I compare with your young beauty | I compare with your young beauty

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by Pierre de Ronsard (1524 - 1585)

Translation © by David Wyatt

Je parangonne à ta jeune beauté

Language: French (Français)

Our translations: CHI ENG

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 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,
Tu peins mes vers d'un bel émail de fleurs :
Des laboureurs il arrose les peines,

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

Available sung texts: (what is this?)

• A. Bertrand

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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

Language: English after the French (Français)

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 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,
You paint my verse with a beautiful sprinkling of flowers;
He refreshes the hard work of labourers,

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

View text with all available footnotes

Translator's note for stanza 2, line 2, word 2: i.e., April.

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:

a text in French (Français) by Pierre de Ronsard (1524 - 1585), no title
- Go to the text page.

This text was added to the website: 2012-06-06
Line count: 14
Word count: 105