by Paul Verlaine (1844 - 1896)

Votre âme est un paysage choisi
Language: French (Français) 
Available translation(s): CAT CAT CHI ENG GER GER GER SPA SPA
Votre âme est un paysage choisi
Que vont charmant masques et bergamasques
Jouant du luth et dansant et quasi
Tristes sous leurs déguisements fantasques.

Tout en chantant sur le mode mineur
L'amour vainqueur et la vie opportune,
Ils n'ont pas l'air de croire à leur bonheur
Et leur chanson se mêle au clair de lune,

Au calme clair de lune triste et beau,
Qui fait rêver les oiseaux [dans]1 les arbres
Et sangloter d'extase les jets d'eau,
Les grands jets d'eau sveltes parmi les marbres.

About the headline (FAQ)

View original text (without footnotes)

Confirmed with Paul Verlaine, Fêtes galantes, Paris: Alphonse Lemerre, 1869, pages 1-2.

Note: All ampersands (&) as appear in the first publication are changed to "et".

1 Diepenbrock: "sous"

Authorship:

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

Settings in other languages, adaptations, or excerpts:

  • Also set in Finnish (Suomi), a translation by Yrjö Vilhelm Kaijärvi (1896 - 1971) ; composed by Pauliina Isomäki.
  • Also set in German (Deutsch), a translation by Paul Wiegler (1878 - 1949) ; composed by Artur Immisch.
  • Also set in German (Deutsch), a translation by Stefan Zweig (1881 - 1942) , "Mondschein" ; composed by Max Kowalski, Georg Trexler, Richard Trunk.

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

  • CAT Catalan (Català) (Anna Brull Piñol) , "Clar de Lluna", copyright © 2010, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • CAT Catalan (Català) [singable] (Núria Colomer) , copyright © 2020, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • CHI Chinese (中文) (Yen-Chiang Che) , "月光", copyright © 2009, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • ENG English (Peter Low) , no title, copyright © 2000, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • ENG English (William Faulkner) , "Clair de lune", first published 1920
  • GER German (Deutsch) (Nele Gramß) , "Mondlicht", copyright ©, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • GER German (Deutsch) [singable] (Bertram Kottmann) , "Mondlicht", copyright © 2011, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • GER German (Deutsch) (Pierre Mathé) , "Mondschein", copyright © 2012, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • SPA Spanish (Español) (José Miguel Llata) , copyright © 2020, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • SPA Spanish (Español) (Elisa Rapado) , copyright © 2020, (re)printed on this website with kind permission


Research team for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator] , Poom Andrew Pipatjarasgit [Guest Editor]

This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 12
Word count: 85