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’. 

 

 

 

 

Helen 2:8

Je plante en ta faveur cest arbre de Cybelle,

Ce Pin, où tes honneurs se liront tous les jours :

J’ay gravé sur le tronc nos noms et nos amours,

Qui croistront à l’envy de l’escorce nouvelle.

 

Faunes qui habitez ma terre paternelle,

Qui menez sur le Loir vos danses et vos tours,

Favorisez la plante et luy donnez secours,

Que l’Esté ne la brusle, et l’Hyver ne la gelle.

 

Pasteur, qui conduiras en ce lieu ton troupeau,

Flageolant une Eclogue en ton tuyau d’aveine,

Attache tous les ans à cest arbre un tableau,

 

Qui tesmoigne aux passans mes amours et ma peine :

Puis l’arrosant de laict et du sang d’un agneau,

Dy, Ce Pin est sacré, c’est la plante d’Helene.

 

 

                                                                            I’m planting this tree of Cybele for you,

                                                                            This pine on which your glories will be read every day ;

                                                                            I have carved on the trunk our names and our love

                                                                            Which will get bigger despite the new bark.

 

                                                                            You fauns who inhabit my family’s lands,

                                                                            Who dance and trip upon the Loir,

                                                                            Make this plant your favourite and give it your aid

                                                                            So that summer does not burn nor winter freeze it.

 

                                                                            And you, shepherd who steer your flock to this place

                                                                            Fluting an eclogue on your oat-stalk pipe,

                                                                            Fix a picture to this tree every year

 

                                                                            To witness to passers-by of my love and my pain ;

                                                                            Then, pouring on it milk and the blood of a lamb,

                                                                            Say, “This pine is sacred, it is Helen’s tree.”

 

Nothing very radical here, one might think, though the presence of fauns on the Loir is unusual and a reminder that, for Ronsard, classical mythology was not confined to the Greek landscape – the deities and heroes were also very present for him in his contemporary landscape.

 

Blanchemain offers two footnotes, both of which simply remind us that the Loir, and Ronsard’s ancestral home, are in the Vendôme …

 

 

 

 

 

 

Elégie à Marie (Amours 2:68a )

 

Ma seconde ame à fin que le siecle advenir De nos jeunes amours se puisse souvenir, Et que vostre beauté que j’ay long temps aimee Ne se perde au tombeau par les ans consumee, Sans laisser quelque marque apres elle de soy : Je vous consacre icy le plus gaillard de moy, L’esprit de mon esprit qui vous fera revivre Ou long temps ou jamais par l’âge de ce livre.   Ceux qui liront les vers que j’ay chantez pour vous D’un stile varié entre l’aigre et le dous Selon les passions que vous m’avez donnees, Vous tiendront pour Deesse : et tant plus les annees En volant s’enfuiront, et plus vostre beauté Contre l’âge croistra vieille en sa nouveauté.   O ma belle Angevine, ô ma douce Marie, Mon œil mon cœur mon sang mon esprit et ma vie, Dont la vertu me monstre un droit chemin aux cieux : Je reçoy tel plaisir quand je baise vos yeux, Quand je languis dessus, et quand je les regarde, Que sans une frayeur qui la main me retarde, Je me serois occis, qu’impuissant je ne puis Vous monstrer par effect combien vostre je suis.   Or’ cela que je puis, je le veux icy faire : Je veux en vous chantant vos louanges parfaire, Et ne sentir jamais mon labeur engourdy Que tout l’ouvrage entier pour vous ne soit ourdy.   Si j’estois un grand Roy, pour eternel exemple De fidelle amitié, je bastirois un temple Desur le bord de Loire, et ce temple auroit nom Le temple de Ronsard et de sa Marion. De marbre Parien seroit vostre effigie, Vostre robe seroit à plein fons eslargie De plis recamez d’or, et vos cheveux tressez Seroient de filets d’or par ondes enlassez. D’un crespe canellé seroit la couverture De vostre chef divin, et la rare ouverture D’un reth de soye et d’or, fait de l’ouvriere main D’Arachne ou de Pallas, couvriroit vostre sein. Vostre bouche seroit de roses toute pleine, Respandant par le temple une amoureuse haleine. Vous auriez d’une Hebé le maintien gracieux, Et un essain d’Amours sortiroit de vos yeux : Vous tiendriez le haut bout de ce temple honorable, Droicte sur le sommet d’un pillier venerable.   Et moy d’autre costé assis au mesme lieu, Je serois remerquable en la forme d’un Dieu : J’aurois en me courbant dedans la main senestre Un arc demy-vouté, tout tel qu’on voit renaistre Aux premiers jours du mois le reply d’un croissant : Et j’aurois sur la corde un beau trait menassant, Non le serpent Python, mais ce sot de jeune homme, Qui maintenant sa vie et son ame vous nomme, Et qui seul me fraudant, est Roy de vostre cœur, Qu’en fin en vostre amour vous trouverez mocqueur.   Quiconque soit celuy, qu’en vivant il languisse, Et de chacun haï luy mesme se haysse, Qu’il se ronge le cœur, et voye ses dessains Tousjours lui eschapper comme vent de ses mains, Soupçonneux et resveur arrogant, solitaire, Et luy-mesme se puisse à luy-mesme desplaire.   J’aurois desur le chef un rameau de Laurier, J’aurois desur le flanc un beau poignard guerrier, Mon espé’ seroit d’or, et la belle poignée Ressembleroit à l’or de ta tresse peignée : J’aurois un cystre d’or, et j’aurois tout aupres Un Carquois tout chargé de flames et de traits.   Ce temple frequenté de festes solennelles Passeroit en honneur celuy des immortelles, Et par vœux nous serions invoquez tous les jours, Comme les nouveaux Dieux des fidelles amours.   D’âge en âge suivant au retour de l’annee Nous aurions pres le temple une feste ordonnee, Non pour faire courir, comme les anciens, Des chariots couplez aus jeux Olympiens, Pour saulter pour lutter ou de jambe venteuse Franchir en haletant la carriere poudreuse : Mais tous les jouvenceaux des pays d’alentour, Touchez au fond du cœur de la fleche d’Amour, Aiant d’un gentil feu les ames allumees, S’assembleroient au temple avecques leurs aimees : Et là, celuy qui mieux sa lévre poseroit Dessus la lévre aimee, et plus doux baiseroit, Ou soit d’un baiser sec ou d’un baiser humide, D’un baiser court ou long, ou d’un baiser qui guide L’ame desur la bouche, et laisse trespasser Le baiseur qui ne vit sinon que du penser, Ou d’un baiser donné comme les colombelles, Lors qu’ils se font l’amour de la bouche et des ailes.   Celuy qui mieux seroit en tels baisers appris, Sur tous les jouvenceaux emporteroit le prix, Seroit dit le veinqueur des baisers de Cythere, Et tout chargé de fleurs s’en iroit à sa mere. Aux pieds de mon autel en ce temple nouveau Luiroit le feu veillant d’un eternel flambeau, Et seroient ces combats nommez apres ma vie Les jeux que fit Ronsard pour sa belle Marie.   O ma belle Maistresse, hé que je voudrois bien Qu’Amour nous eust conjoint d’un semblable lien, Et qu’apres nos trespas dans nos fosses ombreuses Nous fussions la chanson des bouches amoureuses : Que ceux de Vandomois dissent tous d’un accord, (Visitant le tombeau sous qui je serois mort) Nostre Ronsard quittant son Loir et sa Gastine, A Bourgueil fut espris d’une belle Angevine : Et que les Angevins dissent tous d’une vois, Nostre belle Marie aimoit un Vandomois : Les deux n’avoient qu’un cœur, et l’amour mutuelle Qu’on ne voit plus icy leur fut perpetuelle : Siecle vrayment heureux, siecle d’or estimé, Où tousjours l’amoureux se voyoit contre-aimé.   Puisse arriver apres l’espace d’un long âge, Qu’un esprit vienne à bas sous le mignard ombrage Des Myrthes, me conter que les âges n’ont peu Effacer la clairté qui luist de nostre feu : Mais que de voix en voix de parole en parole Nostre gentille ardeur par la jeunesse vole, Et qu’on apprend par cœur les vers et les chansons Qu’Amour chanta pour vous en diverses façons, Et qu’on pense amoureux celuy qui rememore Vostre nom et le mien et nos tumbes honore.   Or il en adviendra ce que le ciel voudra, Si est-ce que ce Livre immortel apprendra Aux hommes et aux temps et à la renommee Que je vous ay six ans plus que mon cœur aimee.

