Garnier’s tribute to Ronsard

It is SO long since I posted anything here: I hope to get going again & finish off Helen 2 at least. Meanwhile, it felt right to include Garnier’s tribute to the dead Ronsard – not least because my own attempt to preserve his memory has faltered …

This elegy was originally published in Binet’s memorial volume, Discours de la Vie de Pierre de Ronsard, in 1586. It was picked up and anthologised in 1778, in volume 8 of the Annales poétiques, ou Almanach des Muses, after which it reappeared several times elsewhere, copied from that anthology,and can now be found in several places on the web. But the 1778 anthologisers quietly abbreviated Garnier’s text – removing approximately 50% of it! So the versions found elsewhere are likewise abbreviated and I think this is the first time the full original text has been reproduced online.

Elégie sur le trespas de feu Monsieur de Ronsard   A monsieur des Portes Abbé de Thiron     Nature est aux humains sur tous autres cruelle, On ne voit animaux En la terre et au ciel, ny en l’onde infidele, Qui souffrent tant de maux.   Le rayon eternel de l’essence divine, Qu’en naissant nous avons, De mille passions noz tristes jours épine Tandis que nous vivons :   Et non pas seulement vivants il nous torture, Mais nous blesse au trespas, Car pour prevoir la mort, elle nous est plus dure Qu’elle ne seroit pas.   Si tost que nostre esprit dans le cerveau raisonne, Nous l’alons redoutant, Et sans cette frayeur que la raison nous donne, On ne la craindroit tant.   Nous creignons de mourir, de perdre la lumiere Du Soleil radieus, Nous creignons de passer sur les ais d’une biere Le fleuve stygieus.   Nous creignons de laisser noz maisons delectables, Noz biens et noz honneurs, Ces belles dignitez, qui nous font venerables Remarquer des seigneurs.   Les peuples des forests, de l’air et des rivieres, Qui ne voyent si loing, Tombent journellement aux mortelles pantieres Sans se gesner de soing.   Leur vie est plus heureuse, et moins sujette aus peines, Et encombres divers, Que nous souffrons chetifs en noz ames humaines, De desastres couverts.   Ores nous poind l’amour, Tyran de la jeunesse, Ores l’avare faim De l’or injurieus, qui fait que chacun laisse La vertu pour le gain.   Cetuy-cy se tourmente apres les grandeurs vaines, Enflé d’ambition, De cetuy-la l’envie empoisonne les veines Cruelle passion.   La haine, le courroux, le depit, la tristesse, L’outrageuse rancœur, Et la tendre pitié du foeble qu’on oppresse, Nous bourellent le cœur.   Et voila nostre vie, ô miserables hommes ! Nous semblons estre nez Pour estre, cependant qu’en ce monde nous sommes, Tousjours infortunez.   Et enquore, où le ciel en une belle vie Quelque vertus enclost, La chagrineuse mort qui les hommes envye Nous la pille aussi tost.   Ainsi le verd email d’une riante prée Est soudain effacé, Ainsi l’aymable teint d’une rose pourprée Est aussi tost passé.   La jeunesse de l’an n’est de longue durée, Mais l’Hyver aux dois gours, Et l’Esté embruny de la torche etherée Durent [orig : durant] presque toujours.   Mais las ! ô doux Printems, vostre verdeur fanie Retourne en mesme point, Mais quand nostre jeunesse une fois est finie Elle ne revient point.   La vieillesse nous prend maladive et facheuse, Hostesse de la mort, Qui pleins de mal nous pousse en une tombe creuse D’où jamais on ne sort.   Des Portes, que la Muse honore et favorise Entre tous ceux qui ont Suivy le saint Phebus, et sa science aprise Dessur le double mont.   Vous voyez ce Ronsard, merveilles de nostre age, L’honneur de l’Univers, Paitre de sa chair morte, inevitable outrage, Une source de vers.   De rien vostre Apollon, ny les Muses pucelles Ne luy ont profité, Bien qu’ils eussent pour luy les deux croppes jumelles De Parnasse quitté :   Et qu’ils eust conduits aux accords de sa Lire Dans ce François sejour, Pour chanter de noz Roys, et leurs victoires dire, Ou sonner de l’amour.   C’est grand cas, que ce Dieu, qui des enfance l’aime, Afranchit du trespas Ses divines chansons, et que le chantre mesme N’en affranchisse pas.   Vous en serez ainsi : car bien que vostre gloire, Espandue en tous lieux, Ne descende estoufée en une tombe noire Comme un peuple otieux,   Et que voz sacrez vers, qui de honte font taire Les plus grands du metier, Nous facent choir des mains, quand nous en cuidons faire, La plume et le papier.   Si verres vous le fleuve où tout le monde arrive, Et payrez le denier Que prend pour nous passer jusques à l’autre rive L’avare Nautonnier.   Que ne ressemblons nous aus vagueuses rivieres Qui ne changent de cours ? Ou au branle eternel des ondes marinieres Qui reflotent toujours ?   Et n’est-ce pas pitié, que ces roches pointues, Qui semblent depiter, De vents, de flots, d’oraige, et de foudres batues, L’ire de Jupiter,   Vivent incessament, incessament demeurent Dans leurs membres pierreux, Et que des hommes, tels que ce grand Ronsard, meurent Par un sort rigoureux ?   O destin lamentable ! un homme qui approche De la divinité Est ravy de ce monde, et le front d’une roche Dure un eternité.   Qui pourra desormais d’une alaine assez forte Entonner comme il faut La gloir de mon Roy, puisque la muse est morte Qui le chantoit si haut ?   Qui dira ses combats ? ses batailles sanglantes ? Quand jeune, Duc d’Anjou, De sa main foudroya les troupes protestantes Aux plaines de Poictou ?   Des portes qui sera-ce ? une fois vostre Muse, Digne d’estre en son lieu, Fuyant l’honneur profane aujourdhuy ne s’amuse Qu’au loüanges de Dieu.   Et qui sera-ce donc ? quelle voix suffisante, Pour sonner gravement Joyeuse nostre Achil, dont la gloire naissante S’acroist journellement ?   Qui dira son courage, indomtable à la peine, Indomtable à la peur, Et comme il appareille avec une ame humaine Un magnanime cœur ?   Comme il est de l’honneur, du seul honneur avare, D’autres biens liberal, Cherissant un chacun, fors celuy qui s’egare Du service royal ?   Ne permette Clion et Phebus ne permette Que Ronsard abattu Par l’ennuyeuse mort, ne se treuve Poëte Qui chante sa vertu.   Adieu, mon cher Ronsard, l’abeille en vostre tombe Face tousjour son miel, Que le baume Arabic à tout jamais y tombe, Et la manne du ciel.   Le Laurier y verdisse avec le lierre Et le Mirthe amoureus, Riche en mille boutons, de toutes parts l’enserre Le Rosier odoreus :   Le tin, le baselic, la franche Marguerite, Et nostre Lis François, Et cette rouge fleur, où la pleinte est escrite Du malcontent Gregeois.   Les Nymphes de Gâtine, et les Nayades sainctes, Qui habitent le Loir, Le venant arroser de larmettes epreintes, Ne cessent de douloir.   Las ! Cloton a tranché le fil de vostre vie D’une piteuse main, La voyant de vieillesse et de goutes suyvie, Torturage inhumain.   Voyant la povre France en son corps outragee Par le sanglant effort De ses enfans, qui l’ont tant de foys ravagee, Soupirer à la mort :   Le Souysse aguerry, qui aus combats se loüe, L’Anglois fermé de flots, Ceux qui boivent le Pau, le Tage et la Danoüe, Fondre dessus son dos.   Ainsi que le Vautour, qui de griffes bourelles Va sans fin tirassant De Promethé le foye, en patures nouvelles Coup sur coup renaissant.   Les meurtres inhumains se font entre les freres, Spectacle plein d’horreur, Et deja les enfans courent contre leurs peres D’une aveugle fureur :   Le cœur des Citoyens se remplit de furies, Les Paysans ecartez Meurent comme une haye : on ne voit que turies Par les chams desertez.   Et puis alez chanter l’honneur de nostre France En siecles si maudits, Attendez-vous qu’aucun vos labeurs recompense Comme on faisait jadis ?   La triste povreté noz chansons accompaigne, La Muse, les yeus bas, Se retire de nous, voyant que lon dedaigne Ses antiques ebats.   Vous estes donque heureus, et vostre mort heureuse, O Cigne des François, Ne lamentez que nous, dont la vie ennuyeuse Meurt le jour mile fois.   Vous errez maintenant aux campaignes d’Elise, A l’ombre des Vergers, Où chargent en tout tems, asseurez de la Bise, Les jaunes Orengers :   Où les prez sont toujours tapissez de verdure, Les vignes de raisins, Et les petits oyseaus, gasoüillans au murmure Des ruisseaus cristalins.   Là le Cedre gommeus odoreusement sue, Et l’arbre du Liban, Et l’Ambre, et Myrrhe, au lit de son Pere receüe, Pleure le long de l’an.   En grand’ foule acourus, autour de vous se pressent Les heros anciens, Qui boyvent le nectar, d’ambrosie se paissent, Aux bords Elisiens :   Sur tous le grand Eumolpe, et le divin Orphee, Et Line, et Amphion, Et Musee, et celuy, dont la plume eschauffee Mist en cendre Ilion.   Le loüengeur Thebain, le chantre de Mantoüe, Le Lyrique latin, Et aveques Seneque, honneur grand de Cordoüe, L’amoureus Florentin :   Tous vont battant des mains, sautellent de liesse, S’entredisant entre eux, Voyla celuy, qui donte et l’Itale et la Grece En poëmes nombreus :   L’un vous donne sa lyre, et l’au[t]re sa trompette, L’autre vous veut donner Son Myrthe, son Lierre, ou son Laurier profette, Pour vous en couronner.   Ainsi vivez heureuse, ame toute divine, Tandis que le destin Nous reserve aus malheurs de la France, voysine De sa derniere fin.

