Poem of love

Le jour où je vous vis pour la première fois,
Vous aviez un air triste et gai : dans votre voix
Pleuraient des rossignols captifs, sifflaient des merles ;
Votre bouche rieuse, où fleurissaient des perles,
Gardait à ses deux coins d'imperceptibles plis ;
Vos grands yeux bleus semblaient des calices remplis
Par l'orage, et séchant les larmes de la pluie
A la brise d'avril qui chante et les essuie ;
Et des ombres passaient sur votre front vermeil
Comme un [papillon noir]1 dans un rais de soleil.

The day when I saw you for the first time,
You had an air that was sad and gay: in your voice
Captive nightingales wept, blackbirds whistled;
Your laughing mouth, where pearls formed like flowers,
Kept imperceptible creases at its two corners;
Your large blue eyes seemed like chalices filled
With the storm and drying the tears of rain
In the April breeze that sings and wipes them;
And shadows passed across your rosy brow
Like a black butterfly in a ray of sunlight.

Text Authorship:

• Translation from French (Français) to English copyright © 2007 by Corinne Orde, (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.
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Based on:

• a text in French (Français) by Jean Richepin (1849 - 1926), no title, written 1877, appears in Les Caresses, in 1. Floréal, no. 2, Paris, Éd. M. Dreyfous, first published 1882
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This text was added to the website: 2007-11-20
Line count: 10
Word count: 84

Quand vos yeux amoureux ne me sont point moroses,
Mon cœur est un jardin plein d'œillets et de roses.

Tout est joyeux, les fleurs, les couleurs, les odeurs,
Les abeilles vibrant, les papillons rôdeurs.

Les moineaux, les pinsons, les linots, les mésanges,
Tous les oiseaux grisés chantent comme des anges.

Le jet d'eau, qui gazouille aussi doux que du miel,
Semble un iris ayant pour fleur un arc-en-ciel.

Quand votre Majesté, madame, est satisfaite,
Au jardin de mon cœur tout le monde est en fête.

Mais quand vos yeux se font cruels et mécontents,
Adieu les fleurs et les oiseaux ! Adieu printemps !

Les roses, les œillets, se fanent sur leur tige.
Aucune abeille, aucun papillon n'y voltige.

Mésanges, et moineaux et linots et pinsons
S'en vont loin de chez moi pour chanter leurs chansons.

Ôtant son arc-en-ciel ainsi qu'on ôte un masque,
Le jet d'eau rauque et lourd sanglote dans sa vasque.

Tant que je n'ai pas vu vos regards adoucis,
Mon cœur est un jardin tout planté de soucis.

When your loving eyes are not being morose,
My heart is a garden full of carnations and roses.

All is joyful: the flowers, the colours, the smells,
The bees buzzing, the butterflies flitting.

The sparrows, the chaffinches, the linnets, the tits,
All the intoxicated birds are singing like angels.

The fountain, which gurgles as sweet as honey,
Seems like an iris whose flower is a rainbow.

When, madam, Your Majesty is satisfied,
In the garden of my heart the whole world celebrates.

But when your eyes become cruel and displeased,
Farewell, flowers and birds! Farewell, springtime!

The roses, the carnations wilt on their stems.
No bee, no butterfly alights there.

Tits and sparrows, and linnets and chaffinches
Fly away far from me to sing their songs.

Removing its rainbow as one removes a mask,
The hoarse and heavy fountain sobs in its basin.

As long as I have not seen your softened glances,
My heart is a garden all planted up with troubles.

Text Authorship:

• Translation from French (Français) to English copyright © 2007 by Corinne Orde, (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.
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Based on:

• a text in French (Français) by Jean Richepin (1849 - 1926), "Au jardin de mon cœur", written 1877, appears in Les Caresses, in 1. Floréal, no. 16, Paris, Éd. M. Dreyfous, first published 1882
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This text was added to the website: 2007-11-20
Line count: 20
Word count: 163

Je m'embarquerai, si tu le veux,
Comme un gai marin quittant la grève,
Sur les flots dorés de tes cheveux,
Vers un paradis fleuri de rêve.

Ta jupe flottante au vent du soir
Gonflera ses plis comme des voiles,
Et quand sur la mer il fera noir,
Tes grands yeux seront mes deux étoiles.

