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Dès que la grive est éveillée,
Sur cette lande encor mouillée
Je viens m'asseoir
Jusques au soir ;
Grand'mère de qui je me cache
Dit : Loïc aime trop sa vache
Oh ! nenni-da !
Mais j'aime la petite Anna.
A son tour, Anna, ma compagne,
Conduit derrière la montagne,
Près des sureaux,
Ses noirs chevreaux ;
Si la montagne, où je m'égare,
Ainsi qu'un grand mur nous sépare,
Sa douce voix,
Sa voix m'appelle au fond du bois.
Oh ! sur un air plaintif et tendre,
Qu'il est doux au loin de s'entendre,
Sans même avoir
L'heur de se voir !
De la montagne à la vallée
La voix par la voix appelée
Semble un soupir
Mêlé d'ennui et de plaisir.
Ah, retenez bien votre haleine,
Brise étourdie, et dans la plaine,
Parmi les blés,
Courez, volez !
Dieu ! la mèchante a sur son aile
Emporté la voix douce et frêle
La douce voix
Qui m'appelait au fond du bois.
...
Note: the text above is taken from stanzas 1-4 of the original text.
Composition:
- Set to music by Hector Berlioz (1803 - 1869), "Le jeune pâtre Breton", op. 13 no. 4 (1834), stanzas 1-4 [ voice and piano and horn (or orchestra) ], from Fleurs des Landes, no. 4
Text Authorship:
- by (Julien) Auguste Plage Brizeux (1803?6 - 1858), "La chanson de Loïc", written 1835, appears in Marie, first published 1860
See other settings of this text.
Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):
- ENG English (Laura Stanfield Prichard) , copyright © 2016, (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: 64
Word count: 306
Once the thrush is awake,
On this still-damp heath
I will come to sit
until evening;
Grandmother, from whom I'm hiding,
Says: “Loïc loves his cow too much.”
Oh! Oh! It’s not so!
For I love little Anna.
In turn, Anna, my companion,
Leads, beyond the crest of the hill,
Near the grove of elders,
Her flock of black goats;
So the mountain, where I wander,
Just like a high wall, separates us,
But her sweet voice,
Her voice calls me from the depths of the woods.
Oh! this plaintive and tender melody,
How sweet it is to hear in the distance,
Without even having
The happiness of seeing each other!
From the mountain to the valley
The voice called by the other voice
Seems like a sigh
Equally mixed of sorrow and of pleasure.
Ah, hold your breath,
Scatterbrained breeze, and on the plain,
Among the wheat,
You may run, fly!
The sweet voice
That calls me from the depths of the wood.
...
Note: the text above is taken from stanzas 1-4 of the original text.
Notes provided by Laura Prichard:
Stanza 1, line 5: Loïc is the old Provençal form of Louis, still common in France.
Stanza 2, line 2: "beyond the crest of the hill": literally, "behind the mountain"
Stanza 2, line 6: This phrase evokes the first line of Psalm 42: “Ainsi qu’on oit le cerf bruire" = "As the hart yearns for the waterbrooks"
Stanza 3, line 1: Literally, "on an air/melody, or, out of an air"
Stanza 3, line 4: "L'heur" = "le bonheur"
Stanza 6, line 1: "holly tree": known as the “holm oak,” a holly-like evergreen tree native to the Mediterranean, Quercus ilex.
Stanza 8, line 6: "greedy": in Norman: greedy; in modern French: one who eats a lot, esp. with a refined taste in food
Stanza 8, line 7: "guin-lan-la": meant to be a sad echo of "Ta-ra-la" from stanza 5 but "gui" also means "misteletoe" in French, and may refer to the white-berried evergreen from stanza 6.
Text Authorship:
- Translation from French (Français) to English copyright © 2016 by Laura Stanfield Prichard, (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: licenses@email.lieder.example.net
Based on:
- a text in French (Français) by (Julien) Auguste Plage Brizeux (1803?6 - 1858), "La chanson de Loïc", written 1835, appears in Marie, first published 1860
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This text was added to the website: 2016-01-20
Line count: 64
Word count: 342