(fr fr Raina Audron is an absolute legend for pulling this off. I'm so glad people like her, Ben Lincoln, and Baziel + the Wikia crew are fandom figureheads and not the people I knew running sites like Nosgothic Realm back in Ye Olde Dark Ages of the early 00's)
My PC crashed and I spent whole month and one week without it ToT besides that I lost part of my collection of japanese music, stages and doramas… That situation when you hope on your backup hard disc and it lets you down~
I've been reading Yoshida Akimi's Lovers' Kiss. If you stumble upon this post, you should too. Megchan is scanlating it. The cover of the manga, as well as the title page of each chapter, has a French poem. I've never been into poetry, so I only thought "oh, nice" while reading them. However, that "il pleure dans mon cœur" one looked oddly too familiar to me. Then common sense hit me and I used google like any normal person would. And bingo, they were actual poems by French poets Paul Verlaine and Arthur Rimbaud! (They have a love story full of angsty drama, if you don't already know. Those dudes deserve their own manga in full 70s shoujo style.)
I decided to compile them here with their English translations. Yoshida is so great that she is making me, someone with zero interest in poetry, look these up.
The translations I used for Verlaine's poems are by Gertrude Hall, and Rimbaud's are by Martin Sorrell. You can check the full poems by looking up their titles, I'm only putting what's on the manga pages.
1. Il pleut doucement sur la ville by Paul Verlaine (1874). It appears on both volume covers and the title page of chapter 2.
Il pleure dans mon cœur (It weeps in my heart)
Comme il pleut sur la ville, (As it rains on the town.)
Quelle est cette langueur (What is this dull smart)
Qui pénètre mon coeur? (Possessing my heart?)
Ô bruit doux de la pluie (Soft sound of the rain)
Par terre et sur les toits! (On the ground and the roofs!)
Pour un coeur qui s'ennuie, (To a heart in pain,)
Ô le chant de la pluie! (O the song of the rain!)
2. Ma Bohème by Arthur Rimbaud (1870). It appears on the title page of chapter 1. Yoshida cut off parts of the verses.
Je m’en allais, les poings dans mes poches crevées ; (And so I went, hands thrust in torn pockets.)
Mon paletot aussi devenait idéal ; (My coat was more idea than fact.)
J’allais sous le ciel, Muse ! et j’étais ton féal ; (Beneath the sky––my Muse, my liege––I went;)
Oh ! là ! là ! que d’amours splendides j’ai rêvées ! (Oh my! what dreams of splendid loves I had!)
Mon unique culotte avait un large trou. (My one and only trousers were hugely holed.)
– Petit-Poucet rêveur, j’égrenais dans ma course (––Starry-eyed Tom Thumb, I strewed my path)
Des rimes. Mon auberge était à la Grande-Ourse. (With verse. I laid my head at Great Bear Inn.)
– Mes étoiles au ciel avaient un doux frou-frou (––My stars swished softly in the sky)
3. Colloque sentimental by Paul Verlaine (1869). It appears on the title page of chapter 3.
Dans le vieux parc solitaire et glacé (In the deserted park, silent and vast,)
Deux formes ont tout à l'heure passé. (Erewhile two shadowy glimmering figures passed.)
Leurs yeux sont morts et leurs lèvres sont molles, (Their lips were colorless, and dead their eyes;)
Et l'on entend à peine leurs paroles. (Their words were scarce more audible than sighs.)
4. Les reparties de Nina by Arthur Rimbaud (1870). It appears on the title page of chapter 4, and of chapter 6.
Je te parlerais dans ta bouche: (My lips against yours, I’d murmur,)
J'irais, pressant (I’d walk, hugging)
Ton corps, comme une enfant qu'on couche, (Your body, like a bedtime child,)
Ivre du sang (Drunk on the blood)
Qui coule, bleu, sous ta peau blanche (That flows blue beneath your skin,)
Aux tons rosés: (White, hints of pink,)
Et te parlant la langue franche... (Talking a frank language to you,)
Tiens !... - que tu sais... (The one you know...)
Puis, comme une petite morte, (Then, limp as a corpse,)
Le cœur pâmé, (Fainting almost,)
Tu me dirais que je te porte, (You’d ask me to carry you,)
L’œil mi-fermé... (Your eyes just slits.)
5. Ce qu’on dit au Poète à propos de fleurs by Arthur Rimbaud (1871), pt. IV. It appears on the title page of chapter 5.
Dis, non les pampas printaniers (Don’t speak of springtime pampas)
Noirs d’épouvantables révoltes, (Dark with dreadful revolt,)
Mais les tabacs, les cotonniers! (Speak of tobaccos, cotton-fields,)
Dis les exotiques récoltes! (Exotic harvest-times!)
Looking these up were quite fun. I thought I'd leave them here.
Поцелуи влюбленных почти перевели на английский, об этом шедевре узнает больше людей ТоТ
Люблю каждую страничку и не жалею ни минуты времени, которое ушло на перевод
Happy 20th anniversary to the best lawyer game ever!
This will be available as a 1.5m long, high res and layered PSD soon!
Check out the full-stitched version of this illustration: https://poipiku.com/3827235/5413373.html
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