Villon, Tolstoi, Tharaud, Gillet. Cahier de Noël
SEVENTH CAHIER OF THE FOURTH SERIES
Christmas Cahier
CAHIERS DE LA QUINZAINE
appearing twenty times per year
PARIS
8, rue de la Sorbonne, ground floor
Ballade that Villon Made at the Request of His Mother to Pray to Our Lady
BALLADE THAT VILLON MADE AT THE REQUEST OF HIS MOTHER TO PRAY TO OUR LADY
Lady of the heavens, regent of the earth, Empress of the infernal marshes, Receive me, your humble Christian woman, That I may be counted among your elect, Notwithstanding that I was never worth anything. Your goods, my lady and my mistress, Are far greater than I am a sinner, Without which goods no soul can merit Nor have the heavens; I am no juggler. In this faith I wish to live and die.
Tell your Son that I am his; May my sins be abolished by him: Forgive me as he did the Egyptian woman, Or as he did for the clerk Theophilus, Who through you was acquitted and absolved, Although he had made a promise to the devil. Preserve me, that I never do such a thing, Virgin who bore, without rupture incurring, The sacrament that is celebrated at mass. In this faith I wish to live and die.
I am a poor old woman, Who knows nothing; never did I read a letter; At the parish church I see Paradise painted, where there are harps and lutes, And a hell where the damned are boiled: The one frightens me, the other gives me joy and gladness. Grant me the joy, high Goddess, To whom all sinners must have recourse, Filled with faith, without pretense or sloth. In this faith I wish to live and die.
ENVOI
You bore, worthy Virgin, princess, Jesus reigning, who has neither end nor cease. The Almighty, taking on our weakness, Left the heavens and came to succor us, Offered to death his most dear youth. Our Lord he is, such I confess him, In this faith I wish to live and die.
Three Letters of Tolstoi
These letters were published in the Athenaeum of October 1902, with the permission of Mr. Aylmer Maude.
The first, written in English, is addressed to John Bellows, president of the Committee of Friends of the Doukhobors, who had refused, on behalf of this committee, the money offered by Mr. Aylmer Maude and coming from his translation of Resurrection. He had written to Tolstoi to reproach him for the immorality of his book, complaining especially about chapter seventeen of Book I. The other two letters are in Russian.
Translation prepared for the cahiers by the care of Romain Rolland.
FIRST LETTER December 7, 1901 To John Bellows
Dear friend, I received your letter and I wished to answer it, but I have been so weak for the past two months that I could not do so. Thus, you must excuse my long silence.
I have read your letter twice and I have considered the matter as well as I could but I have not managed to resolve the question in a definitive manner. It is possible that you are right, but not for all those who will read the book. It is possible that I have a bad influence on people who will not read the whole book and will not grasp its meaning. But it can also, as was my intention, have the entirely opposite influence.
All I can say in my defense is that, when I read a book, what interests me above all is the Weltanschauung of the author: what he loves and what he hates. And I hope that whoever reads my book with this idea will see what the author loves and what he detests, and that he will be influenced by the feelings of the author. And I can say that when I wrote this book, I abhorred lust with all my heart, and one of the principal objects of the book was to express this horror. If I failed in this, I am very sorry, and I confess myself guilty, if I was inconsiderate enough, in the scene to which you allude, to produce on your mind so bad an impression.
I think that we shall be judged by our conscience and by God, not according to the result of our acts, but according to our intentions. And I hope that my intentions were not bad.
Yours truly
Leo Tolstoi
SECOND LETTER August 26, 1902 Dear Aylmer Maude
The Revue Blanche of last March contained a brief statement of views attributed to me on the question of the sexes, followed by the opinions of a certain number of French authors concerning these same views.
The opinions attributed to me there are of a grotesque absurdity and are merely an incorrect, inexact, and second-hand summary of a collection of articles and undated extracts, gathered and published by my friend Vladimir Chertkov. The curious thing is that not one of all the authors who expressed themselves on this subject suspected that he was the plaything of a mystification. All took the summary placed before them for the statement of my true opinions. I am therefore happy to see in your preface to the revised and corrected edition of Resurrection a new statement of my views on the question of the sexes, as reasonable as the summary in the Revue Blanche was absurd.
Leo Tolstoi
THIRD LETTER (Very recently written to a close relative) Dear S…
I was very happy to have a serious conversation with I… on the education of children. He and I found ourselves in complete agreement on one point which is only negative, namely that children should learn as little as possible. It is not nearly as bad for children to grow up without having learned certain things as to have an indigestion of education and to come to detest it: which happens to almost all, especially those whose education is directed by mothers who do not know the subjects learned by their children. A child or a man can learn when he has an appetite for what he studies. Without appetite, instruction is an evil, a terrible evil that makes people mentally infirm. For the love of heaven, dear S…, if you are not entirely of my opinion, be sure that I would not write to you on this subject if it were not a matter of such enormous importance. Above all, believe your husband who sees things quite reasonably.
But then comes the habitual objection. If one teaches nothing to children, how will they be occupied? Must they play knucklebones with the village children and learn all sorts of foolish and nasty things? With our kind of landowner’s life, this reply has some reason. But is it really necessary to accustom children to this kind of life and to make them feel that all their demands will always be satisfied by someone, without their having to take any part in the work? I think that the first condition of a good education is that the child should know that everything he uses does not fall ready-made from the sky, but is produced by the labor of other people. To understand that everything that keeps him alive comes from the work of other people who neither know him nor love him is too much for a child — God grant that he may understand it when he is grown up! — but to understand that the chamber pot he uses is emptied and wiped by a nurse or a maid, that the shoes and galoshes he always puts on clean are cleaned not out of love for him but for some other quite unintelligible reason, is something he can and must understand, and of which he ought to be ashamed. If he is not ashamed and continues to use them, that is the worst possible beginning of education and one that will leave the deepest traces for his whole life. Yet it is very simple to avoid this; and it is precisely what I, who am — to use poetic language — on the threshold of death, beg you to do for your children. Let them do for themselves everything they can; let them carry their dirty water, fill their pitchers, wash and tidy their room, clean their shoes and clothes, set the table, etc.
Believe me, these things, although they may seem unimportant, are a hundred times more important for the happiness of your children than knowledge of French or history, etc. It is true that here the principal difficulty presents itself: children only do willingly what their parents do; I therefore beg you, do these things. It will serve two ends: it will be possible to learn less, since the day will be filled in the most useful and natural way, and the children will thus become accustomed to simplicity, work, and self-sufficiency.
Please do this. You will be satisfied from the first month, and the children even more.
If you can add to this the work of the land, even if only a vegetable garden, that will be good, though that often becomes a mere pastime. The necessity of waiting on oneself and carrying one’s own dirty water is admitted by all the best schools such as Bedales, where the headmaster takes his share of the work.
Believe that without this condition, it is not possible to give children a moral education, a Christian education, and the consciousness of the brotherhood and equality of all men. A child can still understand that a grown man, his father, whether a banker or a turner, an artist or a foreman, who by his work feeds his whole family, can free himself from occupations that prevent him from devoting all his time to profitable work. But how can a child, not yet tested and still incapable of doing anything, explain to himself that others do for him what he ought naturally to do for himself?
