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The internet research hub for Victor Hugo enthusiasts |
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(Those marked with an asterisk CE Wilbour left in French without providing a translation. These translations are the recent work of Lee Fahnestock and Norman MacAfee.)
We will buy very pretty things
A walking through the faubourgs.
Violets are blue, roses are red,
Violets are blue, I love my loves.
The Virgin Mary to my bed
Came yesterday in broidered cloak
And told me: "Here hidden in my veil
Is the babe that once you asked of me."
"Run to the town, get linen,
Buy thread, buy a thimble."
We will buy very pretty things,
A walking through the faubourgs.
Good holy Virgin, by my bed
I have put a cradle draped with ribbons;
Were God to give me his fairest star
I should love the babe thou hast given me more.
"Madame, what shall be done with this linen?"
"Make a trousseau for my new-born."
Violets are blue, roses are red,
Violets are blue, I love my loves.
Wash this linen. "Where?" In the river.
Make of it, without spoiling or soiling,
A pretty skirt, a very long skirt,
Which I will broider and fill with flowers.
"The child is gone, madame, what more?"
"Make of it a shroud to bury me."
We will buy very pretty things
A walking in the faubourgs.
Violets are blue, roses are red,
Violets are blue, I love my loves.
If Caesar had given me
Glory and war
And if I must abandon
The love of my mother,
I would say to Great Caesar:
Take thy sceptre and car,
I prefer my mother, ah me!
I prefer my mother.
See the moon is shining,
When shall we go into the woods?
Asked Charley of Charlotte.
Tou tou tou
For Chatou.
I have but one God, one king, one farthing, and one boot.
For having drunk in early morn,
Dew and thyme,
Two sparrows were in a fuddle.
Zi zi zi
For Passy.
I have but one God, one king, one farthing, and one boot.
And these two poor little wolves
Were as drunk as two thrushes;
A tiger laughed at it in his cave.
Don don don
For Meudon.
I have but one God, one king, one farthing, and one boot.
One swore and the other cursed.
When shall we go into the woods?
Asked Charley of Charlotte.
Tin tin tin
For Pantin.
I have but one God, one king, one farthing, and one boot.
She astounds at ten paces, she terrifies at two,
A wart inhabits her dangerous nose,
You tremble every moment lest she blow it at you,
And lest some fine day her nose may fall into her mouth.
Do you remember our sweet life
When we were so young, we two,
And had in our hearts no other desire
Than to be well dressed and be in love.
When by adding your age to mine,
We couldn't reach forty years between us.
And in our humble little home,
Everything, even in winter, seemed spring?
Beautiful days! Manuel was proud and wise.
Paris sat down to incredible banquets.
Foy was waxing eloquent, and your blouse
Had a pin that pricked me.
Everyone gazed at you. A lawyer without a case.
When I took you to The Prado for dinner,
You were so preety that the roses
Seemed to turn away.
I heard them say: Isn't she beautiful!
How lovely she smells! What flowing hair!
Under her cape sh's hiding wings;
Her charming hat has scarcely bloomed.
I wandered with you, squeezing your lissome arm.
People passing through that charmed love
Had married in us, the happy couple
The sweet month of April with the handsome month of May.
We lived hidden away, happy, the door closed,
Devouring love, good forbidden fruit;
My mouth had not said one thing
When already your heart had answered.
The Sorbonne was the bucolic spot
Where I adored you from dusk to dawn.
That is how a loving soul applies
The map of Tenderness to the Quartier Latin.
O Place Maubert! O Place Dauphine!
When, in the meager springlike room,
You drew your stocking up over your slim leg.
I saw a star in a garret nook.
I've read a lot of Plato, but remember nothing
Better than Malebranche and Lammenais;
You showed me celestial kindness
With the flower you gave me.
I obeyed you, you were in my power.
O gilded garret! To lace you up! To see you
Coming and going from daybreak in a chemise.
Gazing at your young forehead in your old mirror!
And who could ever lose the memory
Of those times of dawn and sky,
Of ribbons, of flowers, of muslin, and watered silk,
When love stammers a charmed argot?
Our gardens were a pot of tulips;
You screened the window with your slip;
I would take the pipe clay bowl,
And I gave you the porcelain cup.
And those great calamities that made us laugh!
Your muff burnt, your boa lost!
And that beloved portrait of the divine Shakespeare
That we sold one evening for our supper!
I was a beggar, and you charitable;
I gave fleeting kisses to your cool round arms.
Dante in-folio was our table
For gaily consuming a hundred chestnuts.
The first time, in my joyful hovel,
I stole a kiss from your fiery lips,
When you went off disheveled adn pink,
I stayed there pale and believed in God!
Do you remember our countless joys,
And all those shawls turned to rags?
Oh! From our shadow-filled hearts what sights
Flew off into the limitless skies!
The bird gossips in the arbor
And pretends that yesterday Atala
Went off with a Russki.
Where the pretty girls are going,
Lon la.
Friend Pierrot, you're babbling,
Because the other day Mila
Broke her window and called me.
Where the pretty girls are going,
Lon la.
The hussies are really nice;
Their poison that bewitched me
Would sozzle Monseiur Orfila.
Where the pretty girls are going,
Lon la.
I love love and its petty tiffs.
I love Agnes, I love Pamela,
In kindling me, Lisa got burnt.
Where the pretty girls are going,
Lon la.
Of old, when I saw the mantillas
Of Suzette and of Zeila,
My soul got mixed up in their folds.
Where the pretty girls are going,
Lon la.
Love, when, in the shadows where you gleam,
You coif Lola with roses,
I would damn myself for that.
Where the pretty girls are going,
Lon la.
Jeanne, at your mirror you're getting dressed!
One fine day my heart took off;
I think it's Jeanne who has it.
Where the pretty girls are going,
Lon la.
In the evening, coming out of the dance,
I show Stella to the stars
And I say to them: just look at her.
Where the pretty girls are going,
Lon la.
But there are still some bastilles,
And I'm going to put a halt
To public order there.
Where the pretty girls are going,
Lon la.
Anybody want a game of skittles?
All the old world crumbled
When the fat ball rolled.
Where the pretty girls are going,
Lon la.
Good old people, with a stroke of the crutch,
Let's break up the Louvre where they showed
The monarchy in furbelows.
Where the pretty girls are going,
Lon la.
We have forced the gates,
King Charles Ten that day
Held on poorly and came unstuck
Where the pretty girls are going,
Lon la.
They're ugly in Nanterre
Because of Voltaire,
And stupid in Palaiseau
Because of Rousseau.
I'm no notary
Because of Voltaire;
I'm just a sparrow
Because of Rousseau.
Joy's my nature
Because of Voltaire;
Misery's my trousseau
Because of Rousseau.
I dropped from the air
Because of Voltaire,
To the gutter I go
Because of....
Joan was born in Fougere,
Best nest for a shepherdess;
I adore her petticoat,
Rascal.
Love, you live alone in her;
It's in her eye
You shoot your darts,
Jabbering!
Me, I sing of her and I love,
Even more than Diana,
Joan and her firm breasts
From Brittany.
He is asleep. Though his mettle was sorely tried.
He lived, and when he lost his angel, died.
It happened calmly, on its own,
The way night comes when day is done.