Analysis of Le Testament: Les Regrets De La Belle Heaulmière
François Villon 1431 (Paris) – 1463
By chance, I heard the belle complain,
The one we called the Armouress,
Longing to be a girl again,
Talking like this, more or less:
‘Oh, old age, proud in wickedness,
You've battered me so, and why?
Who cares, who, for my distress,
Or whether at all your blows I die?
You've stolen away that great power
My beauty ordained for me
Over priests and clerks, my hour,
When never a man I'd see
Would fail to offer his all in fee,
Whatever remorse he'd later show,
But what was abandoned readily,
Beggars now scorn to know.
Many a man I then refused -
Which wasn't wise of me, no jest -
For love of a boy, cunning too,
To whom I gave all my largesse.
I feigned to him unwillingness,
But, by my soul, I loved him bad.
What he showed was his roughness,
Loving me only for what I had.
He could drag me through the dirt,
Trample me underfoot, I'd love him,
Break my back, whatever's worse,
If only he'd ask for a kiss again,
I'd soon forget then every pain.
A glutton, full of what he could win,
He'd embrace me - with him I've lain.
What's he left me? Shame and sin.
Now he's dead, these thirty years:
And I live on, old, and grey.
When I think of those times, with tears,
What I was, what I am today,
View myself naked: turn at bay,
Seeing what I am no longer,
Poor, dry, meagre, worn away,
I almost forget myself in anger.
Where's my smooth brow gone:
My arching lashes, yellow hair,
Wide-eyed glances, pretty ones,
That took in the cleverest there:
Nose not too big or small: a pair
Of delicate little ears, the chin
Dimpled: a face oval and fair,
Lovely lips with crimson skin?
The fine slender shoulder-blades:
The long arms, with tapering hands:
My small breasts: the hips well made
Full and firm, and sweetly planned,
All Love's tournaments to withstand:
The broad flanks: the nest of hair,
With plump thighs firmly spanned,
Inside its little garden there?
Now wrinkled forehead, hair gone grey:
Sparse eyelashes: eyes so dim,
That laughed and flashed once every way,
And reeled their roaming victims in:
Nose bent from beauty, ears thin,
Hanging down like moss, a face,
Pallid, dead and bleak, the chin
Furrowed, a skinny-lipped disgrace.
This is the end of human beauty:
Shrivelled arms, hands warped like feet:
The shoulders hunched up utterly:
Breasts….what? In full retreat,
Same with the hips, as with the teats:
Little nest, hah! See the thighs,
Not thighs, thighbones, poor man's meat,
Blotched like sausages, and dried.
That's how the bon temps we regret
Among us, poor old idiots,
Squatting on our haunches, set
All in a heap like woollen lots
Round a hemp fire men forgot,
Soon kindled, and soon dust,
Once so lovely, that cocotte…
So it goes for all of us.
Scheme | ABCBBDBD EFEBFGFG HXXBBIBI XJBCAKAK BLBLLELE XMBMMKMK BBXNNMNM LJLKKBKB FOFOBBOX PBPBXXHB |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Etheree (31%) |
Metre | 11110101 011101 10110101 1011111 11110100 1101101 1111101 110111111 110011110 1100111 10101110 1100111 111101101 10011101 111010100 101111 10011101 11011111 11101101 11111101 11110100 11111111 1111110 101101111 1111101 10101111 111101 1101110101 110111001 01111111 10111111 1111101 1111101 0111101 11111111 11111101 1110111 10111110 111101 11011010 11111 11010101 1110101 110011 11111101 110010101 10011001 1011101 0110101 01111001 1110111 1010101 11100101 0110111 111101 01110101 11010111 110111 110111001 01110100 1111011 1011101 1010101 10010101 110111010 111111 01011100 110101 11011101 1011101 111111 1110001 11011101 01111100 1011011 10011101 10110101 110011 111011 1111111 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 2,612 |
Words | 491 |
Sentences | 21 |
Stanzas | 10 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8 |
Lines Amount | 80 |
Letters per line (avg) | 25 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 203 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 49 |
Font size:
Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 25, 2023
- 2:32 min read
- 114 Views
Citation
Use the citation below to add this poem analysis to your bibliography:
Style:MLAChicagoAPA
"Le Testament: Les Regrets De La Belle Heaulmière" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 27 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/13672/le-testament%3A-les-regrets-de-la-belle-heaulmi%C3%A8re>.
Discuss this François Villon poem analysis with the community:
Report Comment
We're doing our best to make sure our content is useful, accurate and safe.
If by any chance you spot an inappropriate comment while navigating through our website please use this form to let us know, and we'll take care of it shortly.
Attachment
You need to be logged in to favorite.
Log In