If a thousand pinks | If I embrace a thousand pinks or a thousand lilies

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by Pierre de Ronsard (1524 - 1585)

Translation © by David Wyatt

Si mille œillets

(Sung text for setting by J. Leguerney)

See original

Language: French (Français)

Our translations: ENG

Si mille oeillets, si mille liz j'embrasse,
Entortillant mes bras tout à l'entour,
Plus fort qu'un cep, qui d'un amoureux tour
La branche aimée, en mille plis l'enlace :

Si le soucy ne jaunist plus ma face,
Si le plaisir fait en moy son séjour,
Si j'aime mieux les Ombres que le jour,
Songe divin, cela vient de ta grâce.

En te suivant je volerais aux cieux :
Mais ce portrait qui nage dans mes yeux,
Fraude tousjours ma joye entre-rompue.

Et tu me fuis au milieu de mon bien,
Comme un éclair qui se finist en rien,
Ou comme au vent s'évanouyt la nuë.

Leguerney uses modernized spelling, for example:
liz -> lis
soucy -> souci
jaunist -> jaunit
moy -> moi
tousjours -> toujours
joye -> joie
entre-rompue -> interrompue
finist -> finit

Composition:

Jacques Leguerney

Poèmes de la Pléiade, Vol. I

Text Authorship:

by Pierre de Ronsard (1524 - 1585), "Si mille oeillets, si mille liz j'embrasse", appears in Les Amours (1552)

See other settings of this text.

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

ENG English (David Wyatt) , "If a thousand pinks", copyright © 2012, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

This text was added to the website: 2011-06-01
Line count: 14
Word count: 113

If a thousand pinks

(Sung text translation for setting by J. Leguerney)

See original

Language: English after the French (Français)

If I embrace a thousand pinks or a thousand lilies,
Twisting them all around my arms
Tighter than a vine which in amorous style
Entwines its beloved branch in a thousand curves;

If care no longer jaundices my face,
If pleasure chooses to stay with me,
If I prefer the shadows to the day,
My divine dream, that comes from your favour.

Following you I shall fly to the heavens;
But this image which swims before my eyes
Always deceives my exhausted joy;

And then you flee from me in the midst of my happiness,
Like a flash of lightning which ends in nothing,
Or like a cloud which disappears in the breeze.

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.
Contact: licenses@email.lieder.example.net

Based on:

a text in French (Français) by Pierre de Ronsard (1524 - 1585), "Si mille oeillets, si mille liz j'embrasse", appears in Les Amours (1552)
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This text was added to the website: 2012-07-26
Line count: 14
Word count: 117