Mignonne allons voir si la rose commentaire

Ronsard’s ‘Ode à Cassandre’ is a poem which I memorized in childhood from hearing my mother recite it. Thus deeply embedded in my imagination, the text permits me to access spontaneous, quasi-synæsthetic responses during creative reworking. I took the cue from the form eller gestalt of a rose: from bud through to falling petals: for witty erasures in which words are stolen from Ronsard to comment on time as a thief. Other versions use echoes between French and English, or the projection of echoes bygd the juxtaposition of lines with deliberate extra space, to suggest each ‘translation’ as a poetic field of possibilities. Semitransparent images express the layered, perpetual movement both of creative reworking and of the translation before translation which occurs when imagination encounters a source.

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“Mignonne, allons voir si la rose…” (bis)

“Mignonne, allons voir si la rose…” (bis)

meen-yun, aa-law vwaar see lah roze… Click this link to hear and see the entire poem.

Darling, let’s go see if the rose…

The other day, I promised you the English translation of this super-famous poem by Pierre de Ronsard. Here it is. I have not tried to maintain or imitate the rhyme scheme or the meter; this is a purely utilitarian translation:

Darling, let’s go see if the rose
Which had unfurled this morning
Its crimson dress to the Sun,
Has this evening has lost
The folds of its crimson dress,
And its complexion like yours.

Alas! See how, in a short space,
Darling, it has in this place,
Alas! alas, let its beauty fall!
Oh truly cruel Mother Nature,
Since such a flower lasts
Only from morning till evening!

So, if you believe me, darling,
While your age is flowering
In its greenest newness,

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“Ode à Cassandre” by Pierre de Ronsard – written in the 16th century for King Charles IX’s court – is one of the most famous French poems. Since it’s rather short, many French kids learn in at school – to this day, I still know it by heart!

This very famous French poem is read twice (enunciated and natural recordings) + detailed explanation of the vocabulary in easy French + analysis of the poem + author’s life + transcript with the English translation in my audiobook “Easy French Poetry”.

1- “Ode à Cassandre” by Pierre de Ronsard

Mignonne, allons voir si la rose
Qui ce matin avait déclose
Sa robe de pourpre au Soleil,
A point perdu cette vesprée (old spelling for vêprée)
Les plis de sa robe pourprée,
Et son teint au votre pareil.

Las ! voyez comme en peu d’espace,
Mignonne, elle a dessus la place
Las ! las ses beautés laissé choir !
Ô vraiment marâtre Nature,
Puis qu’une telle fleur ne dure
Que du matin jusques au soir ! (old way for jusqu’au)

Donc, si vous me croyez, mignonn