Miscellaneous French Verse Translations

When translating verse, I think one should try to capture both the form (meter, line positions, rhyme scheme, etc.) and substance to the extent possible and to the extent not cumbersome* in the new language.  "To the extent possible" can require much work that I think is often missing from much translation.  I also think the original should be printed on the opposing page so the reader can judge the success for herself. 

 

*Where end stopping or alexandrines, for example, seem cumbersome in English, I would think the original poet would want substitutes that distract less in English. Thus I've often used iambic pentameter in lieu of hexameter.  I've also often avoided end stopping where that seemed a distraction (my translation of Phaedre for example).

Here are the English pages of some of my dabblings along these lines.  I think the Veraline & Du Bellay present especially hard challenges and I keep tweaking......

 

I.  Verlaine: MacIntyre claimed: “No one has ever translated, or can or will translate [Chanson d'automne]; yet it offers the supreme challenge, the shifting lure of the bright impossible.” Maybe MacIntyre didn’t try hard enough?

 

            Fall’s Song

            (Chanson d’automne)

            By Paul Verlaine

           

The long sobbings

Of fiddle strings

            Of Fall wound

My heart by

Monotony

            Of dull sound.

Suffocating, pale,

Hearing clocks wale

            As chimes keep

The hours, I’m cast

To years long past

            And I weep;

And then I go

With winds that blow

            Ill, that hurl

Me here and there

And everywhere

            Dead leaves swirl.

 

II. Du Bellay:

Du Bellay’s Regrets, Number 1

In nature’s bosom I’ve no wish to pry,

No wish to find what cosmos truly is,

No wish to sound dark depths of the abyss,

Or sketch grand architectures of the sky.

The ink I use has not so rich a dye,

Nor does my verse explore such loftiness:

Down here I merely write about what is--

Though good or bad--by chance I versify.

My lines hear my complaints if I’ve regret,

I laugh with them, my secrets, too, they get

As trusted secretaries of my heart.

I do not wish to comb or curl them, though,

Or hide them under gallant names as though

They’re more than merely jottings on my part. 

 

Du Bellay’s Regrets, Number 38

O happy is the man whose life is spent

With others like himself!  He need not feign,

Fear, strive, or envy.  He can peacefully reign

In his poor home ambitionless, content.

The miserable cares of more accomplishment

Can’t tyrannize or otherwise restrain

Him when all wealth he wishes to attain

Is heritage that comes from his descent.

He’s not preoccupied with others’ rank.

For his great hopes he has himself to thank.

His court, king, patron, and his boss he is.

He never risks his wealth in foreign states,

Nor risks his life for other men’s estates,

Nor wishes greater wealth than now is his. 

 

Du Bellay’s Regrets, Number 51 (To Mauny)

Let’s look for pleasure in adversity.

We have no good of which we are assured;

Yet, in misfortune we can hope, assured

That ill luck like all luck shifts constantly.

Wise sailors flinch at Neptune’s charity

Since sunny days have never long endured,

And random storms of course must be preferred

To constant fear of what might lurk at sea.

Thus, virtues are enhanced by storms we bear.

Whenever fortune dims our virtue, we

Find strength and light in our adversity;

When good luck tricks us with its lying face,

Ill fortune culls out flatterers we face

And helps to make our own self-knowledge clear. 

 

III. Nerval:

            Gilded Verses

            (Vers dorés)

By Gérard de Nerval

Oh! All is sentient!                              

         -- -Pythagoras

Free-thinking man!  You think that only you

Think in a world where life bursts in all things?

Despite the forces that your freedom brings

You, you don’t give the universe its due.

Respect the mind that stirs in creatures, too.

Each flower’s a soul that Nature has enclosed.

Love’s secrets have in metals, too, reposed.

“Oh! All is sentient” and affecting you!

Beware in the blind wall a look that sees

You--even matter has its language.  Thus,

Treat nothing in a way that’s scandalous!

Gods often hide in obscure entities,

And as babes’ eyes beneath their lids begin

Maturing, pure minds grow beneath stones’ skin!

 

IV. Fables:

            The Cicada and the Ant

            (La cigale et la fourmi)

            By Jean de la Fontaine

Cicada having sung her song

All summer long,

Found all her cupboards bare

Once winter's winds were there.

She couldn't even spy

A bit of worm or fly.

She cried of hunger’s gnaw

To a neighbor ant she saw,

And begged a bit of grain

To ease her hunger pain

Till spring had come instead.

"I'll pay you back," she said,

By harvest--word of animal--

Both interest and the principal."

The ant was not a lending bug,

Of all her faults it was her least.

"What did you do till summer ceased?"

She asked the beggar with a shrug.

"I sang all night and day

If Madame finds it fine."

"You sang? Why, that's divine.

Now dance instead I'd say!"

The Wolf And The Lamb

            (Le loup et l'agneau)

            By Jean De La Fontaine

The strongest beast is right we say

As we can show here right away:

A thirsty lamb was drinking where

It found a pure and flowing creek.

A starving wolf then came to seek

His luck--his hunger drew him there.

"What makes you foul my waters here?"

The wolf barked at the fleece’s ear.

"You'll pay for your temerity."

The lamb then said, "Your Majesty,

If you'd just hold your anger back

And measure out my careful track

You'd see I've merely come to drink

In waters which I'd surely think

Are twenty paces down from you,

So I could not in any way

Be doing harm as you would say."

The beast responded: "Yes, you do,

Mean lamb who slandered me last year."

"How so? I was not born, I fear,"

He bleated, "I am nursing yet."

"Then was your brother." "I regret

I've none." "Then was your family--

They are the worst group I have met--

Those shepherds, dogs and sheep all three--

I've heard enough; it's vengeance now."

He dragged the lamb into the trees

And had his dinner anyhow

With no more process, no more pleas.

 

V. Rimbaud

            Evil

            (Le mal)

            By Arthur Rimbaud

While crimson globs of grapeshot spittle fly

All day across the wide blue firmament;

While green and scarlet troops of soldiers fry

Close by the king who mocks them as they're spent;

While awful madness grinds away until

A hundred thousand men smoke in a mound--

Poor dead that nature made in her goodwill

With joy, in summer, in the grass and ground!

There is a God who laughs at altars laid

With damask, incense and their cups of gold;

Who falls asleep in sweet Hosannah's fold,

And wakes again when mothers come arrayed

In anguish weeping in their black old caps

To give him one whole penny each unwraps!

 

VI. Nelligan:   

The Gold Ship

(Le vaisseau d’or)

By Émile Nelligan

It was a massive ship, a gold-carved one

Whose masts touched azure upon seas unknown;

Love's Venus, naked skin, hair sparsely strewn,

Sprawled on the prow in the excessive sun.

One night she struck a large and perilous

Reef in that lying sea where sirens lull

And the horrific wreck inclined its hull

Toward the abyss, changeless sarcophagus.

It was a gold ship whose translucency

Revealed some treasures profane hands at sea

(disgust, hate and neurosis) could contest.

How much is left in a brief storm like this?

Where does my heart, deserted vessel, rest?

Alas!  It sank into the dream's abyss!