Ravel Jeux d’eau
Ravel Ondine
“Listen! listen! it’s me, it’s Ondine who’s flicking these droplets of water at your window panes, pale hollows lit with the moon’s anemic light, and here, do you see her? the lady of the castle in her silk gown, contemplating from her balcony, the starladen night above the sleeping lake.
Each wavecrest is a nymph who swims the current, each current a watery path snaking towards my palace, my palace so fluidly built upon the bottom of the lake, in the triangle of fire, earth, and air.
Listen! listen! – my father thrashes the frog-voiced water with a branch of green alder, and my sisters caress with their foaming limbs the little floating islands of wild grass, water-lilies and gladiola, and tease the willow, swarthy and bearded, fishing with hook and line.”
Her song murmured softly away, and she begged for my finger to fill her ring, to be the husband of Ondine, to swim with her down to her palace, there to be the king of the lakes.
And when she heard me answer that I loved another, a mortal, she sulked and pouted, shed a few tears, then burst out laughing and dissolved in showery spray, spilling herself in white streams down my blue window panes.
À Chloris
French source: Théophile de Viau
S'il est vrai, Chloris, que tu m'aimes, Ondine
Mais j'entends, que tu m'aimes bien,
Je ne crois pas que les rois mêmes
Aient un bonheur pareil au mien.
Que la mort serait importune
à venir changer ma fortune
Pour la félicité des cieux!
Tout ce qu'on dit de l'ambroisie
Ne touche point ma fantaisie
Au prix des grâces de tes yeux.
To Chloris
English translation © Richard Stokes
If it be true, Chloris, that you love me,
(And I'm told you love me dearly),
I do not believe that even kings
Can match the happiness I know.
Even death would be powerless
To alter my fortune
With the promise of heavenly bliss!
All that they say of ambrosia
Does not stir my imagination
Like the favour of your eyes!
Chanson triste
French source: Jean Lahor
Dans ton cœur dort un clair de lune,
Un doux clair de lune d’été,
Et pour fuir la vie importune,
Je me noierai dans ta clarté.
J’oublierai les douleurs passées,
Mon amour, quand tu berceras
Mon triste cœur et mes pensées
Dans le calme aimant de tes bras.
Tu prendras ma tête malade,
Oh! quelquefois sur tes genoux,
Et lui diras une ballade
Qui semblera parler de nous;
Et dans tes yeux pleins de tristesses,
Dans tes yeux alors je boirai
Tant de baisers et de tendresses
Que peut-être je guérirai.
Song of sadness
English translation
Moonlight slumbers in your heart,
A gentle summer moonlight,
And to escape the cares of life
I shall drown myself in your light.
I shall forget past sorrows,
My sweet, when you cradle
My sad heart and my thoughts
In the loving calm of your arms.
You will rest my poor head,
Ah! sometimes on your lap,
And recite to it a ballad
That will seem to speak of us;
And from your eyes full of sorrow,
From your eyes I shall then drink
So many kisses and so much love
That perhaps I shall be healed.
L'invitation au voyage
French source: Charles Baudelaire
Mon enfant, ma sœur,
Songe à la douceur
D’aller là-bas vivre ensemble!
Aimer à loisir,
Aimer et mourir
Au pays qui te ressemble!
Les soleils mouillés
De ces ciels brouillés
Pour mon esprit ont les charmes
Si mystérieux
De tes traîtres yeux,
Brillant à travers leurs larmes.
Là, tout n’est qu’ordre et beauté,
Luxe, calme et volupté!
Vois sur ces canaux
Dormir ces vaisseaux
Dont l’humeur est vagabonde;
C’est pour assouvir
Ton moindre désir
Qu’ils viennent du bout du monde.
-Les soleils couchants
Revêtent les champs,
Les canaux, la ville entière,
D’hyacinthe et d’or;
Le monde s’endort
Dans une chaude lumière.
Là, tout n’est qu’ordre et beauté,
Luxe, calme et volupté!
Invitation to journey
English translation
My child, my sister,
Think how sweet
To journey there and live together!
To love as we please,
To love and die
In the land that is like you!
The watery suns
Of those hazy skies
Hold for my spirit
The same mysterious charms
As your treacherous eyes
Shining through their tears.
There - nothing but order and beauty dwell,
Abundance, calm, and sensuous delight.
See on those canals
Those vessels sleeping,
Vessels with a restless soul;
To satisfy
Your slightest desire
They come from the ends of the earth.
The setting suns
Clothe the fields,
Canals and all the town
With hyacinth and gold;
The world falls asleep
In a warm light.
There - nothing but order and beauty dwell,
Abundance, calm, and sensuous delight.