For him, the only explanation is that people are divided into two classes: masters and slaves; and whatever you may tell him about the equality and brotherhood of men, his whole way of life, from rising until supper, proves the contrary. Not only does he cease to believe what his elders tell him about morality, but deep down in his soul, he sees that all these teachings are lies, and he ceases to believe his parents, his teachers; he even ceases to believe in the necessity of any kind of morality.
One more consideration. If it is not possible to do all that I have indicated, at least one must accustom the children to do the things whose lack they would feel if they were not done. For example, if clothes and shoes for going out have not been cleaned, one must not go out; if one has not fetched water and has not washed the dishes, one will have nothing to drink. Above all in this matter, do not fear ridicule. Nine-tenths of all the bad things in the world are done because not doing them would be considered ridiculous.
Leo Tolstoi
The Legend of the Virgin
Jérôme and Jean Tharaud
Mr. Joseph Bedier had pointed out to the Tharauds these tales of the Virgin. The Tharauds read them and give them to us today.
Faced with these ancient and authentic tales, two approaches present themselves. One can, as a scholar, as a historian, try to restore as exactly as possible, to reconstruct in its most personally exact form, the tale. One can, as an artist, as a historian, tell the tale in one’s turn, freely, under one’s responsibility as an artist.
There would indeed be a third method, which would be to achieve the perfect coincidence of the method of science and the method of art; it is this third method that Mr. Bedier was able to maintain in his restoration of Tristan and Iseult. Failing this third method, the Tharauds opted for the second. They have not altered the ancient legend. But they reserved the right to tell it freely in their turn, as the ancient storytellers themselves freely told it, without altering the common text. The legend, held in common, belongs to everyone. Those who bequeathed the legend to us had made it, were making and remaking it ceaselessly. The Tharauds are merely two more storytellers, after and among so many storytellers.
The five tales that follow are the first of a series that will be titled The Legend of the Virgin.
Of the Monk Who Wished to See Our Lady
A young monk was singing:
Mary is a sweet word in the mouth; Mary is a sweet song in the ear; Mary is a song of the heart;
Mary is the sole marvel;
Mary is the sweetness of the harp;
while he painted on the vellum of a book of hours the name of Our Lady in letters of gold, azure and white, vermilion and saffron.
No monk in the convent was more chaste of body and heart. None had a more candid soul, spun from the flax of the whitest virtues.
But his soul was consumed by a great desire.
Would he see only after his death the one he loved, the sweet lady precious above all things, among all women chosen, among all blessed, the glory of the world, the joy of heaven, the treasure of all mercy, the hope of all salvation, the gem, the lily and the wild rose, Our Lady Holy Mary? He would have wished to see her, if only once, with the eyes of his body.
Exact in singing each day his Hours, he prayed most humbly, at the end of each office, that she grant him, most unworthy as he was, the grace accorded to some holy men of old, to appear to him alone or in the Company of Angels.
To deceive a desire that the days, the weeks, the years exalted without satisfying, he painted on the most precious parchments images of her whom he had never seen and who filled his heart.
None of these paintings was alike: for his visions of the Queen of love were changing like the sky. He had even tried not to represent Our Lady in the form and appearance of a woman: pearls, springs, flowers became under his brush the figures of She who illuminates all the beautiful things of the world with a reflection of her beauty.
Yet an image he painted of the mother of God, in a flowering rose bush, her infant son in her arms, plunged him into such a rapture that he stopped painting, exhausted by a delicious fatigue. His brush fell from his fingers and his body languished in the arms of his chair. Through the open window the last rays of day entered the cell. The Virgin he had just painted on the vellum opened her lips and said to him:
— Dear sweet friend, live without worry. Your soul will be gathered into the company of the blessed. Because you have painted my image and written my name as beautifully as you could, your name shall be written in the book of life.
The monk fell to his knees:
— Sweet lady of Paradise, marvelous is this promise and with all my heart I cry: thank you! But, tell me, take me at once to the kingdom of your son; let me die this very hour and see you no longer under the features of this imperfect image, but as you truly are.
— Fair son, replied the image, your days are not mine: they belong to my son. I announce the hour of death to no one. But if you are so eager to see me, you shall see me. Only know that no living man has seen me without becoming blind.
The monk began to tremble with his whole body, with joy and hope:
— Who would not consent, to see you, Empress of Angels, to lose the light of his eyes?
But quickly the monk covered one eye with his hand, and with only one he looked. It was a dazzling vision of gold, azure and white, vermilion and saffron, in which he made out, amid flaming archangels, angels and virgin musicians, the queen of glory dressed in a robe the color of a May night, sown with all the planets and stars of heaven. So bright was her face that beside her splendor a summer’s day would seem black.
The Virgin and her retinue passed before the dazzled monk’s eye like a silent tempest, leaving in his soul such regret that he dissolved in tears and cried:
— Queen of beauty, have pity on your servant. Can he who has seen you once not desire to see you always? In the name of your son, allow me to see you a second time.
— You shall see me, replied the Image set upon the lectern, if you consent to lose the second of your eyes.
— It is yours, Queen of Angels, replied the monk, and all that I possess and my life.
— Look at me then once more if my sight is so delightful to you.
And the monk saw, in an immense bare plain, on a narrow path where some trees twisted in a furious wind, coming toward him, a humble woman, whose face, hands, and feet he could not make out, lost in the folds of a somber robe. When the poor woman passed near him she gently raised her head, and the monk beheld a face that was neither that of a young woman nor that of an old woman, nor that of a child, a face of eternity on which all the sorrow of the world was imprinted.
— Queen of pity, cried the monk stretching out his arms to hold for a second before him on the path this desolate apparition, — queen of pity, you are more beautiful still in your sadness than in your glory and your joy.
Our Lady was about to disappear in the distance of the road; she turned to say to the monk in ecstasy:
— Continue, fair sweet friend, to enjoy the sweet light of God.
Long after the plain, the path, the trees, and the divine passer-by had vanished, a fragrance sweeter than incense, myrrh, or cinnamon floated through the cell, where the pious painter made out in the deepening twilight with the fall of evening, all things remaining in their place, the lectern, the Image, the colors, with the light of his eyes.
— Queen of goodness, he cried, you did not wish to make me blind. You took one of my eyes and then returned it to me. Thank you. But willingly I would have consented to see nothing more for the rest of my life and to keep in the darkness the memory of your blessed passing.
To no cleric of his monastery did the monk say that he had seen Our Lady, and from that day he never touched a brush again.
To the prior who wondered at this, he answered:
— Poor are the lines, poor the colors, poor our art, to express sorrow and glory.
The Image
To honor and serve the emerald, the gem, the lily and the wild rose so pure, so precious that God made her his mother, Our Lady, a princess, abandoning her palace and her court, retired far from the city to a hermitage she had built.
