Louise Labe
Sonnet XXIV
Ladies, reproach not my amours:
If I for burning firebrands languish,
Feel pricks and pangs and biting anguish,
If I with weeping waste my hours,
Do not abuse me with your blame.
If I have erred, the pains are pressing;
Make not their rigours more distressing:
Think that if Cupid but take aim,
Never your Vulcan-heat excusing,
Never Adonis’ charms accusing,
Cupid can swell your tender yearning,
Having not even my occasion,
Yet knowing stranger, stronger passion.
Then guard ye well ‘gainst fortune’s turning.
Louise Labé, c.1524–1556, was the leading woman poet of the French Renaissance. ‘La belle cordière de Lyon’ (her husband was a ropemaker, like her father) was a poet of the most delicate wit. She left 24 Sonnets, three Elegies and the Debate of Folly and Love, an elaborate prose work. She also inspired 24 Hommages, or tributes to herself, which appeared in her lifetime: some of them are by the best French poets of the day. Her sonnets have been recreated in English at least five times, but no other version of the Elegies is known to this translator. She is said to have fought at the battle of Perpignan, disguised as a knight, but this may be just another of the rumours that accrued to her name.
Timothy Ades, born in 1941, learnt classical verse composition at school, read Mods & Greats at Oxford and studied international business management. His 33 Sonnets of Jean Cassou were placed equal first in the BCLA/BCLT Prize, 1996. His version of Homer in Cuernavaca by Alfonso Reyes is forthcoming. From German he has translated works by Hans Arp, Ricarda Huch and Brecht. His work from French includes Hugo’s Booz Endormi and other (lipogrammatic) poems in MPT 8, where some of the Cassou sonnets first appeared.
Translated by Timothy Ades
Page(s) 111
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