Helen 2:62

Ma Dame, je ne meurs abandonné d’espoir :

La playe est jusqu’à l’oz : je ne suis celuy mesme

Que j’estois l’autre jour, tant la douleur extréme

Forçant la patience, a dessus moy pouvoir.

 

Je ne puis ny toucher gouster n’ouïr ny voir :

J’ay perdu tous mes Sens, je suis une ombre blesme :

Mon corps n’est qu’un tombeau. Malheureux est qui aime,

Malheurueux qui se laisse à l’Amour decevoir !

 

Devenez un Achille aux playes qu’avez faites,

Un Telefe je suis, lequel s’en va perir :

Monstrez moy par pitié vos puissances parfaites,

 

Et d’un remede prompt daignez moy secourir.

Si vostre serviteur cruelle vous desfaites,

Vous n’aurez le Laurier pour l’avoir fait mourir.

 

 

 

 

                                                                            My Lady, I am dying abandoned by hope.

                                                                            My wound is to the bone. I am not even he

                                                                            Whom I was the other day, my extreme sorrow

                                                                            Beyond bearing has such power over me.

 

                                                                            I cannot touch, taste, hear or see :

                                                                            I have lost all my senses, I am a pallid shade ;

                                                                            My body is just a tomb. Unhappy he who loves,

                                                                            Unhappy he who allows himself to be deceived by love !

 

                                                                            Become an Achilles through the wounds you have given :

                                                                            I am your Telephus, who is going to die of them.

                                                                            Pity me and show your perfect power,

 

                                                                            Deign to help me with a prompt remedy.

                                                                            If you cruelly destroy your servant,

                                                                            You will not gain laurels for having killed him.

 

 

That last couplet is rather fun: a twist on the usual ‘killing me’ line, pointing out that no-one gets honoured for killing their own servant … The poem as a whole is interesting partly for showing how far our modern perception of the classics is from that of the past: Achilles we share, but Telephus?

 

The Trojan War is familiar to us, and the part of Achilles in it; and we are familiar with the ‘core’ Greek tragedies. But that the story of Telephus was a major preoccupation of the tragedians we are largely unaware – all three wrote (now lost) plays on the theme. And that familiarity with the tale extended to the renaissance, and not just in France: Shakespeare references Telephus in Henry VI part two.

 

So who was Telephus? The son of Heracles , he was wounded by Achilles in a preliminary to the Trojan War ; the wound would not heal, but the Delphic Oracle told him “your assailant will heal you”, a line which obsessed the Greeks and Romans. It turned out that he was to be healed by Achilles’ spear, not by Achilles himself, and the weapon that hurts & heals became a popular theme with  Roman poets – Horace, Ovid, Propertius and others all use it, often in this context of love poetry. Shakespeare’s use [Henry VI, Part 2, act 5.1.100–101] is witness to wider usage: “Whose smile and frown, like to Achilles’ spear / Is able with the change to kill and cure”.

 

(Wagner fans will readily see the similarities with the theme of the Holy Spear in ‘Parsifal’ which hurts and heals Amfortas.)

 

[For much more on the topic, see the vast Wikipedia article – an indication of the Telephus story’s lasting popularity through the centuries.]

 

Ronsard’s classicism of course runs deep: I like the second stanza whose details map onto the Virgilian underworld depicted in the Aeneid.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Garnier’s tribute to Ronsard

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

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

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

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

 

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Amours 2:60

A Phebus, Patoillet, tu es du tout semblable

De face et de cheveux et d’art et de sçavoir :

A tous deux dans le cœur Amour a fait avoir

Pour une belle Dame une playe incurable.

 

Ny herbe ny onguent contre Amour n’est valable :

« Car rien ne peut forcer de Venus le pouvoir :

Seulement tu peux bien par tes vers recevoir

A ta playe amoureuse un secours allegeable.

 

En chantant, Patoillet, on charme le soucy :

Le Cyclope Ætnean se guarissoit ainsi,

Chantant sur son flageol sa belle Galatée.

 

La peine descouverte adoucit nostre ardeur :

« Ainsi moindre devient la plaisante langueur

« Qui vient de trop aimer quand elle est bien chantée.

 

 

 

                                                                            Patoillet, you are just like Phoebus

                                                                            In face and hair and art and knowledge ;

                                                                            Love has given both of you in your heart

                                                                            An incurable wound for a fair lady.

 

                                                                            No herb or unguent has any worth against Love,

                                                                            “For nothing can force Venus’s power”.

                                                                            Only you can obtain through your verse

                                                                            Some aid to lighten your lover’s wound.