She forgot the world, gave to God her body and her heart. She became a nun. From her open fingers alms flowed like rainwater dripping from branches: the paths leading to her retreat were strewn with begging folk who came to implore bread for the body, no doubt — but above all the grace of seeing her face of goodness. Merchants, clerks, rich men and men of high rank drawn by the renown of her virtue walked with the beggars: beggars themselves for counsel for their sinful, weary souls. One winter evening, the pious lady opened her door to a poor half-frozen cleric. When he had dried before the flame his robe heavy with snow and when from a deep bowl of soup he had warmed his heart:
— Is it indiscreet, fair sir, to ask where you are going? said the nun. Your staff, your shells, and your gourd announce a pilgrim.
— And pilgrim I am in truth, humbly replied the cleric.
— Pilgrim of which saint, of which tomb?
— I am a pilgrim of the king of glory, of the Holy Sepulchre in the city of Jerusalem.
— Mercy! cried the lady, who had never yet in her life seen a traveler bound for the holy tomb. Long is the road.
— Longer still shall be the grace, said the wayfarer. Whoever has seen the Holy Sepulchre may die: his soul goes straight to Paradise.
— I would follow you — ah! what desire and what regret! — if I were not already old, weak, and nearly blind. But for God’s sake, for God’s sake, fair sir, when you are in the city where the mother of the judge of truth saw her son nailed to the cross, think of the sinner who opened her door to you this evening, and if you ever pass this way again, bring her in your cloak an image of Our Lady of Jerusalem. My weary soul, my weary body would have great joy if in my oratory were the face of the sweet mother of God.
— My lady, replied the cleric, only death could prevent me from passing this way again and remembering the prayer you so beautifully make of me.
The next morning, when he departed, his hostess reminded him of his promise:
— Do not forget my image, fair most gentle sir, and may Saint James keep you!
The pilgrim after months arrived joyously in the city of Jerusalem. When he had visited the Holy Sepulchre, adored and kissed all the relics, he knew that the contemplation of the holy places would not suffice to fill his heart. Boredom seized him, and longing for his country.
After a week he was already thinking of returning. Of the nun or the image he did not remember… He took up his walking staff again and set out, happy to have come, happier still to leave: he stopped under a tree at the point where the road turns and from where for the last time the departing pilgrim can see the walls of the city of Jerusalem. The cleric gazed at the city he thought he would never see again, to retain a clear memory of it and be able to say, in his country, to those who would ask him:
— Tell us, what is the city of Jerusalem like?
— It is thus and thus. There is Pilate’s house, there the holy tomb.
At that moment, very close to him, he heard a voice at once very imperious and very sweet, saying:
— Quick, retrace your steps, forgetful cleric…
The pilgrim looked around: no one. Desolate fields whose pebbles gleamed in the sun like so many precious stones. Impossible to guess where this voice came from.
— Forgetful cleric, what will you say to the good lady who received you in her hermitage, when you pass before her door? She will ask you for that image you promised… Ah! what have you done with your promise?
The cleric, on his knees, listened, his forehead on the pebbles, to this voice of an invisible angel; he struck his chest many times, crossed himself, marveled and wept, then rose, his soul most sad, returned to the city of Jerusalem, where having entered, straight to the street of images he went, a street lined with stalls glittering with gold, silver, sinople, and azure.
The cleric was dazzled by the profusion of images; there were painted ones and sculpted ones; some as large as a church porch, others as small as the palm of the hand; all patient and loyal works of good artists.
It was night: sculptors and painters had lit lanterns in their shops. The cleric went back and forth in the narrow street, under the eye of the Saints and the Virgin and her son.
The images made signs to him and spoke to him in low voices:
— Take me, whispered a Saint Theodore leaning his lance into the open maw of a monster…
— Buy me, murmured a Saint Catherine carrying her wheel in her arms.
— Carry me away, said in a half-voice Saint Tryphon holding on a leash a strange beast, half tiger, half serpent.
But the cleric would not let himself be cajoled by the saints in the color of dawn or the female saints in the color of sky. He had eyes only for the portraits of Our Lady. He would have liked to buy them all: but he had few crowns in his pocket and so many images would be heavy on his shoulders. Between a statuette and a small image painted on a wooden panel he hesitated a long time: the statuette was of stone all white with a little gold on the crown’s fleurons; the Virgin held her divine son in her arms. The little image depicted on a red background of setting sun in a glory, the sweet mother of God, eyes closed, at the foot of a gibbet. The cleric contemplated the two images in turn: he finally decided on the little image, smaller and less fragile.
— Your choice is good, said the image-maker. None is better for carrying far away.
Without lengthy haggling, without lengthy discussion, the cleric bought the image, paid for it, and left. The masters were already closing their shops.
The road is long from Jerusalem to the nun’s hermitage. Many adventures befell the pilgrim, from which he would not have come out alive without the help of the image he carried under his rough robe. A furious lion sprang at him: the monk put his hand on the image. The lion approached crawling, kissed his feet, so docile, so tame that it followed him for leagues like a lamb. Brigands attacked him in a gorge: the pilgrim said a prayer to the image: men at arms suddenly appeared, dressed in gleaming cuirasses, who rescued him from the hands of the bandits.
Gratitude and self-interest attached the monk to so precious an image.
When he passed before the door, the nun was on the threshold. The pilgrim continued on his way, his eyes lowered as if he had not seen her.
— Will you not come in to rest in my house, fair most gentle sir?
The cleric raised his head, feigned surprise, approached the lady, and entered the hermitage. As before, the lady served him a deep bowl of soup. She dared not ask him whether he had kept his promise. They remained silent for a long time. The cleric argued with his soul over whether he would surrender the image hidden under his rough robe into the hands of the nun. The lady went back and forth around him, throwing logs on the fire, placing white bread and wine on the table. The cleric ate and drank his fill. The nun had him tell of his journey; she never tired of hearing him: what was the Holy Tomb like, what was Pilate’s house like, what was the beautiful Mount of Olives like? What were the nails like, what was the crown of thorns like, pressed upon the head of the king of glory? But she still dared not ask him for her image. And while he answered her questions, the monk was thinking that he would not give her the beautiful image.
— Fair most gentle sir, the nun finally decided to say, do you not have in a pocket of your robe a picture of the mother of God? Give it to me if you have one. In my oratory I will place it: it seems to me that a good star would shine upon my life if I could kneel before the portrait of the beautiful Queen of the heavens.
— Ah! good lady, said the cleric striking his chest, only at this very moment do I remember the promise I made to you. Alas! that I did not recall it sooner! Forgive me, good lady, the heart is sure but the memory is weak.
The nun grew sad in her soul; she very nearly wept. She showed nothing of her grief.
The next morning, at first light, the cleric dressed: the image was well hidden under his robe. He was eager to be on the road. He went down the stairs without a sound. In the corridor he saw the door of the oratory ajar. Gently, with his finger, he pushed it: No one. He went forward to the altar, knelt and prayed and accused himself of having lied to the nun. He asked forgiveness for his sin, struck his chest with great blows, crossed himself again and again, but he had not the courage to repair his fault by honest frankness. Within him a voice cried: Go, leave on this altar the image of the mother of God. When she awakes, the nun will find it. She will be most joyful and most astonished.
