Ma mie, de grâce, ne mettons
Pas sous la gorge à Cupidon Sa propre flèche, Tant d'amoureux l'ont essayé Qui, de leur bonheur, ont payé Ce sacrilège... J'ai l'honneur de Ne pas te demander ta main, Ne gravons pas Nos noms au bas D'un parchemin. Laissons le champ libre à l’oiseau, Nous serons tous les deux priso- nniers sur parole, Au diable, les maîtresses queux Qui attachent les coeurs aux queues Des casseroles! J'ai l'honneur de Ne pas te demander ta main, Ne gravons pas Nos noms au bas D'un parchemin. Vénus se fait vieille souvent
Elle perd son latin
devant
La lèchefrite A aucun prix, moi je ne veux Effeuiller dans le pot-au-feu La marguerite. J'ai l'honneur de Ne pas te demander ta main, Ne gravons pas Nos noms au bas D'un parchemin. Il peut sembler de tout repos De mettre à l'ombre, au fond d'un pot De confiture, La jolie pomme défendue, Mais elle est cuite, elle a perdu Son goût "nature". J'ai l'honneur de Ne pas te demander ta main, Ne gravons pas Nos noms au bas D'un parchemin. On leur ôte bien des attraits, En dévoilant trop les secrets De Mélusine. (4) L'encre des billets doux pâlit Vite entre les feuillets des li- vres de cuisine.
J'ai l'honneur de
Ne pas te demander ta main, Ne gravons pas Nos noms au bas D'un parchemin. De servante n'ai pas besoin, Et du ménage et de ses soins Je te dispense... Qu'en éternelle fiancée, A la dame de mes pensées Toujours je pense... J'ai l'honneur de Ne pas te demander ta main, Ne gravons pas Nos noms au bas D'un parchemin. |
Beloved, for mercy’s sake, let us
Not load, beneath Cupid’s chin
His own arrow, (1) So many lovers have tried Who
have paid with their lost joys for
This sacrilege…
I have the honour
Not to ask your hand in marriage
Let’s not inscribe
Our names at the end
Of some parchment
Let’s leave a free hand to the fellow (Cupid)
We will both of us be two pris ..
oners on parole
Devil take the cook-mistresses
Who pin their hearts to handles
Of pots and pans.
I have the honour
Not to ask your hand in marriage
Let’s not inscribe
Our names at the end
Of some parchment
Venus often makes herself old
She loses her latin (2) faced by
The frying pan.
At no price would I ever wish
To tell off daisy petals in
The pot of stew. (3)
I have the honour
Not to ask your hand in marriage
Let’s not inscribe
Our names at the end
Of some parchment.
It might seem to be nice and snug
To put, out of view, at the bottom of
A jar of jam
The tasty forbidden apple
But it is cooked, it has quite lost
Its fresh picked taste.
I have the honour
Not to ask your hand in marriage
Let’s not inscribe
Our names at the end
Of some parchment.
You remove so much of the charms
By revealing too many secrets
Of Melusine.
The ink of billets doux fades
Fast in between the pages of
Cookery books.
I have the honour
Not to ask your hand in marriage
Let’s not inscribe
Our names at the end
Of some parchment.
Of servant I have no need
And from housekeeping and its tasks
I set you free
So as eternal fiancée
Of you, lady of my thoughts,
I think always.
I have the honour
Not to ask your hand in marriage
Let’s not inscribe
Our names at the end
Of some parchment.
|
TRANSLATION NOTES
1) It was for Cupid, the God of love, to aim his arrows himself. Love should be spontaneous and it is a sacrilege for people to think to arrange things for themselves.
2) perd son latin – The phrase « J’y perds mon latin » means « I am completely baffled by it ». Brassens uses this image to conjure up the mental decline caused by domestic chores and it is humorous as the Goddess of Love was a Roman Goddess.
3) Effeuiller la marguerite. Plucking the petals of the oxeye daisy is a game that lovers play, while saying “She loves me – she loves me not.”. Another image to suggest the adulteration of love by domesticity.
4) In Breton folk-lore, Mélusine was a fairy upon whom a wicked spell had been cast which turned her into a siren on one day each week. A local nobleman, Raimond de Lusignan, came across her with other fairies in the woods and was captivated by her beauty and gentle manners. She agreed to marry him on condition that he did not seek to find out her life story or try to see her on Saturdays. They had a happy and most prosperous relationship until one Saturday…. As this is a folk tale, which are invariably very miserable you can guess the rest. Brassens is saying that both parties in a relationship are entitled to their own private space, where they retain things secret from the other.
5) The French also talk of “le fruit défendu”. In English we always say forbidden fruit, but with some hesitation, I have kept the word “apple” in this line
.
6) la dame de mes pensées….Toujours je pense. There is a play on words here that I find impossible to translate. In the tradition of chivalry, a knight before entering the lists would choose one lady, of whom he would be the champion and to whom he would dedicate his endeavours. She became “la dame de ses pensées”. It was a relationship of the mind, a platonic love, because the lady chosen by the knight would, more often, be married to someone else. In “Je me suis fait tout petit” Brassens suggests that their relationship was of the same kind. However the mention of the forbidden apple suggests that not only was sex an element of their relationship, but that it always retained the tangy flavour of seduction.
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A modern group has made a very sensitive and expressive recording
of this song on their album « Catalina Claro et ses amis chantent
Brassens ».
Listen and admire this rendition sung by:
Catalina, Michel Maestro et Eduardo Peralta. (Unfortunately I have no
video.)
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BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES
Georges Brassens and Joha Heiman shared each other's life, doing a lot of things together, but they lived apart in their separate homes. They had regular telephone conversations and called around to see each other frequently. She went on tour with him and stood in the wings during his performances, keeping an eye on everything. Their’s was a personal and a professional relationship but certainly not a domestic one. They each had their own space, which could be described perhaps as their Saturday of Mélusine.Georges Brassens is reported as saying of his "Puppchen" that she was not his wife, she was his goddess. On her death in 1999, she was buried in the grave of Georges Brassens.
Further Information about Joha Heiman
There are a number of songs that Brassens wrote about Joha on this site. One of these is "Je me suis fait petit" and my posting of this song got me in discussion with other bloggers.As a result there is now much more detail about Joha and about her relationship with Brassens there, which I and other bloggers have written after the song. If you wish to look at it, the following title is the link: Je me suis fait petit
http://brassenswithenglish.blogspot.com/2008/02/je-me-suis-fait-tout-petit_08.html
The day after I posted this song, I read in the Times of the rise in the number middle-class, middle-aged couples, who choose to "live apart together".
Click here to return to the full index of Brassens songs on this site
2 comments:
Thanks for this great endeavour! Let me me give my two cents to help refine it.
I suggest you modify the translation and footnote about "Venus se fait vieille, souvent...". In fact, it should be read as: "Venus se fait vieille: souvent, elle perd son Latin devant la lèchefrite". Nothing to do with mental decline due to repeated domestic chores. The idea is that Venus, being an very old goddess, struggles to adjust to "modern" kitchenware (here, the dripping pan of an oven). A very Brassens-ish way of saying that love is put off by domestic chores and their practicalities.
I can't thank you enough for this great translation. This song means the world to me. It was one my parents favorite songs and described their unusual relationship. The were non-married for 40 years. They had planned to celebrate their 40 years of a non-marriage proposal in 2007 but my father died earlier that same year. I was born the same night my mother saw Georges Brassens in concert in Brussels in 1970. I have Brassens in my blood in so many ways. My son and husband do not speak French and with this translation I hope to expose them to the brilliance and humor of Brassens and the beauty of French.
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