Ronsard

A Cassandre

Mignonne, allons voir si la rose
Qui ce matin avoit déclose
Sa robe de pourpre au Soleil,
A point perdu cette vesprée
Les plis de sa robe pourprée,
Et son teint au vôtre pareil.

Las ! voyez comme en peu d'espace,
Mignonne, elle a dessus la place
Las ! las ses beautés laissé choir !
Ô vraiment marâtre Nature,
Puis qu'une telle fleur ne dure
Que du matin jusques au soir !

Donc, si vous me croyez, mignonne,
Tandis que votre âge fleuronne
En sa plus verte nouveauté,
Cueillez, cueillez vôtre jeunesse :
Comme à cette fleur la vieillesse
Fera ternir votre beauté.


Ode To Cassandra

Mignonne, come let us see if the rose
Which this morning opened
Her robe of crimson to the sun,
Has not already lost, at evening,
The folds of her crimson robe,
And her complexion, so like your own.

Alas, see how in such short a time,
Mignonne, she has, from above, 
Alas, Alas, let her beauty fall!
O Nature, truly cruel,
That such a flower should endure
Only from morning till evening.

Now, if you would believe me, mignonne,
While your young age is in flower
In its verdant freshness,
Pluck, pluck your youth,
Since, as with this flower, old age
Shall tarnish your beauty.

- Pierre de Ronsard, 1524-1585

Witness the sterility of translation:

Cueillez, cueillez vôtre jeunesse :
Comme à cette fleur la vieillesse
Fera ternir votre beauté.

Pluck, pluck your youth,
Since, as with this flower, old age
Shall tarnish your beauty.

Pluck?! 

There are translators who attempt to inject some poetry, but it loses the meaning and musicality of cueillez, cueillez completely:

Be merry ere your beauty flit,
For length of days will tarnish it
Like roses that were loveliest.

I don't think liberties of this extent should be allowed, particularly since the last line really does not work .


This one is better but still no cueillez and the insertion of doom seems contrived:

Do take advantage of your youthful bloom:
As it did to this flower, the doom
Of age will blight your beauty.

If I had my way, I would make it mandatory for all translated poems to be published side-by-side with the original.