Website: The Spirit of Bohemia

[Claverhouse]

A possibly interesting site: better here than in Web Links.

The Spirit of Bohemia (http://www.bohemiabooks.com.au/index.html)



Bohemia - the state of mind and way of life began in about 1830, the year of literary and political revolution and continued until 1914, the year in which the 19th century really ended. For men of genius and distinction like Gautier, Baudelaire, and Verlaine, Bohemia was a golden but transient experience.It was a time and place where artists of all types spent their lives outside society, choosing penury, squalor and freedom over prosperity and convention.

"The Spirit of Bohemia" focuses on what we consider to be the true Bohemia - Paris of the 1800's - the original Bohemian period. Here you will also find London of the late 1800's, as well as several 20th century periods including post-World War II, the Beat and Psychedelic movements.

I was looking for stuff on Villon...


Claverhouse :ph34r:


JAVA ALERT. JAVA ALERT.

[kuranes]

Who was Villon?

[Claverhouse]

"Mais où sont les neiges d'antan?"

The most chilling and regretful refrain in history, even more so than 'The saddest words of tongue or pen: what might have been' or 'A boy's will is the wind's will, and the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts'

Where are the snows of yesterday ?


François de Montcorbier, born poor but adopted by a cleric called de Villon, was a French criminal cotemporaneous with Louis XI, the Universal Spider and enemy of Charles the Bold: he was also France's greatest ( late ) mediaeval poet. He wrote le Petit Testament and le Grande Testament. Apparently, he did not, as I thought swing at Montfacon: but shuffled off into mystery around 1463, although preparing for that sad event by writing 'The Ballade of the Hanged':



Brothers that live when we are dead,
don't set yourself against us too.
If you could pity us instead,
then God may sooner pity you.
We five or six strung up to view,
dangling the flesh we fed so well,
are eaten piecemeal, rot and smell.
We bones in a fine dust shall fall.
No one make that a laugh to tell:
pray God may save us one and all.

Brothers, if that's the word we said,
it's no disparagement to you
although in justice we hang dead.
Yet all the same you know how few
are men of sense in all they do.
Pray now we're dead that Jesu's well
of grace shall not run dry - nor Hell
open in thunder as we fall.
We're dead don't harry us as well:
pray God may save us one and all.

Showered and rinsed with rain, we dead
the sun has dried out black and blue.
Magpie and crow gouge out each head
for eyes and pluck the hair. On view,
never at rest a moment of two,
winds blow us here or there a spell;
more pricked than a tailor's thumb could tell
we're needled by the birds. Don't fall
then for our brotherhood and cell:
pray God may save us one and all.

Prince, Lord of Men, oh keep us well
beyond the sovereignty of Hell.
On him we've no business to call.
And, men, it's no joke now I tell:
pray God may save us one and all.
The most famous quote comes from 'La Ballade des Dames du Temps Jadis',
The Ballad of Ladies Past.


THE BALLAD OF DEAD LADIES

Tell me now in what hidden way is
Lady Flora the lovely Roman ?
Where's Hipparchia, and where is Thais,
Neither of them the fairer woman ?
Where is Echo, beheld of no man,
Only heard on river and mere, ---
She whose beauty was more than human ?...
But where are the snows of yester-year ?

Where's Heloise, the learned nun,
For whose sake Abeillard, I ween,
Lost manhood and put priesthood on?
(From Love he won such a dule and teen!)
And where, I pray you, is the Queen
Who willed that Buridan should steer
Sewed in a sack's mouth down the Seine ?...
But where are the snows of yester-year ?

White Queen Blanche, like a queen of lilies,
With a voice like any mermaiden,---
Bertha Broadfoot, Beatrice, Alice,
And Ermengarde the lady of Maine,---
And that good Joan whom Englishmen
At Rouen doomed and burned her there,---
Mother of God, where are they then ?...
But where are the snows of yester-year ?


Nay, never ask this week, fair lord,
Where they are gone, nor yet this year,
Save with thus much for an overword,---
But where are the snows of yester-year ? trans Dante Gabriele Rossetti.



ARBOR AMORIS.
FRANCOIS VILLON, 1460

I have a tree, a graft of Love,
That in my heart has taken root;
Sad are the buds and blooms thereof,
And bitter sorrow is its fruit;
Yet, since it was a tender shoot,
So greatly hath its shadow spread,
That underneath all joy is dead,
And all my pleasant days are flown,
Nor can I slay it, nor instead
Plant any tree, save this alone.

Ah, yet, for long and long enough
My tears were rain about its root,
And though the fruit be harsh thereof,
I scarcely looked for better fruit
Than this, that carefully I put
In garner, for the bitter bread
Whereon my weary life is fed:
Ah, better were the soil unsown
That bears such growths; but Love instead
Will plant no tree, but this alone.

Ah, would that this new spring, whereof
The leaves and flowers flush into shoot,
I might have succour and aid of Love,
To prune these branches at the root,
That long have borne such bitter fruit,
And graft a new bough, comforted
With happy blossoms white and red;
So pleasure should for pain atone,
Nor Love slay this tree, nor instead
Plant any tree, but this alone. No doubt they are all better in the original*, but my French sucks. So I don't try to read it often. He stole, including from relations; lived as a vagrant oftimes; and got drunk a lot. Still, the lives of a million hard-working millionaires are less admirable, less interesting; and they are worthless and forgotten when dead.


Claverhouse :ph34r:

*


Dictes moy ou, n’en quel pays,

Est Flora la belle Rommaine,

Archipiades ne Thaïs,

Qui fut sa cousine germaine,

Echo parlant quant bruyt on maine

Dessus riviere ou sus estan,

Qui beaulté ot trop plus q’humaine.

Mais ou sont les neiges d’antan?


Ou est la très sage Helloïs,

Pour qui chastré fut et puis moyne

Pierre Esbaillart a Saint Denis?

Pour son amour ot ceste essoyne.

Semblablement, ou est la royne

Qui commanda que Buridan

Fust geté en ung sac en Saine?

Mais ou sont les neiges d’antan?


La royne Blanche comme lis

Qui chantoit a voix de seraine,

Berte au grand pié, Beatris, Alis,

Haremburgis qui tint le Maine,

Et Jehanne la bonne Lorraine

Qu’Englois brulerent a Rouan;

Ou sont ilz, ou, Vierge souvraine?

Mais ou sont les neiges d’antan?


Prince, n’enquerez de sepmaine

Ou elles sont, ne de cest an,

Qu’a ce reffrain ne vous remaine:

Mais ou sont les neiges d'antan?


French is pretty.

[SgtWalrus]

Great link Claverhouse. I have always been attracted to the idea of Bohemia, due to an ever-present desire to be a vegabond. It is getting ever harder to be a bohemian in this increasingly corporate society ~ hope another large mass of people drop out (won't ever be as cool as the French though, as we can see from Haight Ashbury).

[waxwing]

Gracias. Fascinating link.

[kuranes]

There's a chapter on the bohemian movement in Luc Sante's book "Low Life" ( about turn of the century New York ) which I highly recommend.