Life's Roses

Study notes by the editors

1. Quand vous serez bien vieille l. 1

   The poem first appeared in the 1578 collected edition of Ronsard's works, in the second book of the Sonnets pour Hélène; in the 1584 edition it was slightly revised and renumbered II.43. Hélène de Surgères was a maid of honour to Catherine de' Medici, and the sequence was reportedly encouraged by the queen; the ageing poet courts a young, learned and reserved woman. The French opens 'Quand vous serez bien vieille, au soir, à la chandelle'. Page (1870-1946), an American scholar and translator, published his Songs and Sonnets of Pierre de Ronsard in 1903; titles such as 'Life's Roses' are his.

   Article on 'Quand vous serez bien vieille' and its 1578 and 1584 texts, Italique 14 (Geneva: Droz), pp. 57-74; Pierre de Ronsard, Oeuvres complètes, ed. Paul Laumonier et al. (Paris: Société des Textes Français Modernes, 1914-75), XVII, Sonnets pour Hélène II.24; Pierre de Ronsard, Sonnets pour Hélène, ed. Malcolm Smith (Geneva: Droz, Textes Littéraires Français, 1970), II.24 and notes; Curtis Hidden Page, trans., Songs and Sonnets of Pierre de Ronsard, Gentleman of Vendomois (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1903)

2. by candlelight ll. 1-2

   The opening is a precise domestic scene, projected into the future: the beautiful woman, now old, sits by the fire at night. Page distributes the details differently ('by the hearth's glare, / At candle-time'), and 'glare' is a rhyme-word that makes the light harsher than Ronsard's. The future tense ('serez') structures the whole poem as a prophecy addressed to the beloved.

   Pierre de Ronsard, Sonnets pour Hélène, ed. Malcolm Smith (Geneva: Droz, Textes Littéraires Français, 1970), II.24 and notes; Article on 'Quand vous serez bien vieille' and its 1578 and 1584 texts, Italique 14 (Geneva: Droz), pp. 57-74

3. spinning and winding thread l. 2

   Spinning by the hearth is the conventional occupation of women in old age, and it fixes Hélène in a humble domestic future far from the court. Some readers also hear an allusion to the Fates, who spin and measure the thread of life, which would suit the poem's theme of mortality; the allusion is suggestive rather than certain. Page's 'winding thread' is close to 'dévidant' (reeling off yarn).

   Pierre de Ronsard, Sonnets pour Hélène, ed. Malcolm Smith (Geneva: Droz, Textes Littéraires Français, 1970), II.24 and notes; Article on 'Quand vous serez bien vieille' and its 1578 and 1584 texts, Italique 14 (Geneva: Droz), pp. 57-74

4. astonished l. 3

   Ronsard's Hélène will recite the poems 'en vous émerveillant', wondering at them, and at the fact that she was their subject. In Page's line the rhyme with 'thread' and 'said' requires the old pronunciation with the -ed sounded. The surprise is double-edged: she marvels at the poems, but also at having once been beautiful. Page's 'say, astonished' thus makes the old Hélène an amazed reader of her own legend.

   Pierre de Ronsard, Sonnets pour Hélène, ed. Malcolm Smith (Geneva: Droz, Textes Littéraires Français, 1970), II.24 and notes; Curtis Hidden Page, trans., Songs and Sonnets of Pierre de Ronsard, Gentleman of Vendomois (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1903)

5. Ronsard made these for me l. 4

   The poet puts his own name in the mouth of the old woman, and the line is the poem's hinge: her beauty is past, but his poetry, and so his name, survives. This is the classical boast of the poet who confers immortality, as in Horace's 'non omnis moriar' (Odes 3.30), which Ronsard imitated elsewhere (see his 'Permanet Gloria' in this archive). Page's 'made these for me' turns 'célébrait' (celebrated, sang the praises of) into making, which suits Ronsard's sense of poetry as craft.

