The French poet Isaac de Benserade was born #OnThisDay in 1612. I decided to try my hand at translating a poem of his (the result is somewhat rough, but it’s a first attempt.)

This is called Jalousie, and it was apparently sent to a lover who jilted the poet and went with a more glamorous and less sickly man. (Original text here.)

“Jealousy”

I had a burning fever, and in frenzy
in my sad bed I felt the assaults;
Yet was jealousy
the much greater of my ills.

A rival bides his time, chooses his advantage,
and will see the beauty who so grieves me.
He’s a fool and I take umbrage
for she is a fool as much as he.

Much better his speech persuades her than mine bad;
And if I lose the fruit, who must be mine,
it’s because I am languid
and the other one thrives.

She never made a fault so gross,
this spirit who can’t form a good plan,
as believe a clown who dances and jumps,
worth a poorly healthy but honest man.

She came to my bed, pitied me without end,
She would see me crippled senseless,
to have done with this sadness,
its disorder and its beaten eyes.

To better conceal her want of his charms:
However on point she bewailed my evil,
I read in her eyes all in tears
a rendezvous with my Rival.

That affectation wounds me to the last.
And if I could, while being in love,
make a virtue of my weakness,
how generous I would be.

But Heaven, whose fatal order I know,
does not want to disclose the mystery,
wants again that my helplessness
get along with my enemy.

The whole world’s afield, only he’s with her
and may prevail her young modesty over,
if it so much burns to be faithless
that she feels for him with ardor.

I can’t deny with what justice
she pitied me, when it was in season.
Though she now may with whim
what she once did by reason.

Alas! I remember at my martyrdom’s height,
unspectacled and fearful, in the gloomy night,
how I went so to tell him I might
without causing scandal or fight.

But though another has with her prevailed,
let her shame and modesty be willfully lost,
provided she lacks the glory
of making us lose heart.

Though I vex and infuriate myself,
despair much, and loudly complain,
this is not to preach his merit,
or to publish my blame.

His rank requires the world all adore him,
and no one so honored is ever deprived.
And I’m wrong there again to claim her,
since my own reign’s no