[Terese Coe]

One of many:

Loveliest of Trees, the Cherry Now

by A.E. Housman

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.

Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.

And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.



Terese

[A. E. Stallings]

According to my battered Norton anthology, Yeats' poem was "suggested by a sonnet of the 16th-century French poet Pierre de Ronsard" (am not familiar with the poem myself). Perhaps "inspired by" or "after" rather than "translation"...

[Terese Coe]

___________________

[Tim Murphy]

Terese, I can't recite the Ronsard, but it's unspeakably gorgeous, even better than the Yeats. It is definitely an "imitation." Not a translation. As is Part XI of "A Man Young and Old" where Yeats paraphrases that great chorus from Oedipus at Colonus, and concludes:

Never to have lived is best, ancient writers say,
Never to have drawn the breath of life or looked upon the light of day.
The second best's a gay goodnight and quickly turn away.

Speaking of Ronsard and the Greek Anthology:

Scribblers to be rid of,
poets I shall discard
when I dispense with love:
Anacreon, Ronsard.

[Carl Sundell]

Below an English translation of Ronsard's poem followed by the original. I prefer Yeats.


OF HIS LADY'S OLD AGE.
RONSARD, 1550

WHEN you are very old, at evening
You'll sit and spin beside the fire, and say,
Humming my songs, 'Ah well, ah well-a-day!
When I was young, of me did Ronsard sing.'
None of your maidens that doth hear the thing,
Albeit with her weary task foredone,
But wakens at my name, and calls you one
Blest, to be held in long remembering.
I shall be low beneath the earth, and laid
On sleep, a phantom in the myrtle shade,
While you beside the fire, a grandame grey,
My love, your pride, remember and regret;
Ah, love me, love! we may be happy yet,
And gather roses, while 'tis called to-day.

Quand vous serez bien vielle, au soir, à la chandelle,
Assise auprès du feu, dévidant et filant,
Direz, chantant mes vers et vous émerveillant:
"Ronsard me célébrait du temps que j'étais belle."
Lors vous n'aurez servante oyant telle nouvelle,
Déjà sous le labeur à demi sommeillant,
Qui au bruit de Ronsard ne s'aille réveillant,
Bénissant votre nom de louange immortelle.
Je serai sous la terre, et fantôme sans os;
Par les ombres myrteux je prendrai mon repos;
Vous serez au foyer une vieille accroupie,
Regrettant mon amour et votre fier dédain.
Vivez si m'en croyez, n'attendez à demain;
Cueillez dès aujourd'hui les roses de la vie.



[This message has been edited by Carl Sundell (edited September 02, 2002).]

[David Anthony]

There's a soul in the Eternal
Standing stiff before the King;
There's a little English maiden
Sorrowing.

There's a proud and tearless woman
Seing pictures in the fire;
There's a broken, battered body
On the wire.

(Woodbine Willie)

[Terese Coe]

__________________________

[Carl Sundell]

Terese,

Whew! Yours is far the superior translation for artistic worth. But, with you, I still give the palm to Yeats.

[David Anthony]

That's a lovely translation, Terese, really beautiful.
(I'd be tempted to say "will fade tomorrow".)
I enjoyed yours too, Carl, with its archaic feel, though personally I'd tend to go for contemporary idiom.
Regards,
David

[Carl Sundell]

"I enjoyed yours too, Carl, with its archaic feel"

David, just to clarify that it wasn't my translation. I lifted it from a source I can't remember.

What never fails to amaze me is the facility with which translators can find rhymes that match, more-or-less, the sense of the text in both languages.

Well done, Terese!