Elegy on the death of the late M.de Ronsard   To M. Desportes, abbot of Thiron     Nature is to men above all others cruel, We do not see animals On earth or in the skies, or in the treacherous seas, Suffering so many ills.   The eternal ray of the divine essence Which we receive at birth With a hundred passions troubles our sad days While we live.   And not only while we live does it torture us, But injures us at our death, For foreseeing death is to us harder Than the event itself will be.   As soon as our spirit reasons within our brains, We begin to fear it, And without this terror which reason gives us We would not be so frightened of it.   We are frightened of dying, of losing the light Of the radiant Sun, We are frightened of crossing, on the planks of a bier, The Stygian river;   We are frightened of leaving our delightful homes, Our goods and our honours, Those fine dignities which make us respected And noticed by lords.   The inhabitants of the forests, the air and the rivers Who do not see so far, Fall daily to death-dealing snares Without troubling themselves with worries.   Their life is happier, and less subject to the troubles And various burdens Which we weakly suffer in our human souls, Overcome by disasters.   Sometimes love afflicts us, that tyrant of our youth, Sometimes the greedy hunger For harmful gold, which makes everyone abandon Virtue for gain.   This man torments himself seeking empty greatness, Puffed up with ambition, That man’s veins are poisoned by envy, That cruel passion.   Hatred, anger, spite, sorrow, Hurtful bitterness, And tender pity for the weak who are oppressed Bubble away in our hearts.   And that’s our life, o wretched men! We seem to be born To be, while we are in this world, Always unfortunate.   And even when heaven includes Some happiness in a good life, Sorrowful death which envies men Steals it from us soon enough.   Just so the fresh mosaic of a gay meadow Is suddenly wiped away, Just so the lovely tint of a crimson rose Is soon enough past.   The year’s youth does not last long, But Winter with his stiff fingers And Summer scorched by the heavenly flame Last almost forever.   Alas, sweet Spring, your faded freshness Returns to the same state [each year] But when once our youth is finished It does not return.   Old age takes us, sickly and disagreeable, Death’s hostess, And, full of ills, pushes us into a dug grave From which none ever escapes.   Desportes, whom the Muse honours and favours Among all those of us who have Followed holy Apollo and learned his wisdom Upon the double mount:   You see this Ronsard, the marvel of our age, The glory of the world, Feeding with his dead flesh – an inescapable indignity – A stream of worms.   Nothing have your Apollo and his maiden Muses Profited him, Although for him they abandoned The twin mounts of Parnassus,   And although they have spent time, to the harmonies of his lyre, In this France of ours, To sing of our Kings and announce their victories, Or to celebrate love.   It’s very clear that the god who loved him from infancy Excepted from death His divine songs, and yet could not except from it The singer himself.   It will be the same for you: for although your glory, Spreading to every place, Will not descend, smothered, into a dark tomb Like unproductive folk’s,   And though your sacred verse, which for shame makes The greatest in the business fall silent, Makes the pen and paper fall from our hands, When we wish to use them:   Yet still you will see the river where every man arrives, And you will pay the penny Which the greedy Boatman takes That we may pass to the other side.   Why are we not like the rippling waters Which don’t change their course? Or the eternal movement of the sea’s waves Which break and break again?   Isn’t it a pity that those sharp rocks Which seem to despise The winds, the tides, storms and battering of lightning, The anger of Jupiter,   Live on eternally, remain eternally In their stony forms, And that men like the great Ronsard die By harsh fate?   O grievous destiny! A man who approaches The divine Is stolen from this world, and a rock-face Lasts an eternity.   Who will be able henceforth with so strong a voice To thunder as they should Of my King’s glory, since the muse is dead Who sang it so loudly?   Who shall sing of his combats? Of his bloody battles? Who when young, as the Duke of Anjou, Overthrew with his might the protestant troops On the plains of Poitou …   Deportes, who will it be? Once, perhaps, your muse Was worthy to be in his place; But fleeing worldly honours today she employs herself Only in the praise of God.   So who will it be? What voice sufficient To celebrate gravely Our joyous Achilles, whose budding glory Grows daily?   Who shall speak of his courage, unconquered by strife, Unconquered by fear, And how it equipped with a human soul A magnanimous heart?   How it is hungry for honour, for honour alone, Liberal with other good things, Cherishes everyone, even those who fall away From the king’s service?   Do not permit, Clio, and Apollo do not permit That Ronsard, defeated By grievous death, should not find a Poet To sing of his worth.   Farewell, my dear Ronsard, may the bees always Make their honey on your tomb, May balm from Arabia forever fall there With manna from heaven.   May the laurel flourish there, along with ivy And lovers’ myrtle, Rich with a thousand buds, and on all sides may The perfumed rose-bush embrace it,   And thyme, basil, the simple daisy, Our lily of France, And that red flower on which is written the plaint Of the unhappy Greek.   May the nymphs of Gastine and the holy water-nymphs Who live in the Loir Having just poured out and expressed their tears for you Not cease from grieving.   Alas! Clotho has cut the thread of your life With her pitying hand, Seeing it accompanied by old age and gout, Those inhuman tortures,   And seeing our poor France, wounded in her body By the bloody struggles Of her children, who have so many times ravaged her, Sighing for death;   And Switzerland at war, giving itself over to strife, England enclosed by the seas, And those who drink from the Po, Tagus and Danube Drowning beneath their waters;   Just like the vulture, which with its executioner’s claws Endlessly rakes The liver of Prometheus, in new pastures Renewing blow on blow,   Inhuman murders take place between brothers, A horrific sight, And now children rush upon their fathers In blind madness;   The hearts of city-dwellers are filled with Furies, The country-folk, swept aside, Die in their rows; we see nothing but killings Throughout the deserted countryside.   And yet you go on singing of the honour of our France In times so accursed: Do you expect anyone to reward your labours As they did in the past?   Wretched poverty accompanies our songs; The Muse, her eyes lowered, Leaves us, seeing that we disdain Her former amusements.   So, you are fortunate, and your death fortunate, O Swan of the French, Lament only for us, whose troubled lives Die a thousand times every day.   You now wander in the fields of Elysium, In the shade of the orchards Where at all times, secure from cold northerly winds, The tawny orange-trees are laden;   Where the meadows are always carpeted in green, The vines with grapes, And the little birds go chattering to the murmur Of crystalline streams.   There the cedar sweats its perfumed gum, And the tree of Lebanon Weeps both amber and myrrh, received at its father’s bed, All year long.   Running up in a great crowd, around you press The ancient heroes Who drink nectar and feed on ambrosia On the banks of Elysium,   Above all great Eumolpe and godlike Orpheus And Linus and Amphion And Musaeus, and he whose burning pen Set fire to Troy;   The Theban praise-singer, the poet of Mantua, The Latin lyricist And, with Seneca the great glory of Cordoba, The Florentine love-poet,   All of them clapping their hands, leaping with joy, Saying to one another, “There he is, the man who surpassed Italy and Greece In many a poem”.   One of them gives you his lyre, another his trumpet, Another tries to give you His myrtle, his ivy, or his prophetic laurel To crown you with them.   So, live on happily, godlike soul, While fate keeps us back For the misfortunes of France, close To her final end.

 

(In verse 15, I have amended one word slightly, to form a proper sentence – though Garnier may have been deliberately leaving the sentence hanging.)

 

As one would expect, Garnier’s tribute ranges over the areas Ronsard himself wrote about – the King and the civil wars, classical myth, nature, love poetry, Ronsard’s home on the Loir … So there are plenty of relatively obscure references perhaps worth amplifying:

 – the dedication is to Ronsard’s “successor”, Philippe Desportes – a lesser poet, but one whose fame eclipsed Ronsard’s in the latter portion of his life;

 – verse 5, the “Stygian river”, the Styx, is the river between the living world and Hades, across which Charon the ferryman or boatman (verse 25) takes all dead souls;

 – verses 18 & 20, Parnassus (the ‘double mount’, at right – photo credit Rens van der Sluijs) is the traditional home of the Muses. Ovid called it ‘biceps’, that is ‘two-headed’, and between its twin peaks was Delphi, the ‘omphalos’ (navel, centre) of the world;

 – verse 33, ‘Achilles’ (the great soldier) means of course the King

 – verse 37, Clio is usually the Muse of history, but sometimes also the Muse of lyre-playing: both seem appropriate here;

 – verse 40, the ‘unhappy Greek’ is not Narcissus but Hyacinthus, whose flower bears the Greek letters AIAI (‘alas’, ‘woe’);

 – verse 41, the Gastine & Loir are familiar as part of Ronsard’s beloved estates;

 – verse 42, Clotho is one of the Fates who determine the length of a man’s life – though note that Clotho is normally the Fate who spins the thread of life, Atropos the one who cuts it …

 – verse 45, the story of Prometheus eternally having his liver torn out by the eagle (or vulture) by day only for it to re-grow overnight, is well-known;

 – verse 53, I confess I have no idea what the end of line 3 (“received at its father’s bed”) is referring to … Ideas welcome. Amber and myrrh (like frankincense too) are resinous – and therefore associated with the resin-rich cedars of Lebanon, though myrrh in particular comes form small thorn-trees not huge cedars;

 –  verse 55-56 list many of the greatest poets of the past, legendary and historical.

     – Eumolpe (or Eumolpos – which means ‘beautiful song’) was founder of the Eleusininan mysteries in ancient Athens;

     – ‘godlike Orpheus’ is still well-known to us if only for carelessly losing Eurydice after charming Cerberus, the hell-dog, and Hades himself with his song;

     – Linus, sometimes viewed as Orpheus’s brother, was the inventor of lyric song and/or the harp;

     – Amphion, one of the founders of Thebes, was taught music by the god Hermes himself – and has a modern poetic form named after him;

     – Musaeus, lawgiver of Athens, was also was held to have been one of the great poets by Athenians – Socrates in the Apology links his name with three others in this list: “What would not a man give if he might converse with Orpheus and Musaeus and Hesiod and Homer?”;

     – Homer indeed is the next on the list, he “whose burning pen Set fire to Troy”;

     – the “Theban praise-singer” is Hesiod, associated with Mt. Helicon in Boeotia.

Bringing us from legendary to historical poets, “the poet of Mantua” is Virgil and the “Latin lyricist” is Horace. Seneca, although we think of him as Roman, was indeed born in Spain, in Cordoba; and last in the list and the only ‘modern’, the love-poet from Florence is of course Petrarch.

 

Amours book 2 – Elégie à son livre

Although it’s been months since my last post, I find myself still in book 2 of the Amours! This is really the very last poem from book 2 I’ll be posting, though: the lengthy Elegy which Ronsard prefixed to the book as he sent it out into the world.