Ton rire éclatant de vermillon
Fera le fanal de la grand'hune.
J'aurai ton ruban pour pavillon
Et ta blanche peau pour clair de lune.

Nos vivres sont faits et nos boissons
Pour durer autant que le voyage.
Ce sonts des baisers et des chansons
Dont nous griserons tout l'équipage.

Nous aborderons je ne sais où,
Là-bas, tout là-bas, sur une grève
Du beau pays bleu, sous un ciel fou,
Dans le paradis fleuri de rêve.

I shall embark, if you so wish,
Like a merry sailor leaving shore
On the golden waves of your hair,
Towards a flowering paradise of dreams.

Your skirt, floating in the evening wind,
Will billow its folds like sails,
And when darkness falls over the sea
Your large eyes will be my two stars.

Your laughter, bursting out in a vermillion peal,
Will be the lantern on the main-top.
I shall have your ribbon for the flag
And your white skin for moonlight.

We already have our food and our drink
To last for the length of the voyage:
These are kisses and songs
With which we will intoxicate the entire crew.

We will come to land I know not where,
There, over there, on a shore
Of that lovely blue land, beneath a crazy sky,
In the flowering paradise of dreams.

Text Authorship:

• Translation from French (Français) to English copyright © 2007 by Corinne Orde, (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.
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Based on:

• a text in French (Français) by Jean Richepin (1849 - 1926), "Le bateau rose", written 1877, appears in Les Caresses, in 1. Floréal, no. 31, Paris, Éd. M. Dreyfous, first published 1882
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Line count: 20
Word count: 142

Mes désirs ne sont point lassés.
Donne-moi tes baisers, maîtresse !
Je n'en aurai jamais assez.
Je veux boire jusqu'à l'ivresse.

Donne-moi tes baisers ! Encor !
Je veux boire à ta lèvre rose.
Tu me dis, et j'en suis d'accord,
Que c'est toujours la même chose ;

Mais c'est toujours nouveau pourtant !
Je suis un buveur peu sévère,
De ceux qui boivent tant et tant
Qu'ils se noient au fond de leur verre.

Folle, il faut te griser aussi.
Laisse-toi donc faire, et sois ivre !
Donne tes baisers, comme si
Tu n'avais plus qu'un jour à vivre.

My desires are not sated.
Give me your kisses, mistress!
I shall never have enough of them.
I want to drink myself to drunkenness.

Give me your kisses! Again!
I want to drink from your rosy lip.
You tell me, and I agree,
That it is always the same thing;

Yet it is always new!
I am not strict with myself as a drinker:
One of those who drink so much
That they drown in the bottom of their glass.

Madwoman, you too must become intoxicated.
Let yourself go, and be drunk!
Give your kisses as if
You only had one day to live.

Text Authorship:

• Translation from French (Français) to English copyright © 2007 by Corinne Orde, (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.
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Based on:

• a text in French (Français) by Jean Richepin (1849 - 1926), no title, written 1877, appears in Les Caresses, in 2. Thermidor, no. 21, Paris, Éd. M. Dreyfous, first published 1882
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This text was added to the website: 2007-11-20
Line count: 16
Word count: 104

Tu sers à mes désirs un éternel repas.
Tu peux donner toujours, tu ne t'appauvris pas.

Pour rajeunir la fleur de tes roses caresses,
Il suffit qu'après une absence tu paraisses.

Quand sans voir tes yeux bleus je reste plus d'un jour,
Je trouve un renouveau piquant dans ton amour.

Ta bouche a conservé la fraîcheur d'une aurore.
Comme avant de t'avoir, je veux t'avoir encore.

Tes charmes sont pareils au laurier toujours vert
Qui garde son printemps même au cœur de l'hiver.

Ton corps plein de secrets connaît l'art de renaître.
Je ne verrai jamais le fin fond de ton être.

Ton corps voluptueux ressemble à ce trésor
Où les Nibelungen accumulaient leur or.

On peut le disperser comme on jette du sable,
Il en reste toujours. Il est inépuisable.

You present to my desires an eternal meal.
You can always give, you never impoverish yourself.

To rejunvenate the flower of your rosy caresses,
You need only appear after an absence.

When I spend more than a day without seeing your blue eyes,
I find a renewed zest in your love.

Your mouth has kept the freshness of dawn.
As even before having had you, I want to have you again.

Your charms are like the evergreen laurel,
Which keeps its springtime, even in the depth of winter.