 

                                                                            By singing, Patoillet, we can charm care :

                                                                            The cyclops of Etna cured himself that way

                                                                            Singing with his flute about his fair Galatea.

 

                                                                            Pain revealed reduces our passion:

                                                                            “And so becomes less the pleasant pining

                                                                            Which comes from loving too much, when it is well-sung.”

 

 

 

I’m not sure I can think of another poem we’ve looked at in which he compares one of his (male) friends to a god! His mistresses, yes, it’s virtually a given in love poetry; but to compare his friend to Apollo, not just for his situation but for his appearance and his art? Impressive. So who was this Patoillet? Belleau’s commentary tells us:  “Jean Patoillet, one of our best and loyalest friends, (was) a man of great judgement, great reading, and best-versed in the knowledge of languages, history and other good learning.” To this we can add that he was a native of Dijon, eldest of seven children, never married (though left one illegitimate child, later legitimated by royal order), and died in 1585. He was a protonotary apostolic (a very high papal official), and as a local notable was also the dedicatee of a contemporary history of Dijon. His epitaph recorded that he could recite from memory large chunks of the major classical authors; and he was supposed to have worked on a History though nothing seems to have survived. In other words, a good solid Renaissance man!

 

Ironically, however, the poem was originally addressed to someone else: Jacques Grévin, playwright and poet, and a member of Ronsard’s circle until they fell out. Like so many others, he wrote a book of sonnets (L’Olimpe, addressed to his fiancée, though they subsequently parted), and it was as an introductory sonnet for that volume that the first version (below) of this poem appeared. Grévin is better remembered for his plays, however; his first major success, on Julius Caesar, was imitated from a Latin play by Muret, showing once again how much this circle of poets borrowed and adapted from each other.

 

Younger, a poet, and more showy than Patoillet, the opening comparison with Apollo fits Grévin rather better! So why did his name disappear? Although Belleau simply says that Ronsard was ‘angry’ with him, in fact they fell out over religion, taking different sides in the struggles between the Catholics and Huguenots (Protestants) in the Wars of Religion.

 

The classical reference, to Polyphemus the cyclops and Galatea, is perhaps best known to us these days through Handel’s “Acis and Galatea”. Polyphemus is Aetnean (‘of Etna’) because he and the Cyclopes lived on Sicily, at least according to Callimachus and Virgil, in whose poetry they appear as Vulcan’s assistants under Mt Etna (from where the myth has them throwing the giant rocks lifted by volcanic eruptions). As an aside, it’s worth noting that Theocritus, Callimachus and Propertius all tell the story of Polyphemus and Galatea; it’s not until Ovid that Acis is introduced, and through his version and Handel’s adaptation that has therefore become the variant most well-known today.

 

The early version of the sonnet has a few minor text variants beyond the change of name:

 

 

A Phebus, mon Grevin, tu es du tout semblable

De face et de cheveux et d’art et de sçavoir :

A tous deux dans le cœur Amour a fait avoir

Pour une belle Dame une playe incurable.

 

Ny herbe ny onguent ne t’est point secourable,

Car rien ne peut forcer de Venus le pouvoir :

Seulement tu peux bien par tes vers recevoir

A ta playe amoureuse un secours profitable.

 

En chantant, mon Grevin, on charme le soucy :

Le Cyclope Ætnean se guarissoit ainsi,

Chantant sur son flageol sa belle Galatée.

 

La peine descouverte allege nostre cœur:

Ainsi moindre devient la plaisante langueur

Qui vient de trop aimer quand elle est bien chantée.

 

 

 

                                                                            My Grévin, you are just like Phoebus

                                                                            In face and hair and art and knowledge ;

                                                                            Love has given both of you in your heart

                                                                            An incurable wound for a fair lady.

 

                                                                            No herb or unguent is any help to you,

                                                                            “For nothing can force Venus’s power”.

                                                                            Only you can obtain through your verse

                                                                            Some gainful aid for your lover’s wound.

 

                                                                            By singing, my Grévin, we can charm care :

                                                                            The cyclops of Etna cured himself that way

                                                                            Singing with his flute about his fair Galatea.

 

                                                                            Pain revealed lightens our heart:

                                                                            “And so becomes less the pleasant pining

                                                                            Which comes from loving too much, when it is well-sung.”

 

 

 

 

 

Amours 1.188

En nul endroit, comme a chanté Virgile,

La foy n’est seure, et me l’a fait sçavoir

Ton jeune cœur, mais vieil pour decevoir,

Rompant la sienne en amour si fragile.

