Je [parangonne]1 à ta jeune beauté.
Qui toujours dure en son printemps nouvelle.
Ce mois d'avril qui ses fleurs renouvelle,
En sa plus gaie et verte nouveauté.

Loin devant toi [fuira]2 la cruauté :
Devant lui fuit la saison plus cruelle.
Il est tout beau, ta face est toute belle :
Ferme est son cours, ferme est ta loyauté :

Il peint les [bords, les forêts et les plaines]3,
Tu peins mes vers d'un [bel émail de fleurs :
Des laboureurs il arrose les peines]4,

[D'un vain espoir tu laves mes douleurs :
Du ciel sur l'herbe il fait tomber les pleurs]5,
Tu fais sortir de mes yeux deux fontaines.

About the headline (FAQ)

View original text (without footnotes)
¹ Gouvay: "compare"; further changes may exist not noted above.
² Bertrand: "s'en fuyt"
³ Bertrand: "champs de dix mille couleurs"
⁴ Bertrand: "long émail de fleurs :/ D’un doux Zefyr il fait onder les plaines"
⁵ Bertrand: "Et toy mon cœur d’un soupir larmoyant :/ D’un beau cristal son front est rosoyant"

Authorship

• by Pierre de Ronsard (1524 - 1585) [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive)

• by Anthoine de Bertrand (1540? - 1581?), "Je parangonne à ta jeune beauté", first performed 1576 [vocal quartet a cappella], from Les amours de Pierre de Ronsard [ sung text checked 1 time]
• by Théodore Gouvy (1819 - 1898), "Je compare à ta jeune beauté", op. 41 no. 5, published 1876 [voice and piano], from 40 Poèmes de Ronsard, no. 5, Paris : Richault [ sung text not yet checked against a primary source]

Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):

• ENG English (David Wyatt) , "I compare with your young beauty", copyright © 2012, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Researcher for this text: David Wyatt

Text added to the website: 2010-03-23 00:00:00
Last modified: 2014-10-27 13:11:44
Line count: 14
Word count: 110

I compare with your young beauty
Which lasts forever in its own new spring
This month of April which renews the flowers
In their gayest and greenest newness.

Cruelty [will flee]1 far from you
Before him2 flees the cruellest season;
He is all handsomeness, your face all beauty;
Firm is his course, firm is your loyalty;

He paints the [riverbanks, forests and plains]3,
You paint my verse with a [beautiful sprinkling of flowers;
He refreshes the hard work of labourers]4,

[With an empty hope you refresh my sadness;
From heaven he makes tears fall on the grass]5,
You make two springs flow from my eyes.