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

Las ! Pour vous trop aymer
Language: French (Français) 
Our translations:  ENG
Las! pour vous trop aymer je ne vous puis aymer,
Car il fault en aimant avoir discretion:
Helas! je ne l'ay pas: car trop d'affection
Me vient trop folement tout le cueur enflammer.

D'un feu desesperé vous faictes consommer
Mon cueur, [qui va brulant]1 sans intermission,
Et si bien la fureur nourrit ma passion
Que la raison me fault, dont je me deusse armer.

Ah! guerissez moy donc de ma fureur extreme,
Afin qu'avec raison honorer je vous puisse,
Ou pardonnez au moins mes faultes à vous mesme,

Et le peché commis en tatant vostre cuisse:
Car je n'eusse touché en lieu si deffendu,
Si pour trop vous aymer mon sens ne fust perdu.

Available sung texts: (what is this?)

•   A. Bertrand •   P. Certon 

P. Certon sets stanza 1

View original text (without footnotes)
1 Bertrand: "que vous brulez"

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 (David Wyatt) , "Alas, I cannot love you for loving you too much", 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: 114

Alas, I cannot love you for loving you too much
Language: English  after the French (Français) 
Alas, I cannot love you for loving you too much
For, you say, in loving we need to be discreet.
Alas, I'm not, for too much affection
Comes and enflames my heart too foolishly.

You make a desperate flame consume
My heart; [it burns]1 without a break
And if indeed madness feeds my passion
Then let reason fail me, which ought to arm me.

Ah cure me then of my utter madness
So that I can honour you with reason;
Or at least pardon my faults towards you

And the sin committed by touching your thigh
For I'd not have touched, indeed would have prevented it,
If my mind had not been lost for loving you too much.

View original text (without footnotes)
1 Bertrand: "you burn it"

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.
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Based on:

 

This text was added to the website: 2012-06-06
Line count: 14
Word count: 118