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Preparing this poem took 14 hours of my free time !!! Support my effort ; please make a donation or buy my French books.

1- Poème : Ode à Cassandre, de Pierre de Ronsard

Part 1

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Part 2

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Mignonne, allons voir si la rose
Qui ce matin avoit 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 vôtre 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, mignonne,
Tandis que votre âge fleuronne
En sa plus verte nouveauté,
Cueillez, cueillez vôtre jeunesse :
Comme à cette fleur la vieillesse
Fera ternir votre beauté.

2- Translation

Sweetheart, let’s see if the rose
That this morning had open
Her crimson dress to the Sun,
This evening hasn’t lost
The folds of her crimson dress,
And her complexion similar to yours.

Ah! See how in such short space
My sweetheart, she has on this very spot
All her beauties lost!
O, so un-motherly Nature,
Since such a beautiful flower
Only last from dawn to dusk!

So if you believe me, my sweetheart,
While time still flowers for you,
In its freshest novelty,
Do take advantage of your youthful bloom:
As it did to this flower, the doom
Of age will blight your beauty.

3- Additionnal vocabulary

Mignonne (masc mignon) ; sweet, cute . here, sweetheart
Lisse ; flat
Capitalisant (vb capitaliser) ; make upper case.
Un interlocuteur ; someone you speak to
la haine : hatred
Il lui pose... le bras sur l'épaule ; he puts his arm on her shoulder
Ternir ; to tarnish
Le déstin : destiny
La laideur : uglyness
-----------------------------
la cour ; the court
le rythme - pronounced "reet m"
Nous éblouie (vb éblouir): blinds us
coulant ; running as a river
envoûtant : hypnotizing, enchanting, entrancing.
Déséspoir : despair
Le fait que cela se passé ; the fact that it happens
Bienveillante ; benevolant
une imploration ; earnest begging
malgrès ; in spite of
se rapprocher ; to get closer
grace a : thanks to
elle se laissera convaincre ; she 'll (let herself) be convinced
une ode : an ode, a lyric poem with lofty feelings and dignified style
Une élégie : an elegy, a mournful poem praising the deads.
Une epopée ; a poem that tells an adventure and praises the courage of the heroes.
D'un côté, de l'autre ; on the one hand, on the other hand.
Le jardinage : gardening
des lieux ; places
Presque : almost

PS; a subscriber was nice enough to give me the info about "fleuronner". She looked in the "Larousse Dictionnaire du moyen francais: La Renaissance" and found the following entry: "fleuronner v. (1475 Georges Chastelain): 1. fleurir (au propre et au fig): "Envie y coeurt, discordance y fleuronne (Georges Chastelain). - 2. v. pron. Se couvrir de fleurs.
Merci Melanie :-)

Go to this site to hear another reading of the poem
http://www.wheatoncollege.edu/Academic/academicdept/French/ViveVoix/Resources/cassandre.html




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