My second soul, so that the coming age May remember our youthful love, And that your beauty which I have long loved May not be lost in the tomb, consumed by years, Without leaving some mark of you behind itself, I consecrate here to you the liveliest part of me, The spirit of my spirit, which will make you live again For a long time or forever, as long as this book lasts.   Those who will read the verse I have sung for you In a varied style, a mix of bitter and sweet In accord with the passions you’ve aroused in me, Will consider you a goddess; and the more the years Fly fleeting by, the more your beauty In despite of age will grow old in its novelty.   O my fair lass of Anjou, o my sweet Marie, My eyes, my heart, my blood, my spirit and my life, Whose virtue shows me a path straight to heaven, I get such pleasure when I kiss your eyes, When I linger over them, when I look at them, That, if it were not for a fear which holds back my hand, I would have killed myself since I have no power To show you in deed how much I am yours.   Still, what I can do I want to do here: I want to perfect your praises as I sing of you, And never to feel my work paralysed So that my whole work for you should not be heard.   If I were a great king, as an eternal example Of faithful love, I would build a temple Upon the bank of the Loire, and this temple would be called The temple of Ronsard and of his Marion. Your effigy would be of Parian marble, Your dress would be spread out with deep-carved Folds embroidered with gold, your piled-up hair Would be enlaced in waves with golden fillets. With crisp cinnamon would be covered Your divine head, and the rare openings Of a net of silk and gold, made by the hardworking hand Of Arachne or of Pallas, would cover your breast. Your mouth would be filled with roses, Breathing throughout the temple a lovely scent. You would have the gracious bearing of a Hebe, And a swarm of cupids would fly from your eyes, You would hold up the high top of his honourable temple Right on top of a venerable pillar.   And I, seated on the other side of the same space Would be prominent in the form of a god; I would have curved in my left hand A half-moon bow, just as you see reborn In the first days of the month the curve of a crescent moon, And I’d have on the bowstring a fine arrow menacing Not the serpent Python but that foolish young man Who now calls you his life and his soul And who alone, cheating me, is king of your heart, And who you’ll fond in the end is deceiving your love.   Whoever he is, may he fade away as he lives; May he, hated by everyone, hate himself; May he gnaw his heart, and see his designs Always escape like wind from his hands; Suspicious and arrogant dreamer, may he be lonely And always displeasing to himself!   I’d have on my head a laurel branch, I’d have at my side a fine warlike sabre, My sword would be gold, and the fine hilt Would resemble the gold of your combed hair: I would have a golden lyre, and next to it I’d have A quiver filled with flaming darts.   This temple, host of many a solemn feast, Would surpass in glory that of the immortals, And we would be invoked in vows every day Like the new gods of faithful love.   From age to following age, at the return of the year, We would have ordained a festival by the temple Not for racing, like the ancients, Coupled chariots in the Olympic games, Or for jumping, wrestling, or with flying limbs Negotiating the dusty race, panting; Instead, all the young people from the surrounding countryside, Struck deep in their hearts by the dart of Love, Their souls warmed by its gentle fire, Would assemble at the temple with their girlfriends; And there, he who best placed his lips Upon his beloved’s lips, and most sweetly kissed – Whether with a dry or a wet kiss, A long or a short kiss, with a kiss which leads The soul onto the lips and leaves the kisser Dying, who lives only on the memory, Or with a kiss given like the doves When they make love with beaks and wings.   He who has learned to kiss the best Would take the prizeabove all the other youths, Would be called the winner of Cytherea’s kisses, And covered in flowers would go home to his mother. At the feet of my altar in this new temple Would burn the watch-fire of an eternal torch, And these contests would be named after my life The games which Ronsard made for his fair Marie.   O my fair mistress, how wish That Love had joined us with similar ties, And that after our deaths, in our shadowy graves, We might be the song of amorous lips: That the people of the Vendôme might say with one accord, Visiting the tomb under which I would be dead, “Our Ronsard, leaving his Loir and Gastine, Fell in love at Bourgueil with a fair lass of Anjou”; And that the people of Anjou might say with one voice, “Our fair Marie loved a man from Vendôme, The two had but one heart, and their mutual love Which we no longer see here was for them everlasting; O truly fortunate age, age considered golden, In which a lover always found himself loved in return.”   May it happen that, after the space of a long age, A spirit might come down below the dear shade Of the myrtle, to tell me that the ages have not been able To efface the brightness which shines from our fire; But that from voice to voice, from speech to speech, Our gentle ardour flies among the young people, And that they learn by heart the verse and songs Which Love sang for you in varying forms, And that they consider a lover is he who recalls Your name and mine and honours our tombs.   Then will result what heaven wishes, That this immortal book should teach Men and their times and fame That I have loved you more than my heart for six years.

 

 

Ronsard in his elegies and longer poems often reminds us that the sixteenth century was a different age: less hurried, perhaps, certainly less concerned to make a point simply and quickly when it can be made several times in different ways! Here as he brings to a close the second book, he allows himself an extravagant classicising dream – a temple of love, statues of himself and Marie as gods of love, a new Olympics based around games of love, … Most importantly, these images are integrated with the evelasting fame Ronsard’s poetry will guarantee them both: Ronsard demonstrates he is hard-headed about fame, not reliant on soft-focus images of classical memorials.

 

Aimed at Marie, the classical references are not complex or profound:  Parian marble is a byword for quality now as then; the needlework skills of Arachne and Athene are well-known through the story of their competition which resulted in Arachne the weaver being turned into a spider; the reference to Python situate neatly within a phrase which makes the memory of Apollo’s victory easy to recall, particularly as it is also associated with the Delphic Oracle, most famous of Apollo references; Cytherea a well-known reference to Venus of Cythera; and myrtles are commonly associted with the afterworld.

 

Some references though are odd: cinnamon curls on her head, a lyre mixed in with the military armoury?  Maybe I have misunderstood Ronsard’s meanings. I think it likely, however, that Marie’s “virtue” in the third ‘stanza’ has a classical aura to it, implying power as well as virtue in the modern sense.

 

The earlier version printed by Blanchemain has variants scattered throughout, sometimes isolated changes, sometimes larger areas. So, although it makes for a long post, here’s the whole poem again in its earlier incarnation.

 

