To His Lyre

Poem by Pierre De Ronsard Collection OdesPeriod 16th century

Just now I wished to sing
How Francus to the Gallic shore
Came down with all his troop,
But my lute, plucked by my finger,
Would not, in spite of me,
Sing anything but Love and Cassandra.

I thought that, since always
I had sung my loves upon it,
Its strings, through long usage,
Sang of love, and that it was needful
To put on others, if one wished
To teach it another language.

And to do this, there was no peg,
Bow, nor string that was not
Exchanged for other new ones:
But after it was restrung,
Higher than before it sang,
As it was wont, of the ladies.

So farewell then, poor Francus,
Your glory, beneath your conquered walls,
Will hide forever, pressed down,
Unless to your nephew, our King,
You say that in honor of you
He should have my Lyre cross-strung.

Pierre de Ronsard

Translation generated by Poésies 123 with assistance from the deepseek-chat artificial-intelligence model.

Text published on Poésies 123: https://www.poesies123.com/en/poem-to-his-lyre-pierre-de-ronsard/