‘The Navy’ and Other Love Poems by Paul Fort, Translated by Joshua C. Frank

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The Navy

by Paul Fort (1872-1960)
translated by Joshua C. Frank

We find them all again in brief
In little loves that last one day,
Every joy and care and grief
Of loves that shall forever stay—
The sailor’s fate and our distress,
And that of all our little dears,
And then we dock and quickly kiss
The body of the one we miss.

And every joy and every beef,
Each fight, each make-up word we say,
We find them all again in brief
In little loves that last one day.
First we laughed, and then we kissed
On the eyes, and on the breasts,
In the hair, kissed quite a lot,
Nestled just like eggs, all hot!

All that we do in just one day,
We stretch out time to such extent,
More than three times in just one day,
Content, then discontent, content!
Throughout the room, there is a smell
Of tender love and tar of coal.
It makes our hearts with great joy swell
And gives us pain, good for the soul.

We’re not around here just to chat,
But even in love’s strong embrace,
For our next dawn, ourselves we brace;
Such a calamity is that—
The Navy’s fate and our distress,
And that of all our little dears.
We land near home, but we can guess
That it won’t bring us heavenly cheers!

There’s just no use in making haste,
To outdo time, Good Lord, and fret
And fill it with our sins unchaste.
That simply can’t be so, and yet
We find them all again in brief
In little loves that last one day,
Every joy and care and grief
Of loves that shall forever stay.

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Translator’s Notes:

The French pronoun “on” means “one” (as in “one must do one’s best”), “someone,” “people” (in general, as in “people like to go to the movies”), “you” (as in “you need strategy to win at chess”), but it is commonly colloquially used to mean “we.”  I’ve translated it as “we” in English because this poem makes the most sense as a first-person poem, but in French, the other meanings are used to convey the universality of the experience among men at sea.
Georges Brassens (1921-1981) set several of Paul Fort’s poems to music.  The most well-known of them in France is “Lament of the Little White Horse,” translated here. The two poets were friends later in Fort’s life.

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Original French

La Marine

On les retrouve en raccourci
Dans nos petits amours d’un jour,
Toutes les joies, tous les soucis,
Des amours qui durent toujours
C’est là le sort de la marine
Et de toutes nos petites chéries.
On accoste, vite un bec,
Pour nos baisers, le corps avec!

Et les joies et les bouderies,
Les fâcheries, les bons retours,
On les retrouve en raccourci
Dans nos petits amours d’un jour.
On a ri, on s’est baisé,
sur les neuneuils, sur les nénés,
Dans les cheveux à pleins bécots
Pondus comme des œufs, tout chauds!

Tout ce qu’on fait dans un seul jour
Et comme on allonge le temps,
Plus de trois fois dans un seul jour,
Content, pas content, content!
‘Y a dans la chambre une odeur
D’amour tendre et de goudron.
Ca vous met la joies dans le coeur
La peine aussi et c’est bon.

On n’est pas là pour causer,
Mais on pense même dans l’amour
On pense que demain il fera jour
Et que c’est une calamité.
C’est là le sort de la marine,
Et de toutes nos petites chéries,
On accoste mais on devine
Que ça sera pas le paradis!

On aura beau se dépécher
Faire bon dieu, la pige au temps,
Et le bourrer de tous nos pêchés
Ça ne sera pas ça et pourtant…
Toutes les joies, tous les soucis,
Des amours qui durent toujours,
On les retrouve en raccourci
Dans nos petits amours d’un jour.

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Had the Good Lord Wanted Me To

by Paul Fort (1872-1960)
translated by Joshua C. Frank

Had the Good Lord wanted me to,
La dee dum, oh la dee doo,
I’d know dear Cleopatra of yore,
And I would never have known you.

I’d know dear Cleopatra of yore,
And I would never have known you.
Without your love that I adore,
Alas!  What would I be and do?

Had the Good Lord wanted me to,
I would have known dear Messalina,
Agnes, Odette, and Melusina,
And I would never have known you.

I would have known dear Pompadour,
Naomi, dear Rebecca, Sarah,
The Daughter of the Royal Tambour,
And then dear Mogador and Clara.

But the Good Lord willed me not to
Know these women’s loving ways.
You’ve known me, and I’ve known you—
Praise God in highest Heaven’s view!

Alas!  What would I be and do
Without you all my nights and days?
You’ve known me, and I’ve known you—
Praise God in highest Heaven’s view!

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Translator’s Notes: 

“Dear,” etc.: In French, using the definite article in front of someone’s first name is meant to convey familiarity with the person.  Fort’s speaker is assuming a familiarity with various long-dead or fictitious women.  Since this custom doesn’t exist in English, I’ve translated it as “dear.”
Fort made some interesting choices of women for his speaker to list as women he could have known instead of his love interest:
Cleopatra: Queen of Egypt, with whom Julius Caesar and Marc Antony both fell in love, changing the course of history.
Messalina: Wife of Emperor Claudius, known for her political intrigues and promiscuity.
Agnes: Agnès Sorel, favorite mistress of King Charles VII of France (1422-1450), best known through her portrait in “La Vierge à l’Enfant” by Jean Fouquet.
Odette: Charles Swann’s love interest in In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust.
Melusina: Mélusine, a character in French fables, who was the daughter of a fairy and could transform into a snake.  I’ve translated the name thus for the rhyme.
Pompadour: The Marquess of Pompadour (1721-1764), official mistress of King Louis XV of France, influential in the royal court and a patroness of the arts.
Naomi: Ruth’s mother-in-law, as shown in the Bible.
Rebecca: The wife of Isaac and mother of Jacob, ancestor of the Jews, as shown in the Bible.
Sarah: The wife of Abraham, who bore him the same Issac at the age of ninety.
The Daughter of the Royal Tambour: This is the title of an 18th-century French soldier’s song.
Mogador: Countess Céleste of Chabrillan (1824-1909), whose literary writings survive to this day.
Clara: Clara Schumann (1819-1896), wife of the composer Robert Schumann, whom she married without her father’s consent.
“Praise God,” etc.: In the original French, the line is a French translation of the Bible verse, “Glory to God in the highest,” Luke 2:14.  I’ve changed the wording to keep rhyme and meter in English.

