French (Français) translation of Songs of a Fool

by Gary Bachlund (b. 1947), "Songs of a Fool", 2010 [ medium voice and piano ]

Note: this is a translation of one multi-text setting.

A speckled cat and a tame hare
Eat at my hearthstone
And sleep there;
And both look up to me alone
For learning and defence
As I look up to Providence.

I start out of my sleep to think
Some day I may forget
Their food [and] drink;
Or, the house door left unshut,
The hare may run till it's found
The horn's sweet note and the tooth of the hound.

I bear a burden that might well try
Men that do all by rule,
And what can I
That am a wandering-witted fool
But pray to God that He ease
My great responsibilities?

Text Authorship:

See other settings of this text.

Confirmed with W. B. Yeats, Later Poems, Macmillan and Co., London, 1926, page 313.

Grill: "or"

Research team for this page: Emily Ezust [Administrator] , Malcolm Wren [Guest Editor] 
I slept on my three-leged stool by the fire,
The speckled cat slept on my knee;
We never thought to enquire
Where the brown hare might be,
And whether the door were shut.
Who knows how she drank the wind
Stretched up on two legs from the mat,
Before she had settled her mind
To drum with her heel and to leap:
Had I but awakened from sleep
And called her name, she had heard,
It may be, and not have stirred,
That now, it may be, has found
The horn's sweet note and the tooth of the hound.

Text Authorship:

See other settings of this text.

Confirmed with W. B. Yeats, Later Poems, Macmillan and Co., London, 1926, page 314.


Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
Author(s): William Butler Yeats (1865 - 1939)
Un chat tacheté et un lièvre apprivoisé
Mangent près de ma cheminée
Et dorment là ;
Et lèvent les yeux sur moi seul
En quête de savoir et de protection
Comme je lève les yeux vers la Providence

Je suis sorti de mon sommeil en pensant
Qu'un jour je pourrais oublier
Leur nourriture et leur boisson ;
Ou bien laisser ouverte la porte de la maison,
Le lièvre pourrait courir jusqu'à trouver
La douce note du cor et la dent du chien.

Je porte un fardeau que pourraient bien éprouver
Les gens qui font tout selon la règle,
Et que puis-je faire d'autre,
Si je suis un un fou à l'esprit vagabond,
Que prier Dieu pour qu'Il allège
Mes grandes responsabilités ?

Text Authorship:

  • Translation from English to French (Français) copyright © 2015 by Pierre Mathé, (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:

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Je dormais près du feu sur ma chaise à trois pieds,
Le chat tacheté dormait sur mes genoux ;
Nous n'avions jamais songé à savoir
Où pouvait être le lièvre brun,
Et si la porte était fermée.
Qui sait comment il prit le vent,
Étira ses deux pattes sur le paillasson
Avant de se décider
À tambouriner du talon et à sauter :
Si je m'étais réveillé
Et l'avais appelé par son nom, il aurait entendu,
Peut-être, et ne serait pas sorti,
Alors que maintenant il a peut-être trouvé
La douce note du cor et la dent du chien.

Text Authorship:

  • Translation from English to French (Français) copyright © 2015 by Pierre Mathé, (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


Translation © by Pierre Mathé