The cleric would not hear this voice: No, never. He hurried to the door: he sought it, it had disappeared. He went around the oratory sliding his fingers on the wall: the wall was smooth, like the wall of a tomb. Cold sweat beaded at the pilgrim’s temples: he began once, twice, three times his walk around the chapel. Under his nails the stone scraped. He struck the wall hard with his fist; it did not answer. Was he buried alive? He jumped forward, backward, right, left. Everywhere he collided with stone. His head was spinning; he gave a great cry.
A great light burst from the suddenly opened door; the nun appeared on the threshold, frightened:
— Fair sir, what is the matter? Your face is streaming with sweat and blood!
With effort, with regret, from beneath his robe, without a word, the cleric held out to her the image of the mother of God.
The nun quickly took it between her fingers and contemplated, enraptured, the sorrowful face of the queen of pity.
— Thank you, fair sir, for your gift. I knew well that you had not forgotten your promise. My heart is so moved that I find nothing to say: may the mother of God bless you for the joy you bring me, fair sweet friend.
The Three Roses of Our Lady Holy Mary
Love willed that in the great wood surrounding the castle of his lord, Beowulfe, a young knight who had lost his way during the hunt, met a nun of the Order of the Poor Clares who was going to beg bread for her convent. The nun — Apollonie was her name — was going along the narrow path, her head bowed, a sack thrown over her shoulder. Beowulfe stopped his horse and asked her the way. Apollonie raised her head and the knight knew that the nun was beautiful.
— You are mocking a poor girl, noble sir, to ask her the way. Do you not know this wood better than she?
But the knight replied that he had recently arrived in the country and that this was, in this forest, the first hunt he had followed.
— If that is so, noble sir, I am going to the castle.
Beowulfe dismounted, and with the bridle negligently passed under his arm, he followed the nun.
The road was long to the castle. Yet it seemed brief to the knight; he thought he was waking from a dream when the nun said to him:
— Here, noble sir, is the castle. You enter by the court of honor. I must go to the kitchens.
They had walked silently for three hours through the forest enchanted with spring; the nun walked beside the knight, her face veiled by a fold of her wimple. Beowulfe could not take his eyes from the white and delicate nape where the shadow of wild hairs played, rebellious to the imprisonment of the coif. With an even and supple step she trod the grass; drops of dew pearled on her bare feet shod in wooden sandals.
Beowulfe would have accompanied the nun to Jerusalem! And already they had to part! Before he had recovered from his confusion, the nun had made him a deep curtsey, and already she was going with her quick and small step, beneath the trees, in the lane that led to the kitchen, where a few beggars walked, crippled, hunchbacked, bandy-legged and twisted. He followed her with his eyes as long as he could see her. Near a young aspen the lane turned. The nun disappeared.
Beowulfe remained a long time at the crossroads, plunged in a delicious reverie; he was drawn from it by the sounds of horns, a noise of laughter and voices still distant. Beowulfe threw himself into the thicket; it was his lord’s hunt returning; he let the riders pass. When the last man had crossed the postern, night was already nearly come; the knight was surprised that the nun had not yet returned. He was beginning to doubt whether she had gone back to the convent by another path, and he was already despairing of seeing her again that day, when he saw her appear behind the aspen, half bent under her sack, whose well-filled pouches rounded out on her back and her chest.
When Apollonie passed near him, she cast a glance that was surprised to find him still there.
He offered to accompany her — the night was dark — and to take the load on his shoulders — the sack was heavy. The nun said to him smiling:
— Thank you.
She was accustomed to going on the roads, night as well as day, and to carrying burdens.
But the knight could not resign himself to not following her through the silent forest. He tied his horse to a tree and from afar he followed that alert dark form gliding over the wet grass. After the forest of firs, a forest of beeches, after the beeches the oaks, after the oaks a meadow that sloped gently down to the edge of a lake at the bottom of which slept the immense shadow of the high walls of a convent built on the cliff of an island of granite.
Beowulfe stopped at the edge of the trees on the border of the meadow: he heard the light voice of the nun calling the ferryman:
— Ahoy… ho.
The echo repeated: Ahoy… ho…
Three times she made the same cry: no one on the island answered. The ferryman was no doubt asleep.
The nun sat down on a stone and she would have spent the whole night there, near the heavy barge that was used to ferry the convent’s oxen and whose pole her arms were too weak to maneuver, had the knight not come down toward her, across the meadow.
She was surprised to see him and seemed displeased that he had followed her. It was ill-befitting indeed for a knight to run at night after nuns. When she said this, the moon between two clouds lit the slight smile on her lips. She was so sure of herself that she could mock the gentle lord! Beowulfe, embarrassed, searched for reasons for having thus escorted her. The nun was amused by his confusion and by the blush spread across his face; she said:
— Our ferryman, old Jacob, has fallen asleep over there by the well.
The knight jumped into the barge moored near the bank and untied the chain.
The nun sat at the bow, her sack set before her. The lake was very deep. Beowulfe pushed the boat, at the stern, with the gaff made of a long, smooth fir trunk. The water streamed under the boat with a joyous noise of metal:
— Would you not think you heard, said the nun laughing, a miser letting gold coins drip between his fingers?
The night had become luminous; a feeling of unknown gladness penetrated the soul of the knight and the nun. They shivered when the boat entered the shadow of the convent.
They looked at each other with a pensive sadness when the boat reached the narrow shore from which rose toward the door of the monastery a stairway carved in the granite.
Beowulfe helped the nun put her sack back on her shoulder. Was it chance or driven by desire? — his fingers brushed the nape of Apollonie’s neck: he felt under his hand the caress of the light hair. The nun blushed and hurried to jump out of the boat. The knight watched her climb among the junipers that drew their miserable life from the ungrateful rock. A bell tinkled. A rusty door creaked above… Beowulfe pushed off from the shore with his foot: he was distractedly bringing the boat back to the other side, his eyes fixed on the convent. One of the many windows piercing the high wall lit up: Beowulfe saw a form moving in the light; he did not doubt that the lit cell was Apollonie’s, and that the woman one saw going and coming in it was the nun. The light went out. Beowulfe, pensive, returned to the castle of his lord.
The following night he crossed the forest of firs, the forest of beeches, the forest of pines, at the full speed of his horse; in the shadow of the trees surrounding the lake, he heard the bells of a night office tinkle; the cells lit up for a few minutes. Then slowly, one after another, they went out. Only one cell — the fifth counting from the right angle of the monastery — remained lit last.
Beowulfe recognized it: it was Apollonie’s. The nun had leaned against the edge of the narrow window and she lingered there, looking toward the meadow, despite the coolness of the evening. This was a fault against the rule. But she hardly thought of it: she was held there before her window by a hope she did not dare confess to herself.
Beowulfe, driven by passion and drawn by that light, stripped off his clothes, entered the water, and began to swim toward the high wall of the convent.
When he was in the middle of the lake, the nun saw him swimming without a sound, one shoulder half out of the water, leaving behind him a silver wake. She felt great joy and great terror when she saw that what she had hoped for in the secret of her heart had come to pass. All night and all day her mind had been obsessed by the memory of the knight. She desired to see him again: and now that he was there, so close to her, seized with fright, she would have wished never to have met him.
