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

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

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

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

 

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

Something of a developing train of thought, then …

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

 

 

 

Sonnet 160

Or’ que Jupin espoint de sa semence,

Veut enfanter ses enfans bien-aimez,

Et que du chaud de ses reins allumez

L’humide sein de Junon ensemence :

 

Or’ que la mer, or’ que la vehemence

Des vents fait place aux grans vaisseaux armez,

Et que l’oiseau parmi les bois ramez,

Du Thracien les tançons recommence :

 

Or’ que les prez et ore que les fleurs

De mille et mille et de mille couleurs

Peignent le sein de la terre si gaye :

 

Seul et pensif aux rochers plus segrets

D’un cœur muet je conte mes regrets,

Et par les bois je vay celant ma playe.

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                           When Jupiter, aching with his seed,

                                                                           Wishes to give birth to his well-loved children,

                                                                           And with the warmth of his heated hips

                                                                           Sows it in Juno’s moist body;

 

                                                                           When the sea and the violence

                                                                           Of the winds makes space for great armed vessels,

                                                                           And the bird amongst the branchy woods

                                                                           Begins again her dispute with the Thracian;

 

                                                                           When the meadows and when the flowers

                                                                           With thousands and thousands and thousands of colours

                                                                           Paint the earth’s breast so gaily;

 

                                                                           [Then,] alone and thoughtful among the most hidden rocks

                                                                           With silent heart I tell of my regrets,

                                                                           And within the woods I hide my wound.

 

 

There are two ways to look at the Thracian in line 8. Perhaps he is Orpheus, whose singing traditionally competes with that of birds.  Or, as Muret learnedly tells us, perhaps ‘the bird is Philomela, changed into a nightingale, who complains of the assault of Tereus, king of Thrace, her brother in law (in Ovid Metamorphoses book 6)‘. Ronsard’s opening quatrain is based on a Vergilian original (of which more in a moment), but is surprisingly ‘graphic’ in its imagery – I can’t immediately think of another poem in which he virtually describes sexual intercourse as opposed to alluding to it! Perhaps it’s OK because it’s a classical allusion … !  It’s interesting too that he personalises the image much more than Vergil; Jupiter and Juno (a married couple of course – nothing untoward here!) rather than Vergil’s Heaven and Earth – an image which goes back all the way to the Egyptians and beyond.

 

To put it in context, here’s Vergil’s original (Georgics 2, lines 323-8):

 

Ver adeo frondi nemorum, ver utile silvis ;

Vere tument terrae et genitalia semina poscunt.

Tum pater omnipotens fecundis imbribus Aether

Coniugis in gremium laetae descendit, et omnes

Magnus alit magno commixtus corpore fetus.

Avia tum resonant avibus virgulta canoris, …

 

 

                                                                           Spring is so desired by the leaves of the groves, by the woods;

                                                                           Indeed the earth heaves and demands the life-bearing seed.

                                                                           Then the Heaven, the all-powerful father, with his rich rains

                                                                           Descends into the lap of his joyful bride, and the mighty god

                                                                           Joined with her mighty body nourishes all her offspring.

                                                                           Then the pathless woods resound to birdsong …

 

 

For all that Vergil is more impersonal, or less explicit, about the sexual dimension, it’s worth noticing his vocabulary:  the earth’s ‘heaving’ is not far from the the English ‘tumescent’, the ‘lap’ is regularly used as a polite synonym in sexual allusions, ‘commixtus’ (compare ‘commingling’ in English is a standard poetic word for sex, and ‘genitalia’ and ‘semina’ (from ‘semen’) pretty obviously carry similar associations!  So Ronsard in some ways hasn’t stepped far beyond his model… (And, in this context, I find it amusing that poetic allusion requires Jupiter to seed Juno’s ‘breast’ or ‘bosom’ (“sein”) which is q word still further removed than the ‘lap’ that Vergil uses!)

 

What’s interesting is how far we are supposed to reflect on this opening, after the middle sections of the poem slide the focus slightly onto more general springtime events, when we reach the conclusion. The solitude and silence directly reflect the middle of the poem, rather than the lusty opening; but there is clearly a subtext that solitude is more than just the absence of the beloved, it’s the absence of a sexual partner.