 

Tu ne sçaurois, comme femme inutile,

Assujettir les cœurs à ton pouvoir,

Jouët à vent, flot prompt à s’esmouvoir,

Beauté trop belle en ame trop mobile.

 

Escoute, Amour, si tu as quelquefois

Haussé ton vol sous le vent de ma voix,

Jamais mon cœur de son cœur ne racointes.

 

Puisse le Ciel sur sa langue envoyer

Le plus aigu de sa foudre à trois pointes

Pour le payment de son juste loyer.

 

 

 

 

                                                                            In no place, as Virgil sang,

                                                                            Is faith certain, and your young heart

                                                                            Has made me know this truth – young, but old in deception,

                                                                            Breaking its own [faith] in a love so fragile.

 

                                                                            You’d know, like a useless woman,

                                                                            How to subject hearts to your power,

                                                                            A plaything for the wind, a stream quick to move,

                                                                            A beauty too fair in a soul too flighty.

 

                                                                            Hear, Love, if you have sometimes

                                                                            Taken wing, lifted on the breeze of my song,

                                                                            Never re-acquaint my heart with her heart.

 

                                                                            May Heaven send upon her tongue

                                                                            The sharpest of its thunderbolts, triple-pointed,

                                                                            As payment of what she’s rightly owed.

 

 

 

Virgil, in Aeneid 4, famously talks of “vana fides” (’empty faith’) – I’m not sure he talks about ‘uncertain faith’ (“incerta fides”) – but the accuracy of a semi-quotation is hardly the point here! In line 13, we might also quibble about three-pointed thunderbolts, recalling some strange mix of Neptune’s trident with Jupiter’s thunderbolt; but again that would be missing the point…

 

More importantly, I have no idea why in line 5 Ronsard chose the epithet “inutile” (‘useless’) – he clearly mean something like ‘skilled in pointless things’, but is this a case of him pushing the vocabulary further, or is it simply a strange word to choose?  It is, at least, a better stab at it than his earlier version:

 

Tu es vraiment et sotte et mal habile

D’assujettir les cœurs …

 

                                                                             You are truly foolish and clumsy

                                                                            In subjecting hearts …

 

Blanchemain’s edition also opens line 9 with one of his ‘fall-back’ exclamations, definitely improved in the later version above:

 

Helas ! Amour, si tu as quelquefois …

 

                                                                             Alas, Love, if you have sometimes …

 

 

 

Sonnet 109

Le mal est grand, le remede est si bref

A ma douleur dont l’aigreur ne s’alente :

Que bas ne haut, dés le bout de la plante

Je n’ay santé jusqu’au sommet du chef.

 

L’œil qui tenoit de mes pensers la clef,

En lieu de m’estre une estoile drillante

Parmi les flots de l’amour violente,

Contre un despit a fait rompre ma nef.

 

Le soin meurtrier, soit que je veille ou songe,

Tigre affamé, de mille dents me ronge,

Pinçant mon cœur, mes poumons et mon flanc.

 

Et le penser importun qui me presse

Comme un vautour affamé, ne me laisse

Second Protée aux despens de mon sang.

 

 

 

 

                                                                            The pain is great, the remedy so quick,

                                                                            For my sadness whose bitterness does not lessen;

                                                                            So bottom to top, from the sole of my feet

                                                                            To the top of my head my health is gone.

 

                                                                            The eye which holds the key to my thoughts,

                                                                            Instead of being for me a dazzling star

                                                                            Amidst the surges of violent love,

                                                                            On resentment has wrecked my ship.

 

                                                                            Murderous grief, whether I wake or dream,

                                                                            Like a hungry tiger gnaws me with a thousand teeth,

                                                                            Nipping my heart, my breast, my guts.

 

                                                                            And the tiresome thoughts which press around me

                                                                            Like hungry vultures never leave me,

                                                                            A second Proteus shedding my blood.

 

 

 

I think this is a little gem, a great little poem with an arresting opening.

 

The reference to Proteus in the last line looks a little odd at first glance, for it was Prometheus the vulture attacked (and there was only one of it) while Proteus is defeated by Aristaeus (in Virgil) or Menelaus (in Homer). But Ronsard’s point is that the ‘tiresome thoughts’ are in many forms, as Proteus took many forms while fighting Aristaeus/Menelaus. So the thoughts are like a multiple Promethean vulture, constantly ripping at his guts, and take many forms like Proteus.

 

In his earlier version, the simile is simpler, limiting itself to the Promethean image. It is also clear that Ronsard spent time tightening up the poem as he worked on the later version: all the changes in the first dozen lines are improvements; in the last couplet Ronsard recognises as we have seen that he can be much more economical with his Promethean simile, and then double up in the final line.

