FRANÇOIS VILLON

1431 - c. 1485

DES DAMES DU TEMPS JADIS

This poem provides examples of a ballade, envoi, refrain, and the ubi sunt motif. An English translation follows.

Dites moi où, n'en quel pays,
Est Flora, la belle Romaine;
Archipiades, ni Thaïs,
Qui fut sa cousine germaine;
Écho, parlant quand bruit on mène

François Villon is recognized as one of the greatest French poets and this is one of his most famous poems. The refrain, "Mais où sont les neiges d'antan?," translates into English as the well-known line, "But where are the snows of yester-year?"

Dessus rivière ou sus étang,
Qui beauté eut trop plus qu'humaine?
Mais où sont les neiges d'antan?

Où est la très sage Héloïs,
Pour qui châtré fut et puis moine
Pierre Esbaillart à Saint Denis?

Villon's life as a vagabond poet inspired J. H. M'Carthy's novel, If I were King, which subsequently provided the source of the libretto for the operetta, The Vagabond King.

Pour son amour eut cette essoyne.
Semblablement où est la reine
Qui commanda que Buridan
Fut jeté en un sac en Seine?
Mais où sont les neiges d'antan?

La reine Blanche comme lys,
Qui chantait à voix de sirène,
Berthe au grand piéd, Bietris, Alis,
Haremburgis qui tint le Maine,
Et Jeanne la bonne Lorraine,

To Ballade in the Glossary
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To Envoi in the Glossary
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To Refrain in the Glossary
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To Ubi Sunt in the Glossary
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Qu'Anglais brulèrent à Rouen;
Où sont-ils, où, Vierge souv'raine?
Mais où sont les neiges d'antan?

        Envoi

THE BALLAD OF DEAD LADIES

Tell me now in what hidden way is
Lady Flora the lovely Roman?
Where's Hipparchia, and where is Thais,
Neither of them the fairer woman?
Where is Echo, beheld of no man,
Only heard on river and mere,-
She whose beauty was more than human?.
But where are the snows of yester-year?

Where's Heloise, the learned nun,
For whose sake Abeillard, I ween,
Lost manhood and put priesthood on?
(From Love he won such a dule and teen!)
And where, I pray you, is the Queen
Who willed that Buridan should steer
Sewed in a sack's mouth down the Seine?.
But where are the snows of yester-year?

White Queen Blanche, like a queen of lilies,
With a voice like any mermaiden,-
Bertha Broadfoot, Beatrice, Alice,
And Ermengarde the lady of Maine,-
And that good Joan whom Englishmen
At Rouen doomed and burned her there,-
Mother of God, where are they then?.
But where are the snows of yester-year?

Nay, never ask this week, fair lord,
Where they are gone, nor yet this year,
Save with thus much for an overword,-
But where are the snows of yester-year?

(Translation by Dante Gabriel Rossetti)