Mon fils, si tu sçavois ce qu’on dira de toy, Tu ne voudrois jamais desloger de chez moy, Enclos en mon estude : et ne voudrois te faire Salir ny fueilleter aux mains du populaire. Quand tu seras parti, sans jamais retourner, Estranger loin de moy te faudra sejourner : « Car ainsi que le vent sans retourner s’envole, « Sans espoir de retour s’eschappe la parole.   Or tu es ma parole, à qui de nuict et jour J’ay conté les propos que me contoit Amour, Pour les mettre en ces vers qu’en lumiere tu portes, Crochetant maugré moy de ma chambre les portes, Pauvret! qui ne sçais pas que nos citoyens sont Plus subtils par le nez que le Rhinoceront.   Donc avant que tenter la mer et le naufrage, Voy du port la tempeste, et demeure au rivage. « Tard est le repentir de tost s’estre embarqué.   Tu seras tous les jours des médisans moqué D’yeux, et de hausse-becs, et d’un branler de teste. « Sage est celuy qui croit à qui bien l’amoneste.   Tu sçais (mon cher enfant) que je ne te voudrois Tromper, contre nature impudent je faudrois, Et serois un Serpent de farouche nature Si je voulois trahir ma propre geniture : Car tout tel que tu es, n’agueres je te fis, Et je ne t’aime moins qu’un pere aime son fils.   Quoy? tu veux donc partir : et tant plus je te cuide Retenir au logis, plus tu hausses la bride. Va donc puis qu’il te plaist, mais je te suppliray De respondre à chacun ce que je te diray, Afin que toy (mon fils) tu gardes en l’absence De moy le pere tien, l’honneur et l’innocence.   Si quelque dame honneste et gentille de cœur (Qui aura l’inconstance et le change en horreur) Me vient, en te lisant, d’un gros sourcil reprendre Dequoy je ne devois oublier ma Cassandre, Qui la premiere au cœur le trait d’amour me mist, Et que le bon Petrarque un tel peché ne fist, Qui fut trente et un an amoureux de sa dame, Sans qu’une autre jamais luy peust eschauffer l’ame : Respons-luy je te pri’, que Petrarque sur moy N’avoit authorité pour me donner sa loy, Ny à ceux qui viendroyent apres luy, pour les faire Si long temps amoureux sans leur lien desfaire.   Luy-mesme ne fut tel : car à voir son escrit Il estoit esveillé d’un trop gentil esprit Pour estre sot trente ans, abusant sa jeunesse Et sa Muse au giron d’une vieille maistresse : Ou bien il jouyssoit de sa Laurette, ou bien Il estoit un grand fat d’aimer sans avoir rien. Ce que je ne puis croire, aussi n’est-il croyable : Non, il en jouyssoit : puis la fist admirable, « Chaste, divine, saincte : aussi l’amoureux doit « Celebrer la beauté dont plaisir il reçoit : « Car celuy qui la blasme apres la jouissance « N’est homme, mais d’un Tygre il a prins sa naissance. Quand quelque jeune fille est au commencement Cruelle, dure, fiere à son premier amant, Constant il faut attendre : il peut estre qu’une heure Viendra sans y penser, qui la rendra meilleure. Mais quand elle devient voire de jour en jour Plus dure et plus rebelle, et plus rude en amour, On s’en doit esloigner, sans se rompre la teste De vouloir adoucir une si sotte beste. Je suis de tel advis : me blasme de ceci, M’estime qui voudra, je le conseille ainsi.   Les femmes bien souvent sont cause que nous sommes Volages et legers, amadoüans les hommes D’un espoir enchanteur, les tenant quelquefois Par une douce ruse, un an, ou deux, ou trois, Dans les liens d’Amour sans aucune allegeance : Ce-pendant un valet en aura joüissance, Ou bien quelque badin emportera ce bien Que le fidele amy à bon droit cuidoit sien. Et si ne laisseront, je parle des rusées Qui ont au train d’amour leurs jeunesses usées, (C’est bien le plus grand mal qu’un homme puisse avoir Que servir une femme accorte à decevoir) D’enjoindre des travaux qui sont insupportables, Des services cruels, des tâches miserables : Car sans avoir esgard à la simple amitié De leurs pauvres servans, cruelles n’ont pitié, Non plus qu’un fier Corsaire en arrogance braves, N’a pitié des captifs aux environs esclaves. Il faut vendre son bien, il faut faire presens De chaisnes, de carquans, de diamans luisans : Il faut donner la Perle, et l’habit magnifique, Il faut entretenir la table et la musique, Il faut prendre querelle, il faut les suporter. Certes j’aimerois mieux dessus le dos porter La hotte, pour curer les estables d’Augée, Que me voir serviteur d’une Dame rusée. « La mer est bien à craindre, aussi est bien le feu, « Et le Ciel quand il est de tonnerres esmeu, « Mais trop plus est à craindre une femme clergesse, « Sçavante en l’art d’amour, quand elle est tromperesse : « Par mille inventions mille maux elle fait, « Et d’autant qu’elle est femme, et d’autant qu’elle sçait. Quiconque fut le Dieu qui la mit en lumiere Il fut premier autheur d’une grande misere.   Il falloit par presens consacrez aux autels Acheter nos enfans des grands Dieux immortels, Et non user sa vie avec ce mal aimable, Les femmes, passion de l’homme miserable, Miserable et chetif d’autant qu’il est vassal, Durant le temps qu’il vit, d’un si fier animal. Mais je vous pri’, voyez comment par fines ruses Elles sçavent trouver mille feintes excuses, Apres qu’ell’ ont failly ! voyez Helene apres Qu’Ilion fut bruslé de la flamme des Grecs, Comme elle amadoüa d’une douce blandice Son badin de mary, qui luy remit son vice, Et qui plus que devant de ses yeux fut épris, Qui scintilloient encor les amours de Pâris. Que dirons-nous d’Ulysse ? encores qu’une trope De jeunes poursuyvans aimassent Penelope, Devorans tout son bien, si est-ce qu’il brusloit D’embrasser son espouse, et jamais ne vouloit Devenir immortel avec Circe la belle, Pour ne revoir jamais Penelope, laquelle Pleurant luy rescrivoit de son fascheux sejour, Pendant qu’en son absence elle faisoit l’amour : Si bien que le Dieu Pan de ses jeux print naissance, (D’elle et de ses muguets la commune semence) Envoyant tout expres, pour sa commodité, Le fils chercher le père en Sparte la cité. « Voilà comment la femme avec ses ruses donte « L’homme, de qui l’esprit toute beste surmonte.   Quand on peut par hazard heureusement choisir Quelque belle maistresse, et l’avoir à plaisir, Soit de haut ou bas lieu, pourveu qu’elle soit fille Humble, courtoise, honneste, amoureuse et gentille, Sans fard, sans tromperie, et qui sans mauvaitié Garde de tout son cœur une simple amitié, Aimant trop mieux cent fois à la mort estre mise, Que de rompre sa foy quand elle l’a promise : Il la faut honorer tant qu’on sera vivant, Comme un rare joyau qu’on treuve peu souvent. « Celuy certainement merite sur la teste « Le feu le plus ardent d’une horrible tempeste, « Qui trompe une pucelle et mesmement alors « Qu’elle se donne à nous, et de cœur et de cors.   N’est-ce pas un grand bien quand on fait un voyage, De rencontrer quelcun qui d’un pareil courage Veut nous acompagner, et comme nous passer Les torrens, les rochers, fascheux à traverser ? Aussi n’est-ce un grand bien de trouver une amie, Qui nous aide à passer cette chetive vie, Qui sans estre fardée ou pleine de rigueur, Traite fidellement de son amy le cueur ?   Dy leur, si de fortune une belle Cassandre Vers moy se fust monstrée un peu courtoise et tendre, Et pleine de pitié eust cherché à guarir Le mal dont ses beaux yeux dix ans m’ont fait mourir, Non seulement du corps, mais sans plus d’une œillade Eust voulu soulager mon pauvre cœur malade, Je ne l’eusse laissée, et m’en soit à tesmoin Ce jeune enfant ailé qui des amours a soin.   Mais voiant que tousjours elle marchoit plus fiere, Je desliay du tout mon amitié premiere, Pour en aimer une autre en ce païs d’Anjou, Où maintenant Amour me detient sous le jou : Laquelle tout soudain je quitteray, si elle M’est comme fut Cassandre, orgueilleuse et rebelle, Pour en chercher une autre, à fin de voir un jour De pareille amitié recompenser m’amour, Sentant l’affection d’une autre dans moymesme : « Car un homme est bien sot d’aimer si on ne l’aime.   Or’ si quelqu’un apres me vient blasmer, dequoy Je ne suis plus si grave en mes vers que j’estoy A mon commencement, quand l’humeur Pindarique Enfloit empoulément ma bouche magnifique : Dy luy que les amours ne se souspirent pas D’un vers hautement grave, ains d’un beau stille bas, Populaire et plaisant, ainsi qu’a fait Tibulle, L’ingenieux Ovide, et le docte Catulle. Le fils de Venus hait ces ostentations : Il suffist qu’on luy chante au vray ses passions Sans enflure ny fard, d’un mignard et doux stile, Coulant d’un petit bruit, comme une eau qui distile. Ceux qui font autrement, ils font un mauvais tour A la simple Venus, et à son fils Amour.   S’il advient quelque jour que d’une voix hardie J’anime l’eschafaut par une tragedie Sentencieuse et grave, alors je feray voir Combien peuvent les nerfs de mon petit sçavoir. Et si quelque furie en mes vers je rencontre, Hardi j’opposeray mes Muses alencontre : Et feray resonner d’un haut et grave son (Pour avoir part au bouc) la tragique tançon. Mais ores que d’Amour les passions je pousse, Humble je veux user d’une Muse plus douce.   Je ne veux que ce vers d’ornement indigent Entre dans une escole, ou qu’un brave regent Me lise pour parade : il suffist si m’amie Le touche de la main dont elle tient ma vie. Car je suis satisfait, si elle prend à gré Ce labeur que je voüe à ses pieds consacré.

