Amours retranchées 5

De toy, Paschal, il me plaist que j’escrive

Qui de bien loin le peuple abandonnant,

Vas des Romains les tresors moissonnant,

Le long des bors où la Garonne arrive.

 

Haut d’une langue éternellement vive,

Son cher Paschal Tholose aille sonnant,

Paschal, Paschal, Garonne resonnant,

Rien que Paschal ne responde sa rive.

 

Si ton Durban, l’honneur de nostre temps,

Lit quelquefois ces vers par passe-temps,

Di-luy, Paschal (ainsi l’aspre secousse

 

Qui m’a fait cheoir, ne te puisse émouvoir)

Ce pauvre Amant estoit digne d’avoir

Une Maistresse, ou moins belle, ou plus douce.

 

 

 

 

                                                                            Of you, Paschal, it pleases me to write

                                                                            You who far off, abandoning the common throng,

                                                                            Go harvesting the treasures of the Romans

                                                                            Along the banks where the Garonne runs.

 

                                                                            Loudly in a language eternally alive

                                                                            Toulouse goes on praising its dear Paschal;

                                                                            The Garonne replying ‘Paschal, Paschal’,

                                                                            Its banks echoing nothing but Paschal.

 

                                                                            If your Durban, the pride of our times,

                                                                            Sometimes reads these verses at leisure,

                                                                            Tell him, Paschal (for the harsh shock

 

                                                                            Which has made me fall cannot thus move you)

                                                                            That this poor lover was worthy of having

                                                                            A mistress either less beautiful or more gentle.

 

 

 

 

 

We’ve met Paschal before and seen how Ronsard became less enchanted with him too. It’s not surprising that this sonnet ended up being withdrawn when that happened, naming him 6 times as it does! (And that’s even more obvious if you typeset the name in capitals each time, as is done by Marty-Laveaux, following some of the early sixteenth-century editions… But the story of how Paschal rose and fell is interesting, not principally to see Ronsard being duped by someone who didn’t have the same talent as he did, but rather for showing how it could have happened. It’s all about what was important at the time, and how values have changed; what is valued now, is not what was valued then.

 

But first the contemporary notes  on the sonnet written by Muret:

 

Line 1: ‘He addresses this sonnet to Pierre Paschal, a gentleman native to Languedoc, a man who, beyond an understanding of the sciences worthy of a fine mind (in which he has few equals) is endowed with such eloquence in Latin that even the Venetian Senate was astonished several times by it.’

 

Line 3: commenting on an earlier version of this line, which begins “Vas du Arpin…” (‘Go harvesting the treasures of the man from Arpinum’ – Cicero’s birthplace), Muret paraphrases “Go carefully gleaning the riches of Ciceronian eloquence”, and adds ‘he says that, because Paschal is one of those best-versed in Cicero who are alive today’

 

Line 4: ‘River which passes through Toulouse, where Paschal has his residence’

 

Line 9: ‘Michel-Pierre de Mauléon, protonotary of Durban, councillor in the Toulouse parliament, a very excellent fellow. Between him and Paschal is so great a friendship that effaces all those which are recommended by ancient authors.’  

 

 

So, now to the story of Paschal’s rise and fall.

 

It’s easy to forget – in an age when the ‘vulgar tongue’ has triumphed – that the Renaissance was not the re-birth of art, or of vernacular poetry, but pre-eminently was the re-birth of classical Latin & Greek literary style. All (or almost all) languages have a day-to-day form, and a higher style used in poetry and literature; and sometimes the gap between them is bigger, sometimes smaller. During the centuries since the fall of Rome, when Latin had remained the language of the church and of communication, the gap had become quite small – as it is today in English. But in the 1300s and 1400s, Italians rediscovered what the Golden Latin (& Silver Latin) poets and writers had done, and realised that the literary style could be much more refined than it was. And it was Latin, in particular, where their efforts were focused. Languages like French and Italian were, literally, secondary – and scholars even doubted whether anything good could be written in them. Ronsard and his peers were taking a risk by ‘renewing’ the French language as a language capable of birthing poetry of a quality comparable with the Greek and Roman ‘classics’.

 

Petrarch in Italy, and now Ronsard in France, were determined to show that the local language could be used as stylishly as Latin; but they lived within a humanist world which still valued Latin higher. When you see one or more dedicatory poems in Latin at the beginning of one of Ronsard’s collections, it’s not an affectation: it is a statement that what follows is literature worthy of the name, and the Latin is there to prove it.

 

It’s also important to realise that good style was valued enormously highly. In Florence, in the 1400s, reputations were made and lost on the turn of a (Latin) phrase. So Paschal’s Italian training in good classical Roman style was a strong weapon in his armoury. It’s worth noting that Paschal had published only the short book in 1548 (beautifully presented, of course – see it online here) containing his prosecution speech at a murder trial in Venice, and some Latin letters describing his Italian impressions, which would be his calling-card on being introduced to the poets; indeed, he would publish little else. That his reputation, on this basis, should equal Ronsard’s, looks crazy to us at this distance, but gives some idea of the importance the Renaissance attached to style rather than substance: what mattered was writing well, not necessarily the originality or substantive content of what you wrote. And Paschal did, indeed, write Latin well.

 

Paschal’s career was traced at length by Pierre de Nolhac a century back – well worth a read. His rise really begins when he came back from Italy in 1553, fluent in the ‘Ciceronian’ style of oratorical Latin which was favoured by the Italian stylists, and was introduced to some of the Pleiade poets: Ronsard, along with Olivier de Magny, was his first and strongest supporter. For what it’s worth, Baif’s first published piece of poetry was a dedicatory sonnet in another little booklet publishing a French translation of that Venetian speech of Paschal’s.

 

The promise of writing eulogies of France’s greatest poets in Latin had a strong appeal to all of them, even though they were wedded to the renewal of the French language, for they ‘knew’ instinctively that histories and eulogies written in Latin were longer-lasting and more significant than the equivalent in French. Publication in Latin would ensure that their reputation was Europe-wide, for a Latin eulogy would reach educated people across the whole of Europe. And Henri II ‘knew’ that it was more important that the history of his reign was undertaken by someone who could write high-quality Latin, than by someone who could handle sources etc with a historian’s insight.

 

Which is why Paschal rose so quickly to the position of Historiographer of France, in 1554. He was – or presented himself as – the pre-eminent Italian-trained Ciceronian writer in France. Not until Muret went to Rome would he have a direct rival. But his fine Latin did not make him a good historian. Although Ronsard and others ridiculed him for not having managed to write any of his history, three volumes of drafts survive in manuscript, and show that he was good at writing speeches etc, but not at military history or the undercurrents of politics. So his history skimped on what we think of as ‘history’, and majored on long speeches and extended praises of the main characters. And when Henri II died in 1559, he fell from favour and was replaced, returned to the south, and died soon afterwards (in 1565, aged only 45) leaving his history unfinished.

 

By 1554, then, Paschal was an important personage, and with the prospect of being immortalised in Latin, it was important that the poets continued to praise him. As late as 1558 Bellay placed him alongside Ronsard, he the master of prose, Ronsard the master of poetry; and in the mid-1550s Ronsard amended one of his 1550 odes so that it now said ‘Paschal will at some point make me immortal by his eloquence … It’s you who will make me eternal!’. To us, both the statement, and the breath-taking sycophantism of it, look unbelievable. And indeed back in 1555 Etienne Pasquier had already warned Ronsard that he was over-estimating and over-praising Paschal. (Further south, in Paschal’s home, people were less convinced by him: as early as 1551 a humanist poet and professor of law, Etienne Forcadel, had written: ‘Hear what his gilded eloquence actually says: that speech, however sweet, is empty’. So Ronsard’s line 5, about Toulouse praising Paschal, is not entirely true!)

 

(Incidentally, Paschal’s dear friend Durban was, as Muret’s note explains, a member of the Mauléon family. Paschal’s printed speech from Venice was as prosecutor in a trial for the murder of a Mauléon; though it’s not clear if the family chose him for his known eloquence in Ciceronian-style prosecutions, or because of some prior connection in Toulouse. Ronsard, in his 1559 invective, later reproached Durban for having ‘imposed’ the mediocre Paschal on him and for over-praising him among the poets. In fact, of course, Ronsard did quite a lot of that himself!)

 

Ronsard was not alone in preparing biographical material in French which Paschal could convert into a more significant publication, in Latin. But Paschal failed to deliver on his ‘hall of fame’ – though there is evidence that, again, he made some progress towards it: interestingly, there is a piece on Mellin de Saint-Gelais which survives – so perhaps his popularity with Ronsard’s set was affected by his taking a different view of just who was important to mention in this ‘hall of fame’!

 

But then the Pleiade poets began to see through the ‘emperor’s clothes’ and realise that his talents were, in fact, limited. It is interesting that this happened in 1559, when the King his supporter died and he did not gain the new King’s support. Could Ronsard and his friends have been playing safe up to that point? But when the gloves came off they really did get vituperative. Adrien Tournebu published a vicious Latin satire, and Baif published a French translation; Ronsard wrote, but only circulated in manuscript, a vicious anti-eulogy of him – in Latin. In Latin, because that was Paschal’s home turf, and because it carried more weight. Incidentally, although Ronsard’s Latin is fine and even stylish, it’s not in the same league as Paschal’s. Each had their specialism, and each was excellent within it. Is it coincidental that Ronsard also prepared a first collected edition of his works very shortly afterwards in 1560, and removed Paschal’s name from all the poems and dedications he had given him? (He wanted to re-dedicate his Hymne de la Mort to Bellay – but Bellay refused ‘someone else’s leftovers’.)

 

It was about the same time that Ronsard wrote, in his Elegie to Jérôme L’Huillier, of the way others, more adept than him but less deserving, won honours from kings while he struggled to make ends meet.

 

As usual though, Ronsard’s anger was short-lived. His poem beginning “Je meurs Paschal” dates from about 1564, when Paschal had retired to the south; and Ronsard also mentioned him favourably in some of his anti-Calvinist poetry. By this time, though, Paschal was dead, so Ronsard’s cooling anger may have had as much to do with that early death and the sadness of potential unfulfilled, as with any genuine reconciliation.

