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It is illegal to copy and distribute our copyright-protected material without permission. It is also illegal to reprint copyright texts or translations without the name of the author or translator.

To inquire about permissions and rates, contact Emily Ezust at licenses@email.lieder.example.net

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by Paul Verlaine (1844 - 1896)
Translation © by Corinne Orde

À vous ces vers de par la grâce...
Language: French (Français) 
Our translations:  ENG
À vous ces vers de par la grâce consolante
De vos grands yeux où rit et pleure un rêve doux,
De par votre âme pure et toute bonne, à vous
Ces vers du fond de ma détresse violente.

C'est qu'hélas ! le hideux cauchemar qui me hante
N'a pas de trêve et va furieux, fou, jaloux,
Se multipliant comme un cortège de loups
Et se pendant après mon sort qu'il ensanglante !

[Oh !]1 je souffre, je souffre affreusement, si bien
Que le gémissement premier du premier homme
Chassé d'Éden n'est qu'une églogue [au prix]2 du mien !

Et les soucis que vous pouvez avoir sont comme
Des hirondelles sur un ciel d'après-midi,
— Chère, — par un beau jour de septembre attiédi.

Available sung texts: (what is this?)

•   L. Vierne 

About the headline (FAQ)

View original text (without footnotes)

Confirmed with Paul Verlaine, Poëmes saturniens, Paris: Alphonse Lemerre, 1866, pages 25-26.

1 Vierne: "Et"
2 Vierne: "auprès"

Text Authorship:

  • by Paul Verlaine (1844 - 1896), "À une femme", appears in Poèmes saturniens, in 1. Melancholia, no. 7, Paris, Édition Alphonse Lemerre, first published 1866 [author's text checked 2 times 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 Dinu Lipatti (1917 - 1950), "À une femme", op. 9 no. 1 (1941) [ voice and piano ], from Cinq Mélodies sur des Poèmes de Paul Verlaine, no. 1, note: published in Romania as Cinci Lieduri pe Versuri de Verlaine. [sung text not yet checked]
  • by Charles Martin Tornov Loeffler (1861 - 1935), "À une femme" [sung text not yet checked]
  • by Youssef Khan Nazare-Aga, dit Kyna (1870 - 1942), "À vous ces vers", published 1908 [ voice and piano ], from Deux sonnets, no. 2, Heugel [sung text not yet checked]
  • by Robert Otlet , "À une femme", published 1935 [ voice and piano ], from Melancholia, no. 6, Bosworth et Cie [sung text not yet checked]
  • by Louis Vierne (1870 - 1937), "À une femme", op. 38 no. 5 (1916), published 1924 [ high voice and piano ], from Spleens et Détresses, no. 5, Salabert [sung text checked 1 time]

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

  • ENG English (Corinne Orde) , "To a woman", copyright © 2008, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • ENG English (Bergen Weeks Applegate) , "To a Woman", appears in Poems Saturnine, in 1. Melancholia, no. 7


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: 14
Word count: 122

To a woman
Language: English  after the French (Français) 
To you these verses for the consoling grace
Of your big eyes where a sweet dream laughs and cries,
For your soul, so pure and good, to you
These verses from the depths of my violent distress!

It is, alas, the hideous nightmare that haunts me,
That has no peace and goes furious, mad, jealous,
Multiplying itself like a procession of wolves
And hankering after my fate, which it bloodies!

And I suffer, I suffer horribly, so much
That the first groan of the first man,
Cast out from Eden is but an eclogue compared with mine!

And the troubles that you may have are like
The swallows in an afternoon sky,
Dear, on a fine and warm day in September!

Text Authorship:

  • Translation from French (Français) to English copyright © 2008 by Corinne Orde, (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 Paul Verlaine (1844 - 1896), "À une femme", appears in Poèmes saturniens, in 1. Melancholia, no. 7, Paris, Édition Alphonse Lemerre, first published 1866
    • Go to the text page.

 

This text was added to the website: 2008-01-16
Line count: 14
Word count: 121

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This website began in 1995 as a personal project by Emily Ezust, who has been working on it full-time without a salary since 2008. Our research has never had any government or institutional funding, so if you found the information here useful, please consider making a donation. Your help is greatly appreciated!
–Emily Ezust, Founder

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