Sunday, July 6, 2014

Monique Morelli - Villon - Epitaph (Ballad of the hangmen)


Original Title: "Epitaphe (Ballade des pendus)"
Text: François Villon (XVth Century)
Year: 1974, 1968 (Reggiani's reading)
Brothers human who after us live
Do not have the hearts hardened against us
Because, if pity of us poors have
God would rather have mercy of you
You see us here tied up by five or six
As of the flesh, that we have fed too much,
It's devoured and roten for a long time
And we, the bones, become ash and powder
Of our misfortune let noone laugh about:
But pray God that all of us want to absolve!

If brothers we call you, you do not have
Disdain from it, although we have been slayed
By Justice. However you know
That all men do not have the mind go stale
Pardon us, as we are chilled to the bone
Toward the Son of the Virgin Marie
Let his grace not be dried up for us
Preserving us from the infernal thunderbolt
We are dead, do not harass our soul
But pray God that all of us want to absolve!

The rain has soaked us and washed us
And the sun dried us out and blackened
Magpies, crows have our eyes hollowed out
And teared off the beard and the eyebrows
Never a moment are we sitting:
Then here and there, like the wind varies
At his will, endlessly, sweeps us along,
More pecked by birds than a thimble
So do not be of our brotherhood
But pray God that all of us want to absolve!

Prince Jesus, who on everything has control
Be careful that Hell does not rule over us
To him have nothing to do or settle with
Men here have no mockery
But pray God that all of us want to absolve!
Serge Reggiani's version:

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