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They call me Jenny in Lorraine. In France I am Joan. The soldiers call me The Maid. When I was thirteen I saw a most strange thing, for I saw a white shadow come slowly gliding along the grass, and the whiteness of the shadow was not like any other whiteness that we know, except it be the whiteness of the lightnings. My breath grew faint with the terror and the awe. And with the shadow came speech, several saints, and they spoke to me. (They are very dear to me -- my voices.) And the voices told me that I, Joan, must go away, and that I must come to France and that my father must know nothing of my leaving, that I should find soldiers and that I should lift the siege on the city of Orléans, and that I should lead the Dauphin to crown him King of France in the city of Reims and that I should drive the English from French soil. I was a child and I was afraid. But St. Michael told me to come to the aid of the king. And he told me the pity that was in the kingdom of France.
About the headline (FAQ)
Note: this is a prose text. The line-breaks were added to allow translations to appear easily in parallel.
Authorship:
- by Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835 - 1910), as Mark Twain, appears in Recollections of Joan of Arc [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 Elizabeth Walton Vercoe (b. 1941), "They call me Jenny in Lorraine", 1986 [mezzo-soprano or soprano and piano], from the a play - incidental music Herstory III: Jehanne de Lorraine, no. 3, confirmed with composer's website [ sung text checked 1 time]
Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):
- FRE French (Français) (Guy Laffaille) , copyright © 2019, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
Researcher for this text: Malcolm Wren [Guest Editor]
This text was added to the website: 2019-02-16
Line count: 23
Word count: 200
On m'appelle Jeannette en Lorraine. En France je suis Jeanne. Les soldats m'appellent la Jeune Fille. Quand j'avais treize ans je vis une très étrange chose, car je vis une ombre blanche qui venait doucement en glissant sur l'herbe, et la blancheur de l'ombre n'était pas comme les autres blancheurs que nous connaissons, sauf celle des éclairs. Ma respiration devint faible de terreur et de crainte. Et avec l'ombre vint la parole, plusieurs saints, et ils me parlèrent. (elles me sont très chères -- mes voix.) Et les voix me dirent que moi, Jeanne, je devais partir et que je devais venir en France et que mon père ne devait rien savoir de mon départ, et que je trouverais des soldats et que je lèverais le siège de la cité d'Orléans, et que je conduirais le dauphin pour être couronné roi de France dans la cité de Reims et que je bouterais les Anglais hors du sol français. J'étais une enfant et j'avais peur. Mais saint Michel me dit de venir en aide au roi; Et il me dit le malheur dans lequel était le royaume de France.
About the headline (FAQ)
Authorship:
- Translation from English to French (Français) copyright © 2019 by Guy Laffaille, (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.
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Based on:
- a text in English by Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835 - 1910), as Mark Twain, appears in Recollections of Joan of Arc
This text was added to the website: 2019-02-18
Line count: 23
Word count: 187