“Ballad of the Hanged," by Francois Villon
Translated by: Don Nixon
BALLAD OF THE HANGED
Oh human brothers who are still alive,
Don`t close your hearts against us when you see
Our stinking lot. For God will surely shrive
You of your sins if you show us pity.
Here five or six of us swing from this tree,
Our bloated flesh, pumped up by gluttony,
Now rots, is slowly eaten, until we,
Just powdering bones, are dust beneath these poles.
Don`t sneer at us or mock our misery
But pray to God that He redeem our souls.
Though we presume to call you brothers, kin,
Do not reject us with disdain. We died,
Choked by justice. But in that reckoning,
Allow that fairness to some has been denied.
Plead for us now that we have died.
Pray to Mary`s son. Beg him to decide
To grant us mercy, to protect and hide
Us from Hell`s lightning when the thunder rolls.
We are dead. Don`t torment us and deride,
But pray to God that He redeem our souls.
We`re flayed, bone-whitened by the drenching skies,
Skin-wizened, dried out, by the sun burnt black.
Magpies and crows feast, gouging out our eyes,
Pincering our beards, tearing our eyebrows back.
Here we cannot sit, dangling from this rack,
Turning in the winds as they change their tack.
Birds peck at us. They viciously attack,
Leaving us like thimbles, pitted, full of holes.
Don`t join us in our brotherhood – stand back,
But pray to God that He redeem our souls.
Prince Jesus, Lord of all, we plead hold back
Our souls from Hell`s dominion. They are black
But have no truck below with burning coals.
Comrades, don`t mock us with a cheap wise-crack,
But pray to God that He redeem our souls.
Commentary. Villon. Ballade des Pendus
Francois de Montcorbier, better known as Francois Villon was born in Paris in 1431 and 32 years later he disappeared. Scholar, murderer, burglar, a man of many aliases, he was France`s greatest medieval poet. He was a Parisian, when Paris had established itself as a centre of religion, trade, culture and government and was a teaming urban community where rich and poor, the scholarly and the ignorant, the law abiding and the criminal lived in close proximity. He was their poet and his poems are the tracts of that time.
Most of the details of his life come from criminal records. He killed a priest and was exiled in 1455 and resumed his trade as a burglar on his return. He was imprisoned and sentenced to death but escaped execution. The Ballade des Pendus describes the hanged on the great Paris gibbet and it was only by luck that he escaped their fate. He was sentenced to death a second time after more robberies and again his sentence was commuted to banishment in 1463 and from then on he disappears from history.
Villon`s work presents several problems for the translator. Much of his writing employs the vernacular of the day and is influenced by colloquialisms from Picardy. His work is full of allusions to mythology and biblical literature and the ballade form he uses in the Ballade des Pendus depends for much of its effect on the formal rhyme scheme and metre. There is a directness in the way Villon addresses the reader and always one is aware of the humanity of the man and a deep religious belief which runs through his depiction of the corpses twisting on the gibbet, a scene that was familiar to him and which he so nearly shared.
Bio:
I am a retired university lecturer and have been writing a few years since my retirement and have had some short stories and some poems published and have won and been shortlisted for a number of competitions. In 2004 I won the `Writers` and Artists` Yearbook competiton and contributed to the Tindal Street Press Anthology `Birmingham Noir` and the University of Chester Prize for Literature Anthology of 2006 (Edge Words, ed. Peter Blair). This year a poem was placed third in the poetry competition run by the Thomas Hardy Society and am currently shortlisted by the Kenneth Grahame Society. Recently I have become interested in translating poetry and find Villon a particular technical challenge. On a lighter note I have a number of limericks published in the 2008 Mammoth Book of Limericks.
