My Mind Is All Weary

Poem by Pierre De Ronsard Collection OdesThemes Happiness, Time, WorkPeriod 16th century

My mind is all weary
From having studied too much
The Phaenomena of Aratus;
It is time I took my pleasure
And went out to play in the fields.
Good Gods! who would wish to praise
Those who, glued to a book,
Never care to live?

What use is studying to us,
Except to make us weary?
And to heap care upon care
For us, who will perhaps be
Either this morning or this evening
The victim of black Orcus?
Of Orcus, who pardons
No one, so proud is he.

Corydon, walk ahead;
Find out where good wine is sold;
Have the bottle chilled,
Seek out a leafy arbor
And flowers to lie upon.
Do not buy me any meat,
For, however dainty it be,
In summer I hate meat;

Buy some apricots,
Some peaches, some artichokes,
Some strawberries and some cream
That is what I love in summer,
When, on the bank of a stream,
I eat them to the sound of the water,
Stretched out on the shore
Or in a wild grotto.

Now that I am in good health,
I want to laugh without rest,
For fear that illness
One of these days may say to me,
Seizing me unawares:
“Die, gallant, you have lived too long!”

Pierre de Ronsard

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

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