Beowulfe, using the roughness of the rock, climbed toward the nun’s cell, dripping wet. Apollonie wanted to close the shutters of her cell: she did not have the strength. She stood leaning at the edge of her window, trembling, watching the knight climb. The face of the cliff was almost smooth: the climb was perilous. If the knight let go, his body would be dashed below, on the rocks. A moment came when in the wall the knight could find neither hole to engage the tip of his feet, nor stone on which to grip his fingers: he clung to the wall, his face raised toward his beloved, all the veins of his face swollen in a terrible effort. Apollonie said to him in a half-voice:
— For the love of God, go back down. You are lost.
But he shook his head and answered:
— I would rather die than lose you.
Feeling that the knight’s resolve was invincible and that he could not hold himself thus against the wall any longer without falling on the rocks and being dashed to pieces, untying the hemp cord that girdled her robe at her waist and fastening it firmly by one end to a hinge, she threw it to the knight who seized it. The nun hardly defended herself, for she was in love.
Thus for a long time, each evening, the knight came to find his beloved. When the night was dark, Apollonie placed a lit candle on the ledge of her window: the knight guided himself by the trembling light.
Now one night as he was thus swimming in the calm water, suddenly a furious wind arose that extinguished the nun’s candle. The night became so dark that the knight could not even make out the cliff of the island and the walls of the convent. The waves played with his wretched body like a straw.
In vain he cast desperate glances around him: no light, no rock, no appearance of shore. He felt that he was lost and commended his sinful soul to the Virgin. Indeed he regretted at that moment his guilty love and felt great contrition for it. If he escaped this peril, he would spend the rest of his life in a cloister doing penance.
But his remorse would not save him. The storm became wilder, the night blacker, the waves more furious.
Apollonie in her cell desperately lit the candle: the wind each time blew it out. Even if the nun succeeded in holding the light lit at her window, in this darkness her beloved would not see it. She felt that his hour had come, that he was going to perish; she threw herself on her knees before an image of Our Lady and begged the queen of mercy to take pity on her and on him.
And the knight, weary of fighting against the tireless waves, commended his soul into the hands of Our Lady Holy Mary, said three times Ave Maria, and let himself sink into the black water.
The storm at once, as if by enchantment, subsided: the stars shone in the sky, the lake became smooth as a mirror. Apollonie, leaning from her window, looked and saw the beautiful body of her beloved that the current gently pushed against the rocks, beneath her cell. She was tempted to fling herself from the window onto the body of her beloved. But held back by the fear of damnation, she went to confess her fault to the abbess.
The ferryman pulled the knight from the water and brought him in his barge to the other shore.
The abbot who had the direction of the convent refused to bury in holy ground a man who had died in a state of mortal sin. Apollonie begged in vain for the abbess to soften so harsh a decision. The abbot was inflexible. Beowulfe was buried, without mass, without benediction, without prayers, like a pagan, outside the blessed ground, at dusk.
But that night on his tomb there grew a flowering wild rose that spread as far as the road a quarter of a league away a divine fragrance. A peasant passing by saw from afar this marvelous tree. He ran to tell the abbess, who told the abbot. The latter came at once to verify the miracle and gave the order, on the spot, to exhume the knight. The body was smooth and colored as if it were alive: such peace was on the dead man’s face that he seemed merely asleep; from his mouth came three roses, and each petal was marked with the seal of Mary: A. M.
The knight was buried in blessed ground.
Of the Candle that Came to Rest on the Viol of Pierre de Syglar
Roc Amadour is a very ancient pilgrimage: it is said that Saint Amadour was none other than that little man named Zacchaeus who climbed a fig tree to see Our Lord when he entered Jerusalem.
Yet it was not toward his tomb that there walked, one June day a very long time ago, his viol hanging from his shoulder in a brown leather case, the famous minstrel Pierre de Syglar, but toward the Virgin of black stone who holds the infant Jesus in her arms, in the depths of a subterranean chapel of the church.
When the minstrel had passed the two fortified gates defending the entrance to the town’s single street, he was stopped by a hay cart that peasants were unloading into a barn. The street was so narrow that the laughing minstrel had to pass between the wheels. The heat was very heavy; he was covered in dust, he was hungry, he was thirsty. The many inns hung above his head their enticing signs: there was The Drinking Stag, The Aching Heart, The Silver Shield, The Golden Harp. Pierre de Syglar passed before them, eyes lowered, to avoid temptation: he had come to pay his devotion to Our Lady, the true Hostess of the town; ill-mannered he would be who would not first go and kneel before Her Ladyship.
When the minstrel entered the church, he had difficulty making his way through the multitude of pilgrims who had come from distant lands. They prayed with eyes raised toward the high statue of the Virgin, who, her divine son in her arms, in her robe brocaded with gold, sparkled at the back of the nave, on the altar, amid a luminous forest of candles. Pierre de Syglar, humbly, like the others, knelt and prayed. When he had finished his prayer, the church was beginning to be deserted. The great crowd had flowed away and the sun at its decline sent through the narrow door its oblique rays onto the image of Our Lady, making the light of the candles pale and her lips of goodness smile.
The minstrel took his viol from its leather case, he began to play it softly, while he sang in a half-voice a song in honor of Our Lady. So pure was the voice, so beautiful the song, so delightful the sound of the viol, that pilgrims who were already passing through the door came back toward the altar discreetly, on tiptoe, so as not to disturb the singer. And from all the dark corners of the underground church, men, women lost in prayer, hearing the minstrel’s music, came running around him. And Pierre de Syglar, feeling thus his soul in communion with that of this crowd intoxicated with love for Our Lady, played with marvelous tenderness.
Seated, one leg folded under him, on the steps of the altar, his ear pressed against the shaft of his viol, he listened to the strings resonate under the light caress of the bow that he moved with the tips of his slender fingers. His voice seemed to awaken in the church dormant prayers: one would have said that all the prayers breathed from the souls of the pilgrims that day were joining together to rise toward Our Lady in his music and his song.
The pilgrims wept, in silence, with joy and love. A child who had come close to Pierre de Syglar let his head fall on the minstrel’s shoulder, in the exquisite gesture of a child who wants to sleep. A woman kissed a fold of his cloak; clerics, lost in the crowd, marveled that a bow drawn across three strings and the simplest of songs had more power over souls than the most eloquent word of a churchman. The minstrel was intoxicating himself with his own music and song: he could barely see the crowd of pilgrims who strained their ears and closed their eyes to hear him better; he was beyond this earthly world, transported; and when he raised his eyes to the altar, the Virgin he saw was not of marble, her diadem was not of gold, her eyes were not two sapphires, her robe was not of vair, ermine, and silk — it was the true mother of God who created all things, the lady of all courtesy, the lady without peer and without equal, Our Lady Holy Mary in person who smiled at him with her bright eyes, under her diadem of stars set with rays of sunlight, in her robe wrought of the sweet light of nights, up there, amid the trembling harvest of candles.
