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TITLE: BALLADS AND LYRICS OF OLD FRANCE: WITH OTHER POEMS
AUTHOR: ANDREW LANG
EBOOK: E01219 (O'Briens Book Cellar)

Transcribed from the 1872 Longmans, Green, and Co. edition 

BALLADS AND LYRICS OF OLD FRANCE:  WITH OTHER POEMS

Translations

LIST OF POETS TRANSLATED

I.  CHARLES D'ORLEANS, who has sometimes, for no very obvious
reason, been styled the father of French lyric poetry, was born in
May, 1391.  He was the son of Louis D'Orleans, the grandson of
Charles V., and the father of Louis XII.  Captured at Agincourt, he
was kept in England as a prisoner from 1415 to 1440, when he
returned to France, where he died in 1465.  His verses, for the
most part roundels on two rhymes, are songs of love and spring, and
retain the allegorical forms of the Roman de la Rose.

II.  FRANCOIS VILLON, 1431-14-?  Nothing is known of Villon's birth
or death, and only too much of his life.  In his poems the ancient
forms of French verse are animated with the keenest sense of
personal emotion, of love, of melancholy, of mocking despair, and
of repentance for a life passed in taverns and prisons.

III.  JOACHIM DU BELLAY, 1525-1560.  The exact date of Du Bellay's
birth is unknown.  He was certainly a little younger than Ronsard,
who was born in September, 1524, although an attempt has been made
to prove that his birth took place in 1525, as a compensation from
Nature to France for the battle of Pavia.  As a poet Du Bellay had
the start, by a few mouths, of Ronsard; his Recueil was published
in 1549.  The question of priority in the new style of poetry
caused a quarrel, which did not long separate the two singers.  Du
Bellay is perhaps the most interesting of the Pleiad, that company
of Seven, who attempted to reform French verse, by inspiring it
with the enthusiasm of the Renaissance.  His book L'Illustration de
la langue Francaise is a plea for the study of ancient models and
for the improvement of the vernacular.  In this effort Du Bellay
and Ronsard are the predecessors of Malherbe, and of Andre Chenier,
more successful through their frank eagerness than the former, less
fortunate in the possession of critical learning and appreciative
taste than the latter.  There is something in Du Bellay's life, in
the artistic nature checked by occupation in affairs--he was the
secretary of Cardinal Du Bellay--in the regret and affection with
which Rome depressed and allured him, which reminds the English
reader of the thwarted career of Clough.

IV.  REMY BELLEAU, 1528-1577.  Du Belleau's life was spent in the
household of Charles de Lorraine, Marquis d'Elboeuf, and was marked
by nothing more eventful than the usual pilgrimage to Italy, the
sacred land and sepulchre of art.

V.  PIERRE RONSARD, 1524-1585.  Ronsard's early years gave little
sign of his vocation.  He was for some time a page of the court,
was in the service of James V. of Scotland, and had his share of
shipwrecks, battles, and amorous adventures.  An illness which
produced total deafness made him a scholar and poet, as in another
age and country it might have made him a saint and an ascetic.
With all his industry, and almost religious zeal for art, he is one
of the poets who make themselves, rather than are born singers.
His epic, the Franciade, is as tedious as other artificial epics,
and his odes are almost unreadable.  We are never allowed to forget
that he is the poet who read the Iliad through in three days.  He
is, as has been said of Le Brun, more mythological than Pindar.
His constant allusion to his grey hair, an affectation which may be
noticed in Shelley, is borrowed from Anacreon.  Many of the sonnets
in which he 'petrarquizes,' retain the faded odour of the roses he
loved; and his songs have fire and melancholy and a sense as of
perfume from 'a closet long to quiet vowed, with mothed and
dropping arras hung.'  Ronsard's great fame declined when is
Malherbe came to 'bind the sweet influences of the Pleiad,' but he
has been duly honoured by the newest school of French poetry.

