#louise labe

[mimsiepott]

Historical Ladies: Louise Labé (1524 - 1566)

la belle cordière. the beautiful ropemaker.

[coloradocowgirlforchrist]

“I will be iridescent, blossoming.”

– Louise Labé, “Complete Poetry & Prose; A Bilingual Edition”

[white-wolf-soul]

Louise Labé: Sonnet VIII

translated from French by Via Negativa

[linsaad]

I beg of you, Love, torment me no more!

Yet do not extinguish my beloved desire,

Or Fatal Death shall be mine.

Original — Je t'en supplie, Amour, cesse de me tourmenter !

Mais n'éteins pas en moi mon plus précieux désir,

Sinon il me faudra fatalement mourir.

# Louise Labé

[linsaad]

Baise m’encor, rebaise-moi et baise ;

Donne m’en un de tes plus savoureux,

Donne m’en un de tes plus amoureux :

Je t’en rendrai quatre plus chauds que braise.

Las ! te plains-tu ? Çà, que ce mal j’apaise,

En t’en donnant dix autres doucereux.

Ainsi, mêlant nos baisers tant heureux,

Jouissons-nous l’un de l’autre à notre aise.

# Louise Labé

[literatureinalibrary]

Sonnet III

Louise Labe

O languid longing, o languorous sighs.

Rise up once more whenever you are here,

Because I can't stop these rivers of tears,

And these fountains flowing from my eyes.

O cruelties, o inhuman hardness,

Piteable regards of celestian lights.

O benumbed heart, o passionate heights,

Do you con me with false lovelinnes ?

Amor is disguised with a friendly face,

But I won't welcome him, nor embrace

His cunning features, mysterious and dark.

As he draws and aims on me his arrow,

I'm not afraid because it is too narrow,

Even for him, to hurt me and hit a free mark.

[literatureinalibrary]

I Flee the City, Temples, and Each Place,

Louise Labe

I flee the city, temples, and each place

where you took pleasure in your own lament,

where you used every forceful argument

to make me yield what I could not replace.

Games, masques, tournaments bore me and I sigh

and I dream no beauty that is not of you.

And so I try to kill my passion too,

forcing another image to my eye,

hoping to break away from tender thought.

Deep in the woods I found a lonely trail,

and after wandering in a maze I sought

to put you wholly out of mind. I fail.

Only outside my body can I live

or else in exile like a fugitive.

[literatureinalibrary]

While Yet These Tears

Louise Labe

While yet these tears have power to flow

For hours for ever past away;

While yet these swelling sighs allow

My faltering voice to breathe a lay;

While yet my hand can touch the chords,

My tender lute, to wake thy tone;

While yet my mind no thought affords,

But one remembered dream alone,

I ask not death, whate'er my state:

But when my eyes can weep no more,

My voice is lost, my hand untrue.

And when my spirit's fire is o'er,

Nor can express the love it knew,

Come, Death, and cast thy shadows o'er my fate!