Monique Morelli - Pierre de Ronsard - The drunkard's dream

This one always make me think of Bosch

Original Title: "Le rêve de l'ivrogne"
Text: Pierre de Ronsard
Year: 1978

I see here, I see there
I see thousand horned beasts
Thousand kids in the streets
From one comes out a big bull
On the other hops a kid²
One has the horns of a satyr
And from the belly of the other pulls
a thousand revolutions crocodile
I see towns and towers
I see some red and some green
Look at them there! I see them covered
with sweets and candied peas
I see some are dead, I see some are alive
I see some, look at them! that look like
the wheats that tremble under the wind

I catch sight of a camp of armed dwarves
I see some that are not developed
Truncated of thighs and legs
And if they have the eyes burning
At the hollow of the stomach are sitting
I see fifty of them, I see six of them
that are bellyless, and if they have a head
Appalling with a big crest

Here comes two clouds all full
with Moors that have no hands
Nor body and have the faces
alike to those of wild cats
Ones carry goats feet,
And the others only have on lipe
that alone paddles and inside
they have no jaw nor teeth

One is going late, the other gallops
One rushes foward onto the croup
Of an unbridled centaur
And the other guided by a giant
Wearing a bell on his forehead
Through the air rides a genette
One on his back loads a calf
The other in his hand holds a hammer
One with a sullen look
Arms his fist with a felling axe
One carries a javelin, the other a trident
And the other a brand all glowing

Some are riding cranes
And the others turtles
Going to hunt with the gods
I see the good Father happy
that is turning into hundred news
I see some that have no brain
And make a non alike heap
So to want to beat the sun
And to enclose it in the cave
Of St Patrick or of Averne
I see his sister defending him
I see the whole sky splitting
And the earth become cracked
And the charos threatening them

I see hundred thousand young satyres
Having young goats dewclaws
Scaring thousand naiads
I see the dryads dance
among the forests stamping on their feet,
And now combing their hair again
Then go swimming in the fountains
There! Those clouds full of hail
Predict to me that Jupiter
Is vexed by me

Here comes the lightning
Do you hear doing battle
The belly of a cloud?
I saw, I saw ! I saw the fire,
I saw the thunderstorm and the thunder
Smashes me against the earth, all dead

²young goat


All poems written by Ronsard