Imperceptibly, light as the breathing of the child who had fallen asleep on his shoulder, the minstrel’s song came to an end. The pilgrims opened their eyes, surprised to be in this crypt, all having had, for a few minutes, the dazzle of Paradise. Pierre de Syglar, having risen to his feet, went up the steps of the altar, and bowing humbly three times before Our Lady, he said aloud:
— Ho! Mother of the king who created all, if you deigned to take pleasure in my song, I ask you, as a token of your grace, to light my way in my inn and to make the feast of my supper, one of the candles that surround your gracious and blessed body, and nothing more.
The minstrel had not finished these words when the most beautiful, the whitest, the most brilliant of the candles left, by itself, the silver candlestick where it was planted and came to rest upright on the strings of the viol of Pierre de Syglar, who had knelt. A murmur of admiration ran through the crowd of pilgrims; they cried with one voice:
— Praise, praise to the king of singers!
But an ugly little black man, sacristan of the church, who drew his profit from the stubs of candles that he sold, came out of the ranks of the pilgrims, gesticulating wildly and crying:
— Out the door! Out the door! Let us throw him out! This wretch is a sorcerer, a magician, an enchanter!
At the same time he took the candle from the minstrel’s viol, hoisted his crooked legs onto a stool and planted the candle in its candlestick. The crowd, turned by the words of the dwarf, began to doubt: what if the sacristan was right, if this minstrel was nothing but a treacherous magician?
Hostile murmurs now circulated through the ranks of the pilgrims who drew away from Pierre de Syglar with movements of fearful hostility. Pierre de Syglar smiled an enigmatic smile. What did the words of this dwarf matter to him? What did the murmurs matter? He cared nothing for their admiration or their hatred: a superhuman joy filled his heart: Our Lady had heard him, Our Lady had smiled at him, Our Lady had given him the gift he had asked for. Tears of tenderness flowed slowly down his cheeks. In his soul he prayed to Our Lady and devoutly thanked her for her courtesy. Then once more he took up his viol, raised his head toward Our Lady, and began to sing, no longer a song of gaiety, tenderness, and love, but a humble song of a simple and old woman, soft and low in tone, the song of the answered soul giving thanks. And under the influence of the song, a religious emotion seized the throats of the pilgrims who said among themselves: This man who plays so well, can it be that he is an enchanter? Never have we heard a sequence or a litany that was so beautiful.
The candle answered their unease. Straight as a sword whose point was a flame, the candle rose above the harvest of candles and descended again to rest on the still trembling strings of the viol of Pierre de Syglar.
The furious sacristan sprang forward and seized the candle:
— No, never, he cried in his shrill voice, has such sorcery been seen. Death! Death to the enchanter!
The crowd was indignant and grumbled against this ugly little man who had climbed back on his stool and was firmly grafting the candle, with both hands, onto the point of the candlestick; and to better secure it he tied it with an iron string. Then he turned and, addressing Pierre, still on his knees, he cried:
— Know well that Simon Magus, the prince of enchanters, was nothing compared to you if you make this candle come down again!
By trade the minstrel was a wise man and friend of laughter. And Pierre de Syglar, in his life, had had so many adventures that such a story could not move him. He began to laugh calmly at the fury of the little man, whose anger redoubled:
— You may laugh, magician of the devil! We shall see if your master will listen to you once more.
Pierre de Syglar began again to play and to sing — for the third time, a gay song of dawn and spring: and the pilgrims, in the church that had become all dark, thought they were in the countryside, an April morning, when the swallows rise singing toward the sun. The minstrel said in his young and resonant voice:
— Mary, star of the sea, joy of the heavens, hope of the world, light of the dawn, vessel of salvation, dove of the ark, mystical rose, light of life.
With his head, with his arms, with his body the minstrel accompanied the rhythm of his song. A joyful confidence in Our Lady shone in his eyes. The people, moved and lifted by a youthful enthusiasm, sang with him. The vaults of the old church resounded with the thousand pilgrims singing at full voice the glory of Our Lady; the whole crowd begged the Virgin to renew the miracle. Pierre de Syglar stopped singing; he continued only to draw his bow across the strings of his viol that wept, that laughed, and that prayed. Never, never had the pilgrims heard such music.
It was no longer a viol they heard, it was the heart of the minstrel singing and playing so high, so strong, that his music rose to God. And for the third time, blazing like the sword of the angel Gabriel, the candle descended and rested on the viol of Pierre de Syglar.
— Alleluia!
Of the Cleric Who Prayed to Our Lady for His Lust
There was in Rome a young patrician cleric, of a senatorial family, named Caesarius, whose most pious soul was grappling with a very carnal temperament: a hard struggle in which the evil one always ended up triumphing.
There was scarcely an elegant or beautiful Roman woman he had not loved. And now he had undertaken to seduce his brother’s wife: the austere Domitilla.
Long she resisted: but he used on her the wiles that his amorous experience suggested to him, until she went mad for him and the two of them began to live, in secret, a criminal life: she, abandoned without remorse, without regret to her passion; he, powerless to stifle the voice of his soul. Often he was tempted to flee, to put between his mistress and himself rivers and mountains: never had he the strength to pass even the gate of the city. All the women he had possessed, he had loved for a very short time, and then gaily left for others. But he felt bound to his brother’s wife by a new sentiment, which made no other woman attract his eyes and which made him sad as death when he was not beside her.
Yet he was weary of so much lust and of this burning ardor of love.
Night and day he prayed to the Virgin to send him aid and protection against himself. The Virgin, for a long time, seemed deaf to his voice.
His mistress, in whom love had extinguished all piety, mocked him for his prayers:
— Love me, let us love each other, she said to him. Why always lament? What has happened, was it not you who willed it?
Caesarius answered nothing: his mistress spoke truly. He had persuaded her, and now he felt bound to her by bonds that no human force could break.
One morning when he had fallen asleep on a stone bench in the atrium, tortured by jealousy, remorse, desire, and hatred, after a night of vigil before the nuptial chamber of Domitilla and his brother, he saw in a nimbus of ultramarine the celestial form of Our Lady who said to him:
— Many times you have honored me and many times you have prayed to me to deliver you from the dominion of your flesh. It shall be done as you wish, for you have honesty. You shall be chaste. From this day you shall no longer know the sadness of sensual pleasure. I even wish to raise you to a marvelous rank: I shall make of you an apostle.
Then the sweet mother of Our Lord left Caesarius. At that moment, Domitilla opened her door; she appeared on the threshold. Caesarius was surprised to see her without desiring her; he no longer felt love for her, but only a brotherly tenderness and much pity. Tears flowed from his cheeks. She approached him and asked:
— Why are you weeping?
— I weep for you and for me, he answered, because we have lived in sin.
She said with a bitter smile:
— It is not yet the time to weep. We shall have eternity for that.
She tried to put her arms around her lover’s neck: but he gently pushed her away, rose, said goodbye to her, and made for the door. She followed him all trembling and tried to hold him back. Leaning over him, she said to him in a low, desperate voice:
— Where are you going? I was not seeking you. It was you who bewitched me!
