Don Juan

“Don Juan” is the title song of Georges Brassens’ last album in 1976, (five years before his death). The first two lines of each verse describe incidents, mainly humorous, when people have bent the rules, disobeyed orders, or flaunted convention to allow life to be more civilised. The remaining lines of each verse tell the continuous tale of a womaniser making a conquest, beginning with his first approach to the girl in verse one and finishing with the climax in verse five. The last verse sums up the theme, which is Brassens' plea for a less judgemental and more tolerant view of life: This modern Don Juan, whose free lifestyle offends the social conventions, is drawn to to a girl, who is not conventionally attractive but is unconcerned about the adverse opinion of the others in his peer group. She accepts his advances and they share a vital experience of happiness.

The natural and ecstatically satisfying fulfilment of this first act of love of a novice girl in the arms of an experienced man, who felt an overpowering compulsion towards her, would seem to make nonsense of the repeated statement of her ugliness. Human attractiveness is certainly composed of something much more complex and interesting than the presentation of several physical features. The common saying that ponders this truth of our everyday experience:

La beauté est affaire de goût. - Beauty is in eye of the beholder.

(Personal note - In fact, I struggle with this poem, whose theme can be construed as a male chauvinist assertion that a man does a favour to a girl by his sexual attentions.  I want the poem to emerge as a lesson to the egoistical Don Juan that love is a mutually pleasurable transaction by two people who should be equally worthy of respect.  If I am wrong, I am re-writing the poem - but only in my own mind.  My comment reflects my viewpoint,  but I aim for objective accuracy in my translation of the text .)



georges brassens _ don juan by bisonravi1987

Don Juan


Gloire à qui freine à mort, de peur d'écrabouiller
Praise to those who slam brakes, for fear of squashing flat
Le hérisson perdu, le crapaud fourvoyé !
The little hedgehog lost, the toad gone the wrong way
Et gloire à Don Juan, d'avoir un jour souri
And praise to Don Juan, for having smiled one day
À celle à qui les autr's n'attachaient aucun prix !
At the one whom the rest did not rate in the least!
Cette fille est trop vilaine, il me la faut.
That girl is too downright ugly, I must have her.

Gloire au flic qui barrait le passage aux autos
Praise to the cop who stopped the cars from going through
Pour laisser traverser les chats de Léautaud(1) !
To let all the cats of Léautaud get across!
Et gloire à Don Juan d'avoir pris rendez-vous,
And praise to Don Juan for the date he made with
Avec la délaissée, que l'amour désavoue !
The girl left on the shelf, from whom love turns away!
Cette fille est trop vilaine, il me la faut.
That girl is too downright ugly, I must have her.

Gloire au premier venu qui passe et qui se tait
Praise to the first person who walks by with no word
Quand la canaille crie : "Haro sur le baudet(2) !"
When the wild rabble yells: «Get him- let’s string him up! »
Et gloire à Don Juan pour ses galants discours
And praise to Don Juan for his amorous words
À celle à qui les autr's faisaient jamais la cour !
To the one whom the rest never thought worth courting!
Cette fille est trop vilaine, il me la faut(3).
That girl is too downright ugly, I must have her.


Et gloire à ce curé sauvant son ennemi
And praise goes to that priest saving his enemy
Lors du massacre de la Saint-Barthélémy(4) !
The day of the mass’cre of Saint-Barthélémy !
Et gloire à Don Juan qui couvrit de baisers
And praise to Don Juan who covered in kisses
La fille que les autr's refusaient d'embrasser !
The girl that the others refused a single one!
Cette fille est trop vilaine, il me la faut.
That girl is too downright ugly, I must have her.

Et gloire à ce soldat qui jeta son fusil
And praise to the soldier who threw aside his gun
Plutôt que d'achever l'otage à sa merci !
Rather than finish off (the) hostage at his mercy!
Et gloire à Don Juan d'avoir osé trousser(5)
And praise to Don Juan for daring pull right up
Celle dont le jupon restait toujours baissé !
The skirts of the girl who wore them demurely low!
Cette fille est trop vilaine, il me la faut.
That girl is too downright ugly, I must have her


Gloire à la bonne sœur qui, par temps pas très chaud
Praise to the kind nun, who, in weather none too hot
Dégela dans sa main le pénis du manchot
Thawed by hand the penis of the man with no arms.
Et gloire à Don Juan qui fit reluire un soir
And praise to Don Juan who buffed up to delight (6)
Ce cul désherité ne sachant que s'asseoir !
This neglected bum whose sole use was to sit on!
Cette fille est trop vilaine, il me la faut.
That girl is too downright ugly, I must have her.