 

A minor detail of Ronsard history to close: in 1554 it was Paschal who, in Toulouse, persuaded the jury of the ‘Jeux Floraux’ to award the prize to Ronsard, and it was Paschal who accepted the award on his behalf. The silver flower never reached Ronsard, but the next year the committee had a silver statuette of Minerva made instead and sent that. Ronsard presented it to the King!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Odes 1:2

I mentioned this poem and its focus on “the King first, last and in the  middle” …

AU ROY HENRY II DE CE NOM   Strophe I   Comme un qui prend une coupe, Seul honneur de son tresor, Et de rang verse à la troupe, Du vin qui rit dedans l’or : Ainsi, versant la rosée Dont ma langue est arrousée Sus la race des Valois, En son doux nectar j’abbreuve, Le plus grand roy qui se treuve Soit en armes ou en lois.   Antistrophe I   Heureux l’honneur que j’embrasse, Heureux qui se peut vanter De voir la thebaine grace Qui sa vertu veut chanter. Je vien chanter la tienne Sur la corde dorienne, Et pour estre désormais Celui qui de tes victoires Ne souffrira que les gloires En l’oubly tombent jamais.   Epode I   De ce beau trait decoché, Dy, Muse mon esperance, Quel prince sera touché Le tirant parmy la France ? Sera-ce pas nostre Roy, De qui la divine aureille Boira la douce merveille Qui n’obeit qu’à ma loy ?   Strophe II   De Jupiter les antiques Leurs escrits embellissoient, Par luy leurs chants poëtiques Commençoient et finissoient, Réjouy d’entendre bruire Ses louanges sur la lyre ; Mais Henry sera le Dieu Qui commencera mon metre, Et que seul j’ay voué mettre A la fin et au milieu.   Antistrophe II   Le ciel, qui ses lampes darde Sur ce tout qu’il apperçoit, Rien de si grand ne regarde Qui vassal des roys ne soit. D’armes le monde ils estonnent, Sur le chef de ceux ils tonnent Qui les viennent despiter ; Leurs mains toute chose attaignent, Et les plus rebelles craignent Les Roys fils de Jupiter.   Epode II   Mais du nostre la grandeur Les autres d’autant surpasse Que d’un rocher la hauteur Les flancs d’une rive basse. Puisse-t-il par l’univers Devant ses ennemis croistre, Et pour ma guide apparoistre Tousjours au front de mes vers !

Strophe 1   As one who takes a cup Sole pride of his treasure And in turn pours out for his followers Wine which laughs within the gold; So, pouring out the dew With which my tongue is bedewed Upon the race of Valois, In its sweet nectar I salute The greatest king there is, Both in war and in lawgiving.   Antistrophe I   Happy the honour I embrace, Happy he who can boast Of seeing the grace of Thebes, Who can sing of its virtue. I come to sing your own On the Dorian string, And to be henceforth He who will not allow The glory of your victories To fall ever into oblivion.   Epode I   By this fair arrow shot, Say Muse, my hope, Which prince will be hit As I aim throughout France? Won’t it be our King, Whose god-like ear Shall drink in this sweet marvel Which obeys only my law?   Strophe II   With Jupiter the ancients Embellished their writings, With him their poetic songs Began and finished, Overjoyed to hear sounded His praises on the lyre; But Henry shall be the god for us Who shall be the beginning of my poems, And whom alone I have vowed to place At the end and in the middle.   Antistrophe II   Heaven, which darts its light Upon this cosmos which it sees, Considers none so grand Who is not vassal of kings. With arms they amaze the world, They thunder on the head of those Who come to vex them; Their hands attain all things, And the most rebellious fear Kings, the sons of Jupiter.   Epode II   But the grandeur of our own [King] As far surpasses the others As the height of a rock [Overtops] the banks of a deep river. May he increase throughout the world Before his enemies And appear as my guide Always at the fore of my verse!

 

 

This poem has turned up in the musical settings: it seems to have been a popular text, perhaps as much because of its connections with drinking as for its praise of the Valois kings. Blanchemain notes that it is “a direct imitation of Pindar’s 7th Olympic ode”: this begins

 

As when someone takes a goblet, all golden, the most prized of his possessions, foaming with the dew of the vine from a generous hand, and makes a gift of it to his young son-in-law, welcoming him with a toast from one home to another …

 

After this point, as you might gather, Ronsard and Pindar diverge more and more.

 

In the first antistrophe, the ‘grace of Thebes’ (that is, he who graces Thebes) is Orpheus; the ‘Dorian string’ simply a reference to Greek music, though note that there was a ‘Dorian’ mode still in musical discourse.

 

In line 2 of the second antistrophe, I’ve translated “ce tout” (‘this whole’ ) as ‘cosmos’ – the ‘whole’ being the universe; that of course also means ‘everything’, though the Greek Greek ‘cosmos’ (that which is organised) has a similar meaning and, like Ronsard’s ‘whole’, is a less obvious word.

 

 

 

 

Amours 1.229

J‘alloy roulant ces larmes de mes yeux,

Or’ plein de doute ore plein d’esperance,

Lors que Henry loing des bornes de France

Vengeoit l’honneur de ses premiers ayeux :

 

Lors qu’il trenchoit d’un bras victorieux

Au bord du Rhin l’Espagnole vaillance,

Ja se traçant de l’aigu de sa lance

Un beau sentier pour s’en aller aux cieux.

 

Vous sainct troupeau, mon soustien et ma gloire,

Dont le beau vol m’a l’esprit enlevé,

Si autrefois m’avez permis de boire

 

Les eaux qui ont Hesiode abreuvé,

Soit pour jamais ce souspir engravé

Au plus sainct lieu du temple de Memoire.

 

 

 

 

                                                                            I have been continually pouring these tears from my eyes,

                                                                            Now full of doubt, now of hope,

                                                                            While Henri, far from the bounds of France,

                                                                            Has avenged the honour of his first ancestors ;

 

                                                                            While he has broken with his victorious arm

                                                                            Spain’s valour, on the banks of the Rhine,

                                                                            Marking out with the point of his lance

                                                                            A fair path to raise himself to the heavens.

 

                                                                            Oh holy troop, my support and my glory,

                                                                            Whose lovely flight has lifted my spirits,

                                                                            If previously you have allowed me to drink

 

                                                                            The waters which generously you gave Hesiod,

                                                                            May this my plaint be for ever engraved

                                                                            In the holiest place in Memory’s temple. 

 

 

Simplicity, as Ronsard closes his first book of sonnets. And also a glance at the ‘real world’ around him: for this was not a time of peace and love in European politics! The Italian wars were a major feature of Henri II’s reign, all the way through the 1550s, and early victories led ultimately to the embarrassing Treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis… The Spanish on the Rhine are, incidentally, the Habsburgs – for that family controlled Austro-Germanic Europe as well as Iberian Europe.

 

So, Ronsard acknowledges that love poetry may not seem the right thing at this time, while gently swinging the balance back towards the pre-eminence of poetry at the end. (Hesiod claimed inspiration from drinking at the fountain of the ‘holy troop’ of Muses on Mt Helicon.)

 

Blanchemain’s version shows considerable variation in the sestet: the opening octet was not changed.

 

 

Vous sainct troupeau qui desus Pinde errez,

Et qui de grâce ouvrez et desserrez

Vos doctes eaux à ceux qui les vont boire

 

Si quelquefois vous m’avez abreuvé,

Soit pour jamais ce souspir engravé

Au plus sainct lieu du temple de Memoire

 

 

                                                                                        Oh holy troop who wander upon Pindus

                                                                                       And who by grace open and release

                                                                                       Your learned waters to those who come to drink them,

 

                                                                                       If sometimes you have given me to drink

                                                                                       May this my plaint be for ever engraved

                                                                                       In the holiest place in Memory’s temple.

 

 

 

  Note how in this earlier version Ronsard does not refer back to Hesiod, but simply offers his own name as proof enough of the Muses’ generosity! There remains one other variant of the later version at the top of the page: in line 12, where yet another great poet enters: “L’eau dont amour a Petrarque abreuvé…” (‘The waters which love generously gave to Petrarch…’)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Élégie à Cassandre (Am. 1.227b)

 

Mon œil, mon cœur, ma Cassandre, ma vie, Hé! qu’à bon droit tu dois porter d’envie A ce grand Roy, qui ne veut plus souffrir Qu’à mes chansons ton nom se vienne offrir. C’est luy qui veut qu’en trompette j’echange Mon luth, afin d’entonner sa louange, Non de luy seul mais de tous ses ayeux Qui sont là hault assis au rang des Dieux.   Je le feray puis qu’il me le commande : Car d’un tel Roy la puissance est si grande, Que tant s’en faut qu’on la puisse eviter, Qu’un camp armé n’y pourroit resister.   Mais que me sert d’avoir tant leu Tibulle, Properce, Ovide, et le docte Catulle, Avoir tant veu Petrarque et tant noté, Si par un Roy le pouvoir m’est oté De les ensuyvre, et s’il faut que ma Iyre Pendue au croc ne m’ose plus rien dire ?   Doncques en vain je me paissois d’espoir De faire un jour à la Tuscane voir, Que nostre France, autant qu’elle, est heureuse A souspirer une pleinte amoureuse : Et pour monstrer qu’on la peut surpasser, J’avois desja commencé de trasser Mainte Elegie à la façon antique, Mainte belle Ode, et mainte Bucolique.   Car, à vray dire, encore mon esprit N’est satisfait de ceux qui ont escrit En nostre langue, et leur amour merite Ou du tout rien, ou faveur bien petite.   Non que je sois vanteur si glorieux D’oser passer les vers laborieux De tant d’amans qui se pleignent en France : Mais pour le moins j’avoy bien esperance, Que si mes vers ne marchoient les premiers, Qu’ils ne seroient sans honneur les derniers. Car Eraton qui les amours descœuvre, D’assez bon œil m’attiroit à son œuvre.   L’un trop enflé les chante grossement, L’un enervé les traine bassement, L’un nous depeint une Dame paillarde, L’un plus aux vers qu’aux sentences regarde, Et ne peut onq tant se sceut desguiser, Apprendre l’art de bien Petrarquiser.   Que pleures-tu, Cassandre, ma douce ame ? Encor Amour ne veut couper la trame Qu’en ta faveur je pendis au métier, Sans achever l’ouvrage tout entier.   Mon Roy n’a pas d’une beste sauvage Succé le laict, et son jeune courage, Ou je me trompe, a senti quelquefois Le trait d’Amour qui surmonte les Rois.   S’il l’a senti, ma coulpe est effacee, Et sa grandeur ne sera corroucee Qu’à mon retour des horribles combas, Hors de son croc mon Luth j’aveigne à-bas, Le pincetant, et qu’en lieu des alarmes Je chante Amour, tes beautez et mes larmes. « Car l’arc tendu trop violentement, « Ou s’alentit, ou se rompt vistement.   Ainsi Achille apres avoir par terre Tant fait mourir de soudars en la guerre, Son Luth doré prenoit entre ses mains Teintes encor de meurdres inhumains, Et vis à vis du fils de Menetie, Chantoit l’amour de Brisëis s’amie : Puis tout soudain les armes reprenoit, Et plus vaillant au combat retoumoit.   Ainsi, apres que l’ayeul de mon maistre Hors des combats retirera sa dextre, Se desarmant dedans sa tente à part, Dessus le Luth à l’heure ton Ronsard Te chantera : car il ne se peut faire Qu’autre beauté luy puisse jamais plaire, Ou soit qu’il vive, ou soit qu’outre le port, Leger fardeau, Charon le passe mort.

