LiederNet logo

CONTENTS

×
  • Home | Introduction
  • Composers (20,138)
  • Text Authors (19,558)
  • Go to a Random Text
  • What’s New
  • A Small Tour
  • FAQ & Links
  • Donors
  • DONATE

UTILITIES

  • Search Everything
  • Search by Surname
  • Search by Title or First Line
  • Search by Year
  • Search by Collection

CREDITS

  • Emily Ezust
  • Contributors (1,114)
  • Contact Information
  • Bibliography

  • Copyright Statement
  • Privacy Policy

Follow us on Facebook

×

Attention! Some of this material is not in the public domain.

It is illegal to copy and distribute our copyright-protected material without permission. It is also illegal to reprint copyright texts or translations without the name of the author or translator.

To inquire about permissions and rates, contact Emily Ezust at licenses@email.lieder.example.net

If you wish to reprint translations, please make sure you include the names of the translators in your email. They are below each translation.

Note: You must use the copyright symbol © when you reprint copyright-protected material.

by Marguerite de Valois (Marguerite d'Angoulême), Queen of Navarre (1492 - 1549)
Translation © by Faith J. Cormier

Ballade
Language: French (Français) 
Our translations:  ENG
Pour être un digne et bon Crétien,
il faut à Christ être semblable,
il faut renoncer à tout bien,
à tout honneur qui est damnable;
à la dame belle et jolie,
à plaisir qui la chair émeut,
laisser, laisser honneurs, biens et l'amie.
Ne fait pas ce tout là qui veut.

Ses biens aux pauvres faut donner
d'un coeur joyeux et volontaire;
faut les injures pardonner
et à ses ennemis bien faire;
s'éjouir en mélancolie
et tourment dont la chair s'émeut,
aimer la mort, la mort comme la vie!
Ne fait pas ce tout là qui veut.

Text Authorship:

  • by Marguerite de Valois (Marguerite d'Angoulême), Queen of Navarre (1492 - 1549), first published 1540 [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 Giacomo Meyerbeer (1791 - 1864), "Ballade" [
     text verified 1 time
    ]

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

  • ENG English (Faith J. Cormier) , title 1: "Ballad", copyright © 2000, (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: 97

Ballad
Language: English  after the French (Français) 
To be a worthy and good Christian,
you have to be like Christ,
renouncing all 
damnable goods and honours,
beautiful women, 
the pleasures of the flesh,
and leaving honours, goods and lovers.
Not all who want to will succeed.

You must freely give all that you have to the poor,
with happy heart;
you must pardon insults
and do good to your enemies,
rejoice in melancholy
and in the torments of the flesh,
love death as you love life!
Not all who want to will succeed.

Text Authorship:

  • Translation from French (Français) to English copyright © 2000 by Faith J. Cormier, (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 Marguerite de Valois (Marguerite d'Angoulême), Queen of Navarre (1492 - 1549), first published 1540
    • Go to the text page.

 

This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 16
Word count: 86

Gentle Reminder

This website began in 1995 as a personal project by Emily Ezust, who has been working on it full-time without a salary since 2008. Our research has never had any government or institutional funding, so if you found the information here useful, please consider making a donation. Your help is greatly appreciated!
–Emily Ezust, Founder

Donate

We use cookies for internal analytics and to earn much-needed advertising revenue. (Did you know you can help support us by turning off ad-blockers?) To learn more, see our Privacy Policy. To learn how to opt out of cookies, please visit this site.

I acknowledge the use of cookies

Contact
Copyright
Privacy

Copyright © 2025 The LiederNet Archive

Site redesign by Shawn Thuris