LiederNet logo

CONTENTS

×
  • Home | Introduction
  • Composers (20,158)
  • Text Authors (19,576)
  • Go to a Random Text
  • What’s New
  • A Small Tour
  • FAQ & Links
  • Donors
  • DONATE

UTILITIES

  • Search Everything
  • Search by Surname
  • Search by Title or First Line
  • Search by Year
  • Search by Collection

CREDITS

  • Emily Ezust
  • Contributors (1,115)
  • Contact Information
  • Bibliography

  • Copyright Statement
  • Privacy Policy

Follow us on Facebook

×

Attention! Some of this material is not in the public domain.

It is illegal to copy and distribute our copyright-protected material without permission. It is also illegal to reprint copyright texts or translations without the name of the author or translator.

To inquire about permissions and rates, contact Emily Ezust at licenses@email.lieder.example.net

If you wish to reprint translations, please make sure you include the names of the translators in your email. They are below each translation.

Note: You must use the copyright symbol © when you reprint copyright-protected material.

by Pierre de Ronsard (1524 - 1585)
Translation © by David Wyatt

À la Fontaine Bellerie
Language: French (Français) 
Our translations:  ENG
O Déesse Bellerie,
Belle Déesse cherie
De nos Nimphes, dont la vois
Sonne ta gloire hautaine
Accordante au son des bois,
Voire au bruit de ta fontaine,
Et de mes vers que tu ois.

Tu es la Nimphe eternelle
De ma terre paternelle,
Pource en ce pré verdelet
Voi ton Poëte qui t'orne
D'un petit chevreau de laict,
A qui l'une & l'autre corne
Sortent du front nouvelet.

Sus ton bord je me repose,
Et là oisif je compose
Caché sous tes saules vers
Je ne sçai quoi, qui ta gloire
Envoira par l'univers,
Commandant à la memoire
Que tu vives par mes vers.

L'ardeur de la Canicule
Toi, ne tes rives ne brule,
Tellement qu'en toutes pars
Ton ombre est epaisse & drue
Aus pasteurs venans des parcs,
Aus beufs las de la charue,
Et au bestial epars.

Tu seras faites sans cesse
Des fontaines la princesse,
Moi çelebrant le conduit
Du rocher persé, qui darde
Avec un enroué bruit,
L'eau de ta source jazarde
Qui trepillante se suit.

This is the later version of the ode.

Text Authorship:

  • by Pierre de Ronsard (1524 - 1585), "À la Fontaine Bellerie", appears in Odes de 1550, no. 9, first published 1550 [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 Jean Chatillon (1937 - 2019), "À la Fontaine Bellerie", op. 34 no. 1 (1965), rev. 1994 [ chorus ] [sung text not yet checked]
  • by William Hawley (b. 1950), "À la Fontaine Bellerie", first performed 1997 [ SATB chorus and piano ], from Chansons de Ronsard, no. 4 [sung text checked 1 time]

Set in a modified version by Rudolf Escher.

  • Go to the text. [ view differences ] ENG

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

  • ENG English (David Wyatt) , "To the Bellerie fountain", copyright © 2012, (re)printed on this website with kind permission


Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

This text was added to the website: 2010-10-28
Line count: 35
Word count: 170

To the Bellerie fountain
Language: English  after the French (Français) 
O goddess Bellerie1
Goddess fair and dear
Of our nymphs, whose voices
Sound your glory on high
In harmony with the sound of the woods
And of the murmur of your fountain too;
Goddess also of my verse which you know.

You are the eternal nymph
Of my homeland
And so in this verdant meadow
Look on your poet who honours you
With a small suckling kid
With its two young horns
Newly sprung from its forehead.

I lie down on your banks
And there idly compose,
Hidden under your willows, some
Sort of verse to announce
Your glory throughout the universe,
Lodging it in memory
So that you will always live through my verse.

The heat of the dog-days
Burns neither you nor your banks
Since in every part
You provide shade deep and dense
For the shepherds coming from the fields,
For the oxen freed from the plough,
And for our scattered livestock.

You will unceasingly be called
Princess of fountains
By me celebrating the spring 
In the pierced rock, from which gush forth
With a hoarse sound
The chattering waters of your fount
Which splashing chase one another.

View original text (without footnotes)
1 "of the lovely smile" perhaps

Text Authorship:

  • Translation from French (Français) to English copyright © 2012 by David Wyatt, (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 Pierre de Ronsard (1524 - 1585), "À la Fontaine Bellerie", appears in Odes de 1550, no. 9, first published 1550
    • Go to the text page.

 

This text was added to the website: 2012-05-18
Line count: 35
Word count: 192

Gentle Reminder

This website began in 1995 as a personal project by Emily Ezust, who has been working on it full-time without a salary since 2008. Our research has never had any government or institutional funding, so if you found the information here useful, please consider making a donation. Your help is greatly appreciated!
–Emily Ezust, Founder

Donate

We use cookies for internal analytics and to earn much-needed advertising revenue. (Did you know you can help support us by turning off ad-blockers?) To learn more, see our Privacy Policy. To learn how to opt out of cookies, please visit this site.

I acknowledge the use of cookies

Contact
Copyright
Privacy

Copyright © 2025 The LiederNet Archive

Site redesign by Shawn Thuris