Marie, à celle fin que le siecle à venir De nos jeunes amours se puisse souvenir, Et que vostre beauty, que j’ay long temps aimée Ne se perde au tombeau, par les ans consumée, Sans laisser quelque marque après elle de soy, Je vous consacre icy le plus gaillard de moy, L’esprit de mon esprit, qui vous fera revivre Ou long temps, ou jamais, par l’âge de ce livre.   Ceux qui liront les vers que j’ay chantez pour vous D’un stile qui varie entre l’aigre et le doux, Selon les passions que vous m’avez données, Vous tiendront pour déesse ; et tant plus les années En volant s’enfuiront, et plus vostre beauté Contre l’âge croistra, vieille en sa nouveauté.   O ma belle Angevine ! ô ma douce Marie ! Mon œil, mon cœur, mon sang, mon esprit et ma vie, Dont la vertu me monstre un droit chemin aux cieux ! Je reçoy tant de bien quand je baise vos yeux, Quand je languis dessus et quand je les regarde, Que, sans une frayeur qui la main me retarde, Je me serois occis de dueil que je ne peux Vous monstrer par effect le bien que je vous veux.   Or cela que je puis, pour vous je le veux faire : Je veux, en vous chantant, vos louanges parfaire, Et ne sentir jamais mon labeur engourdy Que tout l’ouvrage entier pour vous ne soit ourdy.   Si j’estois un grand roy, pour eternel exemple De fidelle amitié, je bastirois un temple Dessus le bord de Loire, et ce temple auroit nom Le temple de Ronsard et de sa Marion. De marbre parien seroit vostre effigie, Vostre robe seroit à plein fons eslargie De plis recamez d’or, et vos cheveux tressez Seroient de filets d’or par ondes enlassez. D’un crespe canelé seroit la couverture De vostre chef divin, et la rare ouverture D’un reth de soye et d’or, fait de l’ouvriere main D’Arachne ou de Pallas, couvriroit vostre sein ; Vostre bouche seroit de roses toute pleine, Respandant par le temple une amoureuse haleine ; Vous auriez d’une Hebé le maintien gracieux, Et un essein d’Amours sortiroit de vos yeux ; Vous tiendriez le haut bout de ce temple honorable, Droicte sur le sommet d’un pilier venerable.   Et moy, d’autre costé, assis au plus bas lieu, Je serois remarquable en la forme d’un dieu ; J’aurois, en me courbant, dedans la main senestre Un arc demy-vouté, tel que l’on voit renaistre Aux premiers jours du mois le reply d’un croissant, Et j’aurois sur la corde un beau traict menassant, Non le serpent Python, mais ce sot de jeune homme Qui maintenant sa vie et son ame vous nomme, Et qui seul, me fraudant, est roy de vostre cœur, Qu’en fin en vostre amour vous trouverez mocqueur.   Quiconque soit celuy, qu’en vivant il languisse, Et de chacun hay luy-mesme se haysse ; Qu’il se ronge le cœur, et voye ses dessains Tousjours luy eschapper comme vent de ses mains, Soupçonneux et réveur, arrogant, solitaire, Et luy-mesme se puisse à luy-mesme desplaire.   J’aurois dessur le chef un rameau de laurier, J’aurois dessur le flanc un beau poignard guerrier ; La lame seroit d’or, et la belle poignée Ressembleroit à l’or de ta tresse peignée ; J’aurois un cistre d’or, et j’aurois tout auprès Un carquois tout chargé de flammes et de traits.   Ce temple, frequenté de festes solennelles, Passeroit en honneur celuy des immortelles, Et par vœux nous serions invoquez tous les jours, Comme les nouveaux dieux des fidelles amours.   D’âge en âge suivant, au retour de l’année Nous aurions près le temple une feste ordonnée, Non pour faire courir, comme les anciens, Des chariots couplez aus jeux olympiens, Pour saulter, pour lutter, ou de jambe venteuse Franchir en haletant la carriere poudreuse ; Mais tous les jouvenceaux des pays d’alentour, Touchez au fond du cœur de la fleche d’Amour, Aiant d’un gentil feu les ames allumees, S’assembleroient au temple avecques leurs aimées ; Et là celuy qui mieux sa lévre poseroit Sur la lévre amoureuse, et qui mieux baiseroit, Ou soit d’un baiser sec ou d’un baiser humide, D’un baiser court ou long, ou d’un baiser qui guide L’ame dessur la bouche, et laisse trespasser Le baiseur, qui ne vit sinon que du penser, Ou d’un baiser donné comme les colombelles, Lors qu’elles font l’amour et du bec et des ailes ; Celuy qui mieux seroit en tels baisers appris Sur tous les jouvenceaux emporteroit le prix, Seroit dit le vainqueur des baisers de Cythere, Et tout chargé de fleurs s’en-iroit à sa mere.   [Aux pieds de mon autel, en ce temple nouveau, Luiroit le feu veillant d’un eternel flambeau, Et seroient ces combats nommez, apres ma vie, Les jeux que fit Ronsard pour sa belle Marie.]   O ma belle maistresse ! hé ! que je voudrois bien Qu’Amour nous eust conjoint d’un semblable lien, Et qu’après nos trespas, dans nos fosses ombreuses, Nous fussions la chanson des bouches amoureuses ; Que ceux de Vendomois dissent tous d’un accord, Visitant le tombeau sous qui je serois mort : « Nostre Ronsard, quittant son Loir et sa Gastine, A Bourgueil fut épris d’une belle Angevine », Et que ceux-là d’Anjou dissent tous d’une vois : « Nostre belle Marie aimoit un Vendomois ; Tous les deux n’estoient qu’un, et l’amour mutuelle, Qu’on ne void plus icy, leur fut perpetuelle. Leur siecle estoit vrayment un siecle bienheureux, Où tousjours se voyoit contre-aimé l’amoureux ! »   Puisse arriver, apres l’espace d’un long âge, Qu’un esprit vienne à bas, sous l’amoureux ombrage Des myrtes, me conter que les âges n’ont peu Effacer la clarté qui luist de nostre feu, Mais que de voix en voix, de parole en parole, Nostre gentille amour par la jeunesse vole, Et qu’on apprend par cœur les vers et les chansons Que j’ai tissus pour vous en diverses façons, Et qu’on pense amoureux celuy qui rememore Vostre nom et le mien et nos tombes honore !   Or les dieux en feront cela qu’il leur plaira ; Si est-ce que ce livre après mille ans dira Aux hommes et au temps, et à la Renommée, Que je vous ay six ans plus que mon cœur aimée.

Marie, to the end that the age to come May remember our youthful love, And that your beauty which I have long loved May not be lost in the tomb, consumed by years, Without leaving some mark of you behind itself, I consecrate here to you the liveliest part of me, The spirit of my spirit, which will make you live again For a long time or forever, as long as this book lasts.   Those who will read the verse I have sung for you In a style which varies between bitter and sweet In accord with the passions you’ve aroused in me, Will consider you a goddess; and the more the years Fly fleeting by, the more your beauty In despite of age will grow old in its novelty.   O my fair lass of Anjou, o my sweet Marie, My eyes, my heart, my blood, my spirit and my life, Whose virtue shows me a path straight to heaven, I get so much good from kissing your eyes, When I linger over them, when I look at them, That, if it were not for a fear which holds back my hand, I would have killed myself from grief that I cannot Show you in deed the good that I wish you.   Still, what I can do I want to do for you: I want to perfect your praises as I sing of you, And never to feel my work paralysed So that my whole work for you should not be heard.   If I were a great king, as an eternal example Of faithful love, I would build a temple Upon the bank of the Loire, and this temple would be called The temple of Ronsard and of his Marion. Your effigy would be of Parian marble, Your dress would be spread out with deep-carved Folds embroidered with gold, your piled-up hair Would be enlaced in waves with golden fillets. With crisp cinnamon would be covered Your divine head, and the rare openings Of a net of silk and gold, made by the hardworking hand Of Arachne or of Pallas, would cover your breast. Your mouth would be filled with roses, Breathing throughout the temple a lovely scent. You would have the gracious bearing of a Hebe, And a swarm of cupids would fly from your eyes, You would hold up the high top of his honourable temple Right on top of a venerable pillar.   And I, seated on the other side in a lower place Would be prominent in the form of a god; I would have curved in my left hand A half-moon bow, such as you see reborn In the first days of the month the curve of a crescent moon, And I’d have on the bowstring a fine arrow menacing Not the serpent Python but that foolish young man Who now calls you his life and his soul And who alone, cheating me, is king of your heart, And who you’ll fond in the end is deceiving your love.   Whoever he is, may he fade away as he lives; May he, hated by everyone, hate himself; May he gnaw his heart, and see his designs Always escape like wind from his hands; Suspicious and arrogant dreamer, may he be lonely And always displeasing to himself!   I’d have on my head a laurel branch, I’d have at my side a fine warlike sabre, The blade would be gold, and the fine hilt Would resemble the gold of your combed hair: I would have a golden lyre, and next to it I’d have A quiver filled with flaming darts.   This temple, host of many a solemn feast, Would surpass in glory that of the immortals, And we would be invoked in vows every day Like the new gods of faithful love.   From age to following age, at the return of the year, We would have ordained a festival by the temple Not for racing, like the ancients, Coupled chariots in the Olympic games, Or for jumping, wrestling, or with flying limbs Negotiating the dusty race, panting; Instead, all the young people from the surrounding countryside, Struck deep in their hearts by the dart of Love, Their souls warmed by its gentle fire, Would assemble at the temple with their girlfriends; And there, he who best placed his lips Upon his beloved’s lips, and who kissed the best – Whether with a dry or a wet kiss, A long or a short kiss, with a kiss which leads The soul onto the lips and leaves the kisser Dying, who lives only on the memory, Or with a kiss given like the doves When they make love with beak and wings. He who has learned to kiss the best Would take the prizeabove all the other youths, Would be called the winner of Cytherea’s kisses, And covered in flowers would go home to his mother.   [At the feet of my altar in this new temple Would burn the watch-fire of an eternal torch, And these contests would be named after my life The games which Ronsard made for his fair Marie.]   O my fair mistress, how wish That Love had joined us with similar ties, And that after our deaths, in our shadowy graves, We might be the song of amorous lips: That the people of the Vendôme might say with one accord, Visiting the tomb under which I would be dead, “Our Ronsard, leaving his Loir and Gastine, Fell in love at Bourgueil with a fair lass of Anjou”; And that those from Anjou might say with one voice, “Our fair Marie loved a man from Vendôme, The two were but one, and their mutual love Which we no longer see here was for them everlasting; Their age was truly a happy age, In which the lover always found himself loved in return.”   May it happen that, after the space of a long age, A spirit might come down below the loving shade Of the myrtle, to tell me that the ages have not been able To efface the brightness which shines from our fire; But that from voice to voice, from speech to speech, Our gentle love flies among the young people, And that they learn by heart the verse and songs Which I’ve created for you in varying forms, And that they consider a lover is he who recalls Your name and mine and honours our tombs.   Then the gods can do with it what they want, Since this book a thousand years hence will tell Men and their times, and Fame too, That I have loved you more than my heart for six years.

