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Whence Come You, Shepherdess?

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Translator’s Note:

“D’où Viens-tu, Bergère” was one of a number of old songs and carols from the French region of Périgord collected by Emmanuel Casse and Eugène Chaminade and published in Les Vieilles Chansons Patoises du Périgord (Old Songs in the Vernacular of the Périgord) in 1888.

As collected, the carol consisted of 18 verses. The carol was subsequently translated into modern French with four, and sometimes five verses now associated with a tune similar to, but distinctly different from the one notated in the original collection. The carol is particularly popular in Canada.

My English, versified translation is drawn from the modern French text and the music is my a capella arrangement of the tune most commonly associated with it today.

Both tunes (among others) can be found on You Tube.

The modern tune can be found here.

The original tune can be found here.

My own arrangement of the carol along with my translation and the French text follows below.

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English Translation

Whence come you, shepherdess? From whence do you come? (repeat)
From the stable wending, I was passing there;
Miracle descending on the evening air.

What did you see, O shepherdess? What did you see? (repeat)
I saw in the creche, a baby small and fair;
In the straw so fresh, I saw him lying there.

Nothing more, O shepherdess? Nothing more? (repeat)
St. Joseph, his father, his god-father St. John;
Saint Mary, his mother, who loves him as her son.

Nothing more, O shepherdess? Nothing more? (repeat)
Ox and ass surround him, keeping him from harm;
With their breath they bound him, so the child was warm.

Nothing more, O shepherdess? Nothing more? (repeat)
Three small angels winging, from heaven above they came;
Praises they were singing to Eternal Father’s name.

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Original French

D’où viens-tu, bergère, d’où viens-tu? (bis)
—Je viens de l’étable, de m’y promener;
J’ai vu un miracle ce soir arriver.

Qu’as-tu vu, bergère, qu’as-tu vu? (bis)
—J’ai vu dans la crèche un petit enfant
Sur la paille fraîche mis bien tendrement.

Rien de plus, bergère, rien de plus? (bis)
—Saint Joseph, son père, Saint Jean, son parrain,
Saint’-Marie sa mère, qui l’aime si bien.

Rien de plus, bergère, rien de plus? (bis)
—´Y a1 le bœuf et l’âne qui sont par devant
Et de leur haleine réchauffent l’enfant.

Rien de plus, bergère, rien de plus? (bis)
—´Y a trois petits anges descendus du ciel,
Chantant les louanges du Père éternel.

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James A. Tweedie is a retired pastor living in Long Beach, Washington. He has written and published six novels, one collection of short stories, and three collections of poetry including Mostly Sonnets, all with Dunecrest Press. His poems have been published nationally and internationally in The Lyric, Poetry Salzburg (Austria) Review, California Quarterly, Asses of Parnassus, Lighten Up Online, Better than Starbucks, Dwell Time, Light, Deronda Review, The Road Not Taken, Fevers of the Mind, Sparks of Calliope, Dancing Poetry, WestWard Quarterly, Society of Classical Poets, and The Chained Muse. He was honored with being chosen as the winner of the 2021 SCP International Poetry Competition.

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8 Responses

  3. Paul A. Freeman

    Very enjoyable. I’ll play it at our Christmas Eve party, if that’s okay.

    Reply
    • James A. Tweedie

      Thanks for the plug. I’m sure all the Francophiles and Canadians/Canadiens in your corner of Mauritania will appreciate and enjoy it! lol All the best and Merry Christmas to you, Paul.

      Reply
  4. Margaret Coats

    Thanks, James, for the new-to-me Christmas carol. It is always interesting to see what perspective each carol takes. In this one, there is a real sense of the shepherdess being a privileged observer–and of the insatiable desire of the singers to know more about the miracle. A good way to approach Christmas. I like your arrangement, but I am also glad you supplied the one by Carmen Campagne and the very different early one. I suppose it may be Perigord folk music. Nice to hear what joie de Noel sounded like there. Reminded me of a French horn performer on one of my pilgrimages. The horn was an unvalved circle about the size of a hula hoop. It required great breath and strength to play, making sounds far deeper than one would expect from the slight diameter of the brass tubing. Ah, the many ways of honoring the Holy Family and worshipping the Eternal Father and His Son!

    Reply
    • James A. Tweedie

      Margaret, “Ah, the many ways . . .” indeed, from twisted brass tubing to the single-drone French bagpipe!

      You might be interested to know that when it is not sung in French, the English translation ordinarily sung to this carol (written in the 1890s I believe) renders the word “bergère” as “maiden,” which better fits with the music but changes the identity of the lead character in the carol from one of the “shepherds in the field” to a mere passer-by. Another curious thing is that the Wikipedia article on this carol asserts that the English lyrics suggest the “maiden/shepherdess” is none other than Mary Magdalene (or, I suppose, an iconic preternatural representation of her), This makes no sense to me but then again, folk traditions need not always make rational sense and yet serve as a vehicle for worship, praise and devotion, nonetheless.

      Reply
  5. Joshua C. Frank

    Well done! The translation is good, and you can sing on key, which I certainly can’t… I would have liked the song to be accompanied with a guitar, but that’s just me.

    The only issue with the translation is stanza 3; the meter isn’t consistent with the other stanzas, and “as her son” implies (at least to me) that Jesus wasn’t her son, which is not implied in the original French.

    Also, was not rhyming first lines of stanzas in the translation as they were rhymed in French a stylistic choice? I ask because when I translate, I like to preserve the rhyme and approximate the meter as close as possible in English (as you know, French meter is based on syllable count).

    Still, it’s a good translation, and well sung.

    Reply
    • James A. Tweedie

      Joshua,

      Thank you for your comment and your perceptive questions.

      Re the running rhyme in the opening questions: while it is true that the words tu, vu, and plus rhyme, there are three points to make that belie the necessity for the translator to carry this pattern into English. 1. The questions in the original 19 verses written in the “patois du Périgord” do not rhyme; 2. There are modern French verses (which I did not include in my translation) which do not follow the scheme of that opening rhyme (such as, “Est-il beau bergère, Est-il beau?); and 3. The opening questions in the traditional/standard English translation also do not rhyme. (Nor does it make any attempt to duplicate the internal rhyme—present in the original patois—which I have done in mine).

      Re Jesus as Mary’s son: the phrase “as her son” is an emphatic definite, akin to the wedding vow question which asks the groom/bride if he/she will “take her/him as your wife/husband. There is no reason to read it as “who loved him as IF HE WERE her son.

      And lastly, re the variant rhythm in the opening of the third stanza, you are correct to point this out. Indeed, none of my verses follow the exact rhythmic pattern found in the French. The main reason for this is the awkwardness the derives from the literal translation of the iambic two-syllable word bergère into the literal trochaic three-syllable word, shepherdess. The traditional English translation avoids this by substituting the less precise word, maiden, which, as I point out in my response to Margaret, shifts the dialogue in a completely new direction. My decision to use the word shepherdess made the rhythmic digression inevitable, unavoidable, and, in the third stanza, inconsistent..

      And as for the suggestion of adding a guitar, my first recording included a harp accompaniment. My preference for the a capella version was the result of a last minute metaphorical coin flip. As they say, “Six of one, half dozen of the other.” (And as for who “they” are, I have no idea! lol).

      Thank you for the questions. They were good ones and worth my time to respond.

      And a Merry Christmas to you, Joshua!

      Reply

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