My son, if you knew what they’ll say of you, You’d never want to leave my home, But stay shut away in my study; you wouldn’t want yourself Dirtied or leafed thorough by the crowd’s hands. When you’ve gone, never to return, You’ll have to live like a stranger far from me : “For as the wind flies off without returning, So, without hope of returning, the word escapes.”   And you are my word, to whom night and day I have told the ideas which Love told me, So I could put them into these verses which you take into the light, Picking the locks of the doors of my room in defiance of me, Poor thing, who know not that our citizens have Sharper noses than the rhinoceros.   So, before trying the sea and shipwreck, See the storm from port, and stay on the shore. “Early to board, late to repent.”   Every day you’ll be mocked by ill-wishers, With their eyes, their lifted noses, and a shake of the head. “Wise the man who believes a person who gives good advice.”   You know, my dear child, that I have no desire To deceive you: I would have to be shameless, contrary to nature And a serpent with an untamed nature If I sought to betray my own offspring, For just as you are, I recently made you, And I love you no less than a father loves his son.   Yet you still wish to go? And the more I wish To keep you at home, the more you pull at the bit. Go on then, since you want to, but I beg you To answer everyone as I will tell you, So that you, my son, protect in my absence Your father’s – my own! – honour and innocence.   If some honest lady of noble heart, Who is horrified by inconstancy and change, On reading you reproves me with a heavy frown That I ought not to have forgotten my Cassandre, Who was first to shoot the arrow of love into my heart, And that good old Petrarch committed no such sin, Being thirty-one years in love with his lady Without any other ever being able to set his soul ablaze, Then reply to her, I beg, that Petrarch had No authority over me to subject me to his law, Nor those others who came after him, to make us Love so long a time without breaking our ties.   He himself was not like that; for if you look at what he wrote He was a sharp man, with too noble a spirit To be a fool for thirty years, wasting his youth And his Muse in the lap of an old mistress. Either he enjoyed his little Laura, or he was Indeed a great fool to love but not have her at all. I can’t believe that, nor is it believable; No, he enjoyed her, then made her out to be admirable, Chaste, divine, holy: “The lover should also Celebrate the beauty from whom he gains his pleasure; For he who blames her after enjoying her Is no man, but was born of a tiger.”   When some young girl is at the beginning Cruel, harsh and proud to her first lover, He must remain constant; it may be that the time Will come, unexpectedly, which will make her better. But when she becomes from day to day Harsher and more contrary, and coarser in love, You should distance yourself, without wearying yourself Trying to soften so foolish a beast. That’s my advice: blame me for it Or praise me who will, I counsel him thus.   Women are often the reason we are Light and flighty, coaxing men With bewitching hope, sometimes keeping them With sweet tricks for a year, or two, or three, In love’s bonds without relief; And yet a servant will enjoy them, Or perhaps some wag will run off with the delight Which the faithful lover rightly thought his own. And still they won’t stop, I mean those sly girls Who have spent their youths in Love’s train, (It’s certainly the greatest trouble a man can have To serve a woman used to deception) [They won’t stop] demanding work which is insupportable, Cruel service, wretched tasks; For without regard to the simple love Of their poor servants, they cruelly have no pity, No more than a proud corsair, brave and arrogant, Has pity on the captives in his slave-quarters. [The lover] has to sell his goods, make presents Of chains, purses, and shining diamonds; He must give pearls and magnificent clothes, He must look after the table and the music, He must take up her quarrels, and endure them. Certainly I’d prefer to carry on my back A basket and clean the Augean stables, Than to become the servant of a sly Lady. “The sea really should be feared, the fire as well, And the sky when it is shaken with thunder, But much more to be feared is a learned woman Well-versed in the art of love, when she is a deceiver; By a thousand tricks she makes a thousand evils, And she’s as wise as she is a woman.” Whichever was the god who brought her to life, He was the prime author of great misery.   We ought, with presents consecrated at their altars To offer bribes for our children with the great, immortal gods, So they don’t waste their lives with that pleasant evil Woman, the passion of wretched men, Wretched and weak insofar as they’re vassals During their lives of so proud a beast. I beg you, see how by subtle tricks They are able to find a thousand fake excuses After they’ve deceived! Look at Helen after Troy was burned by the Greeks’ fire, How she wheedled with sweet flattery Her fool of a husband, who forgave her vice And fell in love more than before with her eyes Which sparkled still with love for Paris. And what shall we say of Ulysses? While a troop Of young suitors was making love to Penelope, Devouring all his goods, yet still he burned To kiss his wife, and never wished To become immortal with the beautiful Circe So as never again to see Penelope, whom Weeping he wanted to tell about his wearisome journey, While in his absence she was making love: So much so that the god Pan was born from their frolics (The common seed of her and her dandies) As she immediately sent, to make things easier for her, The son to seek his father in the city of Sparta. “That is how woman with her cunning defeats Man, whose spirit overcomes all the animals.”   If by chance you might fortunately choose Some fair mistress, and have her for your pleasure, No matter if she’s from a high or low place provided she is A humble, courteous, honest, loving and gentle girl, Without disguise, without trickery, who without wickedness Keeps with all her heart her simple love, Much preferring to be put to death a hundred times Than to break her word when she has promised it; Then you must honour her while you live As a rare jewel most infrequently found. “He certainly deserves the hottest fires Of terrible storms upon his head Who deceives a maid, especially when She gives herself to us heart and body.“   Isn’t it a great delight when we’re travelling To meet someone who with equal bravery Wishes to a company us and like us to journey Over torrents and rocks, tiresome to cross? And isn’t it a great delight to find a girl Who helps us on this life’s wretched journey, Who without being burdened or full of harshness Treats her lover’s heart faithfully?   Tell them, then, if perchance the fair Cassandre Had showed herself a little courteous and tender towards me, And full of pity had sought to cure The ills with which her fair eyes had put me to death those ten years; If not with her body but with just a single glance She’d been willing to soothe my poor, ill heart, I’d not have left her, let my witness be That young winged child who watches over love-affairs.   But seeing how she always continued more proud I unbound myself from all my first love To love with it another in the country of Anjou, Where Love now keeps me under his yoke. [A love] which I will immediately abandon if she Is to me as Cassandre was, proud and rebellious, To find another, so that one day I may see My love returned with an equal love, Feeling the affection of another within myself: “For a man is a complete fool to love if he isn’t loved.”   So, if someone afterwards chooses to blame me that I am no more as grave in my verse as I was At the beginning, when the Pindaric mood Puffed up in swollen words my magniloquent voice; Then tell him that love does not sigh In high-flown grave verse, but in a fine low style, Pleasant and popular, like that of Tibullus, The ingenious Ovid and the learned Catullus. The son of Venus hates ostentation: Enough that we sing his passions to him truly Without bombast or disguise, in a charming sweet style Flowing with a gentle sound like a tinkling spring. Those who do otherwise do a bad turn To simple Venus and her son Love.   If it should happen one day that with bold voice I enliven the stage with some tragedy Grave and sententious, then I shall show How loud the strings of my little learning can sound. And if I encounter passion in my verse I shall boldly set my Muses against it, And make a tragic dialogue resound with high-flown And serious tones (assuming the tragic buskin). But while I focus on the passions of Love, In lower style I prefer to employ a sweeter Muse.   I do not want these verses, stripped of ornament, To enter some school, or a worthy regent To read me for show; it’s enough if my beloved Touches it with the hand in which she holds my life. For I am satisfied if she approves This work which I dedicate, consecrated, at her feet.

 

A few words of commentary on these 200 lines:- the rhinoceros (or, in the earlier version, elephant) has a ‘subtle’ nose, one good for smelling out the good and the bad: ‘sharp’, we could more easily say in English, but while it’s obvious which sort of ‘sharpness’ the elephant’s nose has, it’s perhaps less so for the rhinoceros where a ‘sharp’ nose could refer to its horn not its sensitivity.- Ronsard’s cynicism about Petrarch’s chaste relationship with Laura is perhaps also a corrective to those scholars who think Ronsard’s own affairs were more imagined than real?  His harsh words about women, implicitly applied to Cassandra, should not be taken too literally: he speaks elsewhere of still loving her.

– there’s a cluster of classical references in the middle of the poem:  the Augean stables, cleaning whose filth was one of Heracles’ ‘impossible’ tasks;  Helen of Troy, taken back by Menelaus after Troy’s fall as she was still the most beautiful woman in the world, though her continuing love for Paris is largely a Ronsardian invention (in Homer, she and Menelaus are genuinely reconciled)

– Ronsard invents, too, Penelope’s unfaithfulness to Odysseus with her troop of suitors – in the Odyssey she famously remains loyal; his son Telemachus journeys to Sparta seeking information from Menelaus at the goddess Athene’s prompting, not sent away by Penelope; and Circe did not offer Odysseus immortality but threatened to turn him into a pig like his followers!  Ronsard has, ironically because it would be obvious to all his readers, twisted the Greek tale on its head. However, at the same time he demonstrates his wide and deep reading: in a pretty obscure Pindar fragment, but as far as I know nowhere else, Penelope is indeed said to be Pan’s mother (the father, though, Apollo not one or several human suitors!)

– where Ronsard turns to his new love in Anjou, he says “Je desliay du tout mon amitié premiere, / Pour en aimer une autre en ce païs d’Anjou“; that “en” technically means that he is giving Marie his first love, transferring it from Cassandre: this is not a new love, but the old one with a new subject.

– for the really interested, “empoulément” is ampoulément, from the same root as ampoule, a ‘swollen’ bulb of glass.

– Ronsard contrasts the style of Pindar – the great Greek poet of Odes – with that of Tibullus, Ovid and Catullus: Romans, but principally contrasted as love-poets and slightly licentious ones at that. (The ‘son of Venus’ is of course Cupid, god of love.)

 

 

See the next post for Blanchemain’s earlier version with its many variants.

 

Amours 2:48

Ha ! que je porte et de haine et d’envie

Au medecin qui vient soir et matin

Sans nul propos tastonner le tetin,

Le sein le ventre et les flancs de m’amie.

 

Las ! il n’est pas si songneux de sa vie

Comme elle pense, il est mechant et fin :

Cent fois le jour il la visite, afin

De voir son sein qui d’aimer le convie.

 

Vous qui avez de sa fiévre le soin,

Parens, chasser ce medecin bien loin,

Ce medecin amoureux de Marie,

 

Qui fait semblant de la venir penser.

Que pleust à Dieu pour l’en recompenser,

Qu’il eust mon mal, et qu’elle fust guarie !

 

 

 

 

                                                                            Oh what hatred and envy I bear

                                                                            Towards the doctor who comes morning and night

                                                                            With no excuse to touch my love’s

                                                                            Breast, chest, stomach and sides.

 

                                                                            Ah, he’s not so worried for her life

                                                                            As she thinks, he is wicked and cunning;

                                                                            A hundred times a day he visits her, to

                                                                            Look at her breasts, eager to make love to them.

 

                                                                            You who have the care of her fever,

                                                                            Her parents, chase this doctor far away,

                                                                            This doctor who’s in love with Marie,

 

                                                                            Who pretends to come and put a dressing on her.

                                                                            May God please to pay him back

                                                                            With my illness, while she is cured!

 

 

 

 It seems that Marie did not just have an eye condition: here a doctor is visiting to check on a chest complaint. This time, though, the malady may be fictional, because the poem is based on one by Ovid – one of the Heroides, a series of invented letters between famous mythological characters.

