Pyrenees

[The Pyrenees]


French:

Pyrénées


Montagne des grands abusés,
Au sommet de vos tours fiévreuses
Faiblit la dernière clarté.

Rien que la vide et l’avalanche,
La détresse et le regret!

Tous ces troubadours mal-aimés
Ont vu blanchir dans un été
Leur doux royaume pessimiste.

Ah! la neige est inexorable
Qui aime qu’on souffre à ses pieds,
Qui veut que l’on meure glacé
Quand on a vécu dans les sables.

- René Char (1907-1988)

Literal translation:

Pyrénées
Pyrenees


Montagne des grands abusés,
Mountain of the deluded great,
Au sommet de vos tours fiévreuses
at the summit of your feverish towers
Faiblit la dernière clarté.
The last light is dying.

Rien que la vide et l’avalanche,
Nothing but emptiness and the avalanche,
La détresse et le regret!
Distress and regret!

Tous ces troubadours mal-aimés
All those ill-loved troubadours
Ont vu blanchir dans un été
saw whiten in one summer
Leur doux royaume pessimiste.
Their sweet pesimistic realm.

Ah! la neige est inexorable
Ah! The snow is inexorable
Qui aime qu’on souffre à ses pieds,
Which likes one to suffer at its feet,
Qui veut que l’on meure glacé
Which wants one to die frozen
Quand on a vécu dans les sables.
When one has lived in the sands.

[René Char]

•

Versions:

1.

Last clear the Pyrénées mountain
which in regard to travelling
where you are enthusiastic,
freezes dying thing someone

What place sky and avalanche,
desperation and sorrow!
As for state that those [torabadouru]
[pessimistic kingdom you looked]
at even été of leykanei sweetly.

Well! As for the snow
who suffers with the desired
as for him that foot likes there is no pardon.
just is used is large you dig under.
are bad entirely
when you have lived in the sand

2.

Last clear the Pyrénées mountain
which in regard to travelling where
you are enthusiastic, just is used
is large you dig under.

What place sky and avalanche,
desperation and sorrow!
As for state that those [torabadouru] are
bad entirely [pessimistic kingdom you looked] at
even été of leykanei sweetly.

Well! As for the snow when you have lived
in the sand, as for him, freezes dying thing
someone who suffers with the desired
that foot likes there is no pardon.

3.

Pyrenees


The abused Mountain of the great ones,
To the cimeira of your febris returns
weakens the last clarity.

Nothing that the emptiness and the avalanche,
the affliction and the lamentation!
All troubadours badly Saw
to branquear in a summer its soft pessimistic kingdom.

Ah! the snow is inexorable
Who likes that it suffers its feet to it,
That wants it is died frozen
When was lived in sands.

- Joe Snacks, Edmund Duckett & Jimmy Knuckle Dragger