Hélène Cardona first composed the following poem in English, then translated it to French. You can read the original English version in her book Life in Suspénsion (which I encourage you to do).

Because language is dynamic and connotations shift with each translation (and under each translator’s hand), I thought it would be intriguing to begin with Hélène’s French translation and bring it back to English with the nuances the poem picked up through its journey into the curves and hollows and carvings of its French container.

Container, by the way, is the original last word of Hélène’s poem.

When she moved container to the French, it became récipient. To me, récipient implies receive, something a bit more actively gentle and wise. So my poem translation ends with “its holding” which just feels more…gentle and wise and compassionately purposeful than “its container.”

I liked that translation (“it’s holding”) for how it seemed to speak of the gourd’s partnership in this process—making the gourd not just something acted upon (as when the speaker shakes it in previous lines, as a way to get her truth itself to shake and to sing).

This participation is already implied by what feels like the speaker’s gratitude and love (seen in the moment of “blessing” and “love-gaze”). The gourd has a work to do, and it is doing this work gently and wisely, so it feels.

In my own way, I look upon Hélène’s poem-gourd with my own blessing and love—for how it contains and sings a truth about being gentle with ourselves—who we have been, and what that has taught us, and how that invites us to be ever-grateful for the journey of our lives.

If we are writers, we have the added privilege of “shaking the gourd” that we hold—and translating its truth-song into words the world can read.

First, Hélène’s French Translation of “Woodwork”

 
Travail d’orfèvre

Si je pouvais rassembler toute la tristesse du monde,
toute la tristesse enfouie en mon seine
à l’intérieur d’une gourde,
je la secouerais du temps en temps
pour qu’elle chante
et me rapelle qui j’etais.
Je la bénirais pour ce qu’elle m’a appris
et le regarderais avec amour
pour qu’elle ne s’échappe pas de son récipient.

—Hélène Cardona, de La Vie Suspendue

Second, Some Key Words I Learned

It’s encouraging to me that with each poem I learn both less and more. In other words, I come to each poem with more vocabulary each time. But I also learn new words, and new senses of words. I love how this works. It’s enlivening!

rassembler-gather
enfouie en mon seine-buried in my bosom
secouerais-shake
secourais-rescue
rapelle-remind
bénirais-bless
échappe-seep
récipient-container

Third, My Translation of Hélène’s French Translation of “Woodwork”

 
Woodwork

If I could bring together all the sadness of the world,
all the sadness buried in my chest
to a gourd’s inner place,
I would shake (oh, rescue!) it from time to time
to make it sing
and remind me of who I have been.
I would bless it for the learning it gave me
and look upon it with love
for not escaping, ever-slowly, its holding.

—translation by l.l.b.

In this translation you will think, perhaps, that I have taken liberties. The addition of oh, rescue! for instance: It brings in an echo sense of la secouerais (the similar phrase la secourais) that you couldn’t otherwise know without knowing the French. So I brought the sense over, with this addition.

Translation is itself always a creative act, a holding up of sound and sense. An old tune, newly sung.

It is moments like this when I wish I was more than a novice at French. But? I’m learning through the translation of poetry (and via Mango languages).

With a Ronsard poem from the 1500s, which puts the verse around the early modern French period, I’m guessing that some of what I’m seeing is, well, older in character. No matter. The exercise is still worthy. And I am getting some fire and ice far before Robert Frost offered his.

If you want a full translation of the poem that you can be confident of, feel free to travel elsewhere. Mine is a personal exercise. I make no promises of perfection.

First, Ronsard’s French Fire & Ice

Qui voudra voir comme Amour me surmonte
Comme il m’assaut, comme il se fait vainquer,
Comme il r’enflamme et r’englace mon coeur,
Comme il reçoit un honneur de ma honte;

Qui voudra voir une jeunesse pronte
À suivre en vain l’objet de son malheur,
Me vienne lire: il verra la douleur
Dont ma Déesse et mon Dieu ne font conte.

Il connaîtra qu’Amour est sans raison,
Un doux abus, une belle prison,
Un vain espoir qui de vent nous vient paître;

Et connaîtra que l’homme se deçoit
Quand plein d’erreur un aveugle il reçoit
Pour sa conduite, un enfant pour son maître.

Second, Some Key Words I Learned

It is always a surprise to me when I already know some words I’m encountering in a foreign text. It’s a relief and an encouragement to realize that the years have given me some French I never lost. Like comme and voir and lire and pour and more.

The following words were new to me. Poetry, because it rhymes, and because it offers context, helped me learn these words quite quickly. I love learning through poetry!

surmonte-overcome, surmount
assaut-assault
vainquer-victor
honte-shame
jeunesse-youth
Déesse-goddess
conte-tale
doux-sweet, soft
abus-excess, overindulgence
espoir-hope
paître-graze
aveugle-blind
maître-master

I am still looking for the meaning of pronte, which I am going to hazard a guess for based on my Spanish: pronto, which can mean readily or swiftly. Neither my dictionary nor any online translators otherwise had a clue.

Third, My Ronsard Amour Attempt

Whoever wants to see how Love surmounts me
How it assaults me, how it is a victor over me
How it inflames and ices my heart
How it receives the honor of my shame;

Whoever wants to see a youth readily
Follow, in vain, the object of his misfortune
Come read me: he will see the pain
that neither my goddess nor my god will tell of

He will know that Love is without reason,
a sweet excess, a beautiful prison,
a vain hope of the wind we come to graze upon

And he will know that man deceives himself
When, full of blind error he receives
For his doings, a spoiled child for his master.

—l.l.b. translation of pierre de ronsard