Je parangonne à ta jeune beauté.
Qui toujours dure en son printemps nouvelle.
Ce mois d'avril qui ses fleurs renouvelle,
En sa plus gaie et verte nouveauté.

Loin devant toi [fuira]1 la cruauté :
Devant lui fuit la saison plus cruelle.
Il est tout beau, ta face est toute belle :
Ferme est son cours, ferme est ta loyauté :

Il peint les [bords, les forêts et les plaines]2,
Tu peins mes vers d'un [bel émail de fleurs :
Des laboureurs il arrose les peines]3,

[D'un vain espoir tu laves mes douleurs :
Du ciel sur l'herbe il fait tomber les pleurs]4,
Tu fais sortir de mes yeux deux fontaines.

About the headline (FAQ)

View original text (without footnotes)
¹ Bertrand: "s'en fuyt"
² Bertrand: "champs de dix mille couleurs"
³ Bertrand: "long émail de fleurs :/ D’un doux Zefyr il fait onder les plaines"
⁴ Bertrand: "Et toy mon cœur d’un soupir larmoyant :/ D’un beau cristal son front est rosoyant"

Text Authorship:

• by Pierre de Ronsard (1524 - 1585), no title [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 Anthoine de Bertrand (1540? - 1581?), "Je parangonne à ta jeune beauté", 1576, published 1578, first performed 1576 [ vocal quartet a cappella ], from Les Amours de Pierre de Ronsard à 4 parties, Livre 1, no. 25 [sung text checked 1 time]

Settings in other languages, adaptations, or excerpts:

• Also set in French (Français), [adaptation] ; composed by Louis Théodore Gouvy.
  • Go to the text.
    

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

• CHI Chinese (中文) [singable] (Dr Huaixing Wang) , copyright © 2024, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
• ENG English (David Wyatt) , "I compare with your young beauty", copyright © 2012, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Researcher for this page: David Wyatt

This text was added to the website: 2010-03-23
Line count: 14
Word count: 105

I compare with your young beauty
Which lasts forever in its own new spring
This month of April which renews the flowers
In their gayest and greenest newness.

Cruelty [will flee]1 far from you
Before him flees the cruellest season;
He is all handsomeness, your face all beauty;
Firm is his course, firm is your loyalty;

He paints the [riverbanks, forests and plains]2,
You paint my verse with a [beautiful sprinkling of flowers;
He refreshes the hard work of labourers]3,

[With an empty hope you refresh my sadness;
From heaven he makes tears fall on the grass]4,
You make two springs flow from my eyes.