 

 There’s not much variation in Blanchemain’s version: the opening quatrain goes as follows:

 

 

Or’ que Jupin, espoint de sa semence,

Hume à longs traits les feux accoustumez,

Et que le chaud de ses reins allumez

L’humide sein de Junon ensemence;

 

 

                                                                            When Jupiter, aching with his seed,

                                                                            Breathes in long breaths of the well-known fires,

                                                                            And when the warmth of his heated hips

                                                                            Seeds Juno’s moist body;

 

 

 

 

Sonnet 7

Escoute, mon Aurat, la terre n’est pas digne
De pourrir en la tombe un tel corps que le tien :
Tu fus en ton vivant des Muses le soustien :
Et pource apres ta mort tu deviendras un Cygne.

 

Tu deviendras Cigalle ou Mousche Limousine

Qui fait un miel plus doux que n’est l’Hymettien,

Ou Voix qui redit tout et si ne redit rien,

Ou l’Oiseau qui maudit Teré sur une espine.

 

Si tu n’es transformé tout entier en quelcun,

Tu vestiras un corps à cinq autres commun,

Et sera composé de tous les cinq ensemble.

 

Car un seul pour d’Aurat suffisant ne me semble :

Et d’homme sera fait un beau monstre nouveau,

De Voix, Cygne, Cigalle, et d’Avette, et d’Oiseau.

 

 

                                                                      Listen, my Aurat, the earth is not worthy
                                                                      To corrupt in the tomb a body such as yours;
                                                                      You were when alive the mainstay of the Muses;
                                                                      And so after your death you will become a swan.

 

                                                                      You’ll become a cricket or insect from Limoges

                                                                      Which makes a honey sweeter than that of Hymettus,

                                                                      Or the voice which repeats everything but yet says nothing,

                                                                      Or the bird which curses Tereus from its thorny branch.

 

                                                                      Or, if you’re not transformed completely into some one of these,

                                                                      You shall be clothed in a body common to five others

                                                                      And shall be composed of all five together.

 

                                                                      For one only does not seem to me sufficient for d’Aurat;

                                                                      And from this man will be made a fine new wonder

                                                                      Out of voice, swan, cricket, and bee and bird.

 

 

 

A lovely, if faintly bizarre, poem. But what is it doing at the beginning of the ‘Amours de Marie’?!

 

Belleau tells us “This sonnet is offered to Jean d’Aurat, poet to the king in the Greek and Latin tongues.”  Tereus was the king whose actions caused the deaths of Procne and Philomela, who were changed into the swallow and nightingale respectively; for its attractive song, Ronsard probably means the nightingale!

 

Blanchemain’s version is different throughout. His version is, it seems to me, clearer and less deliberately complex, but on the other hand offers less variety. On balance I would have to say I prefer Blanchemain, but think Marty-Laveaux offers the better poem!  Here is the whole sonnet as presented by Blanchemain:

 

 

Aurat, après ta mort la terre n’est pas digne
De pourrir en la tombe un tel corps que le tien ;
Les Dieux le changeront en une voix, ou bien,
Si écho ne suffist, le changeront en cygne,

 

Ou en ce corps qui vit de rosée divine,
Ou en mouche qui fait le miel hymettien,
Ou en l’oiseau qui chante, et le crime ancien
De Terée au printemps redit sur une épine ;

 

Ou, si tu n’es changé tout entier en quelqu’un,

Tu vestiras un corps qui te sera commun

Avecques tous ceux-ci, participant ensemble

 

De tous (car un pour toy suffisant ne me semble),

Et d’homme seras fait un beau monstre nouveau,

De voix, cygne, cigalle, et d’avette, et d’oiseau.

 

 

                                                                      Aurat, after your death the earth is not worthy
                                                                      To corrupt in the tomb a body such as yours;
                                                                      The gods will change it into a voice, or perhaps,
                                                                      If an echo is not enough, into a swan

 

                                                                      Or into that form which lives on heaven’s dew,

                                                                      Or into the insect which makes the honey of Hymettus,
                                                                      Or into the bird which sings and re-tells in spring
                                                                      The ancient crime of Tereus upon a thorny branch.

 

                                                                      Or, if you’re not changed completely into some one of these,

                                                                      You shall be clothed in a body which you will share

                                                                      With all of those, each sharing together

 

                                                                      With all (for one only does not seem to me sufficient for you),

                                                                      And from a man you will become a fine new wonder,

                                                                      Made of voice, swan, cricket, bee and bird.