Montparnasse | Oh hotel door, with your two green plants

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

Translation © by Peter Low

Montparnasse

Language: French (Français)

Our translations: ENG GER

Ô porte de l'hôtel avec deux plantes vertes
Vertes qui jamais
Ne porteront de fleurs
Où sont mes fruits? Où me planté-je?
Ô porte de l'hôtel un ange est devant toi
Distribuant des prospectus
On n'a jamais si bien défendu la vertu
Donnez-moi pour toujours une chambre à la semaine
Ange barbu vous êtes en réalité
Un poète lyrique d'Allemagne
Qui voulez connaître Paris
Vous connaissez de son pavé
Ces raies sur lesquelles il ne faut pas que l'on marche
              Et vous rêvez
D'aller passer votre Dimanche à Garches

Il fait un peu lourd et vos cheveux sont longs
Ô bon petit poète un peu bête et trop blond
Vos yeux ressemblent tant à ces deux grands ballons
Qui s'en vont dans l'air pur
À l'aventure

Text Authorship:

by Wilhelm Albert Włodzimierz Apolinary Kostrowicki (1880 - 1918), as Guillaume Apollinaire, "Montparnasse", written 1913, appears in Il y a, Paris, Éd. Messein, first published 1925 [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), "Montparnasse", FP 127 no. 1 (1941), published 1945 [ high voice and piano ], from Deux Mélodies de Guillaume Apollinaire, no. 1, Éd. Max Eschig [sung text checked 1 time]

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

ENG English (Peter Low) , "Montparnasse", copyright © 2001, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
GER German (Deutsch) (Ingrid Schmithüsen) , "Montparnasse", copyright © 2013, (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: 20
Word count: 126

Montparnasse

Language: English after the French (Français)

Oh hotel door, with your two green plants
which will never
bear any flowers,
say: Where are my fruits? Where am I planting myself?
Hotel door, an angel stands outside you
handing out leaflets
(virtue has never been so well defended!).
Give me in perpetuity a room at the weekly rate.
Oh bearded angel, you are really
a lyric poet from Germany
who wants to get acquainted with Paris.
You know that between its paving-stones
there are lines which one must not step on.
And you dream
of spending Sunday at a mansion out of town.

The weather is a bit oppressive and your hair is long;
oh good little poet, you're rather stupid and too blond.
Your eyes look so much like those two big balloons
floating off in the pure air
wherever chance takes them...

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, "Montparnasse", written 1913, appears in Il y a, Paris, Éd. Messein, first published 1925
- Go to the text page.

This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 20
Word count: 137