by
Max Jacob (1876 - 1944)
Réparateur perclus de vieux automobiles
Language: French (Français)
Our translations: ENG ENG
Réparateur perclus de vieux automobiles,
l'anachorète, hélas, a regagné son nid.
Par ma barbe, je suis trop vieillard pour Paris ;
l'angle de tes maisons m'entre dans les chevilles.
Mon gilet quadrillé a, dit-on, l'air étrusque
et mon chapeau marron va mal avec mes frusques.
Avis, c'est un placard qu'on a mis sur ma porte:
Dans ce logis tout sent la peau de chèvre morte.
About the headline (FAQ)
Text Authorship:
Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):
Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):
- ENG English (Shawn Thuris) , "Finale", copyright ©, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
- ENG English (Laura Prichard) , "Finale", copyright © 2019, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [
Administrator]
This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 8
Word count: 64
Finale
Language: English after the French (Français)
Crippled repairman of old automobiles
The monk, alas, has returned to his lair
My word, I am too old for Paris
The curb at this corner hurts my ankles
My plaid waistcoat has, they say, an ancient quality
And my chestnut brown hat clashes with the rags I’m wearing
Notice, a poster has been stuck to my door
In this lodging everything smells like the hide of a dead goat.
Translator's notes: Each line is an alexandrine. The beginning of this text is marked “éxagérément articulé,” ff, and very fast, in imitation of the extremely rapid text declamation of music hall singers in Paris at the time.
In her Master’s thesis (From the Banal to the Surreal: Poulenc, Jacob, and Le Bal masqué, McGill, 2005), Caroline Ehman writes, “Poulenc felt the poem was Jacob’s self-potrait, at least in part, illustrating his tendencies towards extreme eccentricity, emotional volatility, and self-deprecation. The poem, which describes an eccentric crippled automobile repairman who feels he is “too old for Paris,” may even be read as a sort of farewell to Paris before Jacob’s retreat to Saint-Benoît.”
Notes by line:
Line 2: "monk" - an “anachorète” (anchorite) is a hermetic monk. Poulenc’s friend Claude Rostand famously called him a mix of “moine et voyou” (monk and thug).
Line 3: "My word" - colloquial expression, literally “by my beard"
Line 5: "ancient" - literally, Etruscan (meant humorously)
Line 6: "rags I'm wearing" - colloquial expression indicating poor quality clothes
Text Authorship:
- Translation from French (Français) to English copyright © 2019 by Laura Prichard, (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 Max Jacob (1876 - 1944), "Autres personnages du Bal Masqué: Réparateur perclus de vieux automobiles", written 1920, appears in Le Laboratoire central, Paris, Éd. Au Sans Pareil, first published 1921
This text was added to the website: 2019-12-04
Line count: 8
Word count: 70