 

Blanchemain offers some minor variants. In lines 7-8 he has

 

Cent fois le jour ne la vient voir qu’afin

De voir son sein qui d’aimer le convie.

 

                                                                            A hundred times a day he comes to see her only to

                                                                            Look at her breasts, eager to make love to them.

 

 

The later change (above) removes the clumsy “voir … voir” (which I’ve hidden by using two different words in the translation!). Then in line 10 the early version has “Je vous supply de me chasser bien loin” (‘ I beg you to chase this doctor far away for [or ‘from’] me’).  Blanchemain helpfully re-spells the word “panser/penser” in line 12: no change in meaning, simply one of orthography. Clearly there was no (or very little) difference in pronunciation, though the meaning is conveyed more clearly when the word is not spelled the same as “penser”=’to think’!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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).

 

 

 

 

 

 

Poems 1.20 – the Nightingale

 

LE ROSSIGNOL chantant et faisant son nid dedans un genèvre   Gay Rossignol honneur de la ramée, Qui jour et nuit courtise ton aimée Par mon jardin hoste de sa verdeur, Quarante jours desgoisant ton ardeur Et t’esclatant d’une voix qui gringote Ores en haute ores en basse note, A bec ouvert d’un siffletis trenchant, Hachant coupant entrerompant ton chant De cent fredons, tu donnes à ta femme Un doux martel, amoureux de ma Dame.   Tu n’aurois point tant de faveur sinon Que les vieux Grecs t’ont nommé d’un beau nom : Mais bien de deux, t’appellent ce me semble, D’un mesme mot, Chantre et Poëte ensemble.   Et je dirois, si j’estois un bragard, Que Rossignol vient du nom de Ronsard.   Mais ce n’est moy qui ma Musique vante : Soit bien soit mal, Rossignolet, je chante Ainsi que toy pour me donner plaisir, Quand j’ay Madame argent et le loisir. Quoy ? qui t’esmeut de courtiser sans cesse Et d’enchanter Genévre ma Maistresse ?   En ce Genévre où tu chantes de nuit, Dessous l’escorce une pucelle vit, A qui l’amour la peur et l’avanture Ont fait changer de face et de nature.   Un jour ce Dieu tout bouquin par le front La poursuivoit d’un pied de chévre pront. Elle courant d’une fuite legere Ainsi pria Diane bocagere : Ou me transforme, ou bien fay moy mourir : La seule mort me pourra secourir Ains que l’ardeur de ce Bouquin je sente.   A-peine eut dit, qu’elle fut une plante : Ses doigts longuets, ses bras veneux et beaux, Comme ils estoyent, se changent en rameaux. Son pied devint une morne racine, Et une escorce entourna sa poitrine. Puis ses cheveux de crainte reboursez Espars se sont en fueilles herissez, Et la palleur qu’elle avoit en sa fuite, Vit sur l’escorce et tousjours y habite.   Un jour lassé de la chasse des loups, Seul à l’escart je m’endormi dessous L’ombre fatal de ce Genévre, et elle En corps humain m’apparut toute telle Qu’elle fut lors que le Bouc amoureux La poursuivoit par un taillis ombreux, Tant il avoit de flames dedans l’ame Pour la beauté d’une si jeune Dame. Depuis ce jour jamais je n’ay cessé D’avoir le cœur de son amour blessé, Et de languir pour un si beau visage.   Et toutefois brave de ton ramage Chantant sifflant et faisant mille tours, Tu veux tout seul jouyr de mes amours, Que de bon cœur, Rossignol, je te laisse : Car tu vaux mieux que ne fait ma Maistresse.   Et qui plus est, comme on voit un mary Plein de finesse entre Dames nourri, Faire secret l’amour à sa voisine : Quand il n’a pas une femme trop fine, La persuade avec un beau parler, De la hanter, visiter et d’aller Boire et manger souvent avecques elle, A fin d’avoir (par une ruse telle) Plus de moyen d’œillader les beaux yeux Qui de son cœur se font victorieux.   Ainsi rival ta femme tu ameines Dedans cest arbre, où d’un nid fait de laines Mousses, duvets, ses petits elle pond, Esclost, escouve, et qui apres se font Ainsi que toy au retour des fueillages Quarante jours Sereines des bocages.   Quoy ? Rossignol, la voix ne te defaut ! Et par despit tu t’efforces plus haut !   Puis qu’autrement ma verve poëtique Ne peut gaigner ton ramage rustique, Va, Rossignol, je laisse seul pour toy L’arbre amoureux qui n’a souci de moy, L’arbre gentil, et toutefois farouche, Qui fait saigner aussi tost qu’on le touche.   Tandis, Girard, que la fiévre me tient Reins, teste, flanc, la Muse m’entretient, Et de venir à mon lit n’a point honte.   Or des propos que sa bouche me conte Je t’en fais part, à fin qu’à l’advenir De ton Ronsard te puisses souvenir.

The Nightingale singing and making its nest in a juniper-bush   Happy nightingale, the branch’s pride, Who court your beloved day and night In my garden, the guest of its greenery, For forty days singing of your passion And crying out with a voice which chirps Now with a high, now with a low note, Your beak open in a piercing whistle, Chopping, cutting off and interrupting your song With a hundred twitterings, you give your wife A sweet jealousy, beloved of my Lady.   You’d not have such favour if The ancient Greeks had not given you a fine name ; Indeed with two, it seems to me, thay named you In a single word, Singer and Poet together.   And I would say – if I were a braggart – That ‘Rossignol’ [Nightingale] comes from the name ‘Ronsard’.   But it’s not myself my poems boast of : For good or bad, nightingale, I sing Like you to give myself pleasure, Since I have my Lady, money and leisure-time. What or who [ moved ] you to court unceasingly And to enchant my mistress, the Juniper ?   In that juniper where you sing at night, Beneath the bark there lives a maiden Whose form and nature have been changed By love, fear and mischance.   One day that god with horns on his brow Was pursuing her on his swift stag’s-foot. As she ran with light fleeing steps, She prayed thus to Diana, goddess of the woods : « Transform me, or let me die : Death alone can help me Such is this Horned God’s passion I feel. »   She had barely spoken when she became a plant : Her fingers long and thin, her arms veined and fair As they were, changed into branches. Her feet became a sad root, And bark encircled her breast. Then her hair, standing up in fear, Was spread out in bristling leaves And the pallor she had in her flight Lived on in the bark, and still remains there.   One day, tired from hunting wolves, Alone and apart i fell asleep beneath The fatal shade of this juniper, and she Appeared to me in human form just as She had been when the amorous Horned God Pursued her through a shady copse, Such a fire had he in his soul Because of so young a lady’s beauty. Since that day i have never ceased To bear a wound in my heart for her love, And to pine for so pretty a face.   And yet bold in your plumage, Singing, whistling and turning a thousand times, You want to be the only one enjoying that love of mine Which I happily resign to you, nightingale ; For you are worth more than my mistress !   And what is more, as one sees a married man Full of cunning, fostered among the ladies, Making secret love to his neighbour ; if he has a wife who is not too clever, He persuades her with fine words To visit and see her frequently, to go To eat and drink often with her, So that hem ay have (by such a ruse) More means of looking into the fair eyes Which have conquered his heart ;   Just so you are bringing your own wife as a rival To this tree, where in a nest made of wool, Moss, feathers she lays her little ones, Hatches, broods them, and after that becomes Like you, when the leaves come back, For forty days the Sirens of the woods.   May your voice not fail you, nightingale ! In envious competition, force yourself higher !   As otherwise my poetic inspiration Cannot beat your rustic plumage, Go on, nightingale – I leave for you alone The tree I love which has no care for me, The noble tree yet still timid Which bleeds as soon as it is touched.   Yet, Girard, while the fever grips my Guts, head, body, my Muse converses with me And is not ashamed to come to my bed. So, the words which her mouth relates I share with you, that in the future You may remember your Ronsard.

 

It’s the story of Daphne, pursued by Apollo, and turned into a laurel tree, which inspires this tale of a nymph turned into a juniper tree. As far as I know there isn’t a classical myth regarding the juniper, just Ronsardian invention.

 

As a footnote, it is possible there was a real lady Genèvre, with whom Ronsard flirted – though probably some time earlier than the late 1560s when he wrote this. There are two Elegies to her (though neither is especially ‘elegiac’ in tone); and she may have been the wife of Blaise de Vigenère, diplomat, scholar, alchemist and the “perfect incarnation of erudite genius in the Renaissance”.  His name may be familiar as the inventor (or rather improver) of the Vigenère cypher, which is an excellent simple cypher still useable today. But in his time he was known as translator of a range of Roman and Greek works, and author of works on alchemy (or perhaps chemistry) and comets, among others. Perhaps it would be appropriate for Ronsard to disguise his wife under a ‘cipher’, in the form of an anagram: Vigenère –> Genièvre.

 

The poem is dedicated to Jehan Girard, a friend of Robert Garnier (the tragedian, whom we’ve met before) and a councillor in Le Mans – not the Jehan Girard who  was printing protestant books in Geneva a decade or two earlier!

 

Back to the poetry. It’s odd that something which looks so much like an oocasional poem should have attracted so much revision by Ronsard. But let’s remember that what appears a little playful address to a bird, is in fact closely modelled on episodes in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, and aspires to similar heights. Blanchemain’s (early) version is set out below in full, so much variation is there. Note that this version carries a dedication to Claude Binet, poet and Ronsard’s first biographer.  But this is not the first time we’ve seen Ronsard adapt an earlier dedication to another subject later in life, reflecting the changing patterns or networks of influence and patronage over time.

