Product Description
Setting of the poem by Joachim du Bellay, composed and performed by David Warin Solomons
Score:
Original Poem followed by my (somewhat free) translation:
Heureux qui, comme Ulysse,
a fait un beau voyage,
Ou comme cestuy là
qui conquit la toison,
Et puis est retourné,
plein d'usage et raison,
Vivre entre ses parents
le reste de son aage!
Quand revoiray-je, hélas,
de mon petit village
Fumer la cheminée:
et en quelle saison
Revoiray-je le clos
de ma pauvre maison,
Qui m'est une province,
et beaucoup d'avantage?
Plus me plaist le sejour
qu'ont basty mes ayeux,
Que des palais Romains
le front audacieux:
Plus que le marbre dur
me plaist l'ardoise fine,
Plus mon Loyre Gaulois,
que le Tybre Latin,
Plus mon petit Lyré,
que le mont Palatin,
Et plus que l'air marin
la doulceur Angevine.
Happy the man, like Ulysses,
who's done his roaming
or he who took the Golden Fleece,
then in the gloaming
comes back home,
a wiser man:
lives with his own
his remaining span
But as for me,
when shall I see
the homely smoke
of my own chimney?
the garden plot
of my little home*?
My own domain
means more than Rome!
I much prefer the family pile
To that haughty rich façade
Give me my homely local tile
Not Roman marble,
proud and hard
The Gallic Loire,
not Latin Tiber
gives me my power
flows in my fibre
The Palatine
and salt sea air
are not so fine
as Anjou fair
(c) David W Solomons 2009
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