Caesarius’s brother appeared in the atrium. Domitilla quickly wiped her eyes. When his brother was near him, Caesarius fell to his knees and kissed his feet. Domitilla’s husband, astonished, asked him:
— What are you doing there?
Domitilla answered hatefully:
— Can you not see that he is mad?
A beggar was at the door of the house: Caesarius exchanged his clothes for the rags.
He left Rome and walked straight ahead, three days and three nights through the deserted countryside.
One night, dying of hunger and cold, he was drawn to the top of a mountain, toward a monastery, by the ringing of a bell.
The prior kindly welcomed the pilgrim, who made confession of his sins. Caesarius stayed in the convent and became a monk.
The fame of his learning and piety having spread far, several popes, in difficult affairs, had sent him messengers to ask his counsel. At a time when ecclesiastical discipline was slackening, he was designated by Pope Pius II as being the most worthy to be his successor in the chair of Saint Peter.
Caesarius learned with sadness the news that the conclave had ratified the wishes of the departed pope. When he had to leave his convent, his heart failed him; he had been so happy in that high and solitary house. Now he had to return to Rome, to that city he had scandalized by his life.
What had become of Domitilla and his brother: he did not know. Never had he inquired about them. They had never inquired about him. As he approached the eternal city, the memory of his old sin returned more clearly to his mind. What would he have become without the help of the Virgin? No doubt he would have sunk ever deeper into sin! Perhaps he would have lost even the feeling of his ignominy.
Had Domitilla done penance? He had prayed so much for her! Unless perhaps… The thought that Domitilla might be dead presented itself to his mind: he did not notice that he was briskly pushing this thought away from him.
The road followed by his mule was the same as the one he had followed twenty years ago, when he had left Rome.
How many changes since that time had taken place in his soul.
Then the still poorly extinguished passion burned his heart. He had at once the disgust and the regret of lust, the love and the terror of penance.
Now peace was in him: without regrets, without desire, without sadness, without joy. He abandoned himself to God like a staff in the traveler’s hand.
The desolate plain surrounding Rome, with its grasses dried and scorched by the sun, sparkled like a golden pond. The air vibrated silently around the caravan escorting Caesarius. In the distance, through a mirage effect, oxen seemed apocalyptic beasts threatening with their immense horns the high walls of the Lateran.
Caesarius was received in Rome with the customary ceremony. Having become Pope Leo VII, he continued on the chair of Saint Peter his life of austerity and prayers, putting all his heart into loving and serving the queen of Paradise. But the devil, who is so subtle, who through woman led to sin Adam, David, and Solomon, had not given up damning his soul.
On the holy day of the Assumption, our Lord the Pope Leo was celebrating the divine office; he was giving communion to the faithful who, bowing over the Holy Table, raised their heads only to receive the host. Suddenly Pope Leo was troubled: in the face that was raised toward him, he recognized Domitilla, whose eyes burned with a sinful flame. At the moment when the pope placed the host in her mouth, she kissed with her lips, once so loved, the tips of his fingers. This kiss rekindled the ardor of the old love; the pope felt fire running through his veins, the memory of all the pleasures of former times passed through his mind!
Quite dazed, he went back up toward the altar, leaning on his cardinals.
Domitilla had not aged. She had kept, as if by miracle, her beauty and a marvelous youth: she was even more beautiful, now that so many years had passed over her. Her features had become more sinewy and finer; her eyes deeper; her lips more ardent; her hair, in which he had once buried his head, rolled their black waves down her neck, where age had not filtered a single white ray. His eyes closed, motionless before the altar, Caesarius was seeing Domitilla again, as he had left her, as he found her again: he had neither the strength nor the desire to push away the obsession of her beauty. The perfume of her body enveloped him like a cloud of incense; he felt on his neck, on his forehead, in his hair, the caress of her slender fingers; on his hand the burning of her kiss. A desire to turn around, to go to Domitilla, to take her in his arms, invaded him, irresistible as sleep… He slowly opened his eyes: above the altar, before the candles, a queen was passing, dressed in white; a diadem of sapphires placed on her hair of fine gold. She was passing so diaphanous — no one but Pope Leo could see her — and so beautiful that her beauty eclipsed all human beauty. The rays of her halo penetrated to the depths of Caesarius’s eyes, chasing away the perverse visions as the sun chases clouds. And the pope began to think that this queen was the queen of the heavens: he felt great sorrow for his sin and began to weep.
When the Virgin saw that he was weeping, she slowly passed before him again; fixing her bright eyes on him; her gaze said to the pope: courage! have confidence in my mercy.
Our Lord the Pope Leo finished the divine office as best he could. Then he returned to his palace, commanded his cardinals to leave him alone, and sent for one of his most devoted guards. When the soldier had entered, the pope placed his hand on the corner of a wooden table and said:
— Draw your sword and cut off my hand.
The soldier recoiled in terror:
— Lord, he said, what are you ordering me?
— Cut off my hand, the pope repeated imperiously.
Then the guard drew his sword and with one blow he cut off the hand. The hand fell.
If your hand scandalizes you, cut it off.
Pope Leo, having had his arm anointed with balm and myrrh, let it be known throughout the city that he could not get up, being ill. The Roman nobles came often to visit him and bring him comfort. The wound had healed; the pope regained his good appearance. But he remained lying in bed. The Romans begged him to get up to celebrate the divine office. But the pope would not hear of it. When it became known in Rome that the pope would no longer sing mass, a threatening murmur ran through the city. They had to ask Pope Leo why he refused to celebrate the divine office.
Since Our Lord had chosen Peter to be the head of his Church, never had such scandal been seen. In whispers, the word was murmured: “heresy.”
The nobles of Rome decided to assemble. One of them rose and said:
— Our Lord Pope Leo, we do not wish to accuse you; but we are greatly astonished that you do not deign to officiate. And we humbly ask you why.
The pope did not know what to answer; he was sad in his heart. In a low voice he implored the aid of the sweet Virgin Mary. In heaven, the queen of mercy heard his prayer; she descended to his bed on a sunbeam. She passed above the assembled Romans.
The trembling Pope saw her coming to him. She drew close to his ear and said to him:
— Because you have never ceased to serve me and to honor me; because you have well kept your chastity; because you had your right hand cut off, thus carrying out the order of my son with simplicity; because you have lost your carnal hand, I shall give you the hand of your celestial body.
The pope then brought out from his cloak his arm that he had been hiding there, saw that a hand had grown again at his mutilated wrist, and he knew that this hand was incorruptible.
He rose, extended from both fingers over the Council a peaceful gesture of blessing; and without a word went to the church of the Lateran to celebrate the divine office.
The Tower of Armor
Louis Gillet
NOTE
The following poem is merely the translation of a gwerz in Breton from Cornwall; or rather, since I do not know Breton, it is a prose translation that I have turned into verse. I have made it as exact as I could: I have observed the rhythm and the number of strophes of my text, to the point that I have preserved the last two, which I would no doubt have cut if I had been writing from invention; I have rendered as best I could its rough and savage movement, and preserved, of its idioms, all that I could distinguish in the French version. I have allowed myself only one change in the order of the verses, in the fifth section, whose first strophe is as follows:
“What did you see, sailor, on the sea? — A boat without oars and without sails; and at the stern, for pilot, an angel standing with wings spread.”