My eyes, my heart, my Cassandre, my life, Oh, how rightly you must be envious Of that great King who no longer wishes to suffer Your name to put itself forward in my songs. It is he who wishes that I should change my lute For a trumpet, to sing out his praises, And not only his own but those of his ancestors Who are seated above in the ranks of the gods.   I shall do it, as he commands it : For the power of such a King is so great That it is as hard to keep out of its way As for an armed force to resist it.   What use for me to have read so much of Tibullus, Propertius, Ovid, and the learned Catullus ; To have looked over and noted so much of Petrarch, If by a King the power is taken from me Of following them, and if my lyre must Hang from a hook and dare no longer speak ?   I have therefore vainly fed the hope Of one day seeing Tuscany, When our France, as much as it, is happy To sigh a lover’s plaint ; And, to show [Italy] can be surpassed I had already begun to set down Many an Elegy in the antique fashion, Many a fine Ode, many a Pastoral.   For to speak the truth, my soul is still Not satisfied with those who have written In our language, and their love deserves Either nothing at all, or very little favour.   Not that I am so vainglorious a boaster As to venture to surpass the laborious poetry Of so many lovers who have made their plaints in France ; But at least I have a fair hope That, even if my verse does not go first, It will not be dishonourably last. For Erato, who discloses love-affairs, Drew me with a clear eye to her work.   One puffed-up poet sings grossly of love, Another nervous one drags on in too mean a style ; One depicts a Lady who is lewd, Another takes more care over his verse than his meaning And can never, however he tries to conceal it, Learn the art of Petrarch-ising well.   Why do you weep, Cassandre, my sweet soul ? Love does not yet seek to cut off the warp and weft Which I have hung on my loom for you, Without completing the whole of my work.   My King has not sucked the milk of some Savage beast, and his youthful courage too, Unless I am mistaken, has sometimes felt The wound of Love which can overcome Kings.   If he has felt it, my [ error ] is erased And his greatness will not be angered If, on my return from terrible battles, I take my lute down from its hook And pluck it, and instead of loud war I sing of Love, your beauty, and my tears. « For the bow which is drawn too tightly Either weakens [slows] or quickly breaks. »   Just so Achilles, after having across the world Put so many soldiers to death in war, Took his golden lute in his hands – Still stained with inhuman massacres – And sitting opposite the son of Menetius Sang of his love for Briseis, his beloved ; Then as suddenly took up arms again And returned, more courageous, to battle.   And so, after my master’s ancestor Withdraws his hand from battle, Disarming himself within his tent away from the field, Upon his lute just then your Ronsard will sing To you ; for it cannot be That another beauty could ever please him While he is alive or when, beyond this harbour, Charon carries his light burden, dead.

 

 

The conclusion of the first book of Amours brings with it some weightier material to give it a firm feeling of ending – rather like Beethoven’s 5th, which iterates and reiterates the thumping C-major chords to emphasise that this really is the end of the piece, Ronsard feels (rightly) that he cannot simply end the long run of sonnets without something more definitely marking a conclusion. Perhaps there is, nonetheless, a sense of loss as Ronsard explains how he must stop writing love poetry to focus, by royal command, on his epic Franciad.

 

The Elegy to Cassandre is an elegy in the classical sense – a description of its form, rather than its mood (as we use it today to mean ‘something noble but sad, in remembrance’). Accordingly, it is full of classical (and neo-classical) references:

 – Tibullus, Propertius, Ovid, and Catullus are all Latin love-poets; and we might detect a glancing reference to one of Horace’s odes in the lines about ‘hanging his lyre on a hook’;

 – Petrarch is of course the shining example of (relatively) modern love-poetry, Tuscany his home;

 – Erato is the muse of lyric poetry;

 – in the Iliad Achilles sings of the slave-girl Briseis whom he loves (and who plays a pivotal role in the development of the action); his other (male) love is Patroclus, the son of Menoetius;

 – Charon is of course the boatman who ferries the dead across the river Styx.

 

Muret suggests that, in the last ‘stanza’, Ronsard is using the word “ayeul” (ancestor, grandfather) to refer to Francus, the mythical ancestor of the kings of France – and thus to the Franciad, the commission for which has drawn Ronsard forcibly away from writing love-poems.  (The ‘great king’ at the time of the publication of the Amours in the 1550s was Henri II; his direct ancestors were noble rather than royal, his father having come to the throne by virtue of his marriage to Louis XII’s daughter.)

 

 

The earlier Blanchemain version has only minor differences:

 – in stanza 3, the list of Roman poets is “Tibulle, / Gallus, Ovide, et Properce et Catulle,” – Cornelius Gallus was a lyric poet contemporary with the others;

 – in stanza 5, the line is “En nostre langue, et leur Muse merite” (‘and their Muse deserves’ instead of ‘their love’);

– towards the end, “Mon Roy n’a pas d’une tigre sauvage …” (a savage tiger’s milk rather than a savage beast’s).

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sonnets diverses 1 – to King Henri II

Au Roy Henry II de ce nom    (To King Henry, second of that name)

 

Je vous donne le Ciel pour vos estrenes, SIRE.

Je ferois à la France, et à vous un grand tort,

A vous, sain et dispos, jeune, gaillard et fort ;

A la France qui seul pour son Roy vous desire ;

 

De vous donner la Mer : que vous vaudroit l’Empire

Des vagues et des vents ? De vous donner le sort

Qui survint à Pluton, que vous vaudroit le port

De l’Enfer odieux, des trois Mondes le pire ?

 

La France vous suffit, vous estes estrené :

Vos fils puisnez sont Ducs, Roy vostre fils aisné :

Et vos filles bien tost vous feront le grand-père

 

D’enfans, qui porteront le Sceptre en divers lieux,

Ainsi doresnavant vous serez dit le Père

Des Rois dont la grandeur vaut bien celle des Dieux

 

 

 

 

                                                                            If I give you the heavens as your new-year’s gift, Sire,

                                                                            I would do France and you a great wrong:

                                                                            You, as you are healthy and fit, young, merry and strong;

                                                                            France, as it wants you alone for its King.

 

                                                                            If I gave you the sea, what use to you would be the rule

                                                                            Of its waves and winds? If I gave you the lot

                                                                            Which fell to Pluto, what use to you would be the harbour

                                                                            Of hateful Hell, the worst of the three worlds?

 

                                                                            France is enough for you; there, that is your gift:

                                                                            Your younger children are Dukes, your eldest a King;

                                                                            And your daughters will soon make you the grandfather

 

                                                                            Of children who will bear the Sceptre in various places;

                                                                            And hereafter you will be called the Father

                                                                            Of Kings, whose greatness is like that of the gods.

 

 

A couple of notes:  Pluto was alloted Hades, while Jupiter got the heavens and Neptune the seas to rule.  Ronsard alludes to all three in the opening stanzas. In line 10, the ‘eldest child’ is Francis, later Francis II of France briefly, who at the time was King Consort of Scotland through his marriage to Mary, Queen of Scots (there is a beautiful double-portrait in Catherine de Medici’s book of hours.) . His death at the end of 1560 left her (briefly Queen Consort of France) a widow still in her teens, and free to pursue the chaotic course of her Scottish career with Darnley and Bothwell.

 

There is one small but significant difference in Blanchemain’s version, at the very beginning:  “De vous donner le ciel …”. He obviously changed it to avoid beginning the 2 quatrains with the same words. But the change was not a great one otherwise: while the original opening (“De vous donner le ciel …”) clearly means ‘If I gave you the heavens…’, I have been a little naughty in translating the revised version (“Je vous donne…”) the same way. In fact, it seems to me that grammatically the new version should be saying something like:  ‘I give you the heavens, Sire. I would be doing you & France wrong to give you the sea.’ But that upsets the balance of the quatrains as well as making lines 5-6 mostly repetition. So I think we have to read Ronsard’s new version as saying ‘I give you the heavens. (But no – ) I would be doing you & France a great wrong…”

 

I have put this in the Sonnets diverses – which is where Blanchemain prints it – though Marty-Laveaux includes it among the various “sonnets retranchées” in his final volume.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ode 3:13 – to Joachim du Bellay

Nous avons quelque fois grand faute Soit de biens, soit de faveur haute, Comme l’affaire nous conduit, Mais tousjours tandis que nous sommes Ou morts, ou mis au rang des hommes, Nous avons besoing de bon bruit.   Car la louange emmiellée Au sucre des Muses mellée Nous perçe l’aureille en riant Je di louange qui ne cede A l’or que Pactole possede Ny aux perles de l’Orient.   La vertu qui n’a cognoissance Combien la Muse a de puissance Languit en tenebreux sejour Et en vain elle est soupirante Que sa clarté n’est apparante Pour se monstrer au raiz du jour.   France sous Henry fleurist comme Sous August’ fleurist Romme, Elle n’est plaine seulement D’hommes qui animent le cuïvre, Ny de peintres qui en font vivre Deux ensamble eternellement ;   Mais grosse de sçavoir enfante Des filz dont el’ est triumphante, Qui son nom rendent honoré : L’un chantre d’amour la decore L’autre Mars, et l’autre encore, De Phoebus au beau crin doré.   Entre lesquelz le ciel ordonne Que le premier lieu l’on te donne, Si tu monstres au jour tes vers Entés dans le tronc d’une Olive, Qui hausse sa perrucque vive Jusque à l’esgal des lauriers vers.

We have sometimes a great lack Either of goods or of high favour, As matters lead us, But always while we are Either dead or placed among the ranks of men, We have need of good report.   For honeyed praise Mixed with the sugar of the Muses Pierces our ears amidst laughter;  I sing a praise which does not give place To the gold which Pactolus owns Nor to the pearls of the Orient.   Virtue, which takes no note How powerful is the Muse, Pines in a shadowy place And in vain it sighs That its brightness is not bright enough To show itself in the light of day.   France under Henry flourishes as Rome flourished under Augustus; It is not full only Of men who bring life to brass, Nor of painters who make the two of them Together live eternally;   But pregnant with knowledge it gives birth To sons in whom she is triumphant, Who make her name honoured; One ornaments her as a singer of love, Another of war, another still Of Phoebus with his fair golden hair.   Among these, heaven ordains That we give you the first place, If you show the daylight your verse Grafted on the trunk of an Olive, Which raises its living crown Up to level with the green laurels.

 

 Today, a lovely & beautifully-built ode to his friend du Bellay, praising his ‘Olive’ (the first book of sonnets in French). Along the way Ronsard manages to get in a brief but telling patriotic gesture of praise to Henri II’s France, another Rome in the golden age of Augustus. As each stanza moves us one step closer to the goal, in a very carefully-calculated but artful way, there is a definite sense of climax.

 

 

 

 

 

Discours – à Pierre L’Escot

This ought to be, approximately, the 300th poem I’ve posted. So to mark this ‘special occasion’ I thought I’d post a tongue-in-cheek follow-up to Ronsard’s autobiographical Elegy which was my 200th post.  This time it’s from book 2 of his “Poems”, and one of many longer poems which Ronsard called ‘discours’ – discourses. Here his father lectures him – in perfect Alexandrines! – about why almost anything is better than being a poet…

It’s addressed to Pierre L’Escot, architect and friend of Ronsard. In Marty-Laveaux’s edition he is identified just as ‘Pierre L’Escot, Lord of Clany’, but in the earlier edition he is given a longer set of titles: ‘Abbot of Cleremont, Lord of Clany, chaplain in ordinary to the King’. Blanchemain further adds: ‘This piece is addressed to Lord L’Escot of Clany, who designed the pavilion of the Louvre. In the 1572 edition, it begins the 2nd book of Poems, which is dedicated as a whole to Pierre L’Escot.’

