Poems That Sing
Transcription
Poems That Sing
Poems That Sing by French Masters Fifteen Great French Poets and Their Verses of Life, Love, and Loss C Original Texts with English Translations by Leon Schwartz N E W Y O R K Copyright © 2008 by Leon Schwartz Design and organizing elements copyright © 2008 by Worthy Shorts. Sale of this imprint or design, except by Worthy Shorts or its agents, is prohibited. Published by Worthy Shorts The On-Line Private Press for Professionals ISBN 978-1-935340-03-4 WS118 Worthy Shorts™ is a trademark. Print version manufactured in the United States of America For more information, visit www.WorthyShorts.com I dedicate this book to my daughter Claire, who teaches French; to my son Eric, who lives and works in France; and to my five granddaughters: Rachel, Laura, Mira, Julia and Lucie, and step-granddaughter, Charlotte, all of whom are bilingual in English and French CONTENTS Foreword · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · ix Charles d’Orléans, «Le Printemps» (Rondeaux) · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · 1 François Villon, «Ballade des dames du temps jadis» (Le Grand Testament)· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · 5 Louise Labé, «Je vis, je meurs» (Vingt-trois sonnets) · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · 9 Pierre de Ronsard, «Ode à Cassandre» (Odes), «Quand vous serez bien vieille» (Sonnets pour Hélène) · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · 13 Joachim du Bellay, «Sonnet XXXI, Heureux qui comme Ulysse» (Regrets)· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · 19 Jean de La Fontaine, «Le Corbeau et le Renard» and «La Cigale et la Fourmi» (Fables) · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · 23 André Chénier, «La Jeune Captive» (Œuvres) · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · 29 Marceline Desbordes-Valmore, «Point d’adieu» and «Les Roses de Saadi» (Poésies) · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · 35 Victor Hugo, «Demain dès l’aube» (l,es Contemplations) · · · · · · · · · 41 Charles Baudelaire, «La Vie antérieure» and «Correspondances» (Les Fleurs du mal) · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · 45 Paul Verlaine, «Mon Rêve familier» (Poèmes saturniens,) · · · · · · · · · 51 Arthur Rimbaud, «Le Dormeur du val» and «Ma Bohème» (Poésies) · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · 55 Guillaume Apollinaire, «Le Pont Mirabeau» (Alcools) · · · · · · · · · · · 61 Louis Aragon, «Les Lilas et les Roses» (le Crève-coeur) · · · · · · · · · · · 65 Jacques Prévert, «Paris at Night» and «Le Jardin» (Paroles) · · · · · · · 69 FOREWORD I n conformity with the principle that lyric poetry should be lyrical, i.e. musical, and delight not only by its imagery and language but by its sounds and rhythms, a principle advocated and illustrated by Edgar Allan Poe, and, after him, especially such great 19th-century French poets as Baudelaire and Verlaine, it is my strong belief that the translation of a lyric poem should attempt to be as musical as the original, adhering to its rime scheme, rhythm, and play of sounds. I therefore take issue with the common practice of translating the twelve-syllable French alexandrine, the classical French verse form, into ten-syllable iambic pentameter, which happens to be the classical verse form in English but alters the poem’s rhythmic effect, thereby altering the feeling conveyed by the poem. Even worse, as far as I am concerned, is a translator ignoring the rime, or rhythm, or sound play of the poem altogether and turning the lyric poem into something that sounds more like prose. In this collection, for better or worse, I have applied the Poe principle of musicality to all the translations, remaining as faithful as I could to the particular schemes of rime and meter, as well as the sound play, imagery, and meaning of each poem. I have chosen these fifteen poets as representative of their times and their stature in French poetry. I have selected poems that I especially enjoy reading, irrespective of their themes, but, as it happened, three themes stand out in them: the themes of life’s beauties; the emotions of love, paternal or romantic; and the pain of loss. There are also in these poems a variety of parallel or subthemes, as, for example, aging in Ronsard and Desbordes-Valmore, patriotism in Du Bellay, exoticism and “correspondences” in Baudelaire, and war in Rimbaud and