LES AMOURS DE CASSANDRE: XX I’D LIKE TO TURN THE DEEPEST ...
Pierre de Ronsardtr. A.S.Kline
Je voudrai bien richement jaunissant
En pluie d'or goutte à goutte descendre
Dans le beau sein de ma belle Cassandre,
Lors qu'en ses yeux le somme va glissant.

Je voudrais bien en taureau blanchissant
Me transformer pour finement la prendre,
Quand en avril par l'herbe la plus tendre
Elle va, fleur, mille fleurs ravissant.

Je voudrais bien pour allèger ma peine,
Être un Narcisse et elle une fontaine,
Pour m'y plonger une nuit à séjour;

Et voudrais bien que cette nuit encore
Durât toujours sans que jamais l'Aurore
Pour m'éveiller ne rallumât le jour.
 I’d like to turn the deepest of yellows,
Falling, drop by drop, in a golden shower,
Into her lap, my lovely Cassandra’s,
As sleep is stealing over her brow.

Then I’d like to be a bull, white as snow,
Transforming myself, for carrying her,
In April, when, through meadows so tender,
A flower, through a thousand flowers, she goes.

I’d like then, the better to ease my pain,
To be Narcissus, and she a fountain,
Where I’d swim all night, at my pleasure:

And I’d like it, too, if Aurora would never
Light day again, or wake me ever,
So that this night could last forever.
Note: Jupiter, disguised as a shower of gold, raped Danae, and as a white bull carried off Europa.
Narcissus fell in love with his own reflection. Aurora was the goddess of dawn.
Ronsard’s Cassandra, was Cassandra Salviati, the daughter of an Italian banker.
Click here 2 for another translation of this poem.
Trans. Copyright © A.S.Kline 2004 







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