Brassens - Gastibelza
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Gastibelza l'homme à la carabine
Gastibelza(1), l'homme à la carabine,(2)
Gastibelza, the man with hunting rifle,
Chantait ainsi :
Would sing this song :
« Quelqu'un a-t-il connu Doña Sabine ?
Did anyone know young Dona Sabina ?
Quelqu'un d'ici ?
Someone from here ?
Chantez, dansez, villageois ! La nuit gagne
Sing and dance, you villagers ! The darkness falls
Le mont Falu.(3)..
On Mount Falou…..
Le vent qui vient à travers la montagne
The roar of the wind that blows ‘cross the mountain(4)
Me rendra fou.
Will drive me mad.
« Quelqu'un de vous a-t-il connu Sabine,
Has anyone of you ever known Sabina
Ma señora ?
My senora ?
Sa mère était la vieille maugrabine(4)
Her mother was the old Moorish woman from
D'Antequera,
Antequera
Qui chaque nuit criait dans la Tour Magne
Who each night used to scream inside the Grand Tower
Comme un hibou..
Like a screech owl.
Le vent qui vient à travers la montagne
The roar of the wind that blows ‘cross the mountain
Me rendra fou.
Will drive me mad.
« Vraiment, la reine eût près d'elle été laide
« In truth, the queen would have, beside her, seemed plain
Quand, vers le soir,
When, ev’ry night,
Elle passait sur le pont de Tolède
She would go by on the bridge of Toledo
En corset noir.
In black bodice.
Un chapelet du temps de Charlemagne
A string of beads from the time of Charlemagne
Ornait son cou...
Adorning her neck
Le vent qui vient à travers la montagne
The roar of the wind that blows ‘cross the mountain
Me rendra fou.
Will drive me mad.
« Le roi disait, en la voyant si belle,
« The king would say, on seeing such great beauty
À son neveu :
To his nephew
"Pour un baiser, pour un sourire d'elle,
« For one mere kiss, for a single smile from her
Pour un cheveu,
For just one hair,
Infant Don Ruy, je donnerai l'Espagne
Infant Don Ruy, I would give the whole of Spain
Et le Pérou !"
And of Peru »
Le vent qui vient à travers la montagne
The roar of the wind that blows ‘cross the mountain
Me rendra fou.
Will drive me mad.
« Je ne sais pas si j'aimais cette dame,
« I don’t know if I truly loved that lady
Mais je sais bien
But know full well
Que, pour avoir un regard de son âme,
That, just to get one glance straight from her heart
Moi, pauvre chien,
I, her poor dog,
J'aurais gaiement passé dix ans au bagne
I would have most happily done ten years hard labour
Sous les verrous...
Locked up in jail.
Le vent qui vient à travers la montagne
The roar of the wind that blows ‘cross the mountain
Me rendra fou.
Will drive me mad.
« Quand je voyais cette enfant, moi le pâtre
Whenever I saw this young girl, I the shepherd
De ce canton,
Of this canton
Je croyais voir la belle Cléopâtre,
I thought to see beautiful Cleopatre
Qui, nous dit-on
Who, people say
Menait César, Empereur d'Allemagne,
Led great Caesar, Emperor of Germany,(5)
Par le licou...
By the dog collar….
Le vent qui vient à travers la montagne
The roar of the wind that blows ‘cross the mountain
Me rendra fou.
Will drive me mad.
« Dansez, chantez, villageois, la nuit tombe.
Sing and dance, you villagers ! Night is falling.
Sabine, un jour,
One day, Sabin’
A tout vendu, sa beauté de colombe,
Sold it all away, her beauty dovelike pure
Tout son amour,
All of her love,
Pour l'anneau d'or du comte de Saldagne,
For the gold ring of the Count of Saldagna
Pour un bijou...
For one jewel
Le vent qui vient à travers la montagne
The roar of the wind that blows ‘cross the mountain’s
M’a rendu fou.
Driven me mad.
Chanson pour l'Auvergnat
TRANSLATION NOTES
1) Gastibelza – Hugo enjoyed the effect that can be achieved by the use of proper names. This name from the original folk song is formed by the Basque word gazte (young man) and belza (black).
2) la carabine – the carbine rifle was a shorter rifle designed for use by cavalrymen. When Franz Liszt put music to this song of Hugo, the German version of this line reads: Gastibelza the grey, old huntsman and I thought this idea replaced something once the lilt of “la carabine” was lost in the English.
3) Le mont Falu – There is peak in Corsica called Falu ( pronounced “Falou”. Hugo was capable of taking liberties when he liked the sound of a word – and sometimes it gave him a rhyme as here.
4) The wind that blows ‘cross the mountain - The Tramontane is one of the famous prevailing winds of southern Europe like the Mistral. Wikipedia tells me: “The continuous howling noise of the tramontane is said to have a disturbing effect upon the psyche.”
