Poem into poem: Translating François Villon: Robert Schechter, ‘Ballade of the Ladies’
Would someone kindly tell me please
Where the Roman, Flora, went?
And where is Alcibiades,
Her cousin? In what continent?
And Echo, singing merriment…
Speak up now, someone, if you know,
Is Echo’s lovely timbre spent?
And where did last year’s snowflakes go?
And where on earth is Heloise
Whose lover’s private parts were rent,
The subject of such cruelties
Brought down in such a foul descent?
And where’s the Queen whose heart was bent
Against young Buridan so low
She drowned him in the Seine, poor gent?
And where did last year’s snowflakes go?
And Blanche, the Queen, who sang with ease,
And Siren-like made men content?
And Big Foot Bertha, Beatrice?
And Arembourg, Maine’s resident?
And Joan, who still would not relent
Although the flames attacked her so?
Virgin, my poor ears are bent!
And where did last year’s snowflakes go?
Prince, don’t ask me to invent
Responses that seem apropos.
In this refrain my answer’s pent:
And where did last year’s snowflakes go?
*****
Ballade des dames du temps jadis
Dictes moy où, n’en quel pays,
Est Flora, la belle Romaine ;
Archipiada, ne Thaïs,
Qui fut sa cousine germaine;
Echo, parlant quand bruyt on maine
Dessus rivière ou sus estan,
Qui beauté eut trop plus qu’humaine?
Mais où sont les neiges d’antan!
Où est la très sage Heloïs,
Pour qui fut chastré et puis moyne
Pierre Esbaillart à Sainct-Denys?
Pour son amour eut cest essoyne.
Semblablement, où est la royne
Qui commanda que Buridan
Fust jetté en ung sac en Seine?
Mais où sont les neiges d’antan!
La royne Blanche comme ung lys,
Qui chantoit à voix de sereine;
Berthe au grand pied, Bietris, Allys;
Harembourges qui tint le Mayne,
Et Jehanne, la bonne Lorraine,
Qu’Anglois bruslerent à Rouen;
Où sont-ilz, Vierge souveraine ?
Mais où sont les neiges d’antan!
Prince, n’enquerez de sepmaine
Où elles sont, ne de cest an,
Qu’à ce refrain ne vous remaine:
Mais où sont les neiges d’antan!
*****
Robert Schechter writes: “I wrote this translation of François Villon‘s Ballade several years ago and I don’t remember a whole lot about the process, other than there was a thread at Eratosphere where many people were trying their hand at a translation, and this was my own go at it. I tried to take a breezy tone, almost but not quite humorous, and to my amazement the rhymes I started with didn’t peter out before the ending.”
The poem is published in the current issue of Eclectica.
Robert Schechter is a past winner of the Willis Barnstone Translation Prize and the X.J. Kennedy Parody Award. His book of children’s poems, The Red Ear Blows Its Nose: Poems for Children and Others, was named one of the best books of 2023 by School Library Journal and Bank Street College, after receiving starred reviews from Kirkus Reviews, Booklist, and School Library Journal. His poems have appeared in The Washington Post, The Spectator, Highlights for Children, Cricket, Spider, Ladybug, The Caterpillar, The School Magazine, The Paris Review Online, Poetry East, Measure, Snakeskin, The Evansville Review, and Light, where he also appeared as a featured poet, as well as in several anthologies such as the Everyman’s Library Villanelles and The National Geographic Book of Nature Poetry.
Photo: “Statue of Francois Villon in Utrecht” by Dudva is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
