Francine Has Such Good Grace

Poem by Jean-Antoine De Baïf Collection Loves of FrancinePeriod 16th century

Francine has such good grace,
She has so beautiful a face,
She has eyebrows so fair,
And beneath, two fair torches,
Whose serene light
Either takes from me or brings me all happiness.
The beauty has nothing of gall,
She is all sugar and all honey,
And the breath she draws
Breathes nothing but perfumes.
Her delicious kiss
Is a true nectar of the gods:
She is so neat and so clean,
She is in all things so perfect,
She converses so well,
She never falters in anything.
It is nothing but loves and blandishments,
Dainty ways and delights:
She knows, to enchant me,
To sing so sweetly,
Tempering her divine voice,
The kisses of my Meline
And all that Ronsard
Has sung of most dainty.
She knows the dainty ways
That she has newly learned
From Tahureau the tenderling,
More than you, little dainty one.
She knows these dainty ways,
She has learned them by heart,
With her song she ravishes the heavens,
And, I believe, she would do better still.
There is no ancient story
That she does not remember:
In love there is nothing
That she does not know very well.
No one sets more store
By some excellent rhyme,
No one sees better a verse
When it limps awry.
Who would choose a sweetheart
More graced with accomplishments,
When so happy he would be
That she would constrain him to it?
Yet always Peruse
Always accuses her toward me,
And would wish to keep me
From loving in so good a place.
What? If he wished to reprove me,
What? If he wished to forbid me,
(But in vain) to love my eyes,
Or a thing I love better?

Jean-Antoine de Baïf

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

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