 

It’s worth noting that in this earlier version Marie’s place in the temple is higher than Ronsard’s: he places himself there as an equal in the later version. Blanchemain also includes the four lines beginning “Aux pieds de mon autel…” in parentheses, admitting in a footnote that they were added in the 1584 edition (a quarter-century after the edition he is supposed to be using!).

 

 

 

 

 

 

Le Voyage de Tours: ou, Les amoureux

Some poetry is long overdue. Here’s the first 70 lines of “The Journey to Tours”, subtitled ‘The Lovers’, which is inserted by Ronsard into the middle of the 2nd book of Amours, featuring as it does his heroine of that book, Marie (here called Marion).

The poem is an extended eclogue or pastoral poem, imitating the Arcadian literature both of Greece & Rome and of the renaissance poets who renewed these themes. Although the pastoral poets demonstrate their erudition regularly with classical references or simply with complex and allusive verse, Ronsard plays to the genre theme, slightly mocking it in the light semi-comic “rustic” style he adopts, and the ‘colloquial’ names he gives his principal characters.. Marie becomes Marion, as we have seen, and ‘Thoinet’, from ‘Antoine’ (de Baif), approximates to ‘Tony’ in English; though ‘Perrot’ (from ‘Pierre’ de Ronsard) doesn’t quite work as Pete.  The poem gives Ronsard scope both to describe the details of the countryside in loving detail, and also to locate it firmly in the France he knows; we cannot be sure that the journey is an invented one, the details make it so believable.

C’estoit en la saison que l’amoureuse Flore Faisoit pour son amy les fleurettes esclore Par les prez bigarrez d’autant d’esmail de fleurs, Que le grand arc du Ciel s’esmaille de couleurs : Lors que les papillons et les blondes avettes, Les uns chargez au bec, les autres aux cuissettes, Errent par les jardins, et les petits oiseaux Voletans par les bois de rameaux en rameaux Amassent la bechée, et parmy la verdure Ont souci comme nous de leur race future.     Thoinet au mois d’Avril passant par Vandomois, Me mena voir à Tours Marion que j’aimois, Qui aux nopces estoit d’une sienne cousine : Et ce Thoinet aussi alloit voir sa Francine, Qu’ Amour en se jouant d’un trait plein de rigueur, Luy avoit pres le Clain escrite dans le coeur.     Nous partismes tous deux du hameau de Coustures, Nous passasmes Gastine et ses hautes verdures, Nous passasmes Marré, et vismes à mi- jour Du pasteur Phelipot s’eslever la grand tour, Qui de Beaumont la Ronce honore le village Comme un pin fait honneur aux arbres d’un bocage. Ce pasteur qu’on nommoit Phelippot tout gaillard, Chez luy nous festoya jusques au soir bien tard. De là vinsmes coucher au gué de Lengenrie, Sous des saules plantez le long d’une prairie : Puis dés le poinct du jour redoublant le marcher, Nous vismes en un bois s’eslever le clocher De sainct Cosme pres Tours, où la nopce gentille Dans un pré se faisoit au beau milieu de l’isle.     Là Francine dançoit, de Thoinet le souci, Là Marion balloit, qui fut le mien aussi : Puis nous mettans tous deux en l’ordre de la dance, Thoinet tout le premier ceste plainte commence.     Ma Francine, mon cueur, qu’oublier je ne puis, Bien que pour ton amour oublié je me suis, Quand dure en cruauté tu passerois les Ourses Et les torrens d’hyver desbordez de leurs courses, Et quand tu porterois en lieu d’humaine chair Au fond de l’estomach, pour un cueur un rocher : Quand tu aurois succé le laict d’une Lyonne, Quand tu serois, cruelle, une beste felonne, Ton cœur seroit pourtant de mes pleurs adouci, Et ce pauvre Thoinet tu prendrois à merci.     Je suis, s’il t’en souvient, Thoinet qui dés jeunesse Te voyant sur le Clain t’appella sa maistresse, Qui musette et flageol à ses lévres usa Pour te donner plaisir, mais cela m’abusa : Car te pensant flechir comme une femme humaine, Je trouvay ta poitrine et ton aureille pleine, Helas qui l’eust pensé ! de cent mille glaçons Lesquels ne t’ont permis d’escouter mes chansons : Et toutesfois le temps, qui les prez de leurs herbes Despouille d’an en an, et les champs de leurs gerbes, Ne m’a point despouillé le souvenir du jour, Ny du mois où je mis en tes yeux mon amour : Ny ne fera jamais voire eussé-je avallée L’onde qui court là bas sous l’obscure valée. C’estoit au mois d’Avril, Francine, il m’en souvient, Quand tout arbre florit, quand la terre devient De vieillesse en jouvence, et l’estrange arondelle Fait contre un soliveau sa maison naturelle : Quand la Limace au dos qui porte sa maison, Laisse un trac sur les fleurs : quand la blonde toison Va couvrant la chenille, et quand parmy les prées Volent les papillons aux ailes diaprées, Lors que fol je te vy, et depuis je n’ay peu Rien voir apres tes yeux que tout ne m’ait despleu.

It was in the season when Flora, being in love, Made flowers bloom for her lover In the meadows scattered with such a mottling of flowers As the great arc of the Heavens is mottled with colours: As the butterflies and yellow bees, Their mouths or their little thighs full, Wander through the gardens, and the little birds Fluttering among the woods from branch to branch Gather their beak-fuls, and among the greenery Plan, as we do, for the future of their race.     Tony, passing through the Vendôme in April, Took me to Tours, to see Marion whom I loved, Who was at the wedding of her cousin; And Tony too was going to see his Francine Whom Love, laughingly striking him a blow full of trouble, Had written on his heart, near Clain.     The two of us left the hamlet of Coustures, Crossed Gastine and its rich greenery, Passed Marré and saw at midday The great tower of Philip the shepherd rising up, Which brings credit to the village of Beaumont la Ronce As a pine brings credit to the trees of a copse. This shepherd they call Philip merrily Feasted us at his house until late in the evening. From there, we reached our beds at Lengenrie ford, Beneath willows planted the length of a field; Then at daybreak taking up our walk again We saw rising in a wood the bell-tower Of St Cosmas near Tours, where the noble wedding Was taking place in a meadow right in the middle of the island.     There Francine was dancing, Tony’s beloved; There Marion was capering, my own also: Then, as both of us joined in the line of dancers, Tony first began his complaint:     My Francine, my heart whom I cannot forget, Although for your love I am forgotten, Though harsh in cruelty you exceed bears And the winter torrents bursting their banks, And though you bear, in place of human flesh Deep in your belly not a heart but a stone; Though you have sucked the milk of a lioness, Though you are a ravenous beast, o cruel one, Your heart can still be softened by my tears And you’ll still grant mercy to your poor Tony.     I am, you recall, that Tony who, from his youth, Seeing you on the Clain, called you his mistress, Who put bagpipe and flute to his lips To give you pleasure: but that deceived me, For thinking to influence you like a human woman I found your breast and ears full – Ah, who’d have thought it! – of a million icicles Which prevented you from hearing my songs; And still time, which steals from the meadows Their plants from year to year, and from the fields their sheaves, Has not stolen from me the memory of that day Or month when your eyes took my love. Nor will it ever, even if I had drunk The water which flows down below in the dark valley. It was in the month of April, Francine, I remember, When every tree blossoms, when the earth changes From old age to youth, and the swallow from abroad Makes against a small beam his own kind of home; When the snail who bears his house on his back Leaves his tracks on the flowers; when a yellow fleece Covers the caterpillar, and when in the meadows Butterflies fly on their colourful wings, It was then that I saw you, fell in love, and since then everything I’ve seen Apart from but your eyes has displeased me.

 

Remy Belleau’s commentary offers a range of useful, and less useful, details on the places named by Ronsard. Coustures, he tells us, is “where our poet was born”; the forest of Gastine we have met before; Marré and Beaumont la Ronce are villages, Lengenrie a “little village”!  Saint-Cosmas was a priory situated on an island next to Tours; Ronsard was fond of it, not least becasue in 1565 he became ‘commendatory abbot’. This is a picture of the statue of Ronsard now at St-Cosme. The Clain is the river which passes by Poictiers, which (Belleau tells us, in case we didn’t read the line in the poem) is where Baif first fell in love with Francine!