VI.  JACQUES TAHUREAU, 1527-1555.  The amorous poetry of Jacques
Tahureau has the merit, rare in his, or in any age, of being the
real expression of passion.  His brief life burned itself away
before he had exhausted the lyric effusion of his youth.  'Le plus
beau gentilhomme de son siecle, et le plus dextre a toutes sortes
de gentillesses,' died at the age of twenty-eight, fulfilling the
presentiment which tinges, but scarcely saddens his poetry.

VII.  JEAN PASSERAT, 1534-1602.  Better known as a political
satirist than as a poet.

POETS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.

VICTOR HUGO.
ALFRED DE MUSSET, 1810-1857.
GERARD DE NERVAL, 1801-1855.
HENRI MURGER, 1822-1861.

BALLADS.

The originals of the French folk-songs here translated are to be
found in the collections of MM. De Puymaigre and Gerard de Nerval,
and in the report of M. Ampere.

The verses called a 'Lady of High Degree' are imitated from a very
early chanson in Bartsch's collection.

The Greek ballads have been translated with the aid of the French
versions by M. Fauriel.

SPRING.
CHARLES D'ORLEANS, 1391-1465.

[The new-liveried year.--Sir Henry Wotton.]

The year has changed his mantle cold
Of wind, of rain, of bitter air;
And he goes clad in cloth of gold,
Of laughing suns and season fair;
No bird or beast of wood or wold
But doth with cry or song declare
The year lays down his mantle cold.
All founts, all rivers, seaward rolled,
The pleasant summer livery wear,
With silver studs on broidered vair;
The world puts off its raiment old,
The year lays down his mantle cold.

RONDEL.
CHARLES D'ORLEANS, 1391-1465.

[To his Mistress, to succour his heart that is beleaguered by
jealousy.]

Strengthen, my Love, this castle of my heart,
And with some store of pleasure give me aid,
For Jealousy, with all them of his part,
Strong siege about the weary tower has laid.
Nay, if to break his bands thou art afraid,
Too weak to make his cruel force depart,
Strengthen at least this castle of my heart,
And with some store of pleasure give me aid.
Nay, let not Jealousy, for all his art
Be master, and the tower in ruin laid,
That still, ah Love! thy gracious rule obeyed.
Advance, and give me succour of thy part;
Strengthen, my Love, this castle of my heart.

RONDEL.
FRANCOIS VILLON, 1460

Goodbye! the tears are in my eyes;
Farewell, farewell, my prettiest;
Farewell, of women born the best;
Good-bye! the saddest of good-byes.
Farewell! with many vows and sighs
My sad heart leaves you to your rest;
Farewell! the tears are in my eyes;
Farewell! from you my miseries
Are more than now may be confessed,
And most by thee have I been blessed,
Yea, and for thee have wasted sighs;
Goodbye! the last of my goodbyes.

ARBOR AMORIS.
FRANCOIS VILLON, 1460

I have a tree, a graft of Love,
That in my heart has taken root;
Sad are the buds and blooms thereof,
And bitter sorrow is its fruit;
Yet, since it was a tender shoot,
So greatly hath its shadow spread,
That underneath all joy is dead,
And all my pleasant days are flown,
Nor can I slay it, nor instead
Plant any tree, save this alone.

Ah, yet, for long and long enough
My tears were rain about its root,
And though the fruit be harsh thereof,
I scarcely looked for better fruit
Than this, that carefully I put
In garner, for the bitter bread
Whereon my weary life is fed:
Ah, better were the soil unsown
That bears such growths; but Love instead
Will plant no tree, but this alone.

Ah, would that this new spring, whereof
The leaves and flowers flush into shoot,
I might have succour and aid of Love,
To prune these branches at the root,
That long have borne such bitter fruit,
And graft a new bough, comforted
With happy blossoms white and red;
So pleasure should for pain atone,
Nor Love slay this tree, nor instead
Plant any tree, but this alone.

L'ENVOY.

Princess, by whom my hope is fed,
My heart thee prays in lowlihead
To prune the ill boughs overgrown,
Nor slay Love's tree, nor plant instead

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