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He is not happy who does not have what he desires,
But truly happy is he who does not desire
What he does not have: the one serves as gracious allure
For contentment, and the other is a martyrdom.
To desire is a torment that burns and makes us thirst
And puts us in passion; thus to desire nothing
Beyond our power, to live content with one’s own,
Even if it be small, is prosperous fortune.
The Desire to have drives the ship as prey
To the corsair, the waves, the rocks, and the winds;
Desire, troublesome to the small who would be great,
Often leads them astray from the common path.
One, driven by honor through flattering scheming,
Ambition desires to advance his fortune;
Another, seeing himself poor, in order to amass wealth
Betrays his God, his King, his blood, and his country.
One, duped by Desire, only for the envy
He has to gorge himself on some false pleasure,
In the end gains nothing but a vexing displeasure,
Losing his happiness, his time, and very often his life.
One, to make himself great and to gild the image
Of his sad fortune, stung by this ardor,
Sighs after a wind that plunges him into error,
For Desire is nothing but a perilous storm.
Another, slave of Love, desiring the advantage
One hopes to draw from it, embracing only the wind,
The reward of his labors, is paid very often
With a refusal, a disdain, and a sour face.
One, full of ambition, desirous of appearing
A favorite of his King, seeking his own good fortune,
Advancing his fortune, advances his misfortune,
For having probed too deeply the secret of his master.
To desire is an evil that vainly bewitches us;
It is happiness to enjoy, and not to hope:
To embrace the uncertain, and always to desire
Is a passion that drives us to distraction.
In short, Desire is nothing but shadow and pure lie,
That works our senses with an ambitious charm,
Disguising the false for the true, which before our eyes
Goes deceiving just like the image of a dream.
Rémy Belleau
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-desire-remy-belleau/