Epitaph

Poem by Jean-Antoine De Baïf Collection PassetempsPeriod 16th century

(written after the Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre)

Poor bodies where these turbulent spirits dwelt,
Once the terror of the princes of the earth,
Even daring to wage war against heaven,
Disloyal, obstinate, perverse and violent:

Today the meal of flying animals
And crawling scavengers, and of those worms that the stinking
Dump encloses, and of the people who wander
Under the deep rivers flowing into the sea:

Poor bodies, rest, if your wretched bones,
Nerves and veins and flesh, are worthy of rest,
Which could not endure rest in France.

Spirits, at the crossroads every night cry out:
O mortals, warned, see and believe,
That the crime delays and does not flee vengeance.

Jean-Antoine de Baïf

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

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