(I hope this layout works – I’m having trouble getting the ‘stanzas’ lined up 🙂 )

 

Puis que Dieu ne m’a fait pour supporter les armes, Et mourir tout sanglant au milieu des alarmes En imitant les faits de mes premiers ayeux, Si ne veux-je pourtant demeurer ocieux : Ains comme je pourray, je veux laisser memoire Que j’allay sur Parnasse acquerir de la gloire, Afin que mon renom des siecles non veincu, Rechante à mes neveux qu’autrefois j’ay vescu Caressé d’Apollon et des Muses aimées, Que j’ay plus que ma vie en mon âge estimées. Pour elles à trente ans j’avois le chef grison, Maigre, palle. desfait, enclos en la prison D’une melancolique et rheumatique estude, Renfrongné, mal-courtois, sombre, pensif, et rude, A fin qu’en me tuant je peusse recevoir Quelque peu de renom pour un peu de sçavoir.   Je fus souventesfois retansé de mon pere Voyant que j’aimois trop les deux filles d Homere, Et les enfans de ceux qui doctement ont sceu Enfanter en papier ce qu’ils avoient conceu : Et me disoit ainsi, Pauvre sot, tu t’amuses A courtizer en vain Apollon et les Muses : Que te sçauroit donner ce beau chantre Apollon, Qu’une lyre, un archet, une corde, un fredon, Qui se respand au vent ainsi qu’une fumée, Ou comme poudre en l’air vainement consumée ? Que te sçauroient donner les Muses qui n’ont rien ? Sinon au-tour du chef je ne sçay quel lien De myrte, de lierre, ou, d’une amorce vaine T’allecher tout un jour au bord d’une fontaine, Ou dedans un vieil antre, à fin d’y reposer Ton cerveau mal-rassis, et béant composer Des vers qui te feront, comme pleins de manie, Appeller un bon fol en toute compagnie ?   Laisse ce froid mestier, qui jamais en avant N’a poussé l’artizan, tant fust-il bien sçavant : Mais avec sa fureur qu’il appelle divine, Meurt tousjours accueilly d’une palle famine : Homere que tu tiens si souvent en tes mains, Qu’en ton cerveau mal-sain comme un Dieu tu te peins, N’eut jamais un liard ; sa Troyenne vielle, Et sa Muse qu’on dit qui eut la voix si belle, Ne le sceurent nourrir, et falloit que sa fain D’huis en huis mendiast le miserable pain.   Laisse-moy, pauvre sot, ceste science folle : Hante-moy les Palais, caresse-moy Bartolle, Et d’une voix dorée au milieu d’un parquet Aux despens d’un pauvre homme exerce ton caquet, Et fumeux et sueux d’une bouche tonnante Devant un President mets-moy ta langue en vente : On peut par ce moyen aux richesses monter, Et se faire du peuple en tous lieux bonneter.   Ou bien embrasse-moy l’argenteuse science Dont le sage Hippocras eut tant d’experience, Grand honneur de son isle : encor que son mestier Soit venu d’Apollon, il s’est fait heritier Des biens et des honneurs, et à la Poësie Sa sœur n’a rien laissé qu’une lyre moisie.   Ne sois donq paresseux d’apprendre ce que peut La Nature en nos corps, tout cela qu’elle veut, Tout cela qu’elle fuit : par si gentille adresse En secourant autruv on gaigne la richesse.   Ou bien si le desir genereux et hardy, En t’eschauffant le sang, ne rend acoüardy Ton cœur à mespriser les perils de la terre, Pren les armes au poing, et va suivre la guerre, Et d’une belle playe en l’estomac ouvert Meurs dessus un rempart de poudre tout couvert : Par si noble moyen souvent on devient riche, Car envers les soldats un bon Prince n’est chiche.   Ainsi en me tansant mon pere me disoit, Ou fust quand le Soleil hors de l’eau conduisoit Ses coursiers gallopans par la penible trette, Ou fust quand vers le soir il plongeoit sa charrette, Fust la nuict, quand la Lune avec ses noirs chevaux Creuse et pleine reprend l’erre de ses travaux.   « O qu’il est mal-aisé de forcer la nature ! « Tousjours quelque Genie, ou l’influence dure « D’un Astre nous invite à suivre maugré tous « Le destin qu’en naissant il versa desur nous.   Pour menace ou priere, ou courtoise requeste Que mon pere me fist, il ne sceut de ma teste Oster la Poesie, et plus il me tansoit, Plus à faire des vers la fureur me poussoit.   Je n’avois pas douze ans qu’au profond des vallées, Dans les hautes forests des hommes recullées, Dans les antres secrets de frayeur tout-couvers, Sans avoir soin de rien je composois des vers : Echo me respondoit, et les simples Dryades, Faunes, Satyres, Pans, Napées, Oreades, Aigipans qui portoient des cornes sur le front, Et qui ballant sautoient comme les chévres font, Et le gentil troupeau des fantastiques Fées Autour de moy dansoient à cottes degrafées.   Je fu premierement curieux du Latin : Mais voyant par effect que mon cruel destin Ne m’avoit dextrement pour le Latin fait naistre, Je me fey tout François, aimant certes mieux estre En ma langue ou second, ou le tiers, ou premier, Que d’estre sans honneur à Rome le dernier.    Donc suivant ma nature aux Muses inclinée, Sans contraindre ou forcer ma propre destinée, J’enrichy nostre France, et pris en gré d’avoir, En servant mon pays, plus d’honneur que d’avoir.    Toy, L’Escot, dont le nom jusques aux Astres vole, As pareil naturel : car estant à l’escole, On ne peut le destin de ton esprit forcer Que tousjours avec l’encre on ne te vist tracer Quelque belle peinture, et ja fait Geomettre, Angles, lignes et poincts sur une carte mettre : Puis estant parvenu au terme de vingt ans, Tes esprits courageux ne furent pas contans Sans doctement conjoindre avecques la Peinture L’art de Mathematique et de l’Architecture, Où tu es tellement avec honneur monté, Que le siecle ancien est par toy surmonté.    Car bien que tu sois noble et de mœurs et de race, Bien que dés le berceau l’abondance te face Sans en chercher ailleurs, riche en bien temporel, Si as-tu franchement suivi ton naturel : Et tes premiers Regens n’ont jamais peu distraire Ton cœur de ton instinct pour suivre le contraire.    On a beau d’une perche appuyer les grands bras D’un arbre qui se plie, il tend tousjours en bas : La nature ne veut en rien estre forcée, Mais suivre le destin duquel elle est poussée.   Jadis le Roy François des Lettres amateur, De ton divin esprit premier admirateur, T’aima par dessus tous : ce ne fut en son âge Peu d’honneur d’estre aimé d’un si grand personnage, Qui soudain cognoissoit le vice et la vertu, Quelque desguisement dont l’homme fust vestu.   Henry qui apres luy tint le sceptre de France, Ayant de ta valeur parfaite cognoissance Honora ton sçavoir, si bien que ce grand Roy Ne vouloit escouter un autre homme que toy, Soit disnant et soupant, et te donna la charge De son Louvre enrichi d’edifice plus large, Ouvrage somptueux, à fin d’estre montré Un Roy tres-magnifique en t’ayant rencontré.   Il me souvient un jour que ce Prince à la table Parlant de ta vertu comme chose admirable, Disoit que tu avois de toy-mesmes appris, Et que sur tous aussi tu emportois le pris, Comme a fait mon Ronsard, qui à la Poësie Maugré tous ses parens a mis sa fantaisie.   Et pour cela tu fis engraver sur le haut Du Louvre, une Déesse, à qui jamais ne faut Le vent à joüe enflée au creux d’une trompete, Et la monstras au Roy, disant qu’elle estoit faite Expres pour figurer la force de mes vers, Qui comme vent portoyent son nom par l’Univers.   Or ce bon Prince est mort, et pour faire cognoistre Que nous avons servi tous deux un si grand maistre, Je te donne ces vers pour eternelle foy, Que la seule vertu m’accompagna de toy.

