"it seems that all my bridges have been burned / but you say, that's how this grace thing works"

[larryhammer]

Ronsard, writing Sonnets for Hélène:

Quand vous serez bien vieille, au soir, à la chandelle,
Assise aupres du feu, devidant et filant,
Direz, chantant mes vers, en vous esmerveillant :
Ronsard me celebroit du temps que j'estois belle.

Lors, vous n'aurez servante oyant telle nouvelle,
Desja sous le labeur à demy sommeillant,
Qui au bruit de mon nom ne s'aille resveillant,
Benissant vostre nom de louange immortelle.

Je seray sous la terre et fantaume sans os :
Par les ombres myrteux je prendray mon repos :
Vous serez au fouyer une vieille accroupie,

Regrettant mon amour et vostre fier desdain.
Vivez, si m'en croyez, n'attendez à demain :
Cueillez dés aujourd'huy les roses de la vie.

Foley, translating Ronsard:

When you are old, at evening, candle-lit,
And seated near the fire, spool and spin,
You’ll sing this song and, wondering at it,
Say: “Ronsard praised my beauty, radiant then.”

Then not a servant listening to your voice
But wakes a little, hearing of your fame,
And starts again, as ever, to rejoice
And call down myriad blessings on your name.

I’ll be beneath the earth, a boneless ghost,
At ease below the whispering myrtle’s shade:
You an old woman cowering at the hearth,

Regretting all that scorn, that love that’s lost.
Live NOW before we sink into the earth.
Gather the sweet sweet roses for which your life was made.

(for triangulation: Weinfield and Weir versions)

Thackeray, after misquoting lines 1-4 as an epigraph:

Some winter night, shut snugly in
Beside the fagot in the hall,
I think I see you sit and spin,
Surrounded by your maidens all.
Old tales are told, old songs are sung,
Old days come back to memory;
You say, "When I was fair and young,
A poet sang of me!"

There's not a maiden in your hall,
Though tired and sleepy ever so,
But wakes, as you my name recall,
And longs the history to know.
And, as the piteous tale is said,
Of lady cold and lover true,
Each, musing, carries it to bed,
And sighs and envies you!

"Our lady's old and feeble now,"
They'll say: "she once was fresh and fair,
And yet she spurned her lover's vow,
And heartless left him to despair.
The lover lies in silent earth,
No kindly mate the lady cheers;
She sits beside a lonely hearth,
With threescore and ten years!"

Ah! dreary thoughts and dreams are those,
But wherefore yield me to despair,
While yet the poet's bosom glows,
While yet the dame is peerless fair!
Sweet lady mine! while yet 'tis time
Requite my passion and my truth,
And gather in their blushing prime
The roses of your youth!

Yeats, writing "after" Ronsard:

When you are old and gray and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true;
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face.

And bending down beside the glowing bars
Murmur, a little sadly, how love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

Yeats rendered hardly any of Ronsard's phrases entire, and in his "you could have had ME" attitude flounces harder than anyone out of the room -- but he is a far, far better English poet than the others. Possibly the best young-male-twit-in-love poet of the language, ever.

Also: Thackeray, PUT DOWN THAT RHYMING DICTIONARY AND BACK AWAY SLOWLY. You could HURT someone with that thing.

---L.

Comments

[malsperanza.livejournal.com]

I had no idea the Yeats pome was based on Ronsard.

[larryhammer]

It is occasionally subtitled as "after" him. I haven't actually done the research to see whether Yeats himself acknowledged this in any of his own collections, or this is editorial addition.

---L.

[gwynnega]

I never knew the Yeats was based on Ronsard either!

[janni.livejournal.com]

I'd not known either until now!

[samhenderson.livejournal.com]

Thank you for articulating something that's always bothered me about Yeats! Although I love him and forgive him much for "The Stolen Child."

[larryhammer]

Yeats knew some of what he was doing. For ex, most of the Aedh poems were consciously written in persona -- "Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven" at one point carried the author's note to the effect that it embodied how not to woo as a lover, and it disturbed him when he saw the poem adopted as a truly romantic love poem. But some of his others, especially those for Maud Gonne, it feels like he often really was a young (and not-so-young) twit in love.

---L.

[snakypoet]

I'm another who didn't realise Ronsard was the source of the Yeats piece.

A very interesting read, thank you— and I enjoyed your remarks on Yeats and Thackeray most of all. Quite right! (And Yeats remains my favourite poet.)

[larryhammer]

:-)

(My first draft, I asked Thackeray to put down the French dictionary, but on consideration I realized that wasn't the problem.)

---L.

[tabouli.livejournal.com]

Now you've made me want to attempt my own translation of Ronsard's poem! I studied one of his poems on a similar theme in high school, and wrote a sequel to it in French verse as an assignment (the teacher didn't set this, I hasten to add: I think we were meant to write a short essay or something, but I asked him if I could write a poem instead and he cocked a long-suffering brow and agreed).

From memory, my sequel poem contained the lines ("Et votre teint, une fleur tombee/ Il y a la plupart d'une annee/ Et ou j'ai vu un menton, j'en vois deux.")

That first line of Yeats is lovely - I've seen it quoted elsewhere, and likewise had no idea it was "after" Ronsard.

[larryhammer]

Yeats's poem is lovely all the way through, lovely enough it can take a long time to realize just how much of a git he's being. (The effect is similar to Donne in "Go and catch a falling star," though the misogyny there is offensive enough one is quicker to catch on.)

I will have to look up where I've seen the Ronsard connection mentioned -- I've known it for a while, but it's not always made explicit by editors.

---L.