 

 

LE ROSSIGNOL chantant et faisant son nid dedans un genévre de son jardin   A Claude Binet     Gay Rossignol honneur de la ramée, Qui jour et nuict courtises ton aimée Dans mon jardin desgoisant tes amours Au mois d’avril le père des beaux jours, Et t’esclatant d’une voix qui gringote Ores en haute, ores en basse note, A gorge ouverte, à pleins poulmons trenchant, Hachant coupant entre-rompant ton chant De cent fredons, tu donnes à ta femme Un doux martel. Amoureux de ma Dame, Tu m’es rival, d’où vient cela ? sinon Que les vieux Grecs t’ont nommé d’un beau nom : Mais bien de deux, t’appellant ce me semble, D’un mesme mot, Chantre et Poëte ensemble. Et je dirois, si j’estois un bragard, Que Rossignol vient du nom de Ronsard.   Mais ce n’est moy dont ma Muse se vante : Soit bien soit mal, Rossignolet, je chante Ainsi que toy pour me donner plaisir, Quand j’ay maistresse, argent et le loisir. Quoy ? qui t’esmeut de caresser sans cesse De tes fredons Genévre ma Maistresse ?   En ce Genévre où tu chantes de nuit, Dessous l’escorce une pucelle vit, A qui l’amour la peur et l’avanture Ont fait changer de face et de nature.   Un jour ce Dieu, qui a cornes au front La poursuivoit d’un pied de chévre pront. Elle courant, ayant recours aux larmes, Ainsi pria : « Diane, par tes charmes Ou me transforme, ou bien fay moy mourir : La seule mort me pourra secourir Ains que l’ardeur de ce Bouquin je sente. »   A-peine eut dit, qu’elle fut une plante : Ses doigts longuets, ses bras veineux et beaux, A longs fourchons se fendent en rameaux ; Son pied devint une morne racine, Et une escorce entourna sa poitrine. Ses longs cheveux de crainte rebroussez, Espars se sont en fueilles herissez, Et la palleur qu’elle avoit en sa fuite, Vit sur l’escorce et tousjours y habite.   Un jour lassé de la chasse des loups, Seul à l’escart je m’endormi dessous L’ombre fatal de ce Genévre, et elle En corps humain m’apparut toute telle Qu’elle fut lors que le Bouc amoureux La poursuivoit par un taillis ombreux, Tant il avoit de flames dedans l’ame Pour la beauté d’une si jeune Dame. Depuis ce jour jamais je n’ay cessé D’avoir le cœur de son amour blessé, Et de languir pour un si beau visage.   Et toutefois hautain de ton ramage Chantant sifflant et faisant mille tours, Tu veux tout seul jouyr de mes amours, Que de bon cœur, Rossignol, je te laisse : Car ton fredon merite ma Maistresse.   Et qui plus est, comme on voit un mary Plein de finesse entre Dames nourri, Faire secret l’amour à sa voisine : Quand il n’a pas une femme trop fine, La persuade avec un beau parler, De la hanter, visiter et d’aller Boire et manger souvent avecques elle, A fin d’avoir (par une ruse telle) Plus de moyen d’œillader les beaux yeux Qui de son cœur se font victorieux.   Ainsi rival ta femme tu ameines Dedans cest arbre, où d’un nid fait de laines Mousses, duvet, ses petits elle pond, Esclost, escouve, et abeche, qui sont Un an après, au retour des fueillages Quarante jours Sereines des bocages.   Quoy ? Rossignol, la voix ne te defaut ! Et par despit tu t’efforces plus haut !   Puis qu’autrement ma verve poëtique Ne peut gaigner ton ramage rustique, Va, Rossignol, tu auras seul pour toy L’arbre amoureux qui n’a souci de moy, L’arbre gentil, et toutefois farouche, Qui fait saigner aussi tost qu’on le touche.   Tandis, Binet, que la fiévre me tient Reins, teste, flanc, la Muse m’entretient, Et de venir à mon lit n’a point honte.   Or des propos que sa bouche me conte Je t’en fais part, à fin qu’à l’advenir De ton Ronsard te puisse souvenir.

The Nightingale singing and making its nest in a juniper-bush in his garden   To Claude Binet     Happy nightingale, the branch’s pride, Who court your beloved day and night In my garden, singing of your passion In the month of April, father of fine days, And crying out with a voice which chirps Now with a high, now with a low note, Your throat open, whistling fit to burst, Chopping, cutting off and interrupting your song With a hundred twitterings, you give your wife A sweet jealousy. Beloved of my Lady, You are my rival – why is that ? unless because The ancient Greeks gave you a fine name ; Indeed two, naming you, it seems to me, In a single word, Singer and Poet together. And I would say – if I were a braggart – That ‘Rossignol’ [Nightingale] comes from the name ‘Ronsard’.   But it’s not myself my Muse boasts of : For good or bad, nightingale, I sing Like you to give myself pleasure, Since I have a mistress, money and leisure-time. What or who inspired you to caress unceasingly With your chirping my mistress, the Juniper ?   In that juniper where you sing at night, Beneath the bark there lives a maiden Whose form and nature have been changed By love, fear and mischance.   One day that god who has horns on his brow Was pursuing her on his swift stag’s-foot. As she ranhaving recourse to tears, She prayed thus : « Diana, by your charms Transform me, or let me die : Death alone can help me Such is this Horned God’s passion I feel. »   She had barely spoken when she became a plant : Her fingers long and thin, her arms veined and fair Split into long-forked branches. Her feet became a sad root, And bark encircled her breast. Her long hair, pulled back in fear, Was spread out in bristling leaves And the pallor she had in her flight Lived on in the bark, and still remains there.   One day, tired from hunting wolves, Alone and apart i fell asleep beneath The fatal shade of this juniper, and she Appeared to me in human form just as She had been when the amorous Horned God Pursued her through a shady copse, Such a fire had he in his soul Because of so young a lady’s beauty. Since that day i have never ceased To bear a wound in my heart for her love, And to pine for so pretty a face.   And yet proud of your plumage, Singing, whistling and turning a thousand times, You want to be the only one enjoying that love of mine Which I happily resign to you, nightingale ; For your chirping is worthy of my mistress.   And what is more, as one sees a married man Full of cunning, fostered among the ladies, Making secret love to his neighbour ; if he has a wife who is not too clever, He persuades her with fine words To visit and see her frequently, to go To eat and drink often with her, So that hem ay have (by such a ruse) More means of looking into the fair eyes Which have conquered his heart ;   Just so you are bringing your own wife as a rival To this tree, where in a nest made of wool, Moss, down, she lays her little ones, Hatches, broods and cuddles those who are A year later, when the leaves come back, For forty days the Sirens of the woods.   May your voice not fail you, nightingale ! In envious competition, force yourself higher !   As otherwise my poetic inspiration Cannot beat your rustic plumage, Go on, nightingale – you shall have for yourself alone The tree I love which has no care for me, The noble tree yet still timid Which bleeds as soon as it is touched.   Yet, Binet, while the fever grips my Guts, head, body, my Muse converses with me And is not ashamed to come to my bed.   So, the words which her mouth relates I share with you, that in the future It may remind you of your Ronsard.

 

 

 

 

 

Amours retranch. 11

Je ne suis seulement amoureux de Marie,

Anne me tient aussi dans les liens d’Amour ;

Ore l’une me plaist, ore l’autre à son tour :

Ainsi Tibulle aymoit Nemesis et Delie. 

 

Un loyal me dira que c’est une folie

D’en aymer, inconstant, deux ou trois en un jour,

Voire, et qu’il faudroit bien un homme de sejour,

Pour, gaillard, satisfaire à une seule amie. 

 

Je respons, Cherouvrier, que je suis amoureux,

Et non pas joüissant de ce bien doucereux

Que tout amant souhaitte avoir à sa commande. 

 

Quant à moy, seulement je leur baise la main,

Les yeux, le front, le col, les levres, et le sein,

Et rien que ces biens-là, Cherouvrier, ne demande.

 

 

 

 

                                                                            I’m not just in love with Marie

                                                                            Anne too holds me in the bonds of love.

                                                                            Now one pleases me, then the other in her turn.

                                                                            Thus did Tibullus love Nemesis and Delia.

 

                                                                            A loyal friend will tell me this is folly

                                                                            To love two or three of them a day, inconstantly,

                                                                            Indeed, that it needs a man with plenty of leisure time

                                                                            To stay lively and satisfy just one sweetheart.

 

                                                                            I reply, Cherouvrier, that I am in love

                                                                            And, not enjoying those sweet good things

                                                                            Which all lovers wish to have at their command,

 

                                                                            As for me I just kiss their hand

                                                                            Their eyes, brow, neck, lips and breast

                                                                            And ask for nothing but those treats, Cherouvrier.

 

 

I do enjoy a good piece of cynicism. And here is Ronsard being more cynical than usual! But it’s a charmer, along with the way Ronsard admits that (as a teenager might put it) he’s not going all the way, let alone 2 or 3 times a night, but in fact is only getting kisses from his ladies.

Maybe it adds a little spice to know that Anne was Marie’s sister – or so it is said. It seems to me likely that the poem pre-dates the whole ‘Marie’ set and refers to a different pair of sisters. In any case, hardly the poem to include in the ‘Amours de Marie’, maybe that’s why it ended up in the collection of discarded pieces…  There is however a little story worth telling here about the composer Anthoine de Bertrand, who set this poem in his books of Ronsard sonnets: it seems that Bertrand’s first wife Marie died and he re-married, to Anne Carrière (she is mentioned as his widow in a document of 1583)… So when he set this text, he was offering a compliment to both ladies, rather than being cynical. Tibullus, in line 4, was a Roman poet of the last years BC – the time of the collapse of the Republic and the age of Augustus. His surviving work consists of two books of love poetry, the first addressed to Delia, the second to Nemesis. His fellow-poet Ovid wrote (in his ‘Amores’): “Sic Nemesis longum sic Delia nomen habebunt, / Altera cura recens, altera primus amor” – ‘thus Nemesis and Delia will long be famous, the latter his recent love, the former his first’.

Blanchemain’s edition has only one variant; and that is in line 9 which reads “Je respons, mon Choiseul, …”

Line 9 has a long history. In 1555 (the original publication) this read “Je respons à cela, que je suis amoureux” (‘I reply to that, that I am in love’). In 1560 – the edition Blanchemain bases his text on – it became “Je respons, mon Choiseul, que…”:  Choiseul is Christophe (or Chretophle) de Choiseul.This appears to have been a nod in the direction of Belleau, who was writing the commentary on this book, and whose friend Choiseul was. Belleau appended a remarkable note to Ronsard’s text: ‘He addresses this sonnet to Chretofle de Choiseul, one of the finest and firmest of friends, whose virtue and integrity (not to speak of his ancient lineage) is well-known among his own friends, and among those professing to be lettered, and to whom (after God) I owe most obedience and humble service for having fed and kept me for ten years, and having given me means to assure the rest of my life against the efforts and violence of necessity.”

Yet in 1567, long before Belleau’s death, and in an edition still nominally commented by Belleau, he changed it to the text above: to which the note reads, “He addresses this sonnet to [Guillaume] Cherouvrier, one of his best and closest friends, whose virtue and integrity is well-known to those who profess to be musical or lettered.” It’s not clear what was going on here, in relation to Belleau and his protector Choiseul, though some have used it as evidence that Belleau was not involved in the notes to the 1567 edition despite his name apprearing on them!  Though very little more seems to be known about Cherouvrier, his name does appear in various royal accounts where he is paid as “chantre de la chambre et chappelle” (chamber & chapel singer) during the 1570s and into the 1580s. Ronsard also addressed ‘Le Souci du Jardin‘ (in Poems book 1) to ‘Sieur Cherouvrier, excellent musicien’ in the late 1560s or early 1570s.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sonnet 161

Que n’ay-je, Amour, cette Fere aussi vive

Entre mes bras, qu’elle est vive en mon cœur ?