Your body, full of secrets, knows the art of rebirth.
I shall never see the innermost parts of your being.

Your voluptuous body resembles that treasure-trove
Where the Nibelungen accumulated their gold.

One can disperse it as one throws sand.
Some of it always remains. It is inexhaustible.

Text Authorship:

• Translation from French (Français) to English copyright © 2007 by Corinne Orde, (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.
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Based on:

• a text in French (Français) by Jean Richepin (1849 - 1926), "Le trésor", written 1877, appears in Les Caresses, in 2. Thermidor, no. 24, Paris, Éd. M. Dreyfous, first published 1882
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This text was added to the website: 2007-11-20
Line count: 16
Word count: 136

  La rosée
S'envole et remonte aux cieux
Quand le soleil radieux
  L'a baisée.
Ainsi les pleurs de mes yeux
S'évaporent, quand tu veux,
  En rosée.

  Rossignol,
Ton doux chant sous la ramée
Semble la voix enrhumée
  De Guignol,
Lorsque de ma bien-aimée
Chante la voix parfumée,
  Rossignol.

  L'hirondelle
S'en revient quand le printemps
A chassé les noirs autans
  À coups d'aile.
Ainsi tes ris éclatants
Ramènent de mes vingt ans
  L'hirondelle.

  Mes amours
Sont comme un vin qui détone
Et fait craquer de l'automne
  Le velours.
Et je chante, et je festonne,
Et je ris, lorsque j'entonne
  Mes amours.

The dew
Flies off and rises back to the heavens
Once the radiant sun
Has kissed it.
And thus the tears in my eyes
Evaporate, when you will,
Into dew.

Nightingale,
Your sweet song beneath the boughs
Seems like the hoarse voice
of Punch
When my beloved
Sings with her perfumed voice,
Nightingale.

The swallow
Comes back when spring
Has chased away the dark south winds
With beating wings.
Thus your pealing laughter
Brings back from my youth
The swallow.

My loves
Are like a wine that jars
And breaks up autumn's
Velvet.
And I sing and I festoon,
And I laugh when I begin to sing of
My loves.

Text Authorship:

• Translation from French (Français) to English copyright © 2007 by Corinne Orde, (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.
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Based on:

• a text in French (Français) by Jean Richepin (1849 - 1926), "Rondeaux mignons", written 1877, appears in Les Caresses, in 2. Thermidor, no. 6, Paris, Éd. M. Dreyfous, first published 1882
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Line count: 28
Word count: 110

Dis-moi n'importe quoi ! porte-moi n'importe où !
Tout me plaira pourvu que ton désir le veuille.
Pour moi, je ne sais plus vouloir et je suis fou.
Tu seras l'ouragan et je serai la feuille.

Porte-moi n'importe où ! dis-moi n'importe quoi !
Quel que soit le pays, l'instant et ton caprice,
Je ne verrai que toi, je n'entendrai que toi.
Le monde est un théâtre où toi seule es l'actrice.

Dis-moi n'importe quoi ! porte-moi n'importe où !
Je ferai sans remords tes volontés sans cause.
Tout ! rien ! n'importe quoi ! n'importe où ! Je suis fou.
Je ne suis plus un homme, un moi. Je suis ta chose.

Mon cœur n'a plus de vœux. Ton désir est le sien.
Tu m'as versé le vin d'amour plein ma timbale.
Comme l'initié du grand mystère ancien,
J'ai mangé du tambour et bu de la cymbale.

Tell me anything! Take me anywhere!
Everything will please me as long as it is your will.
As for me, I can no longer will anything and I am mad.
You will be the hurricane and I will be the leaf.

Take me anywhere! Tell me anything!
Whatever the country, the moment, your whim,
I will only see you, I will only hear you.
The world is a stage and you its sole actress.

Tell me anything! Take me anywhere!
I will do whatever you want without compunction.
Everything! Nothing! Anything! Anywhere! I am crazy
I am no longer a man, a "me". I am your plaything.

My heart wants nothing more. Your desire is its desire.
You have poured the wine of love to the top of my tumbler.1
Like the initiate of the great ancient mystery,
I have eaten from the drum and drunk from the cymbal.

