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PIERRE
DE RONSARD
(1524-1585)
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Amelette
Ronsardelette
Mignonnelette doucelette
Treschere hostesse de mon corps,
Tu descends là bas foiblelette,
Pasle, maigrelette, seulette,
Dans le froid Royaume des mors :
Toutesfois simple, sans remors
De meurtre, poison, ou rancun,
Méprisant faveurs et tresors
Tant enviez par la commune.
Passant, j'ai dit, suy ta fortune
Ne trouble mon repos, je dors.
translated by Anthony Weir
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Poor dear wee
soul, sweet
sleekit soul of poor wee Pierre,
sweetest inhabitant of my wee heap
of flesh and bone,
already you've begun to creep,
all frail and pale and wull from out my bed
down to the cold Kingdom of the Dead.
You are guileless,
guiltless, rancourless,
distrusting favour and reward
thus envied by your petty peers.
 I feel you
seep
away from me, your carnal nest.
Goodbye, wee love, just keep
right on and don't disturb my rest.
I've gone to Sleep.
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from
Sonnets for Hélène
"When you are very old..."
When
you are very old, at evening, by the fire,
spinning wool by candlelight and winding it in skeins,
you will say in wonderment as you recite my lines:
"Ronsard admired me in the days when I was fair."
Then
not one of your servants dozing gently there
hearing my name's cadence break through your low repines
but will start into wakefulness out of her dreams
and bless your name - immortalised by my desire.
I'll
be underneath the ground, and a boneless shade
taking my long rest in the scented myrtle-glade,
and you'll be an old woman, nodding towards life's close,
regretting
my love, and regretting your disdain.
Heed me, and live for now: this time won't come again.
Come, pluck now - today - life's so quickly-fading rose.
(originally published in
Tide and Undertow by Anthony Weir, Belfast
1975)
"Quand
vous serez bien vieille..."
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.
This poem was freely paraphrased by W.B. Yeats in his 1893 collection
The Rose.
The only line of the original that Yeats retains ('and bending
down beside the glowing bars...')
is the only one not retained in my translation!
When
You are Old
When
you are old and grey 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 mountain overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
Ronsard
had to give up a promising diplomatic career
due to deafness.
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