Although God did not make me to take up arms And die all bloodied in the midst of alarms Mimicking the deeds of my earliest ancestors, Yet do I not want to remain useless: However I can I want to leave a memorial That I went up Parnassus to gain glory, That my fame, unconquered by the centuries, Should sing to my descendants that I lived Cherished by Apollo and his beloved Muses, Whom I have honoured more than my life in this age. For them, I was grey-haired at thirty, Thin, pale, defeated, shut up in the prison Of melancholic and arthritic study, Scowling, discourteous, gloomy, pensive and coarse, So that in killing myself I might have gained Some little fame for little understanding.       I was many times scolded by my father Who saw I loved too much Homer’s two daughters, And the children of those who learnedly were able To give birth on paper to what they’d conceived; And he would say to me, “You poor fool, you amuse yourself With courting – in vain! – Apollo and the Muses ; What can he give you, that fine singer Apollo, But a lyre, a bow on a string, a murmur Which will be lost in the wind like smoke, Or like ash in the air burned up without gain? What can the Muses give you, who have nothing themselves? Perhaps around your head some thread Of myrtle, or ivy? Or with empty attraction Luring you all day beside a fountain, Or in some ancient cave, so that there you can rest Your un-calm head, and gaping compose Some verses which, as if full of madness, will get you Called a right fool in all company?         “Leave this cold career, which has never brought To the fore the artisan, however skilled he is; But rather, in that passion he calls divine, He always dies, welcomed by pale famine. That Homer you have so often in your hands, Whom you paint as some sort of god in your unsound brain, Never had a farthing; his Trojan fiddle, And his Muse whom they say had so fair a voice, Could not feed him, and his hunger had To beg from door to door for the wretched pain.     “Leave this foolish study for me, you poor fool; Haunt palaces for me, caress Bartolle for me;, Either carry on your cackle with your golden voice In the middle of the floor [=centre-stage?] at the expense of some poor man, Or smoky and sweaty, with thundering lips, Put your tongue on sale for me before some president; In this way one can arrive at riches And make oneself lionised by people in all places.     “Or else embrace for me that silvery learning Of which the wise Hippocras had such experience, The great honour of his island; though his path too Came from Apollo, he became the heir Of goods and honours, while to Poetry His sister left nothing but a mildewed lyre.     “Or be not idle in learning what Nature Can do in our bodies, all that she favours, All that she rejects; through noble address In helping others, you can win riches.     “Or even, if noble and bold desire Does not, as it warms your blood, make your heart Too afraid to undertake earthly dangers. Take arms in your fist, go follow war, And with a fine wound opened in your stomach Die upon some rampart, covered in dust; By such noble means people often become rich, For to his soldiers a good Prince is not stingy.”       Reproaching me thus my father spoke to me, Whether when the Sun leads from the waters His chargers galloping on their arduous course, Or when towards evening he submerges his chariot, Or at night, when the Moon with her dark horses, Both hollow and full, takes up the course of her labours.       “Oh how uncomfortable it is to force nature! Always some spirit, or the harsh influence Of some star, invites us to follow, despite everything, The fate which it poured upon us at our birth.”   Whatever threat or prayer or courteous request My father made me, he could not drive Poetry from my head, and the more he reproached me, The more the passion to write verse drove me on.   I was not yet twelve when, in deep valleys, In the high forests from which men shrink, In hidden caves entirely swathed in dread, Without a care for anything I composed verses; Echo replied to me, and the simple Dryads, Fauns, Satyrs, Pans, Naiads, Oreads, Goat-Pans who bear horns on their brows And who in their dances leap as stags do, And the gentle troop of fantastical Fairies Danced around me, their skirts unfastened.     I was at first intrigued by Latin; But seeing by trying that my cruel fate Had not made me naturally skilful in Latin, I made myself entirely French, preferring far to be In my own tongue the second, or third, or first, Than to be the last, and without honour, in Rome.     So, following my nature inclined to the Muses, Without constraining or forcing my own fate, I enriched our France, and made the choice to have In serving my country more honour than wealth.     You too, L’Escot, whose name flies high as the stars, Have a similar nature: for when you were at school They could not compel your mind’s destiny, So that you could always be seen with ink tracing Some fine painting, or now doing Geometry, Making angles, lines and points upon some sheet; Then when you reached the end of twenty years, Your brave spirits were not content Till learnedly joining together with Painting The arts of Mathematics and Architecture, In which you have risen so high with honour That ancient times are surpassed by you.       For though you are noble in manner and family, Although since the cradle abundance has been yours Without seeking it from outside, rich in worldly goods, Yet have you boldly followed your nature; And your first regents never could distract Your heart from your instinct to oppose them.         One might as well prop up with a pole the great limbs Of a tree which bends over, it will still tend downwards; Nature does not wish anywhere to be compelled, But to follow the destiny by which she is impelled.     Previously King François, a lettered man, The first admirer of your divine spirit, Loved you above all others; there was not in his time Little honour in being loved by so great a personage Who could immediately recognise vice and virtue Whatever disguise a man was dressed in.     Henry who after him took up the sceptre of France, Having perfect understanding of your worth, Honoured your learning so well that that great King Wanted to hear no other man than you, Whether at dinner or supper, and gave you the charge Of enriching his Louvre with a larger building, A sumptuous work, that he might be shown to be A most magnificent King in having encountered you.   I recall a day when that Prince, speaking At table of your virtue as a thing to be wondered at, Said that you had learned from yourself And that beyond all others too you took the prize, As has done my Ronsard who to Poetry Despite all his family has set his imagination.   And therefore you had sculpted at the top Of the Louvre a goddess, never short of breath, Her cheek puffed out at the mouthpiece of a trumpet, And showed it to the King, saying that she had been made Expressly to symbolise the power of my verse, Which like the wind bore his name throughout the world.     Now that good Prince is dead, and that it should be known That both of us have served so great a master I give you these verses as an everlasting oath That virtue alone accompanies me from you.

 

 

In the second ‘stanza’, Homer’s two daughters are the epic poems Iliad and Odyssey. In the fourth, the advice to ‘caress Bartolle’ apparently refers to a ‘spiky’ senior lawyer (he’s referred to elsewhere as “l’espineux Bartolle”). 

 

In the 5th ‘stanza’, Marty-Laveaux’s text has “Hippocras”: hippocras is a drink, but Ronsard (or his father) here clearly means Hippocrates the Greek physician. I’m not sure whose mistake this is – I suppose Ronsard is making fun of his father for not quite getting the name right?! Blanchemain’s version has “Hippocrate” so Ronsard (or his father, or Blanchemain) obviously had got the right one at some stage… The island Hippocrates honours is Cos, where he was born. His medical learning comes from Apollo, because Aesculapius was Apollo’s son; Apollo’s sister is Minerva.

 

In ‘stanza’ 7, I enjoy his father saying ‘go and die in battle – that’s a good way to get rich’… Ronsard poking a little fun at his father again…

 

The statue placed by L’Escot on the Louvre represents Fame. Though Ronsard says that the King ‘gave you the charge / Of enriching his Louvre with a larger building’, he doesn’t say that the original work was undertaken by L’Escot’s rival, Philibert de Lorme, whom Ronsard apparently disliked (perhaps out of loyalty to L’Escot!). In  poems 2.3 he writes

 

Maintenant je ne suis ny veneur, ny maçon
Pour acquerir du bien en si basse façon,
Et si j’ay fait service autant à ma contrée
Qu’une vile truelle à trois crosses tymbrée !

 

 

                                                                         Now I am neither a hunter [ overtones of ‘venal’, arriviste’] nor a mason

                                                                         To gain riches in so base a fashion,

                                                                         And yet I have done as good service to my country

                                                                         As a vile trowel stamped with three bishoprics!

 

The last line is an allusion to the three abbeys enjoyed by Philibert de Lorme; and note that “timbré” also means ‘crack-brained’…

 

 

 

Variants

Naturally there are also plenty of variants in Blanchemain’s version. These are:

 

‘stanza’ 1

line 2, “Et pour mourir sanglant …” (‘And to die bleeding …’)

line 6, “Que les Muses jadis m’ont acquis de la gloire” (‘I want to leave a memorial / That the Muses once gained me glory’)

 

‘stanza’ 3

«  Laisse ce froid mestier qui ne pousse en avant

Celuy qui par sus tous y est le plus sçavant ;

Mais avec sa fureur qu’il appelle divine,

Tout sot se laisse errer accueilly de famine.

Homère, que tu tiens si souvent en tes mains,

Que dans ton cerveau creux comme un Dieu tu te peins,

N’eut jamais un liard ; si bien que sa vielle,

Et sa Muse qu’on dit qui eut la voix si belle,

Ne le sceurent nourrir, et falloit que sa faim

D’huis en huis mendiast le miserable pain.

 

 

                                                                         “Leave this cold career, which does not bring to the fore

                                                                          He who above all others is the most skilled;

                                                                          But rather, in that passion he calls divine,

                                                                          All those fools allow themselves to wander in error, welcomed by famine.

                                                                          That Homer you have so often in your hands,

                                                                          Whom you paint as some sort of god in your empty brain,

                                                                          Never had a farthing; so much so that his fiddle,

                                                                          And his Muse whom they say had so fair a voice,

                                                                          Could not feed him, and his hunger had

                                                                          To beg from door to door for the wretched pain.

 

Later on, the Sun’s chargers are “haletans de la penible trette” (‘panting from their arduous pulling’); and the fairies dance “à cottes agrafées” (‘their skirts pinned up’). As for Ronsard’s Latin, “Mais cognoissant, helas! que mon cruel destin … ” (‘But recognising, alas, that my cruel fate / Had not made me naturally skilful…).

 

When he arrives at the description of L’Escot’s youth, he says:

 

Toy, L’Escot, dont le nom jusques aux astres vole,

En as bien fait ainsi ; car estant à l’escole,

Jamais on ne te peut ton naturel forcer

Que tousjours avec l’encre on ne te vist tracer

Quelque belle peinture, et ja fait geomettre,

Angles, lignes et poincts sur une carte mettre ;

Puis arrivant ton âge au terme de vingt ans,

Tes esprits courageux ne furent pas contens …

 

 

                                                                          You too, L’Escot, whose name flies high as the stars,

                                                                          Have rightly done the same: for when you were at school

                                                                          They could never compel your nature,

                                                                          So that you could always be seen with ink tracing

                                                                          Some fine painting, or now doing Geometry,

                                                                          Making angles, lines and points upon some sheet;

                                                                          Then when your age arrived at the term of twenty years,

                                                                          Your brave spirits were not content …

 

and later “Toutefois si as-tu suivi ton naturel ” (‘Yet always have you followed your nature’).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Elegy XVI (Ronsard’s autobiography) – epic 200th post :-)

This is my 200th post (though not yet the 200th poem), so I wanted to do something special. In the end it has snowballed a bit and this post is going to be monstrously long…!!  Hope you enjoy it anyway.

In his Elegies, Ronsard included a poem – addressed to his old friend Remy Belleau – which provides his family background and details of his early life – sometimes uncorroborated details we only learn here but often events we can triangulate against other records. So, here is his Elegy XVI (or in Blanchemain’s numbering Elegy XX), with translations, annotations and added biographical detail…   🙂

It is worth noting before we start, though, that this poem was published in the Bocage in 1554 addressed to his friend Pierre de Pascal [Paschal] “du bas païs de Languedoc” (‘from the low country of Languedoc’), not to Remy Belleau!  In that version Durbam/Durban [Michel-Pierre de Mauléon, protonotary of Durban], not Baïf, is the 3rd in their group in the final line… For more on Paschal, and Ronsard’s subsequent ‘un-friending’, see here.

1 – the poem

As usual, in Marty-Laveaux’s edition (Ronsard’s latest thoughts) first:

Je veux, mon cher Belleau, que tu n’ignores point D’où, ne qui est celuy, que les Muses ont joint D’un nœud si ferme à toy, afin que des années, A nos neveux futurs, les courses retournées Ne celent que Belleau et Ronsard n’estoient qu’un, Et que tous deux avoient un mesme cœur commun.   Or quant à mon ancestre, il a tiré sa race D’où le glacé Danube est voisin de la Thrace : Plus bas que la Hongrie, en une froide part, Est un Seigneur nommé le Marquis de Ronsart, Riche d’or et de gens, de villes et de terre. Un de ses fils puisnez ardant de voir la guerre, Un camp d’autres puisnez assembla hazardeux, Et quittant son pays, faict Capitaine d’eux Traversa la Hongroie et la basse Allemaigne. Traversa la Bourgongne et la grasse Champaigne, Et hardy vint servir Philippes de Valois, Qui pour lors avoit guerre encontre les Anglois.   Il s’employa si bien au service de France, Que le Roy luy donna des biens à suffisance Sur les rives du Loir : puis du tout oubliant Freres, pere et pays, François se mariant Engendra les ayeux dont est sorty le pere Par qui premier je vy ceste belle lumiere.   Mon pere fut tousjours en son vivant icy Maistre-d’hostel du Roy, et le suivit aussi Tant qu’il fut prisonnier pour son pere en Espaigne : Faut-il pas qu’un servant son Seigneur accompaigne Fidele à sa fortune, et qu’en adversité Luy soit autant loyal qu’en la felicité ?   Du costé maternel j’ay tiré mon lignage De ceux de la Trimouille, et de ceux du Bouchage, Et de ceux des Roüaux, et de ceux des Chaudriers Qui furent en leurs temps si vertueux guerriers, Que leur noble vertu que Mars rend eternelle Reprint sur les Anglois les murs de la Rochelle, Où l’un fut si vaillant qu’encores aujourd’huy Une rue à son los porte le nom de luy.   Mais s’il te plaist avoir autant de cognoissance (Comme de mes ayeux) du jour de ma naissance, Mon Belleau, sans mentir je diray verité Et de l’an et du jour de ma nativité.   L’an que le Roy François fut pris devant Pavie, Le jour d’un Samedy, Dieu me presta la vie L’onzieme de Septembre, et presque je me vy Tout aussi tost que né, de la Parque ravy.   Je ne fus le premier des enfants de mon pere, Cinq davant ma naissance en enfanta ma mere : Deux sont morts au berceau, aux trois vivans en rien Semblable je ne suis ny de mœurs ny de bien.   Si tost que j’eu neuf ans, au college on me meine : Je mis tant seulement un demy an de peine D’apprendre les leçons du regent de Vailly, Puis sans rien profiter du college sailly. Je vins en Avignon, où la puissante armée Du Roy François estoit fierement animée Contre Charles d’Autriche, et là je fus donné Page au Duc d’Orleans : apres je fus mené Suivant le Roi d’Escosse en l’Escossoise terre, Où trente mois je fus, et six en Angleterre.   A mon retour ce Duc pour page me reprint : Long temps à l’Escurie en repos ne me tint Qu’il me renvoyast en Flandres et Zelande, Et depuis en Escosse, où la tempeste grande Avecques Lassigni, cuida faire toucher Poussée aux bords Anglois la nef contre un rocher.   Plus de trois jours entiers dura ceste tempeste, D’eau, de gresle et d’esclairs nous menassant la teste : A la fin arrivez sans nul danger au port, La nef en cent morceaux se rompt contre le bord, Nous laissant sur la rade, et point n’y eut de perte Sinon elle qui fut des flots salez couverte, Et le bagage espars que le vent secoüoit, Et qui servoit flottant aux ondes de jouet.   D’Escosse retourné, je fus mis hors de page, Et à peine seize ans avoient borné mon âge, Que l’an cinq cens quarante avec Baïf je vins En la haute Allemaigne, où la langue j’apprins.   Mais làs ! à mon retour une aspre maladie Par ne sçay quel destin me vint boucher l’ouie, Et dure m’accabla d’assommement si lourd, Qu’encores aujourd’huy j’en reste demy-sourd. L’an d’apres en Avril, Amour me fist surprendre, Suivant la Cour à Blois, des beaux yeux de Cassandre Soit le nom faux ou vray, jamais le temps veinqueur N’effacera ce nom du marbre de mon cœur.   Convoiteux de sçavoir, disciple je vins estre De d’Aurat à Paris, qui cinq ans fut mon maistre En Grec et en Latin : chez luy premierement Nostre ferme amitié print son commencement, Laquelle dans mon ame à tout jamais, et celle De nostre amy Baïf sera perpetuelle.

I’d like, my dear Belleau, for you not to be in any way uninformed About where he’s from, and who he is, this man whom the Muses have bound With so firm a knot to you, such that the years’ Course turning will not hide from our future descendants That Belleau and Ronsard were but one person, The two joined by one shared heart.       So, as for my first ancestor, he came from roots Where the freezing Danube runs beside Thrace; Lower down than Hungary, in a cold region, There was a Lord named Marquis of Ronsart, Rich in gold and retainers, in towns and lands. One of his younger sons, eager to see war, Assembled a band of other daring younger sons And, leaving his country, as their Captain Crossed Hungary and lower Germany, Crossed Burgundy and rich Champagne, And boldly came to serve Philip of Valois Who for some time had been at war with the English.       He acted so well in the service of France That the King gave him plentiful holdings On the banks of the Loir; then forgetting all about Brothers, father and homeland, as a Frenchman he married And bore the ancestors from whom descended the father Through whom I first saw this fair light.   My father was always while living here In charge of the King’s household, and he followed him Even when he was a prisoner in Spain for his father; Shouldn’t a servant accompany his Lord, Loyal to his fate, and in bad times Be as loyal to him as in good?       On my mother’s side, I take my lineage From the people of Trimouille, of Bouchage, Of Rouaux, and of Chaudriers; They were in their time such brave warriors That their noble bravery (may Mars make it everlasting) Re-took from the English the walls of La Rochelle, Where one of them was so valiant that even today In his honour a street bears his name.       But if it would please you to have as much information About the date of my birth, as about my ancestors, Dear Belleau, then without falsifying anything I shall tell you the true Date, both the year and the day, of my birth.   The year in which King Francis was taken before Pavia, On a Saturday, God granted me life – The 11th September it was – and I very nearly found myself As soon as born, torn away by Fate.   I was not the first of my father’s children, My mother had produced five children before my birth: Two died in the cradle, and to the three living am I In no way similar in either way of life or wealth.       As soon as I was nine, they sent me to college, But I spent only half a year troubling To learn the lessons of the master, de Vailly. Then I left having gained nothing from college. I came to Avignon, where the powerful army Of King Francis was proudly in action Against Charles of Austria; and there I was granted The role of page to the Duke of Orleans; afterwards I was sent In the King of Scotland’s entourage to Scotland Where I spent 30 months, and six in England.     On my return the Duke took me back as page, But I did not stay quietly in the Royal Mews for long Before he sent me to Flanders and Zeeland And then to Scotland, where a great storm Tried to drive the ship, along with Lassigni, Onto the rocks, after blowing it to the coast of England.     More than three whole days the storm lasted, Menacing our lives with water, hail and lightning; In the end, as we arrived with no danger at port, The ship broke into a hundred pieces on the coast Leaving us in the harbour with no losses Except the ship herself, sunk in the salty waves, And our widely-scattered baggage blown about by the wind Which used it as a plaything as it floated on the waves.         Returned from Scotland I lost my job as page And had barely reached the age of sixteen When in 1540 I went with Baïf To Upper Germany, where I learned the language.   But alas, on my return a terrible illness For some end unknown came and stopped up my hearing, And hit me hard with a blow so heavy That still today I remain half-deaf as a result. The year after, in April, love took me unawares As I followed the Court to Blois, through the fair eyes of Cassandre. Whether that name is her true one or not, never will conquering time Wipe that name from the marble [memorial] in my heart.   Eager to learn, I came to be the disciple Of d’Aurat in Paris, and he was for five years my teacher In Greek and Latin; it was at his home that first Our firm friendship began And it shall for all time in my soul, along with that For our friend Baïf, be everlasting.

 

 

Inevitably, there are varants in Blanchemain’s edition (Ronsard’s first version):  for simplicity here is the whole poem with changes marked in red:

ELEGIE XX A REMY BELLEAU Excellent Poëte françois   Je veux, mon cher Belleau, que tu n’ignores point D’où, ne qui est celuy, que les Muses ont joint D’un nœud si ferme à toy, afin que des années, A nos neveux futurs, les courses retournées Ne celent que Belleau et Ronsard n’estoient qu’un, Et que tous deux avoient un mesme cœur commun.       Or quant à mon ancestre, il a tiré sa race D’où le glacé Danube est voisin de la Thrace : Plus bas que la Hongrie, en une froide part, Est un Seigneur nommé le Marquis de Ronsart, Riche d’or et de gens, de villes et de terre. Un de ses fils puisnez ardant de voir la guerre, Un camp d’autres puisnez assembla hazardeux, Et quittant son pays, faict Capitaine d’eux Traversa la Hongrie et la basse Allemaigne. Traversa la Bourgongne et toute la Champaigne, Et soudard vint servir Philippes de Valois, Qui pour lors avoit guerre encontre les Anglois.   Il s’employa si bien au service de France, Que le Roy luy donna des biens à suffisance Sur les rives du Loir : puis du tout oubliant Freres, pere et pays, François se mariant Engendra les ayeux dont est sorty le pere Par qui premier je vy ceste belle lumiere.     Mon pere de Henry gouverna la maison, Fils du grand Roy François, quand il fut en prison Servant de seur hostage à son pere en Espagne: Faut-il pas qu’un servant son Seigneur accompaigne Fidele à sa fortune, et qu’en adversité Luy soit autant loyal qu’en la felicité ?     Du costé maternel j’ay tiré mon lignage De ceux de la Trimouille, et de ceux du Bouchage, Et de ceux des Roüaux, et de ceux des Chaudriers Qui furent en leurs temps si vertueux guerriers, Que leur noble prouesse, au fait des armes belle Reprint sur les Anglois les murs de la Rochelle, Où l’un fut si vaillant qu’encores aujourd’huy Une rue à son los porte le nom de luy.   Mais s’il te plaist avoir autant de cognoissance (Comme de mes ayeux) du jour de ma naissance, Mon Belleau, sans mentir je diray verité Et de l’an et du jour de ma nativité.     L’an que le Roy François fut pris devant Pavie, Le jour d’un Samedy, Dieu me presta la vie L’onziesme de Septembre, et presque je me vy Tout aussi tost que né, de la Parque ravy.     Je ne fus le premier des enfants de mon père, Cinq avant moy longtemps en enfanta ma mere : Deux sont morts au berceau, aux trois vivans en rien Semblable je ne suis ny de mœurs ny de bien.   Si tost que j’eu neuf ans, au college on me meine : Je mis tant seulement un demy an de peine D’apprendre les leçons du regent de Vailly, Puis sans rien profiter du college sailly, Je vins en Avignon, où la puissante armée Du Roy François estoit fierement animée Contre Charles d’Austriche, et là je fus donné Page au Duc d’Orleans : apres je fus mené Suivant le Roy d’Escosse en l’Escossoise terre, Où trente mois je fus, et six en Angleterre.     A mon retour ce Duc pour Pape me reprint : Et guere à l’Escurie en repos ne me tint Qu’il me renvoyast en Flandres et Zelande, Et encore en Escosse, où la tempeste grande Avecques Lassigni, cuida faire toucher Poussée aux bords Anglois ma nef contre un rocher.       Plus de trois jours entiers dura ceste tempeste, D’eau, de gresle et d’esclairs nous menassant la teste : A la fin arrivez sans nul danger au port, La nef en cent morceaux se rompt contre le bord, Nous laissant sur la rade, et point n’y eut de perte Sinon elle qui fut des flots salez couverte, Et le bagage espars que le vent secoüoit, Et qui servoit flottant aux ondes de jouet.     D’Escosse retourné, je fus mis hors de page, Et à peine seize ans avoient borné mon âge, Que l’an cinq cens quarante avec Baïf je vins En la haute Allemaigne, où la langue j’apprins.   Mais làs ! à mon retour une aspre maladie Par ne sçay quel destin me vint boucher l’ouie, Et dure m’accabla d’assommement si lourd, Qu’encores aujourd’huy j’en reste demy-sourd. L’an d’apres en Avril, Amour me fist surprendre, Suivant la Cour à Blois, des beaux yeux de Cassandre Soit le nom faux ou vray, jamais le temps veinqueur N’ostera ce beau nom du marbre de mon cœur.           Incontinent apres disciple je vins estre A Paris, de Daurat qui cinq ans fut mon maistre En Grec et en Latin : chez luy premierement Nostre ferme amitié print son commencement, Laquelle dans mon ame à tout jamais, et celle De nostre amy Baïf sera perpetuelle.