Text Authorship:

• Translation from French (Français) to English copyright © 2007 by Corinne Orde, (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.
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Based on:

• a text in French (Français) by Jean Richepin (1849 - 1926), no title, written 1877, appears in Les Caresses, in 2. Thermidor, no. 33, Paris, Éd. M. Dreyfous, first published 1882
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¹ A play on words that is not readily translatable, as "timbale" is also the French word for kettledrum.

This text was added to the website: 2007-11-20
Line count: 16
Word count: 150

Ah ! l'automne vient aux amours comme aux années !
On a beau n'y pas croire et ne l'attendre pas,
La navrante saison arrive pas à pas
Et se fait un bouquet de nos heures glanées.

Dans sa robe flottante aux nuances fanées,
Faite de velours rouge et de rouge lampas,
Sa chair de fruits trop mûrs garde encor des appas ;
Mais sa bouche a l'odeur des pâles solanées.

Ses grands yeux sont brouillés comme un ciel orageux.
Orgueilleuse, méchante et folle, elle a pour jeux
De tuer les oiseaux et d'arracher les feuilles.

Ô mauvaise saison, semeuse de remords,
Te voilà donc ! Bientôt, pour peu que tu le veuilles,
Tous mes bois seront nus et tous mes oiseaux morts.

Ah! Autumn comes to our loves as it does to our years!
However much we try not to believe or expect it,
The vexing season arrives, step by step,
And becomes a bouquet of our gleaned hours.

In its floating dress of faded hues,
Made of red velvet and red damask,
Its flesh of over-ripe fruit still has lures,
But its mouth has the smell of pale sun-flowers.

Its large eyes are clouded, like a stormy sky.
Selfish, cunning and mad, it plays
At killing birds and ripping off leaves.

O bad season, sower of remorse,
Here you are, then. Soon, whether you like it or not,
All my woods will be bare and all my birds dead.

Text Authorship:

• Translation from French (Français) to English copyright © 2007 by Corinne Orde, (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.
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Based on:

• a text in French (Français) by Jean Richepin (1849 - 1926), "Sonnet d'automne", written 1877, appears in Les Caresses, in 3. Brumaire, no. 1, Paris, Éd. M. Dreyfous, first published 1882
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This text was added to the website: 2007-11-23
Line count: 14
Word count: 118

Ô colère, ô jalousie,
Sorcières aux doigts crochus,
À la figure roussie,
Anges des amours déchus,

J'ai pénétré dans votre antre
Pour savoir la vérité.
Le coeur malade on y entre,
On en sort le coeur gâté.

Vous m'avez dans votre filtre
Et votre noir alambic
Distillé l'horrible philtre
Qui me mord comme un aspic.

Dans votre infernale forge
Dont la haine est le marteau,
Votre patte a pour ma gorge
Forgé le fil d'un couteau.

Et c'est avec votre lame,
C'est avec votre liqueur,
Que j'ai meurtri ma pauvre âme
Et soûlé mon pauvre coeur.

Sorcières de la caverne,
Ô gueuses, je vous maudis.
Vous avez fait un Averne
De mon divin paradis.

O anger, o jealousy,
Witches with clawed fingers
And red singed faces,
Angels of neglected loves,

I penetrated your lair
To know the truth.
Sick at heart, one enters,
And leaves with wounded heart.

In your filter
And your black still
You distilled for me the horrible philtre
That bites me like an asp.

In your infernal forge,
Where hatred is the hammer,
Your paw forged for my throat
The cutting edge of a knife.

And it is with your blade,
It is with your liquor,
That I have bruised my poor soul
And inebriated my poor heart.

Witches of the cavern,
O hussies, I curse you.
You have made an Avernus1
Out of my divine paradise.

Text Authorship:

• Translation from French (Français) to English copyright © 2007 by Corinne Orde, (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.
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Based on:

• a text in French (Français) by Jean Richepin (1849 - 1926), "Les sorcières", written 1877, appears in Les Caresses, in 3. Brumaire, no. 27, Paris, Éd. M. Dreyfous, first published 1882
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¹ Avernus: ancient name for a crater near Cumae, Italy. In the Aeneid of Virgil, it is the entrance to the underworld.

This text was added to the website: 2007-11-23
Line count: 24
Word count: 118

Rien n'est fini. Tout recommence.
Rupture toujours ajournée !
C'est comme un vieux bout de romance
Qu'on chanta toute une journée.

Un moment on croit qu'on l'oublie.
On marche sans en avoir cure.
Mais la ritournelle abolie
Couve dans la mémoire obscure.

