jamais des amoureux la parole juree
N’entra (pour les punir) aux oreilles des Dieux.

 

 

 

 

                                                                              Upon the altar of Love, stood on your table,

                                                                              You made me a vow and I made you one too,

                                                                              That with mutual hearts, strengthened to love one another,

                                                                              Our promised love would be inviolable.

 

                                                                              I swore you my oath, you swore the same,

                                                                              But your cruelty which cares not for the gods

                                                                              Made me the promise with your mouth only, and so deceived me;

                                                                              Your spirit yet remains unchangeable.

 

                                                                              O prison-sentence disguised beneath the appearance of Good!

                                                                              O betraying altar! your divinity is nothing.

                                                                              O word of love, never certain!

 

                                                                              I have experienced through you the proverb of the ancients:

                                                                              Never shall the sworn word of lovers

                                                                              Reach (as their punishment) the ears of the gods.

  

 

 

The earlier Blanchemain version has a minor variant of line 2: “Vous me fistes serment, et je le fis aussi” (‘You made me a vow, and I made it too’). 

 

Richelet offers an explanatory footnote:  ‘Helene and [Ronsard] had made an oath to love one another with inviolable love. [Claude] Binet told me that this oath was sworn on a table carpeted in laurels, symbol of eternity, to mark the mutual linkage of their love proceeding from Virtue, which is immortal.‘ 

 

This of course contradicts my view that Ronsard’s love for Helene was essentially platonic and poetic!  I might hide behind a defence that Binet is merely reporting what Ronsard imagined as a background for his poem.  But I suspect you will find that that is stretching my disbelief a little too far…… 🙂

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sonnet 51

Amour a tellement ses fleches enfermees
En mon ame, et ses coups y sont si bien enclos,
Qu’Helene est tout mon cœur, mon sang et mes propos,
Tant j’ay dedans l’esprit ses beautés imprimees.

 

Si les François avoient les ames allumees

D’amour ainsi que moy nous serions en repos :

Les champs de Montcontour n’eussent pourry nos os,

Ny Dreux ny Jazeneuf n’eussent veu nos armees.

 

Venus, va mignarder les moustaches de Mars :

Conjure ton guerrier de tes benins regars,

Qu’il nous donne la paix, et de tes bras l’enserre.

 

Pren pitié des François, race de tes Troyens,

A fin que nous facions en paix la mesme guerre

Qu’Anchise te faisoit sur les monts Ideens.

 

 

 

                                                                              Love has so firmly buried his arrows

                                                                              In my soul, and his blows are so well fixed there

                                                                              That Helen is all my heart, my blood and my thoughts,

                                                                              So much are her beauties imprinted in my spirit.

 

                                                                              If the French had souls burning

                                                                              With love like mine, we would be at peace;

                                                                              The battlefield of Montcontour would not be rotting our bones,

                                                                              Nor would Dreux and Jazeneuf have seen our armies.

 

                                                                              Venus, go and pet Mars’s moustaches,

                                                                              Beg your warrior with your pleasing glances

                                                                              That he might give us peace; hold him tightly in your arms.

 

                                                                              Take pity on the French, descended from your Trojans,

                                                                              That we might make in peace that same war

                                                                              Which Anchises made on you, on the Idaean mountains.

  

 

Richelet helpfully adds a footnote that lines 7-8 refer to ‘places in France marked by the misery of our civil wars‘. There were only 7 major battles in the Wars of Religion. The Battle of Moncontour (in Poitou) was the penultimate and took place on 3 October 1569 – largely between foreign merecenary forces! – with the surrender of 8000 Huguenots; Dreux (near Ronsard’s beloved Loir) was the site of the first major battle of the Wars of Religion on 19 December 1562, which brought the Catholics another hard-won victory; and Jazeneuf (or Jazeneuil) was the third, in late 1568, a relatively minor and even skirmish though it was followed by heavy casualties as the armies over-wintered close to each other.

 

Venus is called on, as Mars’s wife, to calm his desire for war. Venus favoured the Trojans in the Trojan War, and was particularly associated (for instance in Virgil’s Aeneid) with the family of Aeneas, her half-divine son by Anchises.

 

Blanchemain has only one minor variant:  “à repos” for “en repos” in line 6, which has only a slight inflexional difference in meaning.

 

 

 

 

 

Sonnet 26

 

Je fuy les pas frayez du meschant populaire,
Et les villes où sont les peuples amassez :
Les rochers, les forests desja sçavent assez
Quelle trampe a ma vie estrange et solitaire.

Si ne suis-je si seul, qu’Amour mon secretaire
N’accompagne mes pieds debiles et cassez :
Qu’il ne conte mes maux et presens et passez
A ceste voix sans corps, qui rien ne sçauroit taire.

Souvent plein de discours, pour flatter mon esmoy,
Je m’arreste, et je dy, Se pourroit-il bien faire
Qu’elle pensast, parlast, ou se souvint de moy ?

Qu’à sa pitié mon mal commençast à desplaire ?
Encor que je me trompe, abusé du contraire,
Pour me faire plaisir, Helene, je le croy.

 

 

 

 

                                                                                I avoid the paths well-trodden by the wicked generality

                                                                                And towns where peoples are gathered;

                                                                                The rocks and forests already know well enough

                                                                                The route of my strange and solitary life.

 

                                                                                Would I were not so alone, that Love my secretary

                                                                                Did not accompany my weak and broken steps,

                                                                                That he did not count my ills, present and past,

                                                                                In that disembodied voice which none can silence.

 

                                                                                Often fed up with the debate, to calm my agitation,

                                                                                I stop myself and say: “Could it really be

                                                                                That she thinks, speaks or remembers me?

 

                                                                                That my ills begin to be displeasing to her pity?”

                                                                                And so again I fool myself, deceived by the opposite –

                                                                                But to give myself happiness, Hélène, I believe it.

 

 

 

One of Ronsard’s better-known poems, and rightly so.  And little varied: Blanchemain’s text is identical.  He does however footnote a different version of the first line:  “Je fuy les grands chemins frayez du populaire” (‘I avoid the big roads well-trodden by the generality’) which to me seems a better line than the ‘official’ one, where the alliterative ‘f’s cluster in the first half of the line and disrupt the flow, rather than tying the two halves of the line together. But I am clearly in a minority here!! 🙂