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Original French

Si le Bon Dieu L’Avait Voulu

Si le Bon Dieu l’avait voulu
– lanturette, lanturlu, –
j’aurais connu la Cléopâtre,
et je t’aurais pas connue.

J’aurais connu la Cléopâtre,
et je ne t’aurais pas connue.
Sans ton amour que j’idolâtre,
las ! que fussé-je devenu ?

Si le Bon Dieu l’avait voulu,
j’aurais connu la Messaline,
Agnès, Odette et Mélusine,
et je ne t’aurais pas connue.

J’aurais connu la Pompadour,
Noémi, Sarah, Rebecca,
la Fille du Royal Tambour,
et la Mogador et Clara.

Mais le Bon Dieu n’a pas voulu
que je connaisse leurs amours,
je t’ai connue, tu m’as connu
– gloire à Dieu au plus haut des nues !

– Las ! que fussé-je devenu
sans toi la nuit, sans toi le jour ?
Je t’ai connue, tu m’as connu
– gloire à Dieu au plus haut des nues !

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Like Yesterday

by Paul Fort (1872-1960)
translated by Joshua C. Frank

Hey, come kiss me, sweetie, hey!  My pretty berry!
The dawn filled our horizon with berries we can eat.
Keep your little turkeys, I my pigs, O Mary.
Don’t push away my piglets with your feet.

Go, just like yesterday!  Yesterday!  But
If you don’t love me, I still loves you, me sweet.
One will hold the spoon, and one the knife to cut:
Life has always sung the same old beat.

To jump the great, wide stream from stone to stone uprightly,
Just like every day, my arms shall be your seat.
Our turkeys and our trouts will follow us so lightly.
Don’t push away me piglets with your feet.

Go, just like yesterday!  Yesterday!  But
If you don’t love me, I still loves you, me sweet.
Life is love and misery no matter what.
Life has always sung the same old beat.

Deeply I respect your dearest heart, O Mary,
And your little turkeys.  When our love is sweet,
When we both get angry, hey!  My pretty berry,
Don’t push away me piglets with your feet.

Go, just like yesterday!  Yesterday!  But
If you don’t love me, I still loves you, me sweet.
One will hold the spoon, and one the knife to cut:
Life has always sung the same old beat.

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Translator’s Notes:

“My pretty berry:” In French, “fraise” (strawberry) is slang for the head or the face; also, a turkey’s wattle.  Since no equivalent of all these meanings exists in English, I kept the affectionate and literal meanings and saved the others for the footnote.
“Mary:” I changed the speaker’s love interest’s name to Mary in the English version to rhyme with “berry,” as the French name Thérèse (Theresa) rhymes with “fraise” (strawberry).
“I still loves you:” A deliberate grammatical error, to translate a similar error in the original French, which is used to stereotype the speaker as rural.  In French, the plural forms of verbs (corresponding to we/y’all/they in English) were originally also used for royalty, and expanded to the upper classes after the Revolution; rural people adopted this as an affectation.  The custom has since fallen out of favor, but the stereotype of rural people remains.  Today, it’s meant to portray them as ignorant, though in reality, even illiterate peasant speakers of languages with complex verb conjugations have always been able to use them correctly.
I’ve intentionally repeated the use of “sweet” as a rhyme because “aimons” ([we] love) and “aimerons” ([we] will love) were rhymed in those same places in the original French.

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Original French

Comme Hier

Hé! donne moi ta bouche, hé! ma jolie fraise!
L’aube a mis des fraises plein notre horizon.
Garde tes dindons, moi mes porcs, Thérèse
Ne repousse pas du pied mes petits cochons.

Va, comme hier! comme hier! comme hier!
Si tu ne m’aimes point, c’est moi qui t’aimerons.
L’un tient le couteau, l’autre la cuiller:
La vie, c’est toujours les mêmes chansons.

Pour sauter le gros sourceau de pierre en pierre,
Comme tous les jours mes bras t’enlèveront.
Nos dindes, nos truies nous suivront légères.
Ne repousse pas du pied mes petits cochons.

Va, comme hier! comme hier! comme hier!
Si tu ne m’aimes point, c’est moi qui t’aimerons.
La vie, c’est toujours amour et misère.
La vie, c’est toujours les mêmes chansons.

J’ai tant de respect pour ton cœur Thérèse,
Et pour tes dindons. Quand nous nous aimons
Quand nous nous fâchons, hé! ma jolie fraise
Ne repousse pas du pied mes petits cochons.

Va, comme hier! comme hier! comme hier!
Si tu ne m’aimes point, c’est moi qui t’aimerons.
L’un tient le couteau, l’autre la cuiller:
La vie, c’est toujours les mêmes chansons.

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Joshua C. Frank works in the field of statistics and lives in the American Heartland.  His poetry has been published in Snakeskin, The Lyric, Sparks of Calliope, Westward Quarterly, Atop the Cliffs, Our Day’s Encounter, The Creativity Webzine, Verse Virtual, and The Asahi Haikuist Network, and his short fiction has been published in Nanoism and The Creativity Webzine.

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