Showing posts with label The Lyrical. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Lyrical. Show all posts

Monday, February 3, 2014

Recent Sappho Fragments (2004, 2014)

Source.
Translations of the last Sappho fragments recovered (2004).





Translation of the Sappho fragment (discovered 2013). Tom Payne translator.

Still, you keep on twittering that Charaxos
comes, his boat full. That kind of thing I reckon
Zeus and his fellow gods know; and you mustn’t
make the assumption;

rather, command me, let me be an envoy
praying intensely to the throne of Hera
who could lead him, he and his boat arriving
here, my Charaxos,

finding me safely; let us then divert all
other concerns on to the lesser spirits;
after all, after hurricanes the clear skies
rapidly follow;

and the ones whose fate the Olympian ruler
wants to transform from troubles into better –
they are much blessed, they go about rejoicing
in their good fortune.

As for me, if Larichos reaches manhood,
[if he could manage to be rich and leisured,]
he would give me, so heavy-hearted, such a
swift liberation.

Sunday, January 16, 2011

From Dawn to Dawn - Troubadour Poetry (A selection of Provençal poems, translated by AL Kline)





Anonymous (10th Century)
With pale Phoebus, in the clear east, not yet bright,

Guillaume de Poitiers (1071-1127)
Out of the sweetness of the spring,
I’ve made a song devoid of sense:
Since we see, fresh flowers blowing
Great the joy that I take in love,
I’ll make a little song that’s new,
Since my mood urges me to sing

Jaufre Rudel (d.c.1148)
When the days are long, in May,
When the sweet fountain’s stream
No one can sing where no melody is,

Marcabru (fl. 1130-1150)
In an orchard down by the stream,
When the sweet air turns bitter,
If all the grief and woe and bitterness
When I see the lark display
So full is my heart of joy now,
When flowers are in the leaves green
When fresh breezes gather,
When the greenery unfolds
To the sweet song of the nightingale,
The nightingale sings happily
When fresh leaves and shoots appear,
Time comes, and goes, and runs away,
The sweetest voice I have heard,
Singing proves merely valueless

Peire d’Auvergne (fl.1157-1170)
With noble joy commences

Raimbaut d’Orange (c1144-d.1173)
Now the flowers gleam, in reverse,
I do not sing for bird or flower,
I’ve been in great distress of mind,
Now I must sing of what I would not do,
Its sweet when the breeze blows softly,
I am the one that knows the pain that flows
When the pale leaves descend
Sweet tweet and cry
I see scarlet; green, blue, white, yellow
I have him not, yet he has me
The firm desire that in my heart enters
To this light tune, graceful and slender,

Peire Vidal (1175 – 1205)
I breathe deeply, draw in the air:
Though spring’s glorious
No more than a beggar dare complain,
I’ve felt, for so long, so

Raimbaut de Vaqueiras (c1155- fl.1180-d. c1207)
Deep waves that roll, travelling the sea,
Keep a watch, watchman there, on the wall,
Calends of May

Guillem de Cabestan (1162–1212)
Like to him who bends the leaves
The day I saw you, lady that first time,
Never would I have conceived

Bertran de Born (c1140-d.before1215)
Lady, since you care not at all
The joyful springtime pleases me
Ah, Limousin! Country free and courtly,

Giraut de Bornelh (c. 1138 – 1215)
Glorious king, true light and clarity,
On true love are all my thoughts bent
While the nightingale sings away
In a deep bower under a hawthorn-tree

Anonymous Balade (13th century or later)
The glance that my lady darts at me must slay,

Gaucelm Faidit (c. 1170 – c. 1202)
A harsh thing it is that brings such harm,
Truest Virgin, our Maria

Sordello (fl. 1220-1265)
I wish to mourn Blacatz, now, in skilful song,
Alas, what use are my eyes

Guiraut Riquier (c.1230 - 1292)
From pleasant

Saturday, January 15, 2011

Francois Villon - Poetry in Translation

See Also: Société François Villon

Ballad Of The Gibbet
Les Regrets De La Belle Hëaulmiere
Rondel
The Ballad Of The Ladies Of Yore
Abor Amorris
To Death Of His Lady
The Debate Between Villon And His Heart
Ballade
Le Testament: Ballade: ‘Item: Donne A Ma Povre Mere’
Ballade: Epistre
Ballade: Du Concours De Blois
Le Testament: Ballade: Pour Robert d’Estouteville
Le Testament: Epitaph et Rondeau
Le Testament: Ballade: A S’amye
Rondeau

Five Translations

A Ballad of Francois Villon
Ballads from Francois Villon

Three Translations by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
I. The Ballad of Dead Ladies
Death, of thee do I make my moan, / Who hadst my lady away from me,
Goodbye! the tears are in my eyes; / Farewell, farewell, my prettiest;
Brothers and men that shall after us be, / Let not your hearts be hard
I have a tree, a graft of Love, / That in my heart has taken root;
Who's that I hear?—It's me—Who?—Your heart / Hanging on by the thinnest
Tell me now in what hidden way is / Lady Flora the lovely Roman?
Les Regrets De La Belle Hëaulmiere 
ADVIS m'est que j'oy regreter / La belle qui fut hëaulmiere,
I know flies in milk / I know the man by his clothe
Ballade: Du Concours De Blois
I’m dying of thirst beside the fountain, / Hot as fire, and with chatte
This I give to my poor mother / As a prayer now, to our Mistress
Have pity now, have pity now on me, / If you at least would, friends of
At dawn of day, when falcon shakes his wing, / Mainly from pleasure,
Epitaph / Here there lies, and sleeps in the grave,
Oh, grant him now eternal peace, / Lord, and everlasting light,
 False beauty that costs me so dear, / Rough indeed, a hypocrite sweet

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