The night | She washes herself with her large stone urn

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by Pierre-Félix Louis (1870 - 1925), as Pierre Louÿs

Translation © by Patrick Cardy

La nuit

Language: French (Français)

Our translations: ENG

Elle se baigne avec sa grande urne de grès 
À l'abri des rocs noirs dans un lac d'Arcadie, 
Eau glaciale où meurt le suprême incendie...  
Elle se baigne avec l'image des forêts.  

Son long ventre émergé mollement du marais 
Respire en secouant ses colliers d'eau verdie.  
Ell regard fuir une moire agrandie, 
Touble du ciel inverse et flot sur les cyprès.  

Elle a froid. Le serein perle sur sa peau brune.  
Ses yeux d'acier furtif se remplissent de lune. 
Elle attend que sur l'eau meure le dernier bruit...  

Puis détournant les yeux vers sa douteuse épaule, 
Elle, de ses doigts longs comme des fleurs de saule, 
Tord ses cheveux obscurs d'où ruisselle la nuit.

Text Authorship:

by Pierre-Félix Louis (1870 - 1925), as Pierre Louÿs [author's text not yet checked against a primary source]

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):

by Patrick Cardy (1953 - 2005), "La nuit", 1986 [baritone and piano], from Les Eaux de Tristesse, no. 3. [
text verified 1 time
]
by Georges Dandelot (1895 - 1975), "La nuit", published 1924. [
text not verified
]

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

ENG English (Patrick Cardy) , title 1: "The night", copyright © 1986, (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: 14
Word count: 114

The night

Language: English after the French (Français)

  She washes herself with her large stone urn
  in the shelter of black rocks in an Arcadian lake,
  frigid water which extinguishes the supreme fire... 
  she washes herself with the image of forests.
 
  Her long body, rising softly from the maters,
  breathes, shaking off her necklace of greenish water. 
  She watches glide away the dim, watery reflection of the sky,
  inverted, floating on the cypresses. 
 
  She is cold. The night-dew beads on her brown skin. 
  Her steely, furtive eyes are filled with the moon. 
  She waits for the last sound to die on the water...
 
  Then, turning her eyes towards her uncertain shoulder,
  she, with her long, willowy fingers,
  twists her dark hair, from which streams the night.

Text Authorship:

Translation from French (Français) to English copyright © 1986 by Patrick Cardy, (re)printed on this website with kind permission. To reprint and distribute this author's work for concert programs, CD booklets, etc., you must ask the copyright-holder(s) directly for permission. If you receive no response, you must consider it a refusal.
Patrick Cardy. We have no current contact information for the copyright-holder.
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Based on:

a text in French (Français) by Pierre-Félix Louis (1870 - 1925), as Pierre Louÿs
- Go to the text page.

This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 14
Word count: 119