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[Ma blanchette]1 aux cheveux roux,
Dont la robe par ses trous
Laisse voir la pauvreté
Et la beauté,
Pour moi, poète chétif,
Ton jeune corps maladif
Plein de taches de rousseur
A sa douceur ;
Tu portes plus galamment
Qu'une [pipeuse d'amant
Ses brodequins]2 de velours
Tes sabots lourds.
Au lieu d'un haillon trop court,
Qu'un superbe habit de cour
Traîne à plis bruyants et longs
Sur tes talons ;
En place de bas troués,
Que pour les yeux des roués
Sur ta jambe un poignard d'or
Reluise encor ;
Que des nœuds mal attachés
Dévoilent pour nos péchés
[Ton sein plus blanc que du lait
Tout nouvelet ;]3
Que pour te déshabiller
Tes bras se fassent prier
Et chassent à coups mutins
Les doigts lutins ;
- Perles de la plus belle eau,
Sonnets de maître Belleau
Par tes galants mis aux fers
Sans cesse offerts,
Valetaille de rimeurs
Te dédiant leurs primeurs
Et [reluquant]4 ton soulier
Sous l'escalier,
Maint page [ami]5 du hasard,
Maint seigneur et maint Ronsard
Épieraient pour le déduit
Ton frais réduit.
Tu compterais dans tes lits
Plus de baisers que de lis,
Et rangerais sous tes lois
Plus d'un Valois !
- Cependant tu vas gueusant
Quelque vieux débris gisant
Au seuil de quelque Véfour
De carrefour ;
Tu vas lorgnant en dessous
Des bijoux de vingt-neuf sous
Dont je ne puis, oh ! pardon !
Te faire don ;
Va donc, sans autre ornement,
Parfum, perles, diamant,
Que ta maigre nudité,
O ma beauté !
Confirmed with Charles Baudelaire, Les Fleurs du mal, Paris: Poulet-Malassis et de Broise, 1857, in Spleen et Idéal, pages 151-153. Note: this was number 65 under Spleen et Idéal in the first edition of Les Fleurs du mal but number 88 or 112 under Tableaux parisiens in subsequent editions.
1 1861 edition, 1868 edition, and L. Orthel: "Blanche fille"2 1861 edition, 1868 edition, and L. Orthel: "reine de roman / Ses cothurnes"
3 1861 edition, 1868 edition, and L. Orthel: "Tes deux beaux seins, radieux / Comme des yeux ;"
4 1861 edition, 1868 edition, and L. Orthel: "contemplant"
5 1861 edition, 1868 edition, and L. Orthel: "épris"
Text Authorship:
- by Charles Baudelaire (1821 - 1867), "À une mendiante rousse", appears in Les Fleurs du mal, in 2. Tableaux parisiens, no. 88, appears in Les Fleurs du mal, in 1. Spleen et Idéal, no. 65, Paris, Poulet-Malassis et de Broise, first published 1857 [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 Léon Orthel (1905 - 1985), "À une mendiante rousse", op. 72 (Deux mélodies) no. 2 (1975), published 1975 [ voice and piano ], Amsterdam, Donemus [sung text checked 1 time]
Settings in other languages, adaptations, or excerpts:
- Also set in English, a translation by Daron Aric Hagen (b. 1961) , copyright © [an adaptation] ; composed by Daron Aric Hagen.
Other available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):
- CZE Czech (Čeština) (Jaroslav Haasz) , "Ryšavé žebračce"
- ENG English (Faith J. Cormier) , "To a Red-Headed Beggar Maid", copyright © 2004, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
Research team for this page: Emily Ezust [Administrator] , Poom Andrew Pipatjarasgit [Guest Editor]
This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 56
Word count: 245
Pale red-headed girl, whose ragged dress shows her beauty and her poverty, for me, a weakling poet, your clumsy, be-freckled young body has its sweetness. You wear your heavy clogs more gallantly than a queen in a novel wears her velvet buskins. Instead of too-short rags, a superb court gown with rustling folds should hang down on your heels. Instead of torn stockings, a golden dagger should glisten on your leg to fill the eyes of the roués. Loose knots should unveil, for our sins, your two beautiful breasts, radiant as eyes. Your arms should have to be begged to undress you and beat off elven fingers. Pearls of the first water, sonnets by Belleau, offered unceasingly by your suitors clamped in irons. Flunkeys, rhymesters, dedicating their first fruits to you and contemplating your shoe under the stair, many a page in love by chance, many a lord, many a Ronsard, would pay the price of your pleasures! You would have more kisses than lilies in your bed and would submit more than one Valois to your authority. But you beg for a few scraps on the doorstep of some corner Véfour. You eye 29-sou jewelry, and I can't (forgive me!) even give you that. Go, then, with no other ornament, perfume, pearls or diamond than your thin nudity, oh my beauty!
Text Authorship:
- Translation from French (Français) to English copyright © 2004 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 Charles Baudelaire (1821 - 1867), "À une mendiante rousse", appears in Les Fleurs du mal, in 2. Tableaux parisiens, no. 88, appears in Les Fleurs du mal, in 1. Spleen et Idéal, no. 65, Paris, Poulet-Malassis et de Broise, first published 1857
This text was added to the website: 2004-10-01
Line count: 56
Word count: 222