   Horace, Odes 1.11 and 3.30 (Latin text, The Latin Library); Pierre de Ronsard, Sonnets pour Hélène, ed. Malcolm Smith (Geneva: Droz, Textes Littéraires Français, 1970), II.24 and notes; Article on 'Quand vous serez bien vieille' and its 1578 and 1584 texts, Italique 14 (Geneva: Droz), pp. 57-74

6. the half-sleeping servant ll. 5-7

   The second quatrain imagines the poet's fame reaching even the household servant: 'Lors vous n'aurez servante oyant telle nouvelle, / Déjà sous le labeur à demi sommeillant, / Qui au bruit de Ronsard ne s'aille réveillant'. The phrase 'au bruit de Ronsard' means at the sound, and also the renown, of Ronsard. Page omits the poet's name here and makes the servant wake at 'what you have said'; his 'toil and care / Almost out-worn' renders 'sous le labeur à demi sommeillant'.

   Pierre de Ronsard, Sonnets pour Hélène, ed. Malcolm Smith (Geneva: Droz, Textes Littéraires Français, 1970), II.24 and notes; Article on 'Quand vous serez bien vieille' and its 1578 and 1584 texts, Italique 14 (Geneva: Droz), pp. 57-74

7. bless your name l. 8

   The participle 'bénissant' grammatically belongs to the servant, who blesses Hélène's name. The poem's logic, however, is that Hélène's immortality depends wholly on the poet: her name lives because his verse praised it. Critics have often noted the barbed compliment, and the mixture of flattery and threat in the sonnet as a whole. Page's 'fore'er' is a rhyme-driven addition. The tone has been read both as tender and as vindictive.

   Article on 'Quand vous serez bien vieille' and its 1578 and 1584 texts, Italique 14 (Geneva: Droz), pp. 57-74; Pierre de Ronsard, Sonnets pour Hélène, ed. Malcolm Smith (Geneva: Droz, Textes Littéraires Français, 1970), II.24 and notes

8. My bones shall lie in earth l. 9

   Ronsard's phrase 'fantôme sans os' separates the body in the grave from the bodiless shade in the underworld: the ghost has no bones. Page's 'My bones shall lie in earth, and my poor ghost / Take its long rest' divides them in a different way, keeping the bones and losing Ronsard's striking paradox. The first tercet shifts from Hélène's future to the poet's, in the plain future tense of the opening.

   Pierre de Ronsard, Sonnets pour Hélène, ed. Malcolm Smith (Geneva: Droz, Textes Littéraires Français, 1970), II.24 and notes; Article on 'Quand vous serez bien vieille' and its 1578 and 1584 texts, Italique 14 (Geneva: Droz), pp. 57-74

9. Love's dark myrtles l. 10

   In Aeneid 6.440-44 Aeneas sees the 'lugentes campi', the Mourning Fields of the underworld, where those whom cruel love consumed wander hidden in a myrtle wood ('myrtea circum / silva tegit'); Dido is among them. The myrtle was sacred to Venus. Ronsard's lover thus expects to lie among love's martyrs. Page's 'Love's dark myrtles' makes the association explicit by adding 'Love's'.

   Virgil, Aeneid 6.440-44 (Latin text, The Latin Library); Pierre de Ronsard, Sonnets pour Hélène, ed. Malcolm Smith (Geneva: Droz, Textes Littéraires Français, 1970), II.24 and notes

10. crouching by the fire l. 11

    The second tercet returns to Hélène's future with brutal realism: 'accroupie' (squatting, huddled) is an unflattering word, and 'vieille' used as a noun (an old woman) is blunter still. The contrast between the poet's dignified rest among the myrtles and the woman's huddled old age is the poem's threat. Page's 'old, shrunken, grey' adds adjectives of his own. The tercet balances 'Je serai' (I shall be) against 'Vous serez' (you will be).

