WEBVTT

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This afternoon talking
with some people,

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I mentioned the
Villon's ballads,

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and somebody asked me afterwards
whether I had had a go at them.

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I'd like to read you my
attempt on Francois Villon's

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most celebrated ballad--

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the one about dead ladies.

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It undoubtedly is
felt by many people

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that Rosetti's efforts along
this line were sufficient.

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We are stuck with his
version of the last line--

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where are the snows
of yester-year?

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Well, actually the reason I
went and translated this anyway,

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is that Rossetti though
he did a beautiful job

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on some other pieces
of Villon seems to me

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to have cheated in this case,
he didn't keep the ballad rhyme

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scheme.

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And he also
homogenized the ballad

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making it all one
cry of ubi sunt.

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And he took the nastiness, the
perverseness out of it which

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always belongs to
anything of Villon's.

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He concealed the fact
that some of these ladies

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are not reputable at all.

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And some of them very--

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well, "Ballad of the
Ladies of Time Past."

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"Oh, tell me where
in lands or seas,

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Flora, that Roman
belle has strayed.

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Thais or Archipiades who
put each other in the shade.

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Or Echo who by bank
and glade gave back

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the crying of the hound,
and whose sheer beauty

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could not fade.

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But where shall last
year's snow be found?

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Where too is learned Heloise
for whom shorn Abelard was made

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a tonsured monk upon his knees?

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Such tribute, his devotion paid.

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And where's that queen who
having played with Buridan

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had him bagged and bound to
swim Seine sin thus ill arrayed.

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But where shall last
year's snow be found?

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Queen Blanche, the
fair, whose voice

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could please as does
the siren's serenade.

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Great Bertha, Beatrice, Alice,
these and Arembourg whom Maine

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obeyed, and Joan whom Burgundy
betrayed and England burned

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and heaven crowned.

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Where are they,
Mary, sovereign Maid?

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But where shall last
year's snow be found?

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Not next week, Prince, nor next
decade, ask me these questions

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I propound.

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I shall, but say
again dismayed, ah,

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where shall last
year's snow be found?"

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I had to leave
something out of that.

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I forget her name.

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I left out a woman who was
part of a catalog in one line.

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And I'm sorry to say that
the woman who in the original

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was Bertha Broadfoot,
or Bigfoot Bertha,

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had to end as Great
Bertha in my version.

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Otherwise, I'm fairly
faithful, I think.

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