Hotel | My room has the form of a cage

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by Wilhelm Albert Włodzimierz Apolinary Kostrowicki (1880 - 1918), as Guillaume Apollinaire

Translation © by Peter Low

Hôtel

Language: French (Français)

Our translations: ENG JPN

Ma chambre a la forme d'une cage,
Le soleil passe son bras par la fenêtre.
Mais moi qui veux fumer pour faire des mirages
J'allume au feu du jour ma cigarette.
Je ne veux pas travailler - je veux fumer.

First published in the revue "Lacerba", n°8, April 15, 1914

Text Authorship:

by Wilhelm Albert Włodzimierz Apolinary Kostrowicki (1880 - 1918), as Guillaume Apollinaire, "Hôtel", written 1914, appears in Banalités, first published 1914 [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 Robert Caby (1905 - 1992), "Hôtel", 1944, published 1991 [ voice and piano ], Éd. de l'AARC (Association des Amis de Robert Caby) [sung text not yet checked]
by Francis Poulenc (1899 - 1963), "Hôtel", FP 107 no. 2 (1940), published 1941 [ medium voice and piano ], from Banalités, no. 2, Éd. Max Eschig [sung text checked 1 time]
by Marjo Tal (1915 - 2006), "Hôtel", 1982, from En sourdine, no. 3 [sung text not yet checked]

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

ENG English (Peter Low) , "Hotel", copyright © 2001, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
JPN Japanese (日本語) (Naoyuki Okada) , "ホテル", copyright © 2025, (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: 5
Word count: 39

Hotel

Language: English after the French (Français)

My room has the form of a cage.
The sun reaches its arm in through the window.
But I want to smoke and make shapes in the air,
and so I light my cigarette on the sun's fire.
I don't want to work, I want to smoke.

Text Authorship:

Translation from French (Français) to English copyright © 2001 by Peter Low, (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 Wilhelm Albert Włodzimierz Apolinary Kostrowicki (1880 - 1918), as Guillaume Apollinaire, "Hôtel", written 1914, appears in Banalités, first published 1914
- Go to the text page.

This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 5
Word count: 47