by Joachim du Bellay (1525 - c1560)
Translation © by David Jonathan Justman

Le vrai amour
 (Sung text for setting by D. Milhaud)
 See original
Language: Middle French 
Our translations:  ENG ENG
Le vrai amour naît du premier regard
Et ne veut point se façonner par art:
Et c'est pourquoi ces moitiés séparées,
Étant jadis dans le monde égarées,
Se retrouvant si bien se rejoignaient,
Que jamais plus elles ne s'éloignaient.

Composition:

    Set to music by Darius Milhaud (1892 - 1974), "Le vrai amour", op. 409 no. 1 (1964), published 1966 [ soprano and piano ], from L'amour chante, no. 1, Bryn Mawr, Theodore Presser and Co.

Text Authorship:

Go to the general single-text view

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

  • ENG English (David Jonathan Justman) , no title, copyright ©, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • ENG English (Grant Hicks) , copyright © 2026, (re)printed on this website with kind permission


Research team for this page: Emily Ezust [Administrator] , Grant Hicks [Guest Editor]

This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 122
Word count: 839

Language: English  after the Middle French 
True love is born from the first look
And doesn't know how to fashion itself by art:
And this is why the separated halves,
Having once wandered in the world,
When they find each other once again, rejoin as well
As if they had never become apart.

Text Authorship:

  • Translation from Middle French to English copyright © by David Jonathan Justman, (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.
    Contact: 

Based on:

Go to the general single-text view


This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 122
Word count: 48