ELEGY 20 TO REMY BELLEAU Excellent poet of France   I’d like, my dear Belleau, for you not to be in any way uninformed About where he’s from, and who he is, this man whom the Muses have bound With so firm a knot to you, such that the years’ Course turning will not hide from our future descendants That Belleau and Ronsard were but one person, The two joined by one shared heart.   So, as for my first ancestor, he came from roots Where the freezing Danube runs beside Thrace; Lower down than Hungary, in a cold region, There was a Lord named Marquis of Ronsart, Rich in gold and retainers, in towns and lands. One of his younger sons, eager to see war, Assembled a band of other daring younger sons And, leaving his country, as their Captain Crossed Hungary and lower Germany, Crossed Burgundy and all of Champagne, And came as a mercenary to serve Philip of Valois Who for some time had been at war with the English.   He acted so well in the service of France That the King gave him plentiful holdings On the banks of the Loir; then forgetting all about Brothers, father and homeland, as a Frenchman he married And bore the ancestors from whom descended the father Through whom I first saw this fair light.   My father managed the household of Henry, Son of the great King Francis, serving his lord When he was in prison as a hostage for his father in Spain; Shouldn’t a servant accompany his Lord, Loyal to his fate, and in bad times Be as loyal to him as in good?   On my mother’s side, I take my lineage From the people of Trimouille, of Bouchage, Of Rouaux, and of Chaudriers; They were in their time such brave warriors That their noble prowess, fair in deeds of arms, Re-took from the English the walls of La Rochelle, Where one of them was so valiant that even today In his honour a street bears his name.   But if it would please you to have as much information About the date of my birth, as about my ancestors, Dear Belleau, then without falsifying anything I shall tell you the true Date, both the year and the day, of my birth.   The year in which King Francis was taken before Pavia, On a Saturday, God granted me life – The 11th September it was – and I very nearly found myself As soon as born, torn away by Fate.   I was not the first of my father’s children, My mother had produced five long before me; Two died in the cradle, and to the three living am I In no way similar in either way of life or wealth.   As soon as I was nine, they sent me to college, But I spent only half a year troubling To learn the lessons of the master, de Vailly. Then I left having gained nothing from college. I came to Avignon, where the powerful army Of King Francis was proudly in action Against Charles of Austria; and there I was granted The role of page to the Duke of Orleans; afterwards I was sent In the King of Scotland’s entourage to Scotland Where I spent 30 months, and six in England.   On my return the Duke took me back [on the Pope’s behalf??]    [surely a misprint for ‘page’?!] But barely had I stopped quietly in the Royal Mews Before he sent me to Flanders and Zeeland And again to Scotland, where a great storm Tried to drive my ship, along with Lassigni, Onto the rocks, after blowing it to the coast of England.   More than three whole days the storm lasted, Menacing our lives with water, hail and lightning; In the end, as we arrived with no danger at port, The ship broke into a hundred pieces on the coast Leaving us in the harbour with no losses Except the ship herself, sunk in the salty waves, And our widely-scattered baggage blown about by the wind Which used it as a plaything as it floated on the waves.   Returned from Scotland I lost my job as page And had barely reached the age of sixteen When in 1540 I went with Baïf To Upper Germany, where I learned the language.   But alas, on my return a terrible illness For some end unknown came and stopped up my hearing, And hit me hard with a blow so heavy That still today I remain half-deaf as a result. The year after, in April, love took me unawares As I followed the Court to Blois, through the fair eyes of Cassandre. Whether that name is her true one or not, never will conquering time Remove that fair name from the marble [memorial] in my heart.   Immediately afterwards, I came to be the disciple Of Daurat in Paris, and he was for five years my teacher In Greek and Latin; it was at his home that first Our firm friendship began And it shall for all time in my soul, along with that For our friend Baïf, be everlasting.

(As noted in the text, I assume the printing of “Pape” instead of “page” is a typo. My approximation of what the Pope might be doing in there is really not a translation of what the French says in any case!)

2 – biographical notes

(i) Blanchemain

Blanchemain litters his text with footnotes: as he puts it “we have retained (‘conservé’) all the notes on this piece…” – though I am not sure which early edition he’s “conserved” them from. So here are the relevant lines from the translation of his edition (above), paired with his notes. My own additions or clarifications are in [brackets]:

So, as for my first ancestor, he came from roots

Where the freezing Danube runs beside Thrace;

Lower down than Hungary, in a cold region,

There was a Lord named Marquis of Ronsart,

Rich in gold and retainers, in towns and lands.

One of his younger sons, eager to see war,

Assembled a band of other daring younger sons

And, leaving his country, as their Captain

Crossed Hungary and lower Germany,

Crossed Burgundy and all of Champagne,

And came as a mercenary to serve Philip of Valois

Who for some time had been at war with the English.

He acted so well in the service of France

That the King gave him plentiful holdings

On the banks of the Loir;

This ancestor of our poet, who came from the lower Danube to offer his services to Philip of Valois, was called Marucini or Mârâcinâ like his father, who added to his name the title of Bano (Ban). Once settled in France he translated his paternal name and title literally, changing ‘bano’ into Marquis and Marucini (=Ronces – bramble; or Roncière – bramble-bush) into Ronsard. Source: Ubicini 1855, Romanian Popular Songs collected by Alecsandri [see further the notes below about Alecsandri’s contribution on this origins story].

My father managed the household of Henry,

Son of the great King Francis, serving his lord

When he was in prison as a hostage for his father in Spain;

Henry = Henry II, then Duke of Orleans. It was a great thing at that time to be in charge of the king’s household; for his responsibilities were given only to noble folk and there were no valets [grooms] who were not gentlemen.

King Francis I, who was captured before Pavia covered in dust and blood, returned to France [in exchange for] leaving his two sons, Francis the dauphin & Henry Duke of Orleans (later king) as hostages in Spain.

On my mother’s side, I take my lineage

From the people of Trimouille, of Bouchage,

Of Rouaux, and of Chaudriers;

Trimouille: the princess, mother of the Prince of Condé, bore this name.  Bouchage: of the house of Joyeuse, father of madame de Guise, mother of mlle. De Montpensier.  Rouaux: from which came that great warrior Joachim Roüaut [Rouault], marshal of France under Charles VII [actually, under Louis XI in 1461 rather than under Charles; Jeanne Chaudrier, Ronsard’s mother, was a descendant].  Chaudriers: an ancient house [going back to the Mayor of la Rochelle c1300;  Ronsard’s mother was also Dame du Bouchaige].

 … and I very nearly found myself

As soon as born, torn away by Fate.

The maid carrying him when they were taking him to baptism dropped him on a meadow, specified as the pré Bouju by Cohen(!).

Two died in the cradle, and to the three living am I

In no way similar in either way of life or wealth.

Descended from the eldest brother and still alive in 1623, his grandsons, were de la Poissonière & the knight Ronsard, and several girls descended from one or the other of the children.

 As soon as I was nine, they sent me to college,

He studied at the college in Navarre under a man called de Vailly, beneath whom also studied the Cardinal of Lorraine [a member of the influential Guise family].

 I came to Avignon, where the powerful army

Of King Francis was proudly in action

Against Charles of Austria; and there I was granted

The role of page to the Duke of Orleans; afterwards I was sent

In the King of Scotland’s entourage to Scotland

Where I spent 30 months, and six in England.

Charles = Charles V, [Holy Roman] Emperor and King of Spain, who attacked Provence and who boasted he’d hold Paris like Madrid.

Orleans = Henry II, being Dauphin on the death of his brother, poisoned at Tournon by the Count of Montecuculo [Count Sebastiano de Montecuccoli, secretary to the Dauphin, was executed for his murder though it is likely the Dauphin died of tuberculosis].

Ronsard made the journey to Scotland in 1536, in the entourage of James V who had just married Madeleine, daughter of Francis I, in Paris. That king married secondly [Mary of Guise] the sister of M de Guise, Francis of Lorraine; from whence comes the blood-relationship between the Guise family & the king of England.

Before he sent me to Flanders and Zeeland

And again to Scotland, where a great storm

Tried to drive my ship, along with Lassigni,

Onto the rocks,

Flanders: the Duke of Orleans sent Ronsard, who was his page, to Flanders and Zeeland, with several letters of credit that he sent to his mistress, niece of the Emperor.

Lassigni: a French lord.

When in 1540 I went with Baïf

To Upper Germany,

This was Lazare Baïf, a gentleman of Anjou, related to those [gentlemen] de Laval [an important family, producing several marshals of France in mid-1400s] and de Guimené; the king’s ambassador in Germany as he had been in Venice; a very learned man, witness the books he wrote De re navali [About naval matters] and De re vestiaria [Concerning clothes]. He was father of Jean Antoine Baïf, excellent poet.

(ii) additional notes

“My father was always while living here

In charge of the King’s household “

“My father managed the household of Henry,

Son of the great King Francis, serving his lord

When he was in prison as a hostage for his father in Spain;”

Loys de Ronsard served Louis XII with distinction in the Italian wars between 1495 and 1515 – being present at the taking of Milan in 1499 and Genoa in 1507, the capture of Ludovico Sforza in 1500, and the battles of Agnadello (1509) and Marignano (1515). After the King’s death Loys became maître-d’hotel and then premier maître-d’hotel to King Francis I and remained in France, but following the disastrous battle of Pavia when the King was captured he spent the years 1526-30 in Spain with the hostages who had been swapped for the King’s freedom after Pavia: the dauphin Francis and his younger brother Henry, later Henry II. He brought back a fair bit of Renaissance sculpture from Italy to adorn his home (the Château de la Poissonière, near Vendôme, where his son Pierre was later born), among the earlier Frenchmen to appreciate the new art burgeoning in Italy.

 “The year in which King Francis was taken before Pavia,

On a Saturday, God granted me life –

The 11th September it was”

Ronsard’s birthdate is a cause of endless confusion, argument and uncertainty. It amuses me that the biography on Wikipedia.fr states three different dates in three different places… We know where he was born (the Château de la Poissonière, near Vendôme), but not quite when. Ronsard says here he was born on Saturday 11^th September 1524.  However, the 11^th September was in fact a Sunday in 1524.  (And, because 1524 was a leap year, it was a Friday the year before; and thus 11^th September was never a Saturday in the 1520s!)  Other dates suggested therefore include Saturday 10^th; as well as Friday 2^nd or even late at night on Saturday 10^th as it was just turning into Sunday(!). Perhaps  from a mis-reading of the poem, a tradition grew up that he was born on the date of the Battle of Pavia, 25^th February 1525, as well. [Note: this is still ‘in the same year’ as his birth because new year was at the beginning of March at this time.] The 2^nd September 1525, and even 6^th September 1522 – both of which are Saturdays – have also been suggested. The fact is, we will never know: but a date in early September 1524 seems likeliest.