Gloire à qui n'ayant pas d'idéal sacro-saint
Praise to those who having no sacrosanct ideals
Se borne à ne pas trop emmerder ses voisins !
Just seek not to give too much grief to those around!
Et gloire à Don Juan qui rendit femme celle
And praise to Don Juan who made into a woman
Qui, sans lui, quelle horreur, serait morte pucelle(7) !
She, who, but for him, would have never known man's love!
Cette fille est trop vilaine, il me la faut.
That girl is too downright ugly, I must have her. (8).

1976 Album -Don Juan

TRANSLATION NOTES

1) Les chats de Léautaud – The writer and critic Paul Léautaud, who died in 1956, was a reclusive who was said to have owned at least 300 cats and 150 dogs in his lifetime.
2) Quand la canaille crie : "Haro sur le baudet !" - This is the rallying cry of a lynch mob and they are saying “Let’s string up the donkey”. Brassens’ audience would have understood this reference immediately. It is a line in La Fontaine’s very famous fable: “ Les Animaux Malades de la Peste”. The kingdom had been hit by a terrible plague and the Lion King decided it was God’s punishment for wrongs they had done and asked all to confess. The King began by telling of the sheep and shepherds he had eaten and the other powerful predators of court made similar confessions. All the self flatterers of the court agreed that there was no harm in these deeds. Then came the turn of the humble donkey and he confessed that he had once eaten a mouthful of grass from some-one else’s meadow :

« Je tondis de ce pré la largeur de ma langue.
Je n'en avais nul droit puisqu'il faut parler net.
A ces mots, on cria haro sur le Baudet. »

The rich and powerful courtiers were in uproar at the crime of the poor donkey:

“Sa peccadille fut jugé un cas pendable.
Manger l'herbe d'autrui! Quel crime abominable!
Rien que la mort n'était capable
D'expier son forfait : on le lui fit bien voir. »

So they hanged the donkey. La Fontaine dangerously explains how his fable relates to justice in the court of Louis XIV:

“Selon que vous serez puissant ou misérable,
Les jugements de cour vous rendront blanc ou noir. »


3) Cette fille est trop vilaine, il me la faut – This Don Juan finds a strong attraction in this girl that he can’t explain and he is risking the derision of every one of his mates in seeking love with this girl.
4) Massacre de la Saint-Barthélémy- On the 23rd August (Saint-Barthélémy’s Day) 1572, a pogrom was launched against the Huguenots of France . The death toll has been estimated as high as 30,000 and the Protestant movement in France was effectively wiped out.
5) Trousser celle dont le jupon –“ Trousser les jupes” means to tuck up the skirts “trousser une femme” means to lift a woman’s skirts. Trousser also has the meaning of “to stuff” in cooking e.g. “ trousser un poulet” and from this the verb “trousser” has the same vulgar usage as the English translation. From this double entendre comes a hidden message that the French audience will discreetly understand- that he made vigorous love to the girl at this point. For my translation, I stick to the first meaning for the sake of the following line.
6) fit reluire - to polish up (furniture etc) . As there is the sense of rubbing up, the words are found in vulgar usage with erotic connotations. We have, therefore, another double entendre as in (5). In this case it is to say that he brought the girl to orgasm. As it would be wrong to make the hidden message explicit in the translation, I have kept to the literal meaning - plus a bit of vagueness.
7) serait morte pucelle - In my translation, I have chosen not to use the word “virgin”, as I feel that the issue of virginity has ceased to be a preoccupation with educated people in the course of the last 50 years. When I included this word in a draft, I had the sense of an unpleasant male chauvinism.
8) That girl is too downright ugly, I must have her. - I hope that the refrain repeated at the end of the poem means that the man continues under the spell of the girl after their night together. If so there is the nice irony that the “ugly” girl has seduced Don Juan! This song makes me think of “Mysogynie à Part”, where, in a background of male chauvinism, the girl who has been treated with disrespect comes off best in my mind:
http://brassenswithenglish.blogspot.com/2010/11/misogynie-part-setting-misogyny-aside.html

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