 

A couple of classical references:  Flora, the goddess of spring, most familiar to us from her appearance in a flowery dress in Botticelli’s “Primavera” (Spring); and, again in case we didn’t read the poem, Belleau explains that the ‘waters flowing down below’ are the waters of the river Lethe which make you lose your memory.

 

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The earlier version given by Blanchemain of course differs in detail, but also comes with an introductory dedication. Blanchemain explains “this dedication to L’Huillier, a rich bourgeois of Paris, perhaps the father or grandfather of Chapelle, is found only in the 1560 edition.” He doesn’t explain why Ronsard would call a bourgeois “Seigneur” (my lord).

 

Jérôme L’Huillier, lord of Maisonfleur, was a close friend of Ronsard’s (and an amateur poet) around 1560, and Ronsard wrote two Elegies for him as well as dedicating his “Second Livre du Recueil des nouvelles poesies” to him in 1564 – here’s the title page.

 

When L’Huillier converted to Protestantism in 1566, the dedications were all removed (Ronsard remaining a good Catholic). But oddly L’Huillier’s name remained in the first line of one of the elegies, and the fourth book of Elegies was dedicated to L’Huillier on its publication in 1567! (The fluidity of religious boundaries at the time perhaps also shows in Ronsard’s writing a Hymn to his friend Cardinal Coligny, which he retained in later editions after Coligny defected and became a Huguenot…)  Perhaps there are further signs of a rapprochement in 1586, when L’Huillier’s son & heir Estienne included in a set of Reformist ‘Cantiques’ a translation of the Te Deum by Ronsard which the latter had published in his anti-Reformation ‘Discours’! A later 1592 edition also added three more sizeable Ronsard poems.

 

In this dedication, Ronsard writes 12 lines, but unusually and intriguingly groups them 5-3-4

 

 

Au seigneur L’Huillier

L’Huillier, à qui Phoebus, comme au seul de nostre age,
A donné ses beaux vers et son luth en partage,
En ta faveur icy je chante les amours
Que Perrot et Thoinet souspirerent à Tours,
L’un espris de Francine, et l’autre de Marie.

 

Ce Thoinet est Baïf, qui doctement manie
Les mestiers d’Apollon ; ce Perrot est Ronsard,
Que la Muse n’a fait le dernier en son art.

 

Si ce grand duc de Guyse, honneur de nostre France,
N’amuse point ta plume en chose d’importance,
Preste moy ton oreille, et t’en viens lire icy
L’amour de ces pasteurs et leur voyage aussy.

 

 

                                                                                        To my lord L’Huillier

                                                                                        L’Huillier, to whom Phoebus as to the only man of our age

                                                                                        Has given a share of his beautiful verse and his lute,

                                                                                        For you I here sing of the love

                                                                                        With which Pete and Tony sighed at Tours,

                                                                                        One fallen for Francine, the other for Marie.

 

                                                                                        This Tony is Baïf, who learnedly handles

                                                                                        Apollo’s tasks; Pete is Ronsard

                                                                                        Whom the Muse has not made last in his art.

 

                                                                                        If the great Duke of Guise, the honour of France,

                                                                                        Does not keep your pen employed on important things,

                                                                                        Lend me your ear, and come with me to read here

                                                                                        Of the loves of these shepherds and their journey too.

There are few changes in this part of the poem, though already we can see ways in which Ronsard tidied up and improved the poem in the later version above.

C’estoit en la saison que l’amoureuse Flore Faisoit pour son amy les fleurettes esclore Par les prez bigarrez d’autant d’esmail de fleurs, Que le grand arc du Ciel s’esmaille de couleurs : Lors que les papillons et les blondes avettes, Les uns chargez au bec, les autres aux cuissettes, Errent par les jardins, et les petits oiseaux Voletans par les bois de rameaux en rameaux Amassent la bechée, et parmy la verdure Ont souci comme nous de leur race future.     Thoinet, en ce beau temps, passant par Vandomois, Me mena voir à Tours Marion que j’aimois, Qui aux nopces estoit d’une sienne cousine : Et ce Thoinet aussi alloit voir sa Francine, Que la grande Venus, d’un trait plein de rigueur, Luy avoit pres le Clain escrite dans le coeur.     Nous partismes tous deux du hameau de Coustures, Nous passasmes Gastine et ses hautes verdures, Nous passasmes Marré, et vismes à mi- jour Du pasteur Phelipot s’eslever la grand’ tour, Qui de Beaumont la Ronce honore le village Comme un pin fait honneur aux arbres d’un bocage. Ce pasteur qu’on nommoit Phelippot le gaillard, Courtois, nous festoya jusques au soir bien tard. De là vinsmes coucher au gué de Lengenrie, Sous des saules plantez le long d’une prairie : Puis dés le poinct du jour redoublant le marcher, Nous vismes en un bois s’eslever le clocher De sainct Cosme pres Tours, où la nopce gentille Dans un pré se faisoit au beau milieu de l’isle.     Là Francine dançoit, de Thoinet le souci, Là Marion balloit, qui fut le mien aussi : Puis nous mettans tous deux en l’ordre de la dance, Thoinet tout le premier ceste plainte commence.     Ma Francine, mon cueur, qu’oublier je ne puis, Bien que pour ton amour oublié je me suis, Quand dure en cruauté tu passerois les Ourses Et les torrens d’hyver desbordez de leurs courses, Et quand tu porterois en lieu d’humaine chair Au fond de l’estomach, pour un cueur un rocher : Quand tu aurois succé le laict d’une Lyonne, Quand tu serois autant qu’une tigre felonne, Ton cœur seroit pourtant de mes pleurs adouci, Et ce pauvre Thoinet tu prendrois à merci.     Je suis, s’il t’en souvient, Thoinet qui dés jeunesse Te voyant sur le Clain t’appella sa maistresse, Qui musette et flageol à ses lévres usa Pour te donner plaisir, mais cela m’abusa : Car te pensant flechir comme une femme humaine, Je trouvay ta poitrine et ton aureille pleine, Helas qui l’eust pensé ! de cent mille glaçons Lesquels ne t’ont permis d’escouter mes chansons : Et toutesfois le temps, qui les prez de leurs herbes Despouille d’an en an, et les champs de leurs gerbes, Ne m’a point despouillé le souvenir du jour, Ny du mois où je mis en tes yeux mon amour : Ny ne fera jamais voire eussé-je avallée L’onde qui court là bas sous l’obscure valée. C’estoit au mois d’Avril, Francine, il m’en souvient, Quand tout arbre florit, quand la terre devient De vieillesse en jouvence, et l’estrange arondelle Fait contre un soliveau sa maison naturelle : Quand la Limace au dos qui porte sa maison, Laisse un trac sur les fleurs : quand la blonde toison Va couvrant la chenille, et quand parmy les prées Volent les papillons aux ailes diaprées, Lors que fol je te vy, et depuis je n’ay peu Rien voir apres tes yeux que tout ne m’ait despleu.

It was in the season when Flora, being in love, Made flowers bloom for her lover In the meadows scattered with such a mottling of flowers As the great arc of the Heavens is mottled with colours: As the butterflies and yellow bees, Their mouths or their little thighs full, Wander through the gardens, and the little birds Fluttering among the woods from branch to branch Gather their beak-fuls, and among the greenery Plan, as we do, for the future of their race.     Tony, passing through the Vendôme at this beautiful time, Took me to Tours, to see Marion whom I loved, Who was at the wedding of her cousin; And Tony too was going to see his Francine Whom great Venus, with a blow full of trouble, Had written on his heart, near Clain.     The two of us left the hamlet of Coustures, Crossed Gastine and its rich greenery, Passed Marré and saw at midday The great tower of Philip the shepherd rising up, Which brings credit to the village of Beaumont la Ronce As a pine brings credit to the trees of a copse. This shepherd they call Philip the merry Feasted us in courtly fashion until late in the evening. From there, we reached our beds at Lengenrie ford, Beneath willows planted the length of a field; Then at daybreak taking up our walk again We saw rising in a wood the bell-tower Of St Cosmas near Tours, where the noble wedding Was taking place in a meadow right in the middle of the island.     There Francine was dancing, Tony’s beloved; There Marion was capering, my own also: Then, as both of us joined in the line of dancers, Tony first began his complaint:     My Francine, my heart whom I cannot forget, Although for your love I am forgotten, Though harsh in cruelty you exceed bears And the winter torrents bursting their banks, And though you bear, in place of human flesh Deep in your belly not a heart but a stone; Though you have sucked the milk of a lioness, Though you are like a cruel tigress, Your heart can still be softened by my tears And you’ll still grant mercy to your poor Tony.     I am, you recall, that Tony who, from his youth, Seeing you on the Clain, called you his mistress, Who put bagpipe and flute to his lips To give you pleasure: but that deceived me, For thinking to influence you like a human woman I found your breast and ears full – Ah, who’d have thought it! – of a million icicles Which prevented you from hearing my songs; And still time, which steals from the meadows Their plants from year to year, and from the fields their sheaves, Has not stolen from me the memory of that day Or month when your eyes took my love. Nor will it ever, even if I had drunk The water which flows down below in the dark valley. It was in the month of April, Francine, I remember, When every tree blossoms, when the earth changes From old age to youth, and the swallow from abroad Makes against a small beam his own kind of home; When the snail who bears his house on his back Leaves his tracks on the flowers; when a yellow fleece Covers the caterpillar, and when in the meadows Butterflies fly on their colourful wings, It was then that I saw you, fell in love, and since then everything I’ve seen Apart from but your eyes has displeased me.

