Etienne Jodelle's I Love the Laurel Green (tr. Charles Causley)

I Love The Laurel Green

I love the laurel green, whose verdant flame

Burns its bright victory on the winter day,

Calls to eternity its happy name,

And neither death nor time shall wear away.

I love the holly tree with branches keen,

Each leaflet fringed with daggers sharp and small,

I love the ivy, too, winding its green,

Its ardent stem about the oak, the wall.

I love these three, whose living green and true

Is as unfailing as my love for you

Always by night and day whom I adore.

Yet the green wound that stays with me more

Is ever greener than these three shall be:

Laurel and ivy and the holly tree.

-Etienne Jodelle (tr. Charles Causley)

 

Well, it's not winter yet, but we've reached that time when most of the greens have changed to red and yellow and are fast disappearing; all the green that's left are those three.

 

Étienne Jodelle (1532-1573) was a French poet and dramatist, one of the members of that group of poets known as La Pléiade. Joachim du Bellay, the founder of La Pléiade, showed up on the blog in a translation by Richard Wilbur. This lovely translation is by Charles Causley and is from his book Secret Destinations. 

 

I looked up the French, just because...

J'aime le verd laurier

J'aime le verd laurier, dont l'hyver ny la glace

N'effacent la verdeur en tout victorieuse,

Monstrant l'eternité à jamais bien heureuse

Que le temps, ny la mort ne change ny efface.

J'aime du hous aussi la toujours verte face

Les poignons eguillons de sa fueille espineuse:

J'aime la lierre aussi, et sa branche amoureuse

Qui le chesne ou le mur estroitement embrasse.

J'aime bien tous ces trois, qui toujours verds ressemblent

Aux pensers immorteles, qui dedans moy s'assemblent,

De toy que nuict et jour idolatre, j'adore:

Mais ma playe, et poincture, et le Noeu qui me serre,

Est plus verte, et poignante, et plus estroit encore

Que n'est le verd laurier, ny le hous, ny le lierre.

-Étienne Jodelle

It's archaic now, of course, but it didn't actually seem that difficult, at least once I learned the words for ivy and holly...

Poem For A Thursday: du Bellay/Wilbur

Hubert contemplating a great journey

Happy the Man

Happy the man who, journeying far and wide
As Jason or Ulysses did, can then
Turn homeward, seasoned in the ways of men,
And claim his own, and there in peace abide! 

When shall I see the chimney-smoke divide
The sky above my little town: ah, when
Stroll the small gardens of that house again
Which is my realm and crown, and more beside? 

Better I love the plain, secluded home
My fathers built, than bold façades of Rome;
Slate pleases me as marble cannot do; 

Better than Tiber's flood my quiet Loire,
Those little hills than these, and dearer far
Than great sea winds the zephyrs of Anjou.

-Joachim du Bellay (tr. Richard Wilbur)

Joachim du Bellay was a French poet of the 1500s, one of the so-called Pleiades, seven French poets of that era. He was in Rome when this poem was written, serving as a secretary to his cousin, the cardinal Jean du Bellay.

Richard Wilbur was a wonderful American poet who passed away in 2017.

Here's the French text for those for whom it's useful... 😉

Heureux qui, comme Ulysse, a fait un beau voyage

Heureux qui, comme Ulysse, a fait un beau voyage
Ou comme cestuy-là qui conquit la toison
Et puis est retourné, plein de usage et raison,
Vivre entre ses parents le reste de son âge!

Quand reverrai-je, hélas, de mon petit village
Fumer le cheminée, et en quelle saison
Reverrai-je le clos de mon pauvre maison
Qui m'est une provence, et beaucoup davantage? 

Plus me plâit le séjour qu'ont bâti mes aïeux,
Que des palais romains le front audacieux
Plus que le marbre dur me plâit l'ardoise fine:

Plus mon Loire gaulois, que le Tibre latin,
Plus mon petit Liré, que le mont Palatin,
Et plus que l'air marin la douceur angevine.

-Joachim du Bellay

Jennifer at Holds Upon Happiness has a wonderful poem by Elinor Wylie this week.