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Paint me, Janet, paint me, I beg you
In this picture the beauties of my beloved
In the manner that I will tell you.
As a bother I will not beg you
With a lying art to grant her some favor:
It is enough if you can portray her
Just as she is, without wishing to disguise
Her nature to flatter her,
For favor is good only for those
Who have themselves painted, and who are not beautiful.
First make her hair wavy,
Knotted, twisted, crimped, curled,
Which in color resembles cedar;
Or untangle it, and let it freely breathe
In the picture, if by art you can,
The same scent of her own hair,
For her hair smells like little flowers,
When the Zephyrs fan them in spring.
Let her fair brow not be cleft
By any furrow stretching deep,
But let it be like the calm sea,
When the wind does not stir it even slightly,
And lying in its bed it sleeps,
Calming its furrowed waves in a dead sleep.
Right in the middle, down the shore, let descend
A beautiful ruby, whose brightness spreads
Through the picture, as one sees at night
Shine the rays of the Moon that gleams
Upon the snow in a valley’s depths,
Not yet trodden by any human trace.
Then make her beautiful eyebrows arched,
Black as ebony, and let their twisted curve
Seem a crescent that shows through the cloud
In the first month its horned arch.
Or if you have ever seen Cupid’s bow,
Take the portrait from the half-turn
Of its curve, dose it in a semicircle,
For Cupid’s bow and it are but one thing.
But alas! my God, my God, I do not know
By what means, nor how, you will paint
(Even if you had Apelles’ artifice)
The natural grace of her beautiful eyes,
Which put the stars of Heaven to shame.
Let one be gentle, the other furious,
Let one hold from Mars, the other from Venus;
From the benign let all hope come,
And from the cruel let all despair come;
Let one be pitiful and tearful to see,
Like that of Ariadne abandoned
On the shores of Dia, when the madwoman,
Near the sea, consumed herself with tears,
And in vain she called for her Theseus;
Let the other be gay, as it is quite believable
That praiseworthy Penelope had it long ago
When she saw her husband returned,
Having stayed twenty years away from her.
Then make her round little ear,
Small, smooth, between white and vermilion,
Which under the veil appears just as
A lily does enclosed in crystal,
Or just as a rose appears
Freshly enclosed in glass.
But in vain you would have made so beautiful
All the ornament of your rich picture,
If you had not from the lineature
Of her beautiful nose well portrayed the painting.
Paint it for me then slender, long, aquiline,
Polished, well-drawn, where the malicious envious one,
When he would, would not know what to criticize,
So properly you will make it descend
Among the face, just as descends
In a plain a little hill that slopes.
Then to the life paint me her beautiful cheek
Like the tint of the rose that knots
Upon milk, or the whitening tint
Of the lily that kisses a reddening carnation.
In the middle portray a dimple,
Dimple, no, but Cupid’s hiding place,
From which this boy with his little hand
Lets fly a hundred arrows, and never one in vain,
That through the eyes straight to the heart it does not strike.
Alas! Janet, to well paint her mouth,
Homer himself in his verses would hardly tell you
What vermilion could equal it,
For to paint it as it deserves,
One would need to paint that of a Charite.
Paint it for me then, so that it seems to speak,
Now smile, now perfume the air
With I know not what ambrosial breath.
But above all make it seem full
Of the sweetness of persuasion.
All around attach a million
Laughs, charms, games, courtesies,
And let two rows of chosen little pearls
In equal order in the place of teeth
Be very neatly arranged within.
Paint all around a kissing lip,
Which of itself, in rising, invites
To be kissed, having the tint like
Either the rose, or vermilion coral,
She flaming in spring on the thorn,
He reddening in the depths of the sea.
Paint her chin dimpled in the middle,
And let the tip, rounded like an apple,
Be just as one sees appear
The tip of a quince that already begins to grow.
Whiter than curdled milk on the rush,
Paint her neck, but paint it a little long,
Slender and fleshy, and let her soft throat
Like the neck be a little long.
Then make for her, by a just compass,
Both Juno’s elbows and arms,
And the beautiful fingers of Minerva, and still
The hand like that of Aurora.
I no longer know, my Janet, where I am,
I am confused and mute: I cannot,
As I have done, declare to you the rest
Of her beauties, which is not manifest to me.
Alas! for never did I have so many favors
As to have seen her beautiful breasts bare.
But if one can judge by conjecture,
Persuaded by reasons, I assure myself
That the beauty that does not appear, must
Entirely correspond to that which one sees.
Therefore paint her, and let her be made for me
As perfect as the other is perfect.
As in relief raise up her breast for me,
Clear, white, smooth, broad, deep and full,
Within which a thousand branching veins
Of red blood quiver all full.
Then, when to the life you have uncovered
Beneath the skin the muscles and the nerves,
Swell above two new little apples,
As one sees two green little apples
Of an orange tree, which still entirely
Do nothing but at the moment begin to redden at the tip.
At the very top of her marble shoulders,
Paint the dwelling of the divine Charites,
And let Cupid ceaselessly fluttering
Always brood over them, and fan them,
Thinking to fly with Play his brother
From branch to branch in the orchards of Cythera.
A little lower, in a rounded mirror,
All plump, chubby, rebounding,
Like that of Venus, paint her belly;
Paint her navel like a little center,
The bottom of which appears more vermilion
Than a beautiful carnation half-open to the Sun.
What do you wait for more? portray for me the other thing
Which is so beautiful, and which I dare not say,
And whose impatient hope pricks me;
But I beg you, do not shade it for me,
Unless it were with a veil made of silk,
Clear and subtle, so that one may glimpse it.
Let her thighs be as if made on a lathe
With full flesh, round all around,
Just as a Term rounded by artifice
That firmly supports a royal edifice.
Like two mountains raise her knees,
Soft, fleshy, round, delicate and supple,
Beneath which make for her the full shore,
Such as the virgins of Laconia have,
Going to wrestle on the known bank
Of the Eurotas river, with the body all naked,
Or else hunting with unleashed packs
Some great stag in the Amyclaean forests.
Then, to finish, portray for her Thetis’
Narrow feet, and small heels.
Ha, I see her! she is almost portrayed,
One more stroke, one more, she is done!
Raise your hands, ah my God! I see her!
Very little is lacking but that she speaks to me.
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-elegy-to-janet-painter-to-the-king-pierre-de-ronsard/