Last week many French-themed blogs featured various renditions of the Marseillaise in honor of Bastille Day. So I have to ask, what are your feelings about the Serge Gainsbourg reggae version?
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You might have seen this post about the visit to a friend's childhood home near Fontainbleau.The house is named Jean de la Lune.
Since then we have learned that Jean de la Lune is a classic old French song that parents sing to their children at bedtime. For anglophones who are unfamiliar with it, play the video below:
Here are the lyrics in French:
Jean de la lune
- Par une tiède nuit de printemps,
- Il y a bien de cela cent ans,
- Que sous un brin de persil sans bruit
- Tout menu naquit
- Jean de la Lune, Jean de la Lune.
- Il était gros comme un champignon
- Frêle, délicat, petit, mignon,
- Et jaune et vert comme un perroquet,
- Avait un bon caquet.
- Jean de la Lune, Jean de la Lune
- Pour canne il avait un cure-dent
- Clignait de l'oeil, marchait en boitant
- Et demeurant en toute saison
- Dans un potiron
- Jean de la Lune, Jean de la Lune.
- Quand il se risquait à travers bois,
- De loin, de près, de tous les endroits,
- Merles, bouvreuils sur leurs mirlitons
- Répétaient en rond :
- Jean de la Lune, Jean de la Lune.
- On le voyait passer quelquefois
- Dans un coupé grand comme une noix,
- Et que le long des sentiers fleuris
- Traînaient deux souris,
- Jean de la Lune, Jean de la Lune.
- Si par hasard, s'offrait un ruisseau,
- Qui l'arrêtait sur place aussitôt,
- Trop petit pour le franchir d'un bond,
- Faisait d'herbe un pont
- Jean de la Lune, Jean de la Lune.
- Quand il mourut, chacun le pleura,
- Dans son potiron, on l'enterra,
- Et sur sa tombe on écrivit
- Sur la croix : Ci-gît :
- Jean de la Lune, Jean de la Lune
I couldn't find an English translation of the song, so my friend and I
had a go at it. Quelle horreur! Now I have a deep appreciation of just
how hard it is to translate poetry. You can't translate a poem
literally or you'd lose the rhyme, meter and metaphor. Thus, we need
the help of Francophones to correct our translation (below). Where did
we lose the spirit or original meaning? Do you have suggestions for an
alternate wording?
Jean of the Moon
- On a warm spring night
a century ago
when quietly under a parsley sprig
a cute little elf was born
Jean of the Moon, Jean of the Moon
- small as a mushroom
cute as a button
yellow and green as a parakeet
giggling his way down the street
Jean of the Moon, Jean of the Moon
- he used a toothpick as his cane
he winked his eye as he limped down the lane
he lived all the year in a pumpkin sphere
Jean of the Moon, Jean of the Moon - he walked through the woods, light as air
from far and near and everywhere
robins and finches whistled their sounds
and then repeated them round and round
Jean of the Moon, Jean of the Moon - sometimes we saw him pass our hut
In a tiny carriage as small as a nut
and all along a flowery path
two little mice watched him pass
Jean of the Moon, Jean of the Moon - if by chance a stream appears
and blocks his path when he nears
too small to take a leap
a bridge of grass carries his feet
Jean of the Moon, Jean of the Moon - When he died, everyone cried
and his pumpkin was his final reside
and on his cross these words arise:
tucked in this tomb, here lies
Jean of the Moon, Jean of the Moon.
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