[Add this song cycle translation to your Reprint Basket]

Two Poems of Rutebeuf

Translations © by Grant Hicks

by Maurice Thiriet (1906 - 1972)

View original-language texts alone: Deux Poèmes de Rutebeuf

1. La grièche d'hiver  [sung text not yet checked]
Language: Old French (Ancien français) 
Pauvre sens et pauvre mémoire
M'a donné Dieu, le roi de gloire,
        Et pauvre rente....
Ainsi suis comme l'osier franc
Ou comme l'oiseau sur la branche :
        L'été, je chante;
L'hiver, je pleure et me lamente,
Et me défeuille ainsi que l'arbre
        Au premier gel.
En moi n'ai ni venin, ni fiel :
Ne me reste rien sous le ciel,
        Tout va sa voie....
Les dés que les détiers ont faits
M'ont de ma robe tout défait :
        Les dés m'occient,
Les dés me guettent et épient,
Les dés m'assaillent et défient,
        C'est mon malheur !
Je n'en puis mais, si je m'effraie :
Ne vois venir avril ni mai,
        Voici la glace.

Text Authorship:

Go to the general single-text view

Confirmed with Léon Clédat, Rutebeuf, Paris: Librairie Hachette, 1891, page 32.

Note: the spelling of this text has been modernized.

by Rutebeuf (c1225 - c1285)
1. The Hardship of Winter
Language: English 
Poor sense and a poor memory 
Has God given me, the king of glory,
        And a poor living....
I am like the basket willow 
Or like the bird on the branch:
        In Summer, I sing...
In Winter, I weep and lament,
And drop my leaves like the tree
        At the first frost.
I have no venom or gall within me:
Nothing remains to me beneath heaven,
        Everything goes away....
The dice that the dice-makers have made
Have deprived me of my robe:
        The dice kill me,
The dice lie in wait and spy on me,
The dice assail and challenge me,
        This is my misfortune!
I can do no more, so troubled am I:
I do not see April or May coming,
        Here there is ice.

Text Authorship:

  • Translation from Old French (Ancien français) to English copyright © 2026 by Grant Hicks, (re)printed on this website with kind permission. To reprint and distribute this author's work for concert programs, CD booklets, etc., you may ask the copyright-holder(s) directly or ask us; we are authorized to grant permission on their behalf. Please provide the translator's name when contacting us.
    Contact: 

Based on:

Go to the general single-text view

Translator's note: Although the poet apparently gave it no title, this poem is sometimes referred to as La grièche d'hiver, after a phrase that occurs in many versions of the poem, although not in this one. The phrase plays on two senses of the Old French word grièche: "hardship; burden" and the name of a particular game of chance played with dice.

This text was added to the website: 2026-10-12
Line count: 21
Word count: 126

Translation © by Grant Hicks
2. Complainte  [sung text not yet checked]
Language: Old French (Ancien français) 
Que sont mes amis devenus
Que j'avais de si près tenus
Et tant aimés
Ils ont été trop clairsemés
Je crois le vent les a ôtés
L'amour est morte
Ce sont amis que vent emporte
Et il ventait devant ma porte
Les emporta

Avec le temps qu'arbre défeuille
Quand il ne reste en branche feuille
Qui n'aille à terre
Avec pauvreté qui m'atterre
Qui de partout me fait la guerre
Au temps d'hiver
Ne convient pas que vous raconte
Comment je me suis mis à honte
En quelle manière

Que sont mes amis devenus
Que j'avais de si près tenus
Et tant aimés
Ils ont été trop clairsemés
Je crois le vent les a ôtés
L'amour est morte
Le mal ne sait pas seul venir
Tout ce qui m'était à venir
M'est advenu

Pauvre sens et pauvre mémoire
M'a Dieu donné, le roi de gloire
Et pauvre rente
Et droit au cul quand bise vente
Le vent me vient, le vent m'évente
L'amour est morte
Ce sont amis que vent emporte
Et il ventait devant ma porte
Les emporta1

Text Authorship:

See other settings of this text.

View text without footnotes

Note: the text above has been modernized.

1 Ferré adds 
L'espérance de lendemain
Ce sont mes fêtes


by Rutebeuf (c1225 - c1285)
2. Lament
Language: English 
What has become of my friends
That I had held so close
And loved so much?
They have become too few and far between,
I think the wind has taken them away.
Love is dead.
They are friends that the wind carries off
And it was windy before my door
And carried them off.

With the season that strips leaves from the tree,
When there remains on the branch no leaf
That does not fall to earth,
With poverty that lays me low,
That from all sides makes war on me
In the winter season,
It is not right for me to tell you 
How I have shamed myself 
In what way.

What has become of my friends
That I had held so close
And loved so much?
They have become too few and far between,
I think the wind has taken them away.
Love is dead.
Evil cannot come by itself;
Everything I had coming to me
Has befallen me.

Poor sense and a poor memory 
Has God given me, the king of glory, 
And a poor living;
And when the cold blast blows, right on the ass
The wind strikes me, the wind blows on me.
Love is dead. 
They are friends that the wind carries off
And it was windy before my door
And carried them off.

Text Authorship:

  • Translation from Old French (Ancien français) to English copyright © 2026 by Grant Hicks, (re)printed on this website with kind permission. To reprint and distribute this author's work for concert programs, CD booklets, etc., you may ask the copyright-holder(s) directly or ask us; we are authorized to grant permission on their behalf. Please provide the translator's name when contacting us.
    Contact: 

Based on:

Go to the general single-text view



This text was added to the website: 2026-10-12
Line count: 36
Word count: 221

Translation © by Grant Hicks