LiederNet logo

CONTENTS

×
  • Home | Introduction
  • Composers (20,028)
  • Text Authors (19,311)
  • Go to a Random Text
  • What’s New
  • A Small Tour
  • FAQ & Links
  • Donors
  • DONATE

UTILITIES

  • Search Everything
  • Search by Surname
  • Search by Title or First Line
  • Search by Year
  • Search by Collection

CREDITS

  • Emily Ezust
  • Contributors (1,112)
  • Contact Information
  • Bibliography

  • Copyright Statement
  • Privacy Policy

Follow us on Facebook

by Anonymous / Unidentified Author
Translation by Évariste Desiré de Forges, vicomte de Parny (1753 - 1814)

Il est doux
 (Sung text for setting by M. Ravel)
 Matches original text
Language: French (Français)  after the Malagasy 
Our translations:  ENG
Il est doux de se coucher, durant la chaleur, 
sous un arbre touffu, et d'attendre que le vent 
du soir amène la fraîcheur.

Femmes, approchez. Tandis que je me repose 
ici sous un arbre touffu, occupez mon oreille 
par vos accents prolongés. Répétez la chanson
de la jeune fille, lorsque ses doigts 
tressent la natte, ou lorsqu'assise auprès du riz, 
elle chasse les oiseaux avides.

Le chant plaît à mon âme. La danse est pour moi 
presque aussi douce qu'un baiser. Que vos pas soient lents ;
qu'ils imitent les attitudes du plaisir 
et l'abandon de la volupté.

Le vent du soir se lève ; la lune commence 
à briller au travers des arbres de la montagne. 
Allez, et préparez le repas.

Composition:

    Set to music by Maurice Ravel (1875 - 1937), "Il est doux", M. 78 no. 3 (1925-1926), published 1926 [ voice and piano ], from Chansons madécasses, no. 3, Éd. Durand

Text Authorship:

  • by Évariste Desiré de Forges, vicomte de Parny (1753 - 1814), "Chanson VIII", appears in Chansons madécasses, no. 8

Based on:

  • a text in Malagasy by Anonymous/Unidentified Artist  [text unavailable]
    • Go to the text page.

Go to the general single-text view

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

  • ENG English (Peter Low) , no title, copyright © 2002, (re)printed on this website with kind permission


Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 16
Word count: 120

Gentle Reminder

This website began in 1995 as a personal project by Emily Ezust, who has been working on it full-time without a salary since 2008. Our research has never had any government or institutional funding, so if you found the information here useful, please consider making a donation. Your help is greatly appreciated!
–Emily Ezust, Founder

Donate

We use cookies for internal analytics and to earn much-needed advertising revenue. (Did you know you can help support us by turning off ad-blockers?) To learn more, see our Privacy Policy. To learn how to opt out of cookies, please visit this site.

I acknowledge the use of cookies

Contact
Copyright
Privacy

Copyright © 2025 The LiederNet Archive

Site redesign by Shawn Thuris