Don’t you write anymore? | Did’ya know me: newsie

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by Max Jacob (1876 - 1944)

Translation © by Laura Prichard

Vous n'écrivez plus?

Language: French (Français)

Our translations: ENG

- M'as-tu connu marchand d'journaux
à Barbès et sous le Métro
Pour insister vers l'Institut
il me faudrait de la vertu,
mes romans n'ont ni rang ni ronds
et je n'ai pas de caractère.

- M'as-tu connu marchand d'marrons
au coin de la rue Coquillère?
tablier rendu, l'autre est vert.

- M'as-tu connu marchand d'tickets
balayeur de W.-C.
je le dis sans fiel ni malice
aide à la foire au Pain d'Épice
défenseur au juge de Paix
officier, comme on dit office
au Richelieu et à la Paix.

Text Authorship:

by Max Jacob (1876 - 1944), "Vous n'écrivez plus ?", written 1930, appears in Rivage, recueilli dans Ballades, Paris, Édition "Les Cahiers libres", first published 1931 [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 Francis Poulenc (1899 - 1963), "Vous n'écrivez plus?", FP 157 no. 2 (1954), published 1954 [ medium voice and piano ], from Parisiana, no. 2, Éd. Salabert [sung text checked 1 time]

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

ENG English (Laura Prichard) , "Don’t you write anymore?", copyright © 2019, (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: 16
Word count: 86

Don’t you write anymore?

Language: English after the French (Français)

- Did’ya know me: newsie 
Along [Boulevard] Barbès and in the Metro
To keep insisting for a position at the Institut [de France]
I would’ve needed more virtue,
My novels are neither reviewed nor lucrative
and I lack character.

- Did’ya know me: chesnut-seller
on the corner of Coquillère Street?
I turned in my apron, the other guy was green with envy.

- Did’ya know me: ticket-seller
toilet-sweeper
I say this without bile or malice
carny at the Gingerbread Fair
defendant before the magistrate
an official, in the so-called office9
at the Richelieu and the Café de la Paix.

Translator's notes
The title question is addressed ironically to a failed writer.
Line 1-5: literally “neither rows/ranks nor circles”
Line 2-3: mad?
Line 3-4 - Gingerbread Fair - The largest traveling fair in Europe, now called the Foire du Trône.
Line 3-6: This “office” is the scullery attached to the famous Café de la Paix restaurant. His job as “official” is that of dishwasher. This public recital of professional failure is typical of the defiance and bravado typical of popular French chanson.

Text Authorship:

Translation from French (Français) to English copyright © 2019 by Laura 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 Max Jacob (1876 - 1944), "Vous n'écrivez plus ?", written 1930, appears in Rivage, recueilli dans Ballades, Paris, Édition "Les Cahiers libres", first published 1931
- Go to the text page.

This text was added to the website: 2019-12-03
Line count: 16
Word count: 97