xy

@xy, member from Sept. 25, 2023

Favourite quotes (21448)

“The Large Testament is a hurly-burly of cynical and sentimental reflections about life, jesting legacies to friends and enemies, and, interspersed among these many admirable ballades, both serious and absurd. With so free a design, no thought that occurred to him would need to be dismissed without expression; and he could draw at full length the portrait of his own bedevilled soul, and of the bleak and blackguardly world which was the theatre of his exploits and sufferings. If the reader can conceive something between the slap-dash inconsequence of Byron's Don Juan and the racy humorous gravity and brief noble touches that distinguish the vernacular poems of Burns, he will have formed some idea of Villon's style. To the latter writer – except in the ballades, which are quite his own, and can be paralleled from no other language known to me – he bears a particular resemblance.”

Francois Villon (1431–1463) Mediæval French poet

Robert Louis Stevenson Familiar Studies of Men and Books (London: Chatto & Windus, 1882), ch. 6.
Criticism

“My days are quickly spent.”

Francois Villon book Le Testament

Mes jours s'en sont allez errant.
Alternative translation: My days are gone a-wandering.
Source: Le Grand Testament (The Great Testament) (1461), Line 217.

“Villon, our sad bad glad mad brother's name.”

Francois Villon (1431–1463) Mediæval French poet

Algernon Charles Swinburne "A Ballad of Francois Villon, Prince of all Ballad-Makers" (1878), line 10.
Criticism

“Foolish love makes beasts of men:
It once caused Solomon to worship idols,
And Samson to lose his eyes.
That man is lucky who has nothing.”

Francois Villon book Le Testament

Folles amours font le gens bestes:
Salmon en ydolatria,
Samson en perdit ses lunettes.
Bien est eureux qui riens n'y a!
Source: Le Grand Testament (The Great Testament) (1461), Line 629; "Double Ballade".

“In riding to the hounds, in falconry,
In love or war," as anyone will tell you,
"For one brief joy a hundred woes.”

Francois Villon book Le Testament

"De chiens, d'oyseaulx, d'armes, d'amous,"
Chascun le dit a la vollee,
"Pour une joye cent doulours."
Source: Le Grand Testament (The Great Testament) (1461), Line 622.

“At break of day I say goodnight.”

Francois Villon (1431–1463) Mediæval French poet

“In my own country I am in a far off land.
I am strong but have no power.
I win all yet remain a loser.
At break of day I say goodnight.
When I lie down I have great fear of falling.”

Francois Villon (1431–1463) Mediæval French poet

„Viszályt kerülve, legyünk mielőbb,
Ifjak, vének, mind békeszeretők.
Lám, a rómaiaknak ezt ajánlja
Levelében az apostol tanácsa.
Okosak legyünk, révet kresők.
Ne hagyjuk el az igaz kikötőt,
Reátörvén a más tulajdonára.”

Help us translate this quote

François Villon (1431–1463) francia reneszánsz költő

Kálnoky László fordítása
A jó tanács balladája

„Testvérek, immég életben valók”

Help us translate this quote

François Villon (1431–1463) francia reneszánsz költő

Gyászirat