Un seul moment guariroit ma langueur,

Et ma douleur feroit aller à rive.

 

Plus elle court, et plus elle est fuitive

Par le sentier d’audace et de rigueur :

Plus je me lasse, et recreu de vigueur

Je marche apres d’une jambe tardive.

 

Au moins escoute, et ralente tes pas :

Comme veneur je ne te poursuy pas,

Ou comme archer qui blesse à l’impourveuë.

 

Mais comme amy de ton amour touché,

Navré du coup qu’Amour m’a décoché,

Forgeant ses traits des beaux rais de ta veuë.

 

 

 

 

                                                                            Why do I not have, o Love, this wild animal as alive

                                                                            Within my arms, as she is within my heart?

                                                                            A single moment would cure my listlessness,

                                                                            And make my sadness go by the board.

 

                                                                            The more she runs away, and the more she flies

                                                                            Along the path of boldness and harshness,

                                                                            The more I become tired and, recovering my strength,

                                                                            I walk after her with slow limbs.

 

                                                                            At least hear me, and slow your pace;

                                                                            I do not pursue you like a hunter,

                                                                            Or an archer who wounds unexpectedly;

 

                                                                            But like a lover, wounded by your love,

                                                                            Struck down by the blow which Love loosed on me,

                                                                            Forging his darts from the fair rays of your glance.

 

 

 

 Another satisfying arc to the poem, but why the switch from 3rd to 2nd person halfway through? Odd, though far from unusual in Ronsard!

 

Only minor variants from the Blanchemain version: the very opening, “Puissé-je avoir ceste fere aussi vive …” (‘Oh that I might have this wild animal as alive …’); and in lines 12-13 he is “comme amy de ton amour touché / Du fer cruel qu’Amour m’a décoché”. That could be translated either with the two clauses in juxtaposition – – ‘like a lover, wounded by your love, / By the cruel weapon which Love loosed on me’ – – but if we prefer to enjamb the lines and make a proper sentence out of it, we have something along the lines of ”as one who loves being in love with you, wounded by the cruel weapon …’ (and contrariwise, the Marty-Laveaux version can be read with the verbs juxtaposed as ‘as one who loves being in love with you, wounded and struck down by the blow …’) Though that second option makes sense, context suggests the first version.

 

Muret reminds us that Ronsard is alluding to a well-known passage in Ovid’s metamorphoses in the sestet:  in Dryden’s translation, Apollo calls to Daphne

 

Stay Nymph, he cry’d, I follow, not a foe.

Thus from the lyon trips the trembling doe;

Thus from the wolf the frighten’d lamb removes,

And, from pursuing faulcons, fearful doves;

Thou shunn’st a God, and shunn’st a God, that loves.

 

He adds that the opening two lines are adapted from Pietro Bembo; Ronsard’s poem however goes off in a different direction thereafter. Bembo’s poem is below; my translation is again approximate.

 

La fera che scolpita nel cor tengo,

Così l’avess’ io viva entro le braccia:

Fuggì sì leve, ch’io perdei la traccia,

Né freno il corso, né la sete spengo.

 

Anzo così tra due vivo e sostengo

L’anima forsennata, che procaccia

Far d’una tigre sciolta preda in caccia,

Traendo me, che seguir lei convengo.

 

E so ch’io movo indarno, o penser casso,

E perdo inutilmente il dolce tempo

De la mia vita, che giamai non torna.

 

Ben devrei ricovrarmi, or ch’i’ m’attempo

Et ho forse vicin l’ultimo passo:

Ma piè mosso dal ciel nulla distorna.

 

 

 

                                                                            The wild beast which I keep engraved in my heart,

                                                                            Oh that I thus had her alive within my arms;

                                                                            She flees so lightly that I lose the track,

                                                                            Nor slow my course nor sate my thirst.

 

                                                                            Yet thus between the two I live and my soul

                                                                            Remains crazed, as it tries

                                                                            To make a free-roaming tigress its prey in the hunt,

                                                                            Dragging me along as I agree to pursue her.

 

                                                                            And I know I pursue in vain, my thoughts shattered,

                                                                            And uselessly waste the sweet time

                                                                            Of my life, which will never return.

 

                                                                            I must indeed recover, or at least attempt it,

                                                                            And I am perhaps close to that last step;

                                                                            But a step away from heaven can never turn back.

 

 

 

Chanson (25b)

Fleur Angevine de quinze ans,
Ton front monstre assez de simplesse :
Mais ton cœur ne cache au-dedans
Sinon que malice et finesse,
Celant sous ombre d’amitié
Une jeunette mauvaistié.

 

Ren moy (si tu as quelque honte)
Mon cœur que je t’avois donné,
Dont tu ne fais non-plus de conte
Que d’un esclave emprisonné,
T’esjouyssant de sa misere,
Et te plaisant de luy desplaire.

 

Une autre moins belle que toy,
Mais bien de meilleure nature,
Le voudroit bien avoir de moy.
Elle l’aura, je te le jure :
Elle l’aura, puis qu’autrement
Il n’a de toy bon traitement.

 

Mais non :  j’aime trop mieux qu’il meure

Sans esperance en ta prison :

J’aime trop mieux qu’il y demeure

Mort de douleur contre raison,

Qu’en te changeant jouïr de celle

Qui m’est plus douce, et non si belle.

 

 

                                                                      My fifteen-year-old flower of Anjou,

                                                                      Your brow shows simplicity enough;

                                                                      But your heart hides nothing inside

                                                                      But malice and cunning,

                                                                      Hiding, beneath the appearance of love,

                                                                      A childish wickedness.

 

                                                                      Give me back, if you have any shame,

                                                                      My heart which I gave you,

                                                                      Which is of no more account to you

                                                                      Than an imprisoned slave,

                                                                      Since you rejoice in its wretchedness

                                                                      And please yourself by displeasing it.

 

                                                                      Another less lovely than yourself

                                                                      But much better-natured

                                                                      Would surely like to have it from me.

                                                                      She will have it, I swear it to you:

                                                                      She will have it, if from now on

                                                                      It does not have better treatment from you.

 

                                                                      But no! I much prefer that it should die

                                                                      Hopeless in your prison;

                                                                      I much prefer that it should stay

                                                                      Dead of grief beyond reason,

                                                                      Than that, in exchanging you, it should enjoy her

                                                                      Who is kinder to me, but not so lovely.

 

 

What a charming song!   It’s hard to think Ronsard would have played around with so charming a piece, but in fact Blanchemain’s version is different almost throughout.  Here’s his text, marked up as usual.

 

 

Belle et jeune fleur de quinze ans,
Qui sens encore ton enfance,
Mais bien qui caches au dedans
Un cœur rempli de decevance,
Celant sous ombre d’amitié
Une jeunette mauvaistié.

 

Ren moy (si tu as quelque honte)
Mon cœur que tu m’as emmené,
Dont tu ne fais non-plus de conte
Que d’un prisonnier enchaisné,
Ou d’un valet, ou d’un forcere
Qui est esclave d’un corsaire.

 

Une autre moins belle que toy,
Mais plus que toi courtoise et bonne,
Le veut de grace avoir de moy.
Me priant que je le luy donne.
Elle l’aura, puis qu’autrement
Il n’a de toy bon traitement.

 

Mais non :  j’aime trop mieux qu’il meure
Dedans la prison de tes mains :
J’aime trop mieux qu’il y demeure
Tourmenté de maux inhumains,
Qu’en te changeant jouïr de celle

Qui m’est plus douce, et non si belle.

 

 

 

                                                                      Fair young flower aged fifteen,
                                                                      Who still feel you are in your childhood,
                                                                      But who indeed hide inside you
                                                                      A heart filled with deception,
                                                                      Hiding beneath the appearance of love
                                                                      A childish wickedness.

 

                                                                      Give me back, if you have any shame,
                                                                      My heart which you took from me,
                                                                      Which is of no more account to you
                                                                      Than a chained prisoner,
                                                                      Or a manservant, or a drudge
                                                                      Who is a pirate’s slave.

 

                                                                      Another less lovely than yourself
                                                                      But more courteous and kind than you
                                                                      Would like, please, to have it from me
                                                                      And begs me to give her it.
                                                                      She will have it, if from now on
                                                                      It does not have better treatment from you.

 

                                                                      But no! I much prefer that it should die
                                                                      Within the prison of your hands;
                                                                      I much prefer that it should stay
                                                                      Tortured by inhuman evils,
                                                                      Than that, in exchanging you, it should enjoy her

                                                                      Who is kinder to me, but not so lovely.

 

 

This also one of the poems of Marullus ‘translated’ by Ronsard into a substantially different French poem: the compression of some parts of Marullus’s original, and expansion of others, make this a re-imagining of the poem rather than a real translation:

 

 

Puella mure delicatior Scytha

    foliive serici comis

vel educata rure Paestano rosa

    vel anseris pluma levi,

eademque duris dura cautibus magis,

    quas tundit hibernum mare,

cum nubilosis Africus pennis gravis,

    saevit Ligustico sinu :

remitte cor, siquis pudor, mihi meum,

    quod mille cepisti dolis

 (dum nunc ocello dulce subrides nigro,

    nunc fronte spem certa facis),

quod nunc habes in vinculis quasi Syrum

    aut comparatum Sarmatam ;

verum remitte, dura, non ultra tuum :

    jam enim rogat melior sibi,

quae nos ocellis diligit suis magis,

    neque hoc neque illud imputat.

An tu putabas scilicet firmum tibi

    tot barbare affectum modis ?

Quanquam beati centies et amplius,

    siquos tenaci compede

quae prima vix dum puberes junxit fides,

    eadem extulit pios senes !

 

 

                                                                      O girl more delicate than a Scythian mouse

                                                                      Or the leaves of the silk-trees,

                                                                      Or a rose grown in Paestum’s fields,

                                                                      Or the soft feather of a goose;

                                                                      And at the same time more hard than hard crags

                                                                      Which the wintry sea buffets

                                                                      When the oppressive African [Sou’westerly] wind on its cloudy wings

                                                                      Rages in a Ligurian bay:

                                                                      Give me back my heart, if you have any shame,

                                                                      Which you captured with a thousand tricks

                                                                      (One time you would smile sweetly with your dark eyes,

                                                                      Another you’d offer hope with an assuring look)

                                                                      And which you now hold in chains like a Syrian

                                                                      Or the Sarmatian matched with him;

                                                                      Give it back indeed, harsh one, it is no longer yours:

                                                                      Now indeed one better than you asks for it,

                                                                      Who prefers me to her own eyes,

                                                                      And does not reckon up this or that to my account.

