Fiancailles Pour Rire

Translation by Johnson, Graham and Richard Stokes ix

Fiancailles Pour Rire is a song cycle based on the poetry of a dear friend, Louise de Vilmorin. Poulenc
considered these texts to be truly feminine. The poetry is slight, modest, elegant: nostalgia and
reflection, rather than action or immediacy, are the important themes throughout the otherwise unrelated
poems. The overall emotional atmosphere is bittersweet, which Poulenc delicately underscores.
Fianailles pour Rire, Light-Hearted Betrothal
(Louise de Vilmorin)

La dame dAndr Andrs ladyfriend

Andr ne connat pas la dame Andr does not know the woman
Quil prend aujourdhui par la main. Whose hand he takes today.
A-t-elle un coeur lendemains Has she a heart for the future,
Et pour le soir a-t-elle une me? And for evening has she a soul?
Au retour dun bal campagnard Returning from a country dance,
Sen allait-elle en robe vague Did she in her loose-fitting gown
Chercher dans le meules la bague Go and seek in the haystacks
Des fianailles du hassard? The ring of random betrothal?
A-t-elle eu peur, la nuit venue, Was she afraid, when night fell,
Guette par les ombres dhier. Watched by the ghosts of the past,
Dans son jardin lorsque lhiver In her garden, when winter
Entrait par la grande avenue? Entered by the wide avenue?
Il la aime pour sa couleur He loved her for her complexion,
Pour sa bonne humeur de Dimanche. For her Sunday good humour.
Plira-t-elle aux feuilles blanches Will she fade on the blank pages
De son album des temps meilleurs? Of his album of better days?

Dans lherbe
Je ne peux plus rien dire In the grass
Ni rien faire pour lui. I can say nothing more
Il est mort de sa belle Do nothing more for him.
Il est mort de sa mort belle He died for his fair one
Dehors He died a fair death
Sous larbre de la Loi Outside
En plein silence Beneath the tree of Justice
En plein paysage In utter silence
Dans lherbe. In open country
Il est mort inaperu In the grass.
Encriant son passage He died unnoticed
En appelant, en mappelant Crying out as he passed away
Mais comme jtais loin de lui Calling, Calling me
Et que sa voix ne portait plus But since I was far from him
Il est mort seul dans les bois And since his voice no longer carried
Sous son arbre denfance He died alone in the woods
Beneath his childhood tree
Et je ne peux plus rien dire
Ni rien faire pour lui
And I can say nothing more
Il vole*
En allant se coucher le soleil
Se reflte au vernis de ma table:
Cest le fromage rond de la fable
Au bec de mes ciseaux de vermeil.
Mais o est le corbeau? Il vole.
Je voudrais coudre mais un aimant
Attire lui toutes mes aiguilles.
Sur la place les joueurs de quilles
De belle en belle passent le temps.
Mais o est mon amant? Il vole.
Cest un voleur que jai pour amant,
Le corbeau vole et mon amant vole,
Voleur de coeur manque sa parole
Et voleur de fromage est absent.
Mais o est le bonheur? Il vole.
Je pleure sous le saule pleureur
Je mle mes larmes ses feuilles
Je pleure car je veux quon me veuille
Et je ne plais pas mon voleur.
Mais o donc est lamour? Il vole.
Trouvez la rime ma draison
Et par les routes du paysage
Ramenez-moi mon amant volage
Qui prend les coeurs et perd ma raison.
Je veux que mon voleur me vole.
* Voler = to fly and to thieve, an almost
untranslatable double meaning.
Mon cadavre est doux comme un gant
Mon cadavre est doux comme un gant
Doux comme un gant de peau glace
Et mes prunelles effaces
Font de mes yeux des cailloux blancs.
Deux cailloux blancs dans mon visage,
Dans le silence deux muets
Ombrs encore dun secret
Et lourds du poids mort des images.
Mes doigts tant de fois gars
Sont joints en attitude sainte
Appuys au creux de mes plaints
Au noeud de mon coeur arrt.
Et mes deux pieds sont les montagnes,
Do nothing more for him.
Stealing away
The sun as it sets
Is reflected in my polished table
It is the round cheese of the fable
In the beak of my silver scissors.
But wheres the crow? Stealing away.
Id like to sew but a magnet
Attracts all my needles.
In the square the skittle players
Pass the time playing game after game.
But wheres my lover? Stealing away.
Ive a stealer for lover,
The crow steals away and my lover steals,
The stealer of my heart breaks his word
And the stealer of cheese is absent.
But where is happiness? Stealing away.
I weep under the weeping willow
I mingle my tears with its leaves
I weep because I want to be wanted
And because my stealer doesnt care for me.
But where can love be? Stealing away.
Find the sense in my nonsense
And along the country ways
Bring me back to my wayward lover
Who steals hearts and robs me of my senses.
I want my stealer to steal me.
Les deux derniers monts que jai vus
la minute o jai perdu
La course que les annes gagnent.
Mon souvenir est ressemblant.
Enfants emportez-le bien vite,
Allez, allez, ma vie est dite.
Mon cadavre est doux comme un gant.
My corpse is as soft as a glove
My corpse is as soft as a glove
Soft as a glove of frozen skin
And my hidden pupils
Make two white pebbles of my eyes.
Two white pebbles in my face
Two mutes in the silence
Still darkened by a secret
Laden with the dead weight of what theyve seen
My fingers that roved so often
Are joined in a saintly pose
Resting on the hollow of my sorrows
At the centre of my arrested heart.
And my two feet are mountains,
The last two hills that I saw
Violon
Couple amoureux aus accents mconnus
Le violon et son joueur me plaisent.
Ah! jaime ces gmissements tendus
Sur la corde des malaises.
Aux accords sur les cordes des pendus
lheure o les Lois se taisent
Le coeur en forme de fraise
Soffre lamour comme un fruit inconnu.
Fleurs
Fleurs promises, fleurs tenues dans tes bras,
Fleurs sorties des parenthses dun pas,
Qui tapportait ces fleurs lhiver
Saupoudrs du sable des mers?
Sable de tes baisers, fleurs des amours fanes
Les beaux yeux sont de cendre et dans la chemine
Un coeur enrubann de plaints
Brle avec ses images saintes.
At the very moment I lost the race
That the years always win.
My memory is resembling
Children, bear it swiftly away,
Go, go my life is over.
My corpse is a soft as a glove.
Violin
Loving couple of misapprehended sounds
Violin and player please me.
Ah! I love these long wailings
Stretched on the string of disquiet.
To the sound of strung-up chords
At the hour when Justice is silent
The heart shaped like a strawberry
Gives itself to love like an unknown fruit.
Flowers
Promised flowers, flowers held in your arms,
Flowers from a steps parentheses,
Who brought you these flowers in winter
Sprinkled with the seas sand?
Sand of your kisses, flowers of faded loves
Your lovely eyes are ashes and in the hearth
A moan-beribboned heart
Burns with its sacred images.