My cadaver is soft like a glove | My cadaver is soft like a glove

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by Louise de Vilmorin (1902 - 1969)

Translation © by Laura Claycomb

Mon cadavre est doux comme un gant

Language: French (Français)

Our translations: CAT ENG GER

Mon cadavre est doux comme un gant
Doux comme un gant de peau glacée
Et mes prunelles effacées
Font de mes yeux des cailloux blancs.

Deux cailloux blancs dans mon visage
Dans le silence deux muets
Ombrés encore d'un secret
Et lourds du poids mort des images.

Mes doigts tant de fois égarés
Sont joints en attitude sainte
Appuyés au creux de mes plaintes
Au noeud de mon coeur arrêté.

Et mes deux pieds sont des montagnes,
Les deux derniers monts que j'ai vus
À la minute où j'ai perdu
La course que les années gagnent.

Mon souvenir est ressemblant,
Enfants emportez-le bien vite,
Allez, allez, ma vie est dite.
Mon cadavre est doux comme un gant.

Text Authorship:

by Louise de Vilmorin (1902 - 1969), "Mon cadavre est doux comme un gant", written 1939, appears in Fiançailles pour rire, no. 3, Paris, Éd. NRF Gallimard, first published 1939 [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), "Mon cadavre est doux comme un gant", FP 101 no. 4 (1939), first performed 1942 [ soprano and piano ], from Fiançailles pour rire, no. 4 [sung text checked 1 time]

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

CAT Catalan (Català) (Salvador Pila) , "El meu cadàver és suau com un guant", copyright © 2026, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
ENG English (Laura Claycomb) , "My cadaver is soft like a glove", copyright © 2012, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
GER German (Deutsch) (Ingrid Schmithüsen) , "Mein Leichnam ist zart wie ein Handschuh", copyright © 2013, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Researcher for this page: John Burke

This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 20
Word count: 117

My cadaver is soft like a glove

Language: English after the French (Français)

My cadaver is soft like a glove
Soft like a glove of frozen skin
and my erased pupils
make white pebbles out of my eyes.

Two white pebbles in my face
In the silence, two deaf-mutes
shadowed still by a secret
and heavy with the dead weight of images.

My oft-wandering fingers
press together in a saintly pose
on the hollow of my laments
at the knot of my stopped heart.

And my two feet are mountains
the last hills that I saw
in the minute that I lost
the race that the years had gained.

My memory is life-like,
Children, carry it away quickly.
Go on, Go on, my life is spoken for.
My cadaver is soft like a glove.

Text Authorship:

Translation from French (Français) to English copyright © 2012 by Laura Claycomb, (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 Louise de Vilmorin (1902 - 1969), "Mon cadavre est doux comme un gant", written 1939, appears in Fiançailles pour rire, no. 3, Paris, Éd. NRF Gallimard, first published 1939
- Go to the text page.

This text was added to the website: 2012-09-24
Line count: 20
Word count: 121