À L'OMBRE DES MARIS -Brassens

À L'OMBRE DES MARIS – IN THE SHADOW OF HUSBANDS

This is an amusing song about the complication of extra-marital relationships among people most typically in the world of entertainment and the arts. In a programme shown last year on French TV, « Regard de Brassens », Brassens, in a recorded interview, told us frankly that he deliberately chose affairs with married women, because falling in love with a single woman could mean marriage and children and loss of his liberty. In the light of this principle, the song « A l’ombre des maris » has a comic irony that Brassens must have enjoyed.

Les dragons de vertu n'en prennent pas ombrage, Si j'avais eu l'honneur de commander à bord, À bord du Titanic quand il a fait naufrage, J'aurais crié : "Les femm's adultères d'abord !" Ne jetez pas la pierre à la femme adultère, Je suis derrière... Car, pour combler les voeux, calmer la fièvre ardente Du pauvre solitaire et qui n'est pas de bois, (1) Nulle n'est comparable à l'épouse inconstante. Femmes de chefs de gare,(2) c'est vous la fleur d'époi. (3) Ne jetez pas la pierre à la femme adultère, Je suis derrière... Quant à vous, messeigneurs, aimez à votre guise, En ce qui me concerne, ayant un jour compris Qu'une femme adultère est plus qu'une autre exquise, Je cherche mon bonheur à l'ombre des maris. Ne jetez pas la pierre à la femme adultère, Je suis derrière... À l'ombre des maris, mais cela va sans dire, Pas n'importe lesquels, je les trie, les choisis. Si madame Dupont,(4) d'aventure, m'attire, Il faut que, par surcroît, Dupont me plaise  aussi ! Ne jetez pas la pierre à la femme adultère, Je suis derrière... Il convient que le bougre ait une bonne poire Sinon, me ravisant, je détale à grands pas, Car je suis difficile et me refuse à boire Dans le verr' d'un monsieur qui ne me revient  pas. Ne jetez pas la pierre à la femme adultère, Je suis derrière... Ils sont loins mes débuts où, manquant de pratique Sur des femmes de flics (5) je mis mon dévolu. Je n'étais pas encore ouvert à l'esthétique, Cette faute de goût je ne la commets plus. Ne jetez pas la pierre à la femme adultère, Je suis derrière... Oui, je suis tatillon, pointilleux, mais j'estime Que le mari doit être un gentleman complet, Car on finit tous deux par devenir intimes À force, à force de se passer le relais.(6) Ne jetez pas la pierre à la femme adultère, Je suis derrière... Mais si l'on tombe, hélas ! sur des maris infâmes, Certains sont si courtois, si bons si chaleureux, Que, même après avoir cessé d'aimer leur femme, On fait encor semblant uniquement pour eux. Ne jetez pas la pierre à la femme adultère, Je suis derrière... C'est mon cas ces temps-ci, je suis triste, malade, Quand je dois faire honneur à certaine pécore, Mais, son mari et moi, c'est Oreste et Pylade,(7) Et, pour garder l'ami, je la cajole encore. Ne jetez pas la pierre à la femme adultère, Je suis derrière... Non contente de me déplaire, elle me trompe, Et les jours où, furieux, voulant tout mettre à bas Je crie : "La coupe est pleine, il est temps que je rompe !" Le mari me supplie : "Non, ne me quittez pas !" Ne jetez pas la pierre à la femme adultère, Je suis derrière... Et je reste, et, tous deux, ensemble on se flagorne Moi, je lui dis : "C'est vous mon cocu préféré." Il me réplique alors : "Entre toutes mes cornes, Celles que je vous dois, mon cher, me sont sacrées." Ne jetez pas la pierre à la femme adultère, Je suis derrière... Et je reste et, parfois, lorsque cette pimbêche S'attarde en compagnie de son nouvel amant, Que la nurse est sortie, le mari à la pêche,(8) C'est moi, pauvre de moi ! qui garde les enfants. Ne jetez pas la pierre à la femme adultère, 1972 - Fernande