 

 

Le mal est grand, le remede est si bref

A ma douleur, qui jamais ne s’alente,

Que, bas ne haut, dés le bout de la plante

Je n’ay santé jusqu’au sommet du chef.

 

L’œil qui tenoit de mes pensers la clef,

En lieu de m’estre une estoille drillante

Parmy les flots de l’Amour violente,

Contre un orgueil a fait rompre ma nef.

 

Un soin meurtrier, soit que je veille ou songe,

Tigre affamé, le cœur ne mange et ronge,

Suçant toujours le plus doux de mon sang.

 

Et le penser importun qui me presse

Et qui jamais en repos ne me laisse,

Comme un vautour me mord toujouors au flanc.

 

 

 

 

                                                                            The pain is great, the remedy so quick,

                                                                            For my sadness which never lessens;

                                                                            So bottom to top, from the sole of my feet

                                                                            To the top of my head my health is gone.

 

                                                                            The eye which holds the key to my thoughts,

                                                                            Instead of being for me a dazzling star

                                                                            Amidst the surges of violent love,

                                                                            On pride has wrecked my ship.

 

                                                                            A murderous grief, whether I wake or dream,

                                                                            Like a hungry tiger chews and gnaws my heart,

                                                                            Sucking always the sweetest of my blood.

 

                                                                            And the tiresome thoughts which press around me

                                                                            And which never leave me in peace,

                                                                            Like a vulture is always gnawing my side.

 

 

 

Blanchemain also offers a variant on the final couplet, which I take to be still earlier: it is weaker, its vocabulary flatter, it avoids the classical allusions, and it reduplicates the line ending in “sang” (‘blood’) at the end of both tercets which looks a little unimaginative!

 

 

Comme un mastin eschappé de sa laisse

Mange ma vie, et se noie en mon sang.

 

 

                                                                            Like a mastiff escaped from his leash

                                                                            Eats up my life, and steeps himself in my blood.

 

 

 

 

 

Sonnet 67

Voyant les yeux de ma maistresse eslüe,
A qui j’ay dit, Seule à mon cœur tu plais,
D’un si doux fruict, Amour, tu me repais,
Que d’autre bien mon ame n’est goulüe.

 

L’Archer, qui seul les bons esprits englüe,
Et qui ne daigne ailleurs perdre ses traits,
Me fait de peur glacer le sang espais,
Quand je l’advise, ou quand je la salüe.

 

Non, ce n’est point une peine qu’aimer :
C’est un beau mal, et son feu doux-amer
Plus doucement qu’amerement nous brule.

 

O moy deux fois, voire trois bien-heureux,
S’ Amour me tue, et si avec Tibulle
J’erre là bas sous le bois amoureux.

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                            When I see the eyes of my chosen mistress,

                                                                            To whom I said “You alone please my heart”,

                                                                            You, Love, feed me with so sweet a fruit

                                                                            That my soul is greedy for no other.

 

                                                                            The Archer, who alone snares good spirits

                                                                            And who does not choose to waste his darts elsewhere,

                                                                            Makes my dull blood freeze with fear

                                                                            When I see her, or when I greet her.

 

                                                                            No, loving is no kind of trouble;

                                                                            It is a beautiful illness, and its bittersweet fire

                                                                            Burns us more gently than bitterly.

 

                                                                            Oh I’d be twice, no thrice happy

                                                                            If love kills me and with Tibullus

                                                                            I wander down below within the wood of lovers.

 

 

I think this is the first time we’ve met Tibullus, though Ronsard has named several other classical poets before. He was a ‘Silver Latin’ poet, that is a poet from the early years of the empire in the Augustan age. In our terms, that means he is one of those awkward people whose life started in BC and ended in AD 🙂  Naturally, he is another early love poet: you can read many of his poems on Tony Kline’s site. The wood of lovers is a reference to Virgil’s Aeneid – in book 6 when Aeneas goes to the underworld he sees the myrtle grove where lovers wander:

 

Not far from here, outspread on every side, are shown the Mourning Fields; such is the name they bear. Here those whom stern Love has consumed with cruel wasting are hidden in walks withdrawn, embowered in a myrtle grove; even in death the pangs leave them not. In this region he sees Phaedra and Procris, and sad Eriphyle, pointing to the wounds her cruel son had dealt, and Evadne and Pasiphaë. With them goes Laodamia, and Caeneus, once a youth, now a woman, and again turned back by Fate into her form of old. Among them, with wound still fresh, Phoenician Dido was wandering in the great forest …

(Fairclough’s translation). You may remember Ronsard among the myrtles in Helen 6(a).