Un beau jour qu'on prête l'oreille
A des bruits vagues, l'on s'étonne
D'entendre la petite abeille
Qui dans sa ruche encor chantonne.

Et voilà qu'on redit sans trêve
Le bout oublié de romance.
On retourne à son ancien rêve.
Rien n'est fini. Tout recommence,1

Nothing is over. Everything starts afresh.
The final parting is always postponed!
It is like some old snatch of romance
That one sang for a whole day.

One moment you think you have forgotten it;
You walk without a care.
But the banished ritornello
Gestates in the back of the memory.

One fine day, when one lends an ear
To some vague noises, one is surprised
To hear the little bee
Still humming in its hive.

And one finds oneself repeating without respite
That forgotten bit of romance.
One returns to the old dream.
Nothing is over. Everything starts afresh.

Text Authorship:

• Translation from French (Français) to English copyright © 2007 by Corinne Orde, (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.
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Based on:

• a text in French (Français) by Jean Richepin (1849 - 1926), "Air retrouvé", written 1877, appears in Les Caresses, in 3. Brumaire, no. 13, Paris, Éd. M. Dreyfous, first published 1882
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This text was added to the website: 2007-11-23
Line count: 16
Word count: 100

Je veux prendre un bateau sans boussole,
Sans rames, sans agrès et sans voiles,
Pour aller, sous un ciel sans étoiles,
Chevaucher au hasard la mer folle.

Ô vapeur, bous et hurle avec rage!
Tourne, tourne, âpre vis de l'hélice!
Sifflet, crie avec joie et délice,
Comme un pétrel repu dans l'orage.

Au branle étourdissant des marées,
Mouillé par les embruns et la pluie,
Les yeux pleurant de sel et de suie,
Dans les glaces du Nord démarées,

Dans les puits des malströms qui tournoient,
Dans les rocs des écueils aux dents noires,
Près des requins ouvrant leurs mâchoires,
Tombeaux vivants des morts qui se noient,

Crevant de faim, de soif et de fièvres,
J'irai je ne sais où, seul, farouche,
Et peut-être qu'alors sur ma bouche
Je n'aurai plus le goût de tes lèvres.

I want to take a boat without a compass,
Without oars, without rigging and without sails,
To go, beneath a starless sky,
At random through the crazy sea.

O vapour, boil and scream with rage!
Turn, turn, bitter propeller!
Ship's whistle, cry out with joy and delight,
Like a sated petrel in the storm.

To the deafening swell of the tides,
Wettened by the spray and the rain,
Eyes weeping from the salt and soot,
In the unleashed ice floes of the North,

In the pits of swirling maelstroms,
On the rocks of black-toothed reefs,
Near sharks opening their jaws,
Living tombs of the drowning dead,

Dying of hunger, thirst and fever,
I shall go I know not where, alone and wild,
And then perhaps on my mouth
I shall no longer have the taste of your lips.

Text Authorship:

• Translation from French (Français) to English copyright © 2007 by Corinne Orde, (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.
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Based on:

• a text in French (Français) by Jean Richepin (1849 - 1926), "Le bateau noir", written 1877, appears in Les Caresses, in 3. Brumaire, no. 33, Paris, Éd. M. Dreyfous, first published 1882
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This text was added to the website: 2007-11-23
Line count: 20
Word count: 138

Le ciel est transi.
Sur la terre nue
La neige est venue.
Sur mon cœur aussi.

Dans l'air obscurci
Les feuilles dernières
Roulent aux ornières.
Mon bonheur aussi.

Il fait froid ici.
Les cailles, les grives,
Ont quitté nos rives.
Ma maîtresse aussi.

The sky is numb.
On the naked earth
The snow has come...
On my heart too.

In the darkened air
The last leaves
Roll in the ruts.
My happiness too.

It is cold here.
The quails, the thrushes,
Have left our shores.
My mistress too.

Text Authorship:

• Translation from French (Français) to English copyright © 2007 by Corinne Orde, (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.
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Based on:

• a text in French (Français) by Jean Richepin (1849 - 1926), no title, written 1877, appears in Les Caresses, in 4. Nivôse, no. 1, Paris, Éd. M. Dreyfous, first published 1882
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This text was added to the website: 2007-11-23
Line count: 12
Word count: 45

Bien souvent je ne pense à rien, comme une bête,
Soudain un mot bourdonne et passe dans ma tête,
Mot jadis entendu,
Un de ceds mots de rien où vivait tout ton être;
Et je sens mille échos de mon passé renaître
Dans cet écho perdu.

