Seven years after Rabelais died, Ronsard wrote this off-hand. I give it,
not for its value, but because it connects these two great names. The
man who wrote it had seen that large and honorable mouth worshipping
wine: he had reverenced that head of laughter which has corrected all
our philosophy. It would be a shame to pass such a name as Ronsard's
signed to an epitaph on such a work as that of Rabelais, poetry or no
poetry.
Ronsard also from a tower at Meudon used to creep out at night and drink
with that fellow-priest, vicar of the Parish, Rabelais: a greater man
than he.
By a memory separate from the rest of his verse, Ronsard was moved to
write this Rabelaisian thing. For he had seen him "full length upon the
grass and singing so."
There is no need of notes, for these great names of Gargantua, Panurge
and Friar John are household to every honest man.
_THE EPITAPH ON RABELAIS._
_Si d'un mort qui pourri repose
Nature engendre quelque chose,
Et si la génération
Se faict de la corruption,
Une vigne prendra naissance
Du bon Rabelais qui boivoit
Tousjours ce pendant qu'il vivoit;_
_Demi me se troussoit les bras
Et se couchoit tout plat à bas
Sur la jonchée entre les tasses
Et parmy les escuelles grasses_
_Il chantait la grande massue
Et la jument de Gargantue,
Le grand Panurge et le jaïs
Des papimanes ébahis,
Leurs loix, leurs façons et demeures
Et Frère Jean des Antonneures.
Et d'Espisteme les combas.
Mais la Mort qui ne boivoit pas
Tira le beuveur de ce monde
Et ores le fait boire de l'onde
Du large fleuve d'Achéron._
"MIGNONNE ALLONS VOIR SI LA ROSE."
(_The 17th Ode of the First Book._)
"In these eighteen lines," says very modernly a principal critic, "lies
Ronsard's fame more surely than in all the remaining mass of his works."
He condemns by implication Ronsard's wide waste of power; but the few
other poems that I have here had room to print, should make the reader
careful of such judgements. It is true that in the great hoard which
Ronsard left his people there are separate and particular jewels set in
the copper and the gold, but the jewels are very numerous: indeed it was
almost impossible to choose so few as I have printed here.
If it be asked why this should have become the most famous, no answer
can be given save the "flavour of language." It is the perfection of his
tongue. Its rhythm reaches the exact limit of change which a simple
metre will tolerate: where it saddens, a lengthy hesitation at the
opening of the seventh line introduces a new cadence, a lengthy
lingering upon the last syllables of the tenth, eleventh and twelfth
closes a grave complaint. So, also by an effect of quantities, the last
six lines rise out of melancholy into their proper character of appeal
and vivacity: an exhortation.
Certainly those who are so unfamiliar with French poetry as not to know
that its whole power depends upon an extreme subtlety of rhythm, may
find here the principal example of the quality they have missed.
Something much less weighty than the stress of English lines, a just
perceptible difference between nearly equal syllables, marks the
excellent from the intolerable in French prosody: and to feel this truth
in the eighteen lines that follow it is necessary to read them virtually
in the modern manner--for the "s" in "vesprée" or "vostre" were
pedantries in the sixteenth century--but one must give the mute "e's"
throughout as full a value as they have in singing. Indeed, reading this
poem, one sees how it must have been composed to some good and simple
air in the man's head.
If the limits of a page permitted it, I would also show how worthy the
thing was of fame from its pure and careful choice of verb--"Tandis que
vostre age _fleuronne_"--but space prevents me, luckily, for all this is
like splitting a diamond.
"_MIGNONNE ALLONS VOIR SI LA ROSE._"
_Mignonne, allons voir si la rose
Qui ce matin avoit desclose
Sa robe de pourpre au soleil
A point perdu ceste vesprée
Les plis de sa robe pourprée
Et son teint au vostre pareil_
_Las! Voyez comme en peu d'espace
Mignonne, elle a dessus la place,
Las! Las! ses beautez laissé cheoir!
O vrayment marastre nature,
Puis qu'une telle fleur ne dure
Que du matin jusques au soir!_
_Donc si vous me croyez, Mignonne,
Tandis que vostre age fleuronne
En sa plus verte nouveauté,
Cuillez, Cuillez vostre jeunesse:
Comme à ceste fleur, la veillesse
Fera ternir vostre beauté._
THE "SONNETS FOR HÉLÈNE"
(_The 42nd and 43rd Sonnets of the Second Book._)
Hélène was very real. A young Maid of Honour to Catherine de Medicis;
Spanish by blood, Italian by breeding, called in France "de Sugères,"
she was the gravest and the wisest, and, for those who loved serenity,
the most beautiful of that high and brilliant school.
The Sonnets began as a task; a task the Queen had set Ronsard, with
Hélène for theme: they ended in the last strong love of Ronsard's life.
A sincere lover of many women, he had come to the turn of his age when
he saw her, like a memory of his own youth. He has permitted to run
through this series, therefore, something of the unique illusion which
distance in time or space can lend to the aspect of beauty. An emotion
so tenuous does not appear in any other part of his work: here alone you
find the chastity or weakness which made something in his mind come near
to the sadder Du Bellay's: his soul is regardant all the while as he
writes: visions rise from her such as never rose from Cassandra; as this
great picture at the opening of the 58th Sonnet of the Second Book:
Seule sans compagnie en une grande salle
Tu logeois l'autre jour pleine de majesté.
These "Sonnets for Hélène" should be common knowledge: they are (with Du
Bellay's) the evident original upon which the author of Shakespeare's
Sonnets modelled his work: they are the late and careful effort of
Ronsard's somewhat spendthrift genius.
Here are two of them. One, the second, most famous, the other, the
first, hardly known: both are admirable.
It is the perfection of their sound which gives them their peculiar
quality. The very first lines lead off with a completed harmony: it is
as thoroughly a winter night as that in Shakespeare's song, but it is
more solemn and, as it were, more "built of stone...."
"La Lune Ocieuse, tourne si lentement son char tout à l'entour", is like
a sleeping statue of marble.
To this character, the second adds a vivid interest of emotion which has
given it its special fame. Even the populace have come to hear of this
sonnet, and it is sung to a lovely tune. It has also what often leads to
permanent reputation in verse, a great simplicity of form. The Sextet is
well divided from the Octave, the climax is clearly underlined. Ronsard
was often (to his hurt) too scholarly to achieve simplicity: when, under
the clear influence of some sharp passion or gaiety he did achieve it,
then he wrote the lines that will always remain:
A fin qu'à tout jamais de siècle en siècle vive,
La Parfaicte amitié que Ronsard la portait.
_THE "SONNETS FOR HÉLÈNE."_