I thought it better to reserve lines 3 and 4 for the final stroke.
When I wrote this piece, in the first month of a long stay in Brittany, I thought I was dealing with a popular work. I found it following the legend of Saint Budoc, published by Albert Le Grand, of Morlaix, in 1640, in the new edition that the canons of Quimper issued of his great work (The Lives of the Saints of Armorican Brittany, quarto, fifth edition, 1901, page 645). They give it as the “work of an anonymous poet,” and extracted it from the Barzaz-Breiz, where it may indeed be read (ninth edition, page 490). I was then ignorant of all the critical work done over the past thirty years on the “macphersonism” of Hersart de la Villemarque: one may read on the composition of these pastiches what Mr. Luzel writes about it (Gwerziou Breiz-Izeil, volume I, page 284), and the little study he devoted to the Barzaz-Breiz (Bouillon, publisher).
I could not however determine to what extent my Breton original is a forgery, and to what point la Villemarque reworked or fabricated his document from whole cloth. But all this suffices for scientific conscience: for the poem is nonetheless beautiful, and the most diligent of today’s Breton scholars, Mr. Anatole Le Braz, told me of all the esteem in which he holds it.
I can only apologize for the liberties I have taken in my verse with prosody: they amount to the neglect of the famous rule “that the singular must not rhyme with the plural.” It is an absurd, outdated rule, whose very statement is false, since “matois” rhymes perfectly well with “toits” which is plural, and not with “foi” which is singular, “Brutus” with “vertus” but not with “fetu,” etc. None of this prevents me from reproaching myself for these liberties, and without finding my verses less good for departing from this rule, I work with all my heart to conform to it in the verses I write today.
December 15, 1902
Gwerz of Cornwall
I
— Fishermen, if these vague ruins Were indeed Armor, has none of you Seen, toward the hour of shadows, Lady Azenor on her knees?
— Sir, we have seen her: where leans This black wall lashed by the squall. Black robe, white coif, Pale brow, yet serene air.
II
One August day arrives a troop Of envoys of the blood of Tregor. One sees caparisons on the croup Of gray horses harnessed with gold.
Down comes the man from the watchtower: — Sir, they are there in blue cloaks, A dozen of them, says the lookout; Shall I open? — Open, by God!
Have a table set in my great hall For them and for me. It is from God that guests come: Whoever is king, receive like a king!
— Lord, our king sends us To ask of you a dear treasure: For his son to ravish your joy, Your daughter Lady Azenor.
— Ah! Gentlemen, with all my heart. She Is the sight of my eyes. They say he is handsome; my daughter is beautiful; A true couple of kings, gentlemen!
The wedding lasted two weeks, The bishop of Ys officiated; Fifteen days the dancing goes on: Harps, as in Paradise.
— Now will you, my darling, Will you come away with us? — Lord, let my lord command: Where my king lives, to live is sweet.
When she saw the beautiful girl, The mother-in-law was strangled with rage. — It is finished! The whole family Will coddle that simpleton.
All new, all fair. Well, what of it? These young ones… Woe to the old! New keys are preferred. Yet the old ones open better.
Before eight months — at sea! at mountain! Eight months of love! Oh jealous time! — The old woman said: Is it well, Brittany, To keep the wolf’s moon?
Fool, will you have no ears If you have no eyes? Daredevil, Dolt! The fox raids your vines, And your nest lodges the cuckoo.
— Thank you, madam. Ah! done with her. The traitor! The hussy to prison! Only mothers are faithful. In three days, to the fire with this poison!
III
When the old king learned the news, He wept — wept! Poor king: — Old fool! Brainless madman! Woe to me! Woe to me!
At the hour when the fishing fleet Returns on serene evenings: — Has my daughter been burned, Or does she still live, sailors?
— She is not yet burned, Lord, they burn her tomorrow. In her tower, a resonant captive, We heard her on our way.
She was singing on the peninsula, In the shadow, a melodious bird. She was singing a tranquil air: — Pity on them! Pity, my God!
IV
Azenor goes toward the pyre In a long shift and bare feet. The golden swarm hums around the hives: Such is her beautiful ingenuous hair.
The crowd rises on tiptoe to see her, One hears them whisper low: — It is a crime, a pregnant woman! A great crime to burn her.
The people weep: Ah! Poor father! But the vicious woman, hot on their heels: — It is a pious work, a viper! To crush it with its eggs.
Heave ho! Blowers, ho! Give it your breath! Heave ho! Let us blow, ho! Give us your lungs. Blow, good lads, with full cheeks. Let us blow this fire like demons.
I blow in vain, I waste my effort. Blow, blow. What ails this fire? It is dry wood, sir, ash wood. What ails this wood, good Lord?
— It is true, not even a spark, Says the judge of Goello; This wood, demon, you bewitch it: Ah! You will not burn: to the water!
V
— A canoe on the sea, look: Without mast, without oar, unfortunate! It carries on the wild sea A woman and her newborn.
And the mother on this tomb Suckles him, poor little worm, Hanging, like a dove At the edge of a seashell.
Listen! She sings. Strange, On the sea her voice resounds: — Sleep, my love! Go, sleep, poor angel! Hush-a-bye, my poor little one.
If only your father could see you so frail!… But your father is lost, poor child. Now her angel, right behind her, Was piloting the skiff with his wings.
VI
Over Armor hovers a terror. At the foot of the walls full of murmur, The beeches that the harsh shadow fans Are speaking! The old queen is dying.
— My son! Hell opens. Ah, torture. God! The dreadful secret was choking me. Idiot, your wife was pure. What have I done, alas! What have I done?
Then like a hideous reptile, Her face, a rough and earthy orb, Spits a double-pointed tongue, Which stinging her, she died.
At once the credulous man runs off. Seven years the sea, from south to north, Wave upon wave, green or blue, undulates Under the ship seeking Azenor.
In every port, Cyprus, Surat, Rome, desire of the pilgrim, Sousse, the pirate’s lair, Appeared the sorrowful pilot.
Until he reaches the great island. A child was rigging, sweet face, At the edge of an idyllic shore, With a thread, the shell of a nut.
Blond, blue-eyed — the eyes of the waves — The eyes of Azenor, one would say: And there, vague tears Spring up in the Breton’s soul.
— Your mama, dear child, what does she do? — She is a washerwoman, sir. There is her paddle beating The laundry at the water’s edge.
— And your father, child? — Hush! My father Is God. There, it is a secret: The other is dead. But one must be silent, You see: Mama would cry.
And the man whose throat was heaving Ran: and the caressing child Had taken the paternal hand, And in their hands their blood boiled.
Mama! Mama! It is he! Look, Papa that we had lost!
— People of the sea, glory to God! God keeps The father for his child returned!
All the way to Armor they were escorted By a band of singing angels. — Thus does the Trinity protect The sail of navigators!
Louis Gillet Lesneven, October 1901