well today's Christmas Eve and we're on the brink of another New Year. In anticipation of some of the changes I'm looking forward to, and in reflection of years gone by, I stumbled upon another translation I did a couple of years ago. The text that I have translated is the song lyrics for Pierre Bensusan's track "Demain dès l'aube", which is composed of lines from Victor Hugo's poem of the same name as well as lines from another poem "A Villequier".
I'm pretty happy with the translation, although the penultimate stanza was a bit harder to render (I'll have to spend some more time thinking of suitable words that rhyme with Harfleur!), so if anyone has any helpful suggestions or comments I'd be glad to hear them!
DEMAIN DES L'AUBE / A VILLEQUIER
(Texte: Victor Hugo, Musique: Pierre Bensusan)
Demain, dès l'aube, à l'heure où blanchit la campagne,
Je partirai. Je sais que tu m'attends.
J'irai par la forêt, j'irai par la montagne,
Je ne puis demeurer loin de toi plus longtemps.
Tomorrow, at dawn, when the sun bleaches the land,
I will leave, I know you wait for me.
I’ll go by the forest, I’ll go through the mountains.
No longer can I bear to be away from thee.
Je marcherai les yeux fixés sur mes pensées,
Sans rien voir au dehors, sans entendre aucun bruit.
Seul, inconnu, le dos courbé, les mains croisées,
Et le jour pour moi sera comme la nuit.
I will walk in a world of my own,
Hearing no sounds, without sight,
Alone, back bent, hands crossed, unknown,
And the day for me will be as night.
Maintenant que Paris, ses pavés et ses marbres,
Et sa brume et ses toits sont bien loin de mes yeux;
Maintenant que je suis sous les branches des arbres,
Et que je puis songer à la beauté des cieux.
Now that Paris, with her marble and streets,
Her mist and her roofs are so far from my eyes,
Now that I am beneath the branches of trees,
And I can dream of the beauty of the skies.
Maintenant qu'attendri par ces divins spectacles
Plaines, rochers, forêts, vallons, fleuves argentés,
Voyant ma petitesse et voyant vos miracles,
Je reprends ma raison devant l'immensité.
Now I am moved by these divine spectacles,
Field, crag, forest, valley, silver stream,
Seeing how small I am, seeing your miracles,
I come to my senses before your creation supreme
Nous ne voyons jamais qu'un seul côté des choses;
L'autre plonge en la nuit d'un mystère effrayant.
L'homme subit le joug sans connaître les causes.
Tout ce qu'il voit est court, inutile et fuyant.
We only ever see one side of life;
The rest is shrouded in terrifying mystery.
Man bears his burdens without knowing why.
All he sees is short, useless, and fleeting.
Je ne regarderai ni l'or du soir qui tombe,
Ni les voiles au loin descendant vers Harfleur,
Et, quand j'arriverai, je mettrai sur ta tombe
Un bouquet de houx et de bruyère en fleur.
I will not watch the gold of the evening rays,
Nor the distant sails of journeys resumed.
And once I have arrived, I will place on your grave,
A bouquet of holly and heather in bloom.
Nous ne voyons jamais qu'un seul côté des choses;
L'autre plonge en la nuit d'un mystère effrayant.
L'homme subit le joug sans connaître les causes.
Tout ce qu'il voit est court, inutile et fuyant.
We only ever see one side of life;
The rest is shrouded in terrifying mystery.
Man bears his burdens without knowing why.
All he sees is short, useless, and fleeting.
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It is not the sun that bleaches the land at dawn
ReplyDeleteHi Cynthia,
Deletethanks for the comment. You're absolutely right in that it doesn't explicitly mention the sun in the original French. My translation (done quite a few years ago now) is in places more an interpretation of Hugo's original text as sometimes it's difficult to render a poetic image into anything even vaguely aesthetically pleasing in a different language. I'm sure this translation could do with some more work to make it sound better in English whilst still staying true to the original! :)
Happy New Year!
Hi! How happy would you be for your translation to be used (credited, and with some changes) in a cover of the song? Thanks
ReplyDeleteHi sorry for the very slow reply. Thanks for asking but I'd rather not have my translations used outside this blog as it's really just for fun, and therefore not all that accurate (as the comments show!).
DeleteThanks for checking it out though. All the best. X