Je me souviens de l'an, du mois, du jour, de l'heure,
Et je ferme les yeux sans rien dire, et je pleure.
Car dans ce mot en l'air
J'entends toutes les voix de ma jeunesse heureuse,
Comme on entend au fond d'une coquille creuse
Chanter toute la mer.

Often I think of nothing, like some dumb creature.
Suddenly a word buzzes and goes through my head,
A word heard long ago,
One of those insignificant words in which your whole being dwelt;
And I sense the rebirth of a thousand echoes of my past
In that lost echo.

I remember the year, the month, the day, the hour,
And I close my eyes without saying anything, and I weep.
For in that idle word
I hear all the voices of my happy youth
As one hears, at the bottom of a hollow shell,
The whole sea singing.

Text Authorship:

• Translation from French (Français) to English copyright © 2007 by Corinne Orde, (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: licenses@email.lieder.example.net
  
  

Based on:

• a text in French (Français) by Jean Richepin (1849 - 1926), no title, written 1877, appears in Les Caresses, in 4. Nivôse, no. 28, Paris, Éd. M. Dreyfous, first published 1882
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This text was added to the website: 2007-11-23
Line count: 12
Word count: 99

Où vivre ? Dans quelle ombre
Étouffer mon ennui ?
Ma tristesse est plus sombre
  Que la nuit.

Où mourir ? Sous quelle onde
Noyer mon deuil amer ?
Ma peine est plus profonde
  Que la mer.

Où fuir ? De quelle sorte
Égorger mon remord ?
Ma douleur est plus forte
  Que la mort.

Where live? In what shadow
Stifle my boredom?
My sadness is darker
Than the night.

Where die? Under what wave
Drown my bitter mourning?
My sorrow is deeper
Than the sea.

Where flee? In what manner
Slaughter my remorse?
My pain is stronger
Than death.

Text Authorship:

• Translation from French (Français) to English copyright © 2007 by Corinne Orde, (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: licenses@email.lieder.example.net
  
  

Based on:

• a text in French (Français) by Jean Richepin (1849 - 1926), no title, written 1877, appears in Les Caresses, in 4. Nivôse, no. 18, Paris, Éd. M. Dreyfous, first published 1882
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This text was added to the website: 2007-11-23
Line count: 12
Word count: 45

Il serait plus viril et plus noble sans doute
De croiser sur son coeur ses bras las et meurtris,
Et de ne point pousser de lamentables cris
Comme un enfant perdu la nuit sur la grand' route.

Il faudrait, ainsi qu'un cadavre qui dégoûte,
Enfouir son amour, en brûler les débris,
Et chanter au besoin, et crier qu'on est gris,

Et boire en souriant ses larmes goutte à goutte.
Mais on est solagé par les pleurs, les sanglots,
La rage folle. Ainsi vos mères, matelots,
Quand vous êtes noyès par la houle inhumaine,

Arrachent des galets au bord du gouffre amer,
Et, les jetant aux flots avec des cris de haine,
Apaisent leur douleur en outrageant la mer.

It would doubtless be nobler and more manly
To fold one's tired and bruised arms across one's heart
And not to let out pitiful cries
Like a child, lost in the night on the highway.

One should, as with a repulsive cadaver,
Bury one's love, and burn its remains,
And sing if need be, and yell out that one is tipsy,

And, with a smile, drink one's tears drop by drop.
But one finds relief in the tears and the weeping,
And the mad rage. In the same way - sailors - your mothers,
When you are drowned by the inhuman swell,

Tear up pebbles at the edge of the bitter whirlpool,
And, throwing them to the waves with cries of hatred,
Appease their suffering by outraging the sea.

Text Authorship:

• Translation from French (Français) to English copyright © 2007 by Corinne Orde, (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: licenses@email.lieder.example.net
  
  

Based on:

• a text in French (Français) by Jean Richepin (1849 - 1926), "Sombres plaisirs", appears in Les Caresses, in 4. Nivôse, no. 22, Paris, Éd. M. Dreyfous, first published 1882
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This text was added to the website: 2007-11-23
Line count: 14
Word count: 127