May dragons of virtue take no offence at this: If I’d had the honour to have command on board On board the Titanic when it was wrecked at sea I would have yelled: “All adulterous women go first”. Cast not a stone at the adulterous woman I am right behind her. For to sate the desires, calm the fevers that rage In a poor lonely soul, who is made not of stone Nothing can compare with an inconstant wife. Station-masters’ wives, you’re the pick of the crop. Cast not a stone at the adulterous woman I am right behind her. As for you, lordly priests, love in your kind of way As for me, from the day, I grew to understand An adulterous wife is exquisite as none other I seek my greatest bliss in the husbands’ shadow. Cast not a stone at the adulterous woman I am right behind her. In the husbands’ shadow, but there’s no need to say, Not just any husband, I sort them, I choose them If it’s Madame Dupont, who p’rhaps catches my eye, It’s vital besides that I like Dupont as well ! Cast not a stone at the adulterous woman I am right behind her. It’s fitting that the fellow has a pleasant face Otherwise, on second thoughts, I clear off like a shot. For I am most choosy and I refuse to drink From the glass of a man, whose looks put me right off. Cast not a stone at the adulterous woman I am right behind her. They’re far off, my beginnings, when lacking practice I used to go out on the trawl for policemen’s wives I had not yet achieved a sense of aesthetics. This error of good taste, I don’t make any more. Cast not a stone at the adulterous woman I am right behind her. Yes I am finicky, demanding, but believe That the husband must be a gentleman complete, For you finish up both getting extremely close By dint of, dint of making the baton changes. Cast not a stone at the adulterous woman I am right behind her. But if you come across, alas ! nasty husbands, Some others are so polite, so kind, so friendly That even after having stopped loving their wives You still pretend to be devoted just to them. Cast not a stone at the adulterous woman I am right behind her. That’s how I am just now, I am sick and downcast When I must do the honours with one crazy wife But her husband and I, we’re Oreste and Pylade, And to keep him my friend, I fondle her still. Cast not a stone at the adulterous woman I am right behind her. Not content with turning me off she’s unfaithful, And on days I get mad, want to call it all off I shout : “This’s gone too far; it’s time I make the break!” The husband beseeches: “No don’t you desert me!” Cast not a stone at the adulterous woman I am right behind her. I stay on, and, we both, butter up the other. I say to him : My favourite cuckold is you He replies to me then : Of all the horns I wear The ones I owe to you, dear friend, are sacred. Cast not a stone at the adulterous woman I am right behind her. I stay on and sometimes when that jumped-up creature Stays too long in her latest lover’s company, When the nanny’s out, the husband’s gone off fishing It is me, poor old me, who has to watch the kids Cast not a stone at the adulterous woman

Translation Notes 

1) As a figurative expression for “unfeeling”. Brassens uses “made of wood” but as wooden in English suggests awkward, I have substituted “stone”.

2) The stationmaster is a symbol of the deceived husband because of a line in a well-known vulgar song: “Il est cocu, le chef de gare” – he is cuckolded the stationmaster.

3) Fleur d’époi is a complimentary term, which would tell us that wives of stationmasters dress with the utmost elegance. However there is a secondary meaning because “l’époi” is the tip of a stag’s horns which are the symbol of cuckoldry.

4) Madame Dupont – the name is chosen as a common French surname, just as, in English, we would use Mrs Smith or Mrs Jones for a general name.

5) Femmes de flics. This disparaging verse about the wives of cops is somewhat gratuitous, but Brassens often felt the need to express his distaste for the police

6) À force, à force de se passer le relais. - Brassens’ repetition at the start of this line might suggest hesitation about giving erotic detail of the actual arrangements, with the passing over of the wife from one to the other. When I was struggling with this line, a little linguistic point struck me: English terminology is “pass the baton” a French word of course. The French, however , do not use it saying: “Passer le témoin” – pass the witness.

7) Oreste and Pylade -are characters in classical mythology (and in Racine’s Andromaque) who typify friendship. Orestes was the son of Agamemnon who was murdered by his wife, Clytemnestra. When he reached adulthood, Orestes returned to his native Mycenae to seek revenge for the death of his father. With the collusion of his sister, Electra and of his cousin and close friend, Pylades, Orestes killed his own mother, Clytemnestra and also her lover, Aegisthus. Pylades became the husband of Electra.

8) le mari à la pêche – There is a line of a French song : Le cocu qui s'ennoblit en pêchant.

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