    Pierre de Ronsard, Sonnets pour Hélène, ed. Malcolm Smith (Geneva: Droz, Textes Littéraires Français, 1970), II.24 and notes; Article on 'Quand vous serez bien vieille' and its 1578 and 1584 texts, Italique 14 (Geneva: Droz), pp. 57-74

11. Yeats's 'When You Are Old' l. 11

    Yeats's poem opens 'When you are old and grey and full of sleep, / And nodding by the fire, take down this book', clearly modelled on Ronsard's scene of the old woman by the fire reading the poet's verses. Yeats drops Ronsard's threat and his carpe diem ending and instead imagines regret for 'the pilgrim soul' that one man loved. Page, translating a decade later, includes 'grey' in his version, perhaps with Yeats's line in his ear, though that cannot be proved.

    W. B. Yeats, 'When You Are Old', in The Countess Kathleen and Various Legends and Lyrics (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1892); Article on 'Quand vous serez bien vieille' and its 1578 and 1584 texts, Italique 14 (Geneva: Droz), pp. 57-74

12. proud disdain l. 12

    The haughty disdain of the beloved is the Petrarchan donna's defining trait, and Ronsard turns it against her: in old age she will regret both his lost love and her own pride. 'Rue' in Page means to regret bitterly (OED, rue, v.1). Page's ellipsis after 'lost' marks the turn from prophecy to exhortation. The word 'fier' means proud or haughty, not 'fierce'.

    Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. 'rue, v.1'; Pierre de Ronsard, Sonnets pour Hélène, ed. Malcolm Smith (Geneva: Droz, Textes Littéraires Français, 1970), II.24 and notes

13. Wait not to-morrow l. 13

    The last two lines of the sonnet give the poem's moral, drawn from Horace, Odes 1.11.8: 'carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero' ('pluck the day, trusting as little as possible in tomorrow'). Ronsard's 'si m'en croyez' echoes Horace's 'credula'. Page translates it as 'hear me, love!' and repeats 'live' at the start and end of the line, framing the injunction; the dashes are his.

    Horace, Odes 1.11 and 3.30 (Latin text, The Latin Library); Pierre de Ronsard, Sonnets pour Hélène, ed. Malcolm Smith (Geneva: Droz, Textes Littéraires Français, 1970), II.24 and notes

14. the roses of life l. 14

    The image of gathering roses before they fade comes from the Latin poem 'De rosis nascentibus' attributed to Ausonius, which ends 'collige, virgo, rosas' ('gather roses, girl'), and is anticipated in the Wisdom of Solomon, where the ungodly say 'Let us crown ourselves with rosebuds, before they be withered' (2:8). Ronsard used the topos repeatedly (compare 'Mignonne, allons voir si la rose', in the archive as 'Sweet-heart, come see if the rose'); it passes into English in Spenser and Herrick. Page's 'oh! to-day, to-day' adds an emotional repetition.

    The Bible, Authorized (King James) Version, Apocrypha, Wisdom of Solomon 2:8; Pierre de Ronsard, Sonnets pour Hélène, ed. Malcolm Smith (Geneva: Droz, Textes Littéraires Français, 1970), II.24 and notes; Horace, Odes 1.11 and 3.30 (Latin text, The Latin Library)

15. metre and rhyme l. 14

    The French twelve-syllable line gives Ronsard's sonnet a slow, measured gravity. Page translates into iambic pentameter, which forces compression and some padding (fore'er, oh!). His sestet rhyme (ghost, thrive, grey; lost, live, to-day) differs from Ronsard's French pattern, with 'thrive/live' only an eye-rhyme. The archive prints the sonnet in quatrains and tercets, and Page closes on a doubled 'to-day', where Ronsard ends on 'les roses de la vie'.

    Pierre de Ronsard, Sonnets pour Hélène, ed. Malcolm Smith (Geneva: Droz, Textes Littéraires Français, 1970), II.24 and notes; Curtis Hidden Page, trans., Songs and Sonnets of Pierre de Ronsard, Gentleman of Vendomois (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1903); Article on 'Quand vous serez bien vieille' and its 1578 and 1584 texts, Italique 14 (Geneva: Droz), pp. 57-74