 “I was not the first of my father’s children,

My mother had produced five long before me;

Two died in the cradle”

We know that Ronsard had a sister and two brothers: Louise (b. 1514), Claude (b. 1515) and Charles (b. 1519) who entered the church. He was the last born – and (as he says here) a ‘long time’, five years, after the other children. However, Chalandon writing in 1875 mentions also a fifth surviving child, another Loys, who became abbé at Tyron; I haven’t been able to track down anything more about this claim, which seems an extraordinary one – would Ronsard have forgotten or attempted to erase the existence of one of his brothers?

 “As soon as I was nine, they sent me to college,

But I spent only half a year troubling

To learn the lessons of the master, de Vailly”

Ronsard went to the Collège de Navarre (part of the university of Paris) in the autumn of 1533, perhaps in preparation for a career in the Catholic church to which, as a younger son, his father may have destined him.  He left quickly, though it is not clear why: perhaps because the teaching was bad, more probably because he didn’t like the idea of a church career and wanted to see some excitement with the Court and the army. Simonin’s 1990 biography also suggests he left college (or perhaps was removed by his family?) because of agitation there by the Protestant reformer Gérard Roussel. This was of course a period of immense tensions in France, as in the rest of Europe, between the established church and protestant reformers. While he was there, though, Ronsard apparently made the acquaintance of Charles de Guise, later Cardinal of Lorraine, and as a Guise a member of a powerful and influential family. Another, Mary of Guise, later married James V of Scotland and precipitated Ronsard’s return to France.

It is interesting to note that one of the great theologians of the time, Mathurin Cordier, had been master at the college a few years earlier, though he had moved on to another college by this time.

 “there I was granted

The role of page to the Duke of Orleans; afterwards I was sent

In the King of Scotland’s entourage to Scotland

Where I spent 30 months, and six in England”

Ronsard was appointed a page at Court in 1536, initially to the Dauphin but when he died soon afterwards he joined (as he says) the suite of Charles, Duke of Orleans.  When the King’s daughter, Madeleine (sister of Charles) was married to King James V of Scotland in January 1537, Ronsard was given to Madeleine by Charles and went to Scotland in her service. She died in June the same year, and was thus known as the ‘Summer Queen’ by the Scots. The boy Ronsard was then attached to the Court of King James. There is little corroborating detail for Ronsard’s claim to have spent 3 years abroad; some doubt the whole story. But it seems probable that he stayed in Scotland until 1538, when the king re-married; and thus it seems likely (to me at least) that his 3 years in England and Scotland includes time later when he travelled in the suite of Lassigny (below). It’s not clear why he spent 6 months in England; but there are later links with the Renaissance court there and it is possible the precocious teenage Ronsard was extending his knowledge of humanist poetry and poetic forms at Henry VIII’s court?

 “But barely had I stopped quietly in the Royal Mews

Before he sent me to Flanders and Zeeland

And again to Scotland where a great storm

Tried to drive my ship, along with Lassigni,

Onto the rocks, after blowing it to the coast of England”

Returning to France, Ronsard joined the other pages in the Écurie or Stable (we might perhaps say the Royal Mews), where all the pages were housed. Scholars tend to say he then joined the suite of Claude d’Humières, Seigneur de Lassigny, who was an equerry in charge of the pages (at an annual remuneration of 400 livres) and with him travelled in Flanders. Cohen states that they left on 24th December 1538. Then in 1539-40 Ronsard was again in England and Scotland. Notably, though, Ronsard only links Lassigny with the shipwreck in England. So perhaps (with Blanchemain, and following Ronsard’s lead) we might conclude that the missions to Flanders and Zeeland were in the service of the Duke of Orleans instead?  (Nothing beyond Ronsard’s own account seems to exist to add detail about the place of the shipwreck, nor his missions in Flanders and Scotland.)

“And had barely reached the age of sixteen

When in 1540 I went with Baïf

To Upper Germany, where I learned the language”

Again a page to the Duke of Orleans in 1539, Ronsard joined the embassy sent to Germany in 1540. This was led by Lazare de Baïf, whose son Jean-Antoine also accompanied him. It is possible that Ronsard was sent by the Duke to keep an eye on things; the embassy was designed to try to detach some of the German princes from Charles V’s side and perhaps bring them into alliance with France, and no doubt the Duke would have liked to have his own sources of information as well as the ‘official’ sources. (The embassy is sometimes referred to as going to the Diet of Speyer; the Diet was though convened by Charles V, so this mission might have been rather delicate – if the Diet had been in session in 1540, which it wasn’t. Cohen however says the embassy stayed in Haguenau, in the Alsace – nearby, and perhaps a more obvious target for French alliances.)

Cohen doubts that Ronsard bothered to learn German; it wasn’t a very useful language at the time!

“on my return a terrible illness

For some end unknown came and stopped up my hearing,

And hit me hard with a blow so heavy

That still today I remain half-deaf as a result”

Struck by illness (Cohen postulates a possible venereal origin!), Ronsard retired to Poissonière for a lengthy recovery. Half-deaf he decided to abandon a politico-military career and turned again to study, perhaps with a view to some sort of church career. He in fact took the tonsure in 1543; this did not make him a priest but it did make him eligible for a number of church posts from which he could have drawn (and later did draw) income. In the event, though, he remained in the service of Charles of Orleans and attached to the Court.

“The year after, in April, love took me unawares

As I followed the Court to Blois, through the fair eyes of Cassandre”

“The year after” – after what?  If it was the year after visiting Germany as Ronsard’s text implies that would be 1541 – which is too early.  So it’s likely to be a year after his illness and convalescence – implying a 2-3 period for these (see above). While Ronsard is certain he met Cassandre at Blois in April 1546, court records apparently show that the court did not go to Blois in 1546! There was however a ball held there in 1545, so it seems likely the two met in that year – and Ronsard’s memory was at fault…

 “Immediately afterwards, I came to be the disciple

Of d’Aurat in Paris”

So when did Ronsard move to Paris? Immediately after what?  (Or perhaps the later change to the text means it wasn’t ‘immediately after’?) Ronsard’s parents both died in 1544, and Lazare de Baïf apparently stepped in to offer the young man the chance to study in Paris, with the younger Baïf under Jean Dorat (D’Aurat). Initially the pair lived at the Baïf residence, as did Dorat who had been engaged to tutor Jean-Antoine; but Lazare died in 1547, and it is likely that at this point Dorat installed himself at the Collège de Coqueret where he became principal around this time. The ‘five years’ spent under Dorat would therefore include those initial years when they studied privately with him.

“… it was at his home that first

Our firm friendship began”

Although after Lazare de Baïf’s death Ronsard and the younger Baïf moved out and apparently joined Dorat, it is not clear that they attended his Collège. That is hardly “chez luy”.  Indeed Ronsard entered into a contract to rent no.2, rue de la Poterie, at Easter 1548 jointly with a minor cleric – interesting evidence also of a continued involvement in ecclesiastical circles.  Baïf and Ronsard were joined under Dorat’s tutelage by Belleau, and then by du Bellay, at this time – the core of the Pléiade. At least one source refers to the Pléiade arising from ‘teaching/learning [enseignement] at Chef Saint-Jean’ – Dorat’s own home. Perhaps then the group met informally at Dorat’s house rather than formally at the Collège. And it was from this context that du Bellay launched the Pléiade’s “manifesto” Défense et illustration de la langue française in 1549 and Ronsard exploded the bombshell of his first major collection, the Odes I-IV, in 1550.

3 – a Romanian (or Bulgarian) ancestor?

“So, as for my first ancestor, he came from roots

Where the freezing Danube runs beside Thrace;

Lower down than Hungary, in a cold region,

There was a Lord named Marquis of Ronsart,”

Did Mârâcinâ Ban exist, and was he Ronsard’s ancestor? The probable answer is no: this was quite possibly a family tradition which Ronsard reports – though it has also been suggested it might be pure imagination on his part!

The romantic tradition of Ronsard’s Romanian origins was not just popular in France. A French teacher and activist working in Romania during the 1830s -40s, Jean Vaillant, adopted Ronsard’s story in his 1844 book La Roumanie, using him as a symbol of the links between France and Romania.  Then the Romanian poet Vasile Alecsandri, writing in Paris after the failure of the 1848 Wallachian revolution, produced Banul Mărăcină in 1855 (though it was not published till 1861). This developed the bare bones of Ronsard’s story with circumstantial detail: Alecsandri made Mărăcină a boyar, lord of Ronsart, governor of Craiova (70 miles west of Bucharest, now Romania’s 6th largest city); and specified a troop of 50 younger sons coming to liberate France. It interests me that Blanchemain used Alecsandri’s “research” (indirectly) as a source for his footnote providing the story.

But romantic legends are not facts.

Further scholarly activity in France established that Ronsard’s grandfather was Olivier Ronsart or Roussart, who was an enfeoffed sergeant (sergent fieffé) in Gastine forest. Though some have said this title is, in modern terms, a gamekeeper it is worth noting that Loys de Ronsard carried the same title; I think it would therefore be better to see him as ‘warden of the forest’ or equivalent, a minor noble rather than a mere gamekeeper. He was a vassal of the Du Bellay family, ancestors of Joachim du Bellay.

Minor gentility does not of course invalidate a romantic Romanian origin, several generations further back. And scholars have identified a tradition which might be relevant: “a certain Baudoin Rossart came to France with John of Bohemia to fight the English at Crécy in 1346. King Philip of Valois apparently gave him as a sign of his recognition a domain in the Vendômois, where the brave gallant established himself.”  (Alliot & Baillou 1926, in a quatercentenary volume on Ronsard)  The same scholars also turned up an 11th century cartulary mentioning a ‘moulin Ronzart’ (Ronzart mill), however; which might suggest that the family had French origins several centuries older than the ‘Romanian link’.

And perhaps Romania is the wrong place to look anyway? At the end of the 19th century a Hungarian suggested that the lower Danubian area in question is Bulgaria – and even pointed to a town called Tarnovo which could (just) be translated as ‘Ronces’ (brambles). Today, there is a Musée Ronsard in Tarnovo…

Where does this leave us? For some scholars Olivier Ronsart’s ‘humble’ title of sergent fieffé means the Romanian/Bulgarian story cannot be true; others find no reason to argue against a possible East European root for the family. For myself, I rather like the Baudoin Rossart story but am not convinced.

In the end, does it matter? Ronsard came from minor noble stock; whether those minor nobles were home-grown, or came from dashing romantic Balkan stock racing across Europe in a crusade to ‘liberate France’, is really only a question of how colourful the story of his ancestry is!

My source for much of the detail in this section is:  N Popa  La Légende des Origines Roumaines de Ronsard in Lumières de la Pléiade (9^ème Stage International d’Etudes Huamnistes, Tours 1965. Special thanks to nikolchina for providing a link to http://www.patev.net/origironsard.htm which – for French readers – provides substantially more detail on the controversy over Ronsard’s Bulgarian roots, and takes a slightly less ambivalent attitude to the possibility. It also has some helpful maps!