 

 

 

 

Odes 3.21

 

A GASPAR D’AUVERGNE   Gaspar, qui, loin de Pegase, As les filles de Parnase Conduites en ta maison, Ne sçais-tu que moy, poête, De mon Phoebus je souhéte Quand je fais une oraison ?   Les moissons je ne quiers pas Que le faux arrange à bas Sur la Beauce fructueuse ; Ny tous les cornus troupeaux Qui sautent sur les coupeaux De l’Auvergne montueuse ;   Ny l’or sans forme qu’ameine La mine pour nostre peine ; Ny celuy qui est formé Portant d’un roy la figure Ou la fiere pourtraiture De quelque empereur armé ;   Ny l’ivoire marqueté En l’Orient acheté Pour parade d’une sale ; Ny les cousteux diamans Magnifiques ornemens D’une majesté royale ;   Ny tous les champs que le fleuve Du Loir lentement abreuve ; Ny tous les prez emmurez Des plis de Braye argentine ; Ny tous les bois dont Gastine Void ses bras en-verdurez ;   Ny le riche accoustrement D’une laine qui dément Sa teinture naturelle Ez chaudrons du Gobelin, S’yvrant d’un rouge venin Pour se disguiser plus belle   Que celuy dans une coupe Toute d’or boive à la troupe De son vin de Prepatour, A qui la vigne succede, Et près Vendôme en possede Deux cents arpens en un tour.   Que celuy qui aime Mars S’enrolle entre les soldars, Et face sa peau vermeille D’un beau sang pour son devoir, Et que la trompette, au soir, D’un son luy raze l’aureille.   Le marchant hardiment vire Par le mer de sa navire La proue et la poupe encor ; Ce n’est moy, bruslé d’envie, A tels despens de ma vie, Rapporter des lingots d’or.   Tous ces biens je ne quiers point, Et mon courage n’est poingt De telle gloire excessive. Manger o mon compagnon Ou la figue d’Avignon, Ou la provençale olive,   L’artichôt et la salade, L’asperge et le pastenade, Et les pompons tourangeaux, Me sont herbes plus friandes Que les royales viandes Qui se servent à monceaux.   Puis qu’il faut si tost mourir, Que me vaudroit d’acquerir Un bien qui ne dure guere, Qu’un heritier qui viendroit Après mon trespas vendroit Et en feroit bonne chere ?   Tant seulement je desire Une santé qui n’empire ; Je desire un beau sejour, Une raison saine et bonne Et une lyre qui sonne Tousjours le vin et l’amour.

TO GASPAR OF AUVERGNE   Gaspar, who – without Pegasus – Has brought the daughters of Parnassus Into your home, Do you not know what I, a poet, Ask of my Apollo When I make him a prayer ?   Crops I don’t request, Those which the scythe cuts down Upon the fruitful Beauce ; Nor do I ask for all the horned troop Which leap upon the scarps Of the mountainous Auvergne ;   Nor shapeless gold which the mine Provides for our trouble ; Nor do I ask to be one made To bear a king’s figure Or the proud appearance Of some armed emperor ;   Nor inlaid ivory Bought in the East For some dishonest woman’s display ; Nor costly diamonds, Magnificent ornaments Of royal majesty ;   Nor all the fields which the river Loir slowly waters ; Nor all the meadows walled in By the bends of the silvery Braye ; Nor all the woods with which Gastine Sees his arms greened ;   Nor the rich clothing Of wool which gives the lie to Its natural colour In Gobelin’s cauldrons, Drinking in the red poison To disguise itself, more beautiful   Than his wine of Prepatour, Which he himself, in a cup Made all of gold, drinks to his troop – The vines to which he succeded And possesses near Vendome Two hundred acres of them.   Let he who loves Mars [war] Enrol among his soldiers, And print his pink skin With bright blood for his work, And let the evening trumpet With its call crash on his ear.   Let the merchant boldly steer Over the sea his ship’s Prow and poop too ; It’s not for me, burning with desire At such cost to my life, To bring back golden ingots.   All these good things I seek not at all, And my courage is not pricked To such excessive glory. Eating with my friend Figs from Avignon Or olives from Provence,   Artichokes and salad, Asparagus and parsnip And melons from Tours, These are tastier foods Than the king’s meat Which is served in mountains.   Since we must die so soon, What use to me is gaining Some good thing which hardly lasts, Which my inheritor will come After my death and sell And make a great deal from ?   I simply desire Health which doesn’t worsen ; I desire a fine time here, My reason unimpaired, And a lyre which sings Always of wine and love.

 

 

Blanchemain reprints several footnotes from Richelet’s commentary.In the 4th stanza, he notes that “tous les champs” are ‘the fields of his Vendome region’ (as we’d have guessed from the references to the Braye & Gastine); in the following stanza he tells us that Gobelin was  ‘formerly the famous & rich dyer of Paris’, though we now think of his Belgin tapestry factory; and explains that the “rouge venin” (‘red poison’) is scarlet dye in which the wool is soaked for a long time. A stanza later, he epxlains that Prepatour is ‘an excellent wine, whose vine belongs to the king & is in his domain in the Vendome’.

 

The stanzas 3rd & 4th from last also deserve a note or two: Ronsard says “Manger o mon compagnon”, which I guess to be Provençal dialect (“o” for “au”?), suited to the Avignon/Provencal food mentioned in the following lines, and or the Auvergne form which Gaspar hails. “Pastenade” is also Provençal, and there is even today a special variety of melon (“pompon”) grown around Tours: see here.

 

And what of Gaspar himself? Ronsard’s friend Gaspar (or Gaspard) was another of that learned circle of humanists, known among other things for translating Machiavelli into French – particularly ‘Le Prince’ and “Les discours de l’estat de paix et de guerre”, the former apparently undertaken between 1547 and 1553 but not published till the 1560s, one of three roughly contemporary translations of the notorious work.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gayetez et Epigrammes (39)

While wandering through some of the more obscure poems, how about this one…

SUR UN LIVRE TRAICTANT DE LA FOY CATHOLIQUE, TRADUIT PAR JEAN DE LAVARDIN.   DIALOGUE DU PASSANT ET DU LIBRAIRE     Qui est ce livre ? – Estranger. – Qui l’a faict ? – Le grand Osie en sçavoir tout parfaict. – Qui l’a conduit des terres poulonoises, Et fait sonner nos parolles françoises ? – C’est Lavardin, ce sçavant translateur, Et docte autant que le premier autheur. – De quoy discourt ce livre magnifique ? – De nostre loy, de la foy catholique ; Tout ce qu’il faut retenir ou laisser, Et qu’un chrestien doit à Dieu confesser, Pour estre net du fard de l’heresie, Croyant l’Eglise, et non la fantaisi De ces cerveaux éventez, esgarez, Qui par orgueil sont de nous separez. Et bref, Passant, si le zele t’allume Des peres vieux, achepte ce volume, Pour vivre seur en la ferme union. Mais si tu es de l’autre opinion, Et si tu veux les mensonges ensuivre Des nouveaux fols, n’achepte pas ce livre Pour t’en mocquer ; tu porterois en vain En lieu d’un livre un fardeau dans la main.

