Alas, would to God I'd never nibbled | Alas, would to God I'd never nibbled

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by Pierre de Ronsard (1524 - 1585)

Translation © by David Wyatt

Las ! Pleust à Dieu n'avoir jamais tasté

Language: French (Français)

Our translations: ENG

Las ! Pleust à Dieu n'avoir jamais tasté
Si follement le tetin de m'amie!
Sans ce malheur, l'autre plus grande envie
Jamais, helas! ne m'eust le coeur tenté

Comme un poisson, pour s'estre trop hasté
Par un appast, suit la fin de sa vie,
Ainsi je vais où la mort me convie,
D'un beau tetin doucement apasté.

Qui eust pensé que le cruel destin
Eust enfermé sous un si beau tetin
Un si grand feu, pour m'en faire la proye?

Avisez donc quel seroit le coucher
Entre ses bras, puis qu'un simple toucher
De mille morts innocent me foudroye!

Available sung texts: (what is this?)

• A. Bertrand • G. Boni

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Text Authorship:

by Pierre de Ronsard (1524 - 1585) [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]

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Researcher for this page: David Wyatt

This text was added to the website: 2012-06-23
Line count: 14
Word count: 102

Alas, would to God I'd never nibbled

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Language: English after the French (Français)

Alas, would to God I'd never nibbled
So madly my lady's nipple!
Without that mistake, the other still greater desire
Would never, alas, have entered my heart.

Like a fish, which too hasty
For the bait hurries to the end of its life,
So I am going where death takes me
Sweetly baited by that lovely nipple.

Who would have thought that cruel fate
Would have enclosed beneath so lovely a nipple
So great a fire to make me its prey?

Beware, then, what would happen when lying
In her arms, since one little touch
Obliterates me, innocent as I am, with a thousand deaths.

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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)
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This text was added to the website: 2012-06-23
Line count: 14
Word count: 108