5) Maugrabine –Of Moorish ancestry, originating from Magreb. Notice Hugo’s use of proper names
6) Caesar, Emperor of Germany – Once again Hugo is introducing proper names - not too precisely. Although Caesar had subdued many Germanic tribes, the country of Germany did not exist at that time.
Listen to the Spanish verve of this poem as sung by the admirable Sandrine Devienne:
Gastibeza .Hugo-Brassens par Sandrine Devienne
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A COMMENT ON MY TRANSLATION
I found myself asking why Hugo was attracted to re-write this Spanish folk song in his own verse. By chance, I found the answer in Hugo’s personal notes. I have copied the relevant extract and I translate it below.
Les filles de village et les jolies grisettes de Bayonne se baignent avec des chemises de serge*The word grisette has been used with reference to a French working-class woman since the late 17th century. The 1694 edition of the Dictionnaire de l'Académie française simply described a grisette as "a woman of lowly condition". By the 1835 edition of the dictionary, there were other connotations. She was described as: a young working woman who is coquettish and flirtatious. (Thanks to Wikipedia for this information)
The village girls and the pretty grisettes* of Bayonne go swimming in serge shifts often very full of
souvent fort trouées sans trop se soucier de ce que les trous montrent et de ce que les chemises
holes without worrying too much about what the holes show and about what the shifts are hiding.
cachent. Le second jour que j'allai à Biarritz, comme je me promenais à la marée basse au milieu
On the second day when I went to Biarritz, as I was walking at low tide in the midst of the caves,
des grottes, cherchant des coquillages et effarouchant les crabes qui fuyaient obliquement et
looking for shells and scaring the crabs that scuttered off obliquely and buried themselves in the sand,
s'enfonçaient dans le sable, j'entendis une voix qui sortait de derrière un rocher et qui chantait le
I heard a voice that came out from behind a rock and which sang this verse here, with a bit of local
couplet que voici en patoisant quelque peu, mais pas assez pour m'empêcher de distinguer les paroles :
patois thrown in, but not enough to prevent me from making out the words.
Gastibelza, l'homme à la carabine,
chantait ainsi :
- quelqu'un a-t-il connu dona Sabine,
quelqu'un d'ici ?
Dansez, chantez, villageois, la nuit gagne
le mont Falu. -
Le vent qui vient à travers la montagne
me rendra fou.
C'était une voix de femme. Je tournai le rocher. La chanteuse était une baigneuse. Une belle fille qui
It was a woman’s voice. I went round the rock. The singer was a female bather. A beautiful girl
nageait vêtue d'une chemise blanche et d'un jupon court dans une petite crique fermée par deux
who was swimming dressed in a white shift and a short petticoat in a little creek enclosed by two
écueils à l'entrée d'une grotte. Ses habits de paysanne gisaient sur le sable au fond de la grotte.
reefs at the entrance of a cave. Her peasant clothes were lying on the sand at the back of the cave.
En m'apercevant, elle sortit à moitié de l'eau et se mit à chanter sa seconde stance, et voyant que
On becoming aware of me, she came half out of the water, and seeing that I was listening to her
je l'écoutais immobile et debout sur le rocher, elle me dit en souriant dans un jargon mêlé de français
et d'espagnol :
motionless and standing on the rock, she said to me, smiling, in garbled words mixing up French and Spanish
- Senor estrangero, conoce usted cette chanson ?
- Does monsieur the stranger know this song ?
- Je crois que oui, lui dis-je. Un peu.
- I think I do a little.
- Puis je m'éloignai, mais elle ne me renvoyait pas.
Then I moved off, but she did not tell me to leave.
Est-ce que vous ne trouvez pas dans ceci je ne sais quel air d'Ulysse écoutant la sirène ? La nature
Do you not find in this some kind of flavour of Ulysses listening to the siren? Nature constantly throws
nous rejette et nous redonne sans cesse en les rajeunissant, les thèmes et les motifs innombrables
back to us and gives us again, while rejuvenating them, the countless themes and motifs
sur lesquels l'imagination des hommes a construit toutes les vieilles mythologies et toutes les vieilles poésies.
Upon which the imagination of humankind has built all the old mythologies and all the old poems.
Somme toute, avec sa population cordiale, ses jolies maisons blanches, ses larges dunes, son sable fin, ses grottes énormes, sa mer superbe, Biarritz est un lieu admirable.
All in all, with its friendly people, its pretty houses of white, is extensive dunes, its fine sand, its enormous caves, its superb sea, Biarritz is an admirable place.
** The town of Bayonne is a little less than 5 kilometres from Biarritz. The word Bayonne also describes this district to the north of of the Pyrenees, which is the French Basque region - the name coming from the Basque name “ Baïona”
Click here to go to the Index of my Brassens selection
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