On a book concerning the Catholic faith, translated by Jean de Lavardin   Dialogue between a passer-by and a bookseller     What is this book ? – A foreign one. – Who wrote it ? – The great Hosius, perfect in learning. – Who has brought it from Polish lands, And made it shout out with our French words ? – It is Lavardin, that scholarly translator, As learned as its first author. – Of what does this magnificent book tell ? – Of our law, the Catholic faith ; All that must be retained or let go, And that a Christian should confess to God, To be clear of the burden of heresy, Believing in the Church and not the fantasy Of those airy, bewildered minds Who are separated from us by their pride. In brief, traveller, if zeal for the ancient Fathers Has fired you, accept this volume In order to live surely, in firm union. But if you are of the other opinion And if you want to follow the lies Of new madmen, do not take this book To laugh at it ; you’ll be taking in vain, Instead of a book, a burden in your hands.

 

This is a poem included among Ronsard’s posthumous pieces, i.e. not one he published within his collected editions in his lifetime.  Ronsard makes clear his own position is with the Catholic church.  But, given our image of the Wars of Religion in France (the St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre etc), he is perhaps surprisingly relaxed in his address to any protestant/Huguenot reading it. OK, he uses words like ‘lies’ and ‘madmen’, but he warns only of the eternal rather than earthly consequences of that religious choice.

 

Jean de Lavardin is not the Marquis de Lavardin who rose to be Marshal France under Henry IV (after a career on both sides of the religious divide in the Wars of Religion!); he is, rather, the abbot of the Premonstratensian monastery of the Étoile (the Star — “l’Abbaye Sainte-Trinité et Saint-Sauveur de l’Étoile” in full) at Authon next to Vendôme. and thus very much part of Ronsard’s world in the Loir region. He was known principally as a translator of the Letters of St Jerome, but also – relevant to this poem – of the “Confession catholique de la foy chrestienne” (‘Catholic confession of the Christian faith’) of Bishop Hosius, published in 1579. Its attractive title page – see it here – states “Faite Françoise du Latin de Stanislaus HOSIVS, Cardinal Polonois, Euesque de Vvarme, & President au Concile de TRENTE, PAR Iean de LAVARDIN, Vandomois, Abbé de l’Estoille.” (‘Done into French from the Latin of Stanisław Hozjusz, Polish Cardinal, Bishop of Warmia, and President of the Council of Trent….’), which explains the reference to Poland in the third line.

 

It also makes clear that the reference to ‘Osius’ in line 2 is not to Bishop Hosius (or Osius) who led the Council of Nicaea in the 300s AD in creating the Nicene Creed we still use today; but to Stanislaus Hosius, the Latinized version of Stanisław Hozjusz.

 

It was a chunky book – nearly 1700 pages! – which suggests that Ronsard is gently joking about its size in the final line when he refers to it as a ‘burden’ 🙂

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sonnet 165

Sonnets 163 and 164 are already available, so our journey through book 1 continues with no. 165 …

Saincte Gastine, ô douce secretaire

De mes ennuis, qui respons en ton bois,

Ores en haute ores en basse voix,

Aux longs souspirs que mon cœur ne peut taire :

 

Loir, qui refreins la course volontaire

Des flots roulant par nostre Vandomois,

Quand accuser ceste beauté tu m’ois,

De qui tousjours je m’affame et m’altere :

 

Si dextrement l’augure j’ay receu,

Et si mon œil ne fut hier deceu

Des doux regards de ma douce Thalie,

 

Maugré la mort Poëte me ferez

Et par la France appellez vous serez

L’un mon Laurier, l’autre ma Castalie.

 

 

 

 

                                                                            Holy Gastine, sweet minister

                                                                            Of my troubles, who reply in your wood

                                                                            Now with loud, now with quiet voice

                                                                            To the long sighs which my heart cannot silence;

 

                                                                            Loir, who restrain the headstrong course

                                                                            Of your waves running through our Vendôme,

                                                                            When you hear me accusing that beauty

                                                                            For whom I’m always hungry and thirsty;

 

                                                                            If I’ve rightly understood the prophecy,

                                                                            And if my eye was not deceived yesterday

                                                                            By the sweet glances of my sweet Thalia,

 

                                                                            In spite of death you will make me a Poet,

                                                                            And throughout France one of you will be called

                                                                            My Laurel, the other my Castalia.

 

 

 

Here again Ronsard connects his own small part of the Vendome with the classical sites well-known to all his readers: the forest of Gastine, and the little river Loir, become the equivalents of the victory-crowning laurel, and the Castalian spring which emerges beside the Delphic oracle – though here Ronsard is thinking less of the oracle’s link with prophecy than its link with Apollo who inspires poets. Thalia (as he calls Cassandre here) was the muse associated with pastoral poetry – but also, less relevantly, with comedy!

 

Once more there are only minor changes between versions. Blanchemain offers in line 1 “Saincte Gastine, heureuse secretaire” (‘happy minister’); in lines 5-6 “la course volontaire / Du plus courant de tes flots vendomois” (‘the headstrong course / Of the fastest-running of your waters of Vendome’); and in line 12 “Dorenavant poëte me ferez,” (‘Henceforward you will make me a Poet’).

 

 

 

Sonnet 126

Je te hay, peuple, et j’en prens à tesmoin

Le Loir, Gastine, et les rives de Braye,

Et la Neuffaune, et la verte saulaye

Que Sabut voit aboutir à son coin.

 

Là quand tout seul je m’esgare bien loin,

Amour qui parle avecque moy s’essaye

Non de guarir, mais rengreger ma playe

Par les deserts, qui augmentent mon soin.

 

Là pas-à-pas, Dame, je rememore

Ton front, ta bouche, et les graces encore

De tes beaux yeux trop fideles archers :

 

Puis figurant ta belle idole feinte

Au clair d’une eau, je sanglote une pleinte,

Qui fait gemir le plus dur des rochers.

 

 

 

 

                                                                            I hate you, people, and I call to witness

                                                                            The Loir, Gastine and the banks of Braye,

                                                                            And the Neuffaune, and the green willow

                                                                            Which Sabut sees adjoining its own edge.

 

                                                                            There, when all alone I wander afar,

                                                                            Love as he talks with me attempts

                                                                            Not to cure but to deepen my wound

                                                                            In these deserts which increase my cares.

 

                                                                            There, step by step, my Lady, I recall

                                                                            Your brow, your lips, the grace too

                                                                            Of your fair eyes, too trusty archers!

 

                                                                            Then imagining your fair image drawn

                                                                            In the clear water of a spring, I sob my complaint

                                                                            Which makes the hardest rocks wail.

 

 

 

Ronsard likes a dramatic opening , and this is a pretty fine one! But what is really typical is his determined projection of himself as a local man of the Vendôme, with the list of minor rivers which would be unknown to most of his readers (as to us) but which create a counterweight to the reality of the man about town and Court.

 

Blanchemain gallantly footnotes the various names. “Loir : river which passes through Vendome; Gastine: name of a forest; Braye: another small river; Neuffaune: a copse belonging to the author’s house; Sabut: a fertile hill with good vines, whose base is entirely covered in willows”.  I’m not sure that Ronsard meant his readers to gather more than local colour from the list, though Loir and the forest of Gastine do come back repeatedly in his poetry and are closely associated with his own family estate.

 

Blanchemain’s text has a number of variants, and particularly a rather different second quatrain. To avoid a cumbersome list, here’s the whole poem again in the earlier version:

 

 

Je te hay, peuple, et m’en sert de tesmoin

Le Loir, Gastine et les rives de Braye,

Et la Neuffaune et la verte saulaye

Que de Sabut borne l’extreme coin.

 

Quand je me perds entre deux monts bien loin,

M’arraissonnant, seul, à l’heure j’esssaye

De soulager la douleur de ma playe

Qu’amour encharne au plus vif de mon soin.

 

Là, pas-à-pas, Dame, je rememore

Ton front, ta bouche, et les graces encore

De tes beaux yeux, trop fideles archers ;

 

Puis, figurant ta belle idole feinte

Dedans quelque eau, je sanglote une pleinte,

Qui fait gemir le plus dur des rochers.

 

 

 

 

                                                                            I hate you, people, and my witnesses are

                                                                            The Loir, Gastine and the banks of Braye,

                                                                            And the Neuffaune, and the green willow

                                                                            Which marks the farthest part of the Sabut.

 

                                                                            When I lose myself between two far-off hills,

                                                                            Musing alone, hour by hour I attempt

                                                                            To soothe the pain of my wound

                                                                            Which love embodies in the liveliest of my cares.

 

                                                                            There, step by step, my Lady, I recall

                                                                            Your brow, your lips, the grace too

                                                                            Of your fair eyes, too trusty archers!

