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Il pleut des voix de femmes comme si elles étaient mortes même dans le souvenir c'est vous aussi qu'il pleut merveilleuses rencontres de ma vie ô gouttelettes et ces nuages cabrés se prennent à hennir tout un univers de villes auriculaires écoute s'il pleut tandis que le regret et le dédain pleurent une ancienne musique écoute tomber les liens qui te retiennent en haut et en bas
Note: the poem appeared in print in the form of five downward slanting streams. See Poèmes publiés du vivant d'Apollinaire, 1901-1918 [Sorbonne, external site]. The words above have been treated as prose with arbitrary line-breaks.
First published in SIC, numéro 12, décembre 1916, and then in 1918 in Calligrammes, p. 62.
Text Authorship:
- by Wilhelm Albert Włodzimierz Apolinary Kostrowicki (1880 - 1918), as Guillaume Apollinaire, "Il pleut", appears in Calligrammes - Poèmes de la paix et de la guerre, in 1. Ondes, first published 1916 [author's text checked 1 time 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 Jacques Brillouin (1892 - 1971), "Il pleut", 1920, published 1926 [ soprano and piano ], from Deux Mélodies, no. 1, Éd. “Au Ménestrel”, Heugel [sung text not yet checked]
- by Alexandre Jamar (b. 1995), "Il pleut", 2020, published 2020 [ soprano and marimba ], from Écoute-s'il-pleut, trois calligrammes de Guillaume Apollinaire pour soprano et marimba, no. 1 [sung text not yet checked]
- by Francis Poulenc (1899 - 1963), "Il pleut", FP 140 no. 4 (1948), published 1948 [ baritone and piano ], from Calligrammes, no. 4, Éd. Heugel [sung text checked 1 time]
- by Kaija Saariaho (1952 - 2023), "Il pleut", 1986 [ soprano and piano ] [sung text checked 1 time]
- by Guy Sacre (b. 1948), "Il pleut", 1977, from 5 Poèmes d'Apollinaire, no. 3 [sung text checked 1 time]
Settings in other languages, adaptations, or excerpts:
- Also set in English, a translation possibly by Samuel Barclay Beckett (1906 - 1989); composed by Earl Kim.
Other available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):
- ENG English (Korin Kormick) , "It rains", copyright © 2002, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
- GER German (Deutsch) (Julia Henning) , "Es regnet", 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: 10
Word count: 67
It is raining the voices of women as if they were dead even in memory It is you also that it rains, marvelous meetings of my life, oh little drops And these reared-up clouds take themselves to neighing an entire universe of auricular cities Listen if it rains while regret and disdain cry an ancient music Listen to the falling of the bonds that restrain you from top to bottom
Text Authorship:
- Translation from French (Français) to English copyright © 2002 by Korin Kormick, (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 French (Français) by Wilhelm Albert Włodzimierz Apolinary Kostrowicki (1880 - 1918), as Guillaume Apollinaire, "Il pleut", appears in Calligrammes - Poèmes de la paix et de la guerre, in 1. Ondes, first published 1916
This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 10
Word count: 71