Les hauts talons luttaient avec les longues jupes,
En sorte que, selon le terrain et le vent,
Parfois luisaient des bas de [jambe]1, trop souvent
Interceptés ! — et nous aimions ce jeu de dupes.

Parfois aussi le dard d'un insecte jaloux
Inquiétait le col des belles sous les branches,
Et c'étaient des éclairs soudains des nuques blanches,
Et ce régal comblait nos jeunes yeux de fous.

Le soir tombait, un soir équivoque d'automne :
Les belles, se pendant rêveuses à nos bras,
Dirent alors des mots si spécieux, tout bas,
Que notre âme, depuis ce temps, tremble et s'étonne.

View original text (without footnotes)

Confirmed with Paul Verlaine, Fêtes galantes, Paris: Alphonse Lemerre, 1869, pages 13-14. Note: All the ampersands (&) that appeared in the first publication were changed to "et".

¹ Debussy: "jambes"

Text Authorship:

• by Paul Verlaine (1844 - 1896), "Les ingénus", written 1869, appears in Fêtes galantes, no. 7, Paris, Édition Alphonse Lemerre, first published 1869 [author's text checked 2 times 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 Claude Achille Debussy (1862 - 1918), "Les Ingénus", L. 114/(104) no. 1 (1904), published 1904 [ voice and piano ], from Fêtes Galantes II, no. 1, Paris, Durand [sung text checked 1 time]
• by Raoul Laparra (1876 - 1943), "Les ingénus", published 1927 [ voice and piano ], from Pastels, suite de mélodies sur des Fétes galantes , no. 8, Paris, Gallet [sung text not yet checked]
• by Fernand Ochsé (1879 - 1944), "Les ingénus", 1908, published 1913 [ voice and piano ], from Le Parc, no. 5, Berlin, Fürstner [sung text not yet checked]
• by Adrien Remacle (1849 - 1916), "Les ingénus", published [1907] [ voice and piano ], from Les fêtes galantes. Esquisses mélodiques sur les poèmes de Paul Verlaine, no. 2, Paris, Hachette [sung text not yet checked]
• by Pierre Thilloy (b. 1970), "Les ingénus", 1996, published 1997 [ baritone and piano ], from Verlainexquises, no. 3, Éd. du compositeur [sung text not yet checked]

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

• ENG English [singable] (Nita Cox) , "Youthful lovers", first published 1904
• ENG English (Jordyn Elizabeth Beranek) , "Young lovers", copyright © 2014, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
• GER German (Deutsch) (Bertram Kottmann) , "Die Arglosen", copyright © 2015, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Research team for this page: Emily Ezust [Administrator] , Poom Andrew Pipatjarasgit [Guest Editor]

This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 12
Word count: 98