 

                                                                            Then imagining your fair image drawn

                                                                            Within some spring, I sob my complaint

                                                                            Which makes the hardest rocks wail.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To Jean Galland

Because I like it – and because it starts with a ‘G’ 🙂 – here is a « fragment que Ronsard n’a peu achever, prevenu de mort. » (a fragment Ronsard was unable to finish, overtaken by death).

 

Galland, ma seconde ame, Atrebatique race,

Encor que nos ayeux ay’nt emmuré la place

De nos villes bien loin, la tienne prés d’Arras,

La mienne prés Vendosme, où le Loir de ses bras

Arrouse doucement nos collines vineuses,

Et nos champs fromentiers de vagues limoneuses,

Et la Lise des tiens qui baignent ton Artois

S’enfuit au sein du Rhin, la borne des Gaulois :

Pour estre separé de villes et d’espaces,

Cela n’empesche point que les trois belles Graces,

L’honneur et la vertu, n’ourdissent le lien

Qui serre de si prés mon cœur avec le tien.

Heureux qui peut trouver pour passer l’avanture

De ce Monde un amy de gentille nature,

Comme tu es, Galland, en qui les Cieux ont mis

Tout le parfait requis aux plus parfaits amis.

Jà mon soir s’embrunit, et déja ma journée

Fuit vers son Occident à demy retournée,

La Parque ne me veut ny me peut secourir :

Encore ta carriere est bien longue à courir,

Ta vie est en sa course, et d’une forte haleine

Et d’un pied vigoureux tu fais jaillir l’areine

Sous tes pas, aussi fort que quelque bon guerrier

Le sablon Elean pour le prix du Laurier …

 

 

 

 

                                                                             Galland, my second soul, descended from the Atrebates,

                                                                             Although our ancestors had established the walls

                                                                             Of our towns far apart, yours near Arras

                                                                             And mine near Vendôme, where the Loir with its arms

                                                                             Gently waters our vine-bearing hills

                                                                             And our fields of wheat with its muddy waves,

                                                                             While the Lise with its [arms] which bathe your Artois

                                                                             Runs down to the bosom of the Rhine, the edge of Gaul;

                                                                             Though separated by towns and distance,

                                                                             That does not prevent the three fair Graces,

                                                                             Honour and virtue from weaving the bond

                                                                             Which binds my heart so closely with yours.

                                                                             Fortunate he who can find, to share the adventure

                                                                             Of this world, a friend of noble nature

                                                                             Like you, Galland, in whom the Heavens have placed

                                                                             Everything perfect required in the most perfect friends.

                                                                             Now my evening darkens, and my daytime

                                                                             Flees westward, half-passed,

                                                                             And Fate neither can nor will help me;

                                                                             But your career has long to run,

                                                                             Your life is set in its course, and with strong lungs

                                                                             And vigorous feet you make the sand leap

                                                                             Beneath your feet, as strongly as some fine warrior

                                                                             Might the sand of Elis to take the prize, the laurel-wreath …

 

 

 

Ronsard’s trusted friend Jean Galland was principal of the Collège de Boncourt in Paris, and after Ronsard’s death both organised an annual commemoration of the poet in the chapel there, and (together with Claude Binet) edited Ronsard’s late verse and put together the ‘Tombeau de Ronsard’, a (substantial) collection of poems in Ronsard’s honour. As well as his literary executor, Galland had been one of Ronsard’s closest companions, and had helped to nurse him in his decline – ‘without him he [Ronsard] could not live’, said Binet; Ronsard obviously loved him deeply. The Collège had other links with Ronsard’s circle: tragedies by Jodelle were performed there, and Muret taught Jodelle and Belleau there. In 1688 it was Pierre Galand, then principal, who merged the Collège with the Collège de Navarre.

 

This fragment is (obviously) very classicising, and stuffed with antique references.  The Atrebates were a tribe from the Pas-de-Calais area, who established an offshoot in southern England after Caesar’s conquest. The centre of the region is now Artois, its capital Arras, from which the river (now the Scarpe) heads east towards the Rhine and the border between Gaul and Germania.

 

Elis was a state in the south of ancient Greece: within it was Olympus, seat of the Olympic Games – so running on Elean sands is running in the Olympics.

 

A minor editorial note: Blanchemain has “Pour estre separés de villes et d’espaces” in line 9. The text above in effect says ‘though I am separated from you…’, while Blanchemain’s plural says ‘though we are separated…’ – I leave you to choose which you prefer.

 

 

 

 

Chanson (6a)

Back to Helen, and an admission: I missed out this chanson earlier in the book, so here it is now to break up the sequence of sonnets!

Quand je devise assis aupres de vous,     Tout le cœur me tressaut ; Je tremble tout de nerfs et de genous,     Et le pouls me defaut. Je n’ay ny sang ny esprit ny haleine, Qui ne se trouble en voyant mon Helene,     Ma chere et douce peine.   Je devien fol, je pers toute raison :     Cognoistre je ne puis Si je suis libre, ou mort, ou en prison :     Plus en moy je ne suis. En vous voyant, mon œil perd cognoissance : Le vostre altere et change mon essence,     Tant il a de puissance.   Vostre beauté me fait en mesme temps     Souffrir cent passions : Et toutesfois tous mes sens sont contens,     Divers d’affections. L’œil vous regarde, et d’autre part l’oreille Oyt vostre voix, qui n’a point de pareille,     Du monde la merveille.   Voila comment vous m’avez enchanté,     Heureux de mon malheur : De mon travail je me sens contenté,     Tant j’aime ma douleur : Et veux tousjours que le soucy me tienne, Et que de vous tousjours il me souvienne,     Vous donnant l’ame mienne.   Donc ne cherchez de parler au Devin,     Qui sçavez tout charmer : Vous seule auriez un esprit tout divin,     Si vous pouviez aimer. Que pleust à Dieu, ma moitié bien-aimee, Qu’Amour vous eust d’une fleche enflamee     Autant que moy charmee.   En se jouant il m’a de part en part     Le cœur outrepercé : A vous s’amie il n’a monstré le dard     Duquel il m’a blessé. De telle mort heureux je me confesse, Et ne veux point que le soucy me laisse     Pour vous, belle Maistresse.   Dessus ma tombe engravez mon soucy     En memorable escrit : D’un Vandomois le corps repose icy,     Sous les Myrtes l’esprit. Comme Pâris là bas faut que je voise, Non pour l’amour d’une Helene Gregeoise,     Mais d’une Saintongeoise.

As I chatter, sitting beside you,   My heart is entirely quivering; My nerves and knees are all a-tremble,   My heartbeat fails, I haver no blood, no spirit, no breath Which is not disturbed on seeing my Helen,   My dear, sweet care.   I become mad, I lose all reason,   I cannot work out If I am free, or dead, or in prison;   I am no longer in myself. Seeing you, my eyes lose all understanding; Your eyes alter and change my very essence,   They have such power.   Your beauty makes me suffer a hundred loves   All at once; And all the time my senses are happy   In their various affections. My eyes watch you, and elsewhere my ear Hears your voice, which has no equal,   The wonder of the world.   Thus, thus, you have bewitched me,   Happy in my misfortune; I am contented in my troubles,   So much do I enjoy my sadness, And I wish this care would occupy me always, And always remind me of you,   While giving you my soul.   So, don’t seek to speak to a soothsayer,   Who can charm all things; You alone could have the divine spirit   If only you could love. May it please God, my beloved other-half, That Love with his burning arrow might   Charm you as he has me.   Playing around, he has pierced my heart   Through and through; To you, his friend, he has not shown the dart   With which he wounded me. In such a death I confess I am happy And have no wish that my love for you,   Fair mistress, should leave me.   Upon my tomb engrave this my love   In noteworthy script: The body of a Vendôme-man lies here,   His spirit beneath the myrtles’ shade. Like Paris, I must go below, Not for love of some Grecian Helen,   But for a lady of Saintonge.

 

 The Grecian Helen at the end is of course Helen of Troy, in defence of whom Paris was killed; Ronsard’s Helen hails from Saintonge, he from the Vendômois.  Blanchemain refers to Richelet’s footnote on the myrtles of the same stanza: “Myrtles – where lovers’ souls rest after their death“.

 

Blanchemain has only minor changes: in the second stanza, “Si je suis libre, ou captif en prison” (‘If I am free, or captive in prison’); and then a number of variants in the final stanza, which opens

 

 

Dessus ma tombe engravez mon soucy

   En lettres grossement :

Le Vandomois lequel repose icy,

  Mourut en bien aimant.

 

                                                                  Upon my tomb engrave this my love

                                                                    Large in writing:

                                                                 The man of Vendôme who lies here

                                                                    Died loving truly.