 

Blanchemain’s earlier version has Ronsard wandering “prés de Tibulle” (‘near Tibullus’) instead of ‘with’ him; but there are more substantive differences in the first half of the poem:

 

 

Voyant les yeux de ma maistresse esleue,
A qui j’ay dit : Seule à mon cœur tu plais,
D’un si doux fruict mon âme je repais,
Que plus on mange et plus en est goulue.

 

Amour, qui seul les bons esprits englue,
Et qui ne daigne ailleurs perdre ses traits,
M’allége tant du moindre de ses traits
Qu’il m’a du cœur toute peine tollue.

 

 

 

 

                                                                           When I see the eyes of my chosen mistress,

                                                                           To whom I said “You alone please my heart”,

                                                                           I feed my soul with so sweet a fruit

                                                                           That, even as it eats more, it is greedy for more.

 

                                                                           Love, who alone snares good spirits

                                                                           And who does not choose to waste his darts elsewhere,

                                                                           Lightens for me the least of his wounds

                                                                           So much that he has lifted all pain from my heart.

 

 

 

To my mind this earlier version transitions better from first to second half; lightened wounds and no pain lead more readily to love not being any kind of trouble, than does blood frozen with fear at seeing or meeting the beloved! But the later version of line 4 is undeniably better. As usual with the changes Ronsard introduced into his poems, you win some and you lose some … !

 

 

 

 

 

Sonnet 51

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

 

Si les François avoient les ames allumees

D’amour ainsi que moy nous serions en repos :

Les champs de Montcontour n’eussent pourry nos os,

Ny Dreux ny Jazeneuf n’eussent veu nos armees.

 

Venus, va mignarder les moustaches de Mars :

Conjure ton guerrier de tes benins regars,

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

 

Pren pitié des François, race de tes Troyens,

A fin que nous facions en paix la mesme guerre

Qu’Anchise te faisoit sur les monts Ideens.

 

 

 

                                                                              Love has so firmly buried his arrows

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

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

                                                                              So much are her beauties imprinted in my spirit.

 

                                                                              If the French had souls burning

                                                                              With love like mine, we would be at peace;

                                                                              The battlefield of Montcontour would not be rotting our bones,

                                                                              Nor would Dreux and Jazeneuf have seen our armies.

 

                                                                              Venus, go and pet Mars’s moustaches,

                                                                              Beg your warrior with your pleasing glances

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

 

                                                                              Take pity on the French, descended from your Trojans,

                                                                              That we might make in peace that same war

                                                                              Which Anchises made on you, on the Idaean mountains.

  

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Sonnet 15

Ha, qu’à bon droit les Charites d’Homere

Un faict soudain comparent au penser,

Qui parmi l’air peut de loin devancer

Le Chevalier qui tua la Chimere :

 

Si tost que luy une nef passagere

De mer en mer ne pourroit s’élancer,

Ny par les champs ne le sçauroit lasser,

Du faux et vray la prompte messagere.

 

Le vent Borée ignorant le repos,

Conceut le mien de nature dispos,

Qui dans le Ciel et par la mer encore

 

Et sur les champs animé de vigueur,

Comme un Zethés, s’envole apres mon cueur,

Qu’un Harpye en se jouant devore.

 

 

 

                                                                       Ah, how rightly the Graces of Homer

                                                                       Would compare a sudden deed to thought

                                                                       Which can far outrun through the air

                                                                       That Knight who killed the Chimaera :

 

                                                                       So quick, that a ship in its passage

                                                                       From sea to sea could not forge ahead of it

                                                                       Nor over land could the swift messenger

                                                                       Of truth and falsehood outrun it.

 

                                                                       The North Wind which never rests

                                                                       Conceived my [thoughts], by nature alert,

                                                                       Which in the heavens and by sea too

 

                                                                       And over land, vigorous and active

                                                                       Like Zetes, fly off after my heart

                                                                       Which a Harpy is playfully devouring.

 

 

Another of those complicated classical allusions which struggles to come to life. Homer does indeed compare swift deeds to the speed of thought; the Knight is Bellerophon whose flight on Pegasus to defeat the Chimaera is here recalled; the ‘swift messenger of truth and falsehood’ is Rumour, subject of a famous passge in Virgil’s Aeneid; Zetes is one of the sons of the North Wind; and the Harpies were the winged demons who came and stole all the food from Phineus’s table in the story of Jason and the Argonauts – – as featured in the Ray Harryhausen epic film !