Aragon. Most of the poems in this collection were taken from Henri Clouard and Robert Leggewie’s Anthologie de la littérature française, 2 vols. (Oxford University Press: 1975). The rest were taken from collections of the works of the individual poets. P OE M S T H AT SI NG BY F R E NC H M A S T ER S t IX In conclusion, I should like to acknowledge the help of my wife Jeanne and my daughter Claire and her family, especially my granddaughter Rachel, who, like her mother, contributed her precious time to transcribing my scribbles into readable form, and to my son-in-law Curtis Menyuk who provided me with a collection of Marceline Desbordes-Valmore’s poetry from the library of the University of Maryland while I was a guest in his and my daughter’s home. Leon Schwartz May 2008 X t P O E M S T H AT S I N G B Y F R E N C H M A S T E R S 3 CH A R LE S D’OR LÉ A NS 4 www.gallica,bnf.fr CHARLES D’ORLÉANS (1394-1469) A duke and father of French King Louis XII, Charles fought in the Hundred Years’ War, was taken prisoner by the English, and held captive in England for twenty-five years. To occupy himself during his long internment he dedicated himself to writing poetry in popular poetic forms of 15th-century France, such as the rondeau, the ballade, and the complainte. Two of his major themes were nature and longing for France. The poem “Springtime” is a rondeau. 3 CH A R LE S D’OR LÉ A NS 4 Le Printemps Le temps a laissé son manteau De vent, de froidure et de pluie, El s’est vestu de broderie De soleil luyant, cler et beau. Il n’y a beste ne oyseau Qu’en son jargon ne chante ou crie: «Le temps a laissé son manteau De vent, de froidure et de pluie.» Rivière, fontaine et ruisseau Portent en livrée jolie Gouttes d’argent d’orfavrerie: Chascun s’habille de nouveau. Le temps a laissé son manteau De vent, de froidure et de pluie, Et s’est vestu de broderie De soleil luyant, cler et beau. 2t P O E M S T H AT S I N G B Y F R E N C H M A S T E R S 3 CH A R LE S D’OR LÉ A NS 4 Springtime Of wind and frost and rain The land her cloak now sheds. She puts on sunny reds And primps like ladies vain. All nature’s creatures’ heads Are full of song again. Of wind and frost and rain The land her cloak now sheds. The fountains and streambeds, Bejeweled like queens of Spain, Glitter with silv’ry threads Flow like a queenly train. Of wind and frost and rain The land her cloak now sheds. She puts on sunny reds And primps like ladies vain. P OE M S T H AT SI NG BY F R E NC H M A S T ER S t 3 LEON SCHWARTZ Silver Spring, MD, and Altadena, CA May 2008 LEON SCHWARTZ Leon Schwartz was born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1922 and grew up in Bronx, New York, and Providence, Rhode Island, where he became interested in French literature. After World War II, in which he served for three years as an Army Air Force B-17 navigator flying with the 8th Air Force in the European Theater of Operations, he completed a B.A. in French at UCLA, spent a year in France with six months at the Sorbonne, and earned an M.A. and Ph. D. in French at the University of Southern California with minors in English and Spanish. He taught languages in public schools for eight years, before becoming a professor of French at California State University, Los Angeles. His teaching career at CSULA extended from 1959 to 2003, during which time he specialized in the writers of the French Enlightenment and French poetry in general. Besides his master’s thesis on the translations of the poetry of Arthur Rimbaud and doctoral dissertation on the French writings of Frederick Melchior Grimm, he has published a book on the great French philosopher, encyclopedist, novelist, dramatist, and art critic Denis Diderot, and numerous articles in professional journals on pedagogical issues, the ideas and literary techniques of various 18th century social philosophers, early French feminists, and the 19th-century Romantic poet Gérard de Nerval. Professor Schwartz is married and has two adult children, one a high school French teacher and the other a noted international lawyer and arbitrator in the Paris office of an American law firm. P OE M S T H AT SI NG BY F R E NC H M A S T ER S t 73 This is a Worthy Shorts keepsake. It is designed to preserve words and images of value to its author. We honor its intent with the Chinese character for “preserve,” a word picture created more than 3,000 years ago. This book is typeset in Goudy Old Style by Adobe Systems