                                                                      Did you perhaps think it would be loyal to you

                                                                      After being barbarously wronged in so many ways?

                                                                      Yet they are blessed a hundred times and more,

                                                                      Those whom first love bound with tight fetters

                                                                      While they were barely grown ,

                                                                      And whom the same love buries when they are pious old folk!

 

 

Some commentary may help: I’m not sure that Scythian mice are known to be specially soft; but the part of Italy round Paestum (Campania, the region of Naples) is traditionally a fertile region. The coast of Liguria (running from Nice round past Genoa and towards Lucca) generally faces south/south west, so a SW wind will blow straight into many of the harbours and bays there. The Syrian and Sarmatian are ‘matched’ or ‘linked’ because of Ovid: the Roman poet lived in exile on the Black Sea & in his poems (the ‘Tristia’ and ‘Ex Ponto’) referred to the barbarians he was surrounded by as both Syrians and Sarmatians.

 

 

 

 

Chanson (2a)

 

Petite pucelle Angevine, Qui m’as d’un amoureux sou-ris Tiré le coeur de la poitrine : Puis dés l’heure que tu le pris, Tu l’enfermas contre raison Dans les liens de ta prison. Ainsi perdant la jouyssance De sa premiere liberté, Il vit sous ton obeissance Si mal-mené si mal-traité Qu’un Lion tout plain de rigueur Auroit pitié de sa langueur. Car toy, de façon plus cruelle Qu’un roc pendu dessus la mer, Tu te fais tous les jours plus belle Du mal qui le vient consommer, Honorant depuis que tu l’as, Tes victoires de son trespas. Non seulement comme trop rude, Tu fais languir mon coeur à tort Par une honneste ingratitude, Luy donnant une lente mort Voyant pasmer en triste esmoy En tes liens mon coeur et moy. Mais en lieu d’un sacré Poëte, Qui si haut chantoit ton honneur, Tu as nouvelle amitié faite Avecques un nouveau Seigneur, Qui maintenant tout seul te tient, Et plus de moy ne te souvient. Hà vierge simple et sans malice, Tu ne sçais encore que c’est De faire aux grands Seigneurs service, Qui en amour n’ont point d’arrest, Et qui suivent sans loyautez En un jour dix mile beautez. Si tost qu’une proye ils ont prise, Ils la desdaignent tout expres, A fin qu’une autre soit conquise Pour s’en mocquer bien tost apres, Et n’ont jamais autre plaisir Que de changer et de choisir. Le Ciel qui les Amans contemple Sçait bien les mechans rechercher : Anaxarete en sert d’exemple, Qui fut changée en un rocher, Portant la semblable rigueur Au rocher qu’elle avoit au coeur.

Young maid of Anjou, With your loving smile you have Drawn my heart from my breast; Then, from the moment you took it, You have shut it up unreasonably In the bonds of your prison. So, losing the enjoyment Of its initial freedom, It lives in obedience to you So misled, so badly-treated, That the harshest of lions Would have pity on its longing. For you, in a manner crueller Than a crag hanging over the sea, Make yourself every day more beautiful From the evil which comes to consume that which, Since you had it, has honoured Your victories with its death. Not only, like one who is too harsh, Do you make my heart yearn wrongly With your simple ingratitude, Giving it a slow death, Watching my heart and me faint away In sad despair in your bonds; But also, instead of this damned poet Who sang your honour so highly, You have made a new love-bond With a new Lord Who now alone holds you And no longer brings me to your mind. Ah, simple maid without malice, You still don’t know what it is To give great Lords service, Who in love never come to rest And who pursue without loyalty Ten thousand beauties in a day. As soon as they’ve caught their prey, They straighaway don’t care for it, So long as another can be won, To be mocked so soon after; And they have no other pleasures ever Than exchanging and choosing [lovers]. Heaven which watches over lovers Well knows how to seek out the wicked; Anaxarete is a good example, Who was changed into a rock, Bringing to the rock the same hardness Which she had in her heart.

 

 I have to say the last line of the 5th stanza confuses me:  I’d really prefer it to say “And you no longer remember me”, but the editors are agreed that the line ends ‘te souvient’ not ‘te souviens’…

 

Anaxarete was made famous by Ovid’s “Metamorphoses” (book 14). She mocked her lover Iphis for his attentions, even when he hanged himself at her door. She was changed into a statue by Venus, goddess of love – Ovid said the statue was still preserved in her temple in Salamis!

 

This is another of those poems where Blanchemain’s version has little changes throughout – as well as a whole extra stanza!  That extra stanza is rather more vindictive than the surrounding lines; I can see why it sits in parentheses. Note that the last verse presents almost the opposite gesture from the version above: heaven is now keeping an eye on the bad people, instead of watching over the good!  Here’s the whole thing again:

 

Petite pucelle Angevine, Qui m’as d’un amoureux sou-ris Tiré le coeur de la poitrine : Puis dés le jour que tu le pris, Tu l’enfermas contre raison Dans les liens de ta prison. Ainsi perdant la jouyssance De sa premiere liberté, Il vit sous ton obeissance Si misérablement traité Qu’un fier Lion plein de rigueur Auroit pitié de sa langueur. Mais toy, plus fiere et plus cruelle Qu’un roc pendu dessus la mer, Tu deviens tous les jours plus belle Du mal qui le vient consommer, Ornant ta beauté de le voir Languir en prison sans espoir. Non seulement, tant tu es rude, Tu fais mon coeur languir à tort Par une honneste ingratitude, Me donnant une lente mort Voyant pasmer en triste esmoy Dans ta prison mon coeur et moy. Mais en lieu d’un sacré Poëte, Qui si haut chantoit ton honneur, Tu as nouvelle amitié faite Avecques un nouveau Seigneur, Qui maintenant tout seul te tient, Et plus de moy ne te souvient. Et, fille trop jeune et trop nice, Tu ne sçais encore que c’est De faire aux grands Seigneurs service, Qui en amour n’ont point d’arrest, Et qui suivent sans loyautez En un jour dix mile beautez. Si tost qu’ils en ont une prise, Ils la delaissent tout expres, A fin qu’une autre soit conquise Pour la laisser encor apres, Et n’ont jamais autre plaisir Que de changer et de choisir. [ Celui qui ores est ton maistre et qui te tient comme vainqueur Te laissera demain peut-estre, Et je le voudrois de bon coeur; Si le ciel de nous a souci, Puisse arriver demain ainsi ! ] Le Ciel qui les vices contemple, Punist les traistres amoureux ; Anaxarete en est l’exemple, Qui devint rocher malheureux, Perdant sa vie pour avoir Osé son ami decevoir.

Young maid of Anjou, With your loving smile you have Drawn my heart from my breast; Then, from the day you took it, You have shut it up unreasonably In the bonds of your prison. So, losing the enjoyment Of its initial freedom, It lives in obedience to you So wretchedly treated, That the harshest of proud lions Would have pity on its longing. But you, prouder and crueller Than a crag hanging over the sea, You become every day more beautiful From the evil which comes to consume it, Improving your beauty through seeing it Languish hopeless in prison. Not only, so harsh are you, Do you make my heart yearn wrongly With your simple ingratitude, Giving me a slow death, Watching my heart and me faint away In sad despair in your prison; But also, instead of this damned poet Who sang your honour so highly, You have made a new love-bond With a new Lord Who now alone holds you And no longer brings me to your mind. Ah, you are too young and too simple, my girl, You still don’t know what it is To give great Lords service, Who in love never come to rest And who pursue without loyalty Ten thousand beauties in a day. As soon as they’ve caught one of them, They straighaway leave her, So long as another can be won, To be left too afterwards; And they have no other pleasures ever Than exchanging and choosing [lovers]. [ He who is now your master And who holds you like a conqueror Will perhaps leave you tomorrow. And I want that with all my heart; If heaven cares for us May it turn out thus tomorrow! ] Heaven which sees all vice Punishes treacherous lovers; Anaxarete is the example, Who became an unfortunate rock, Losing her life for having Dared to deceive her lover.

 

 

 

Odes 4, 26

Plusieurs, de leurs corps desnuez,

Se sont veus en diverse terre

Miraculeusement muez,

L’un en serpent et l’autre en pierre,

 

L’un en fleur, l’autre en arbrisseau,

L’un en loup, l’autre en colombelle ;

L’un se vid changer en ruisseau,

Et l’autre devint arondelle.

 

Mais je voudrais estre miroir

A fin que tousjours tu me visses ;

Chemise je voudrois me voir,

Afin que souvent tu me prisses.

 

Volontiers eau je deviendrois,

Afin que ton corps je lavasse ;

Estre du parfum je voudrois,

Afin que je te parfumasse.

 

Je voudrois estre le riban

Qui serre ta belle poitrine ;

Je voudrois estre le carquan

qui orne ta gorge yvoirine.

 

Je voudrois estre tout autour

Le coral qui tes lèvres touché,

Afin de baiser nuit et jour

Tes belles lèvres et ta bouche.

 

 

 

                                                                                               Many a lover, stripped of his mortal body,

                                                                                               Has been seen in varied lands

                                                                                               Changed miraculously –

                                                                                               One into a serpent, another into stone,

 

                                                                                               One to a flower, another a bush,

                                                                                               One into a wolf, another a dove;

                                                                                               One is seen to change into a river,

                                                                                               Another becomes a swallow.

 

                                                                                               But I’d rather be a mirror,

                                                                                               So long as you would always look at me;

                                                                                               Or I’d wish to be a blouse,

                                                                                               So long as you often wore me.

 

                                                                                               I’d willingly become water

                                                                                               If I could wash your body;

                                                                                               Or I’d wish to be perfume

                                                                                               If I could perfume your body.

 

                                                                                               I’d wish to be the ribbon

                                                                                               Which is tied round your waist,

                                                                                               I’d wish to be the collar

                                                                                               Which ornaments your ivory throat.

 

                                                                                               I’d wish to be transformed entirely to

                                                                                               The coral which your lips wear,

                                                                                               So that night and day I could kiss

                                                                                               Your fair lips and your mouth.

 

 

 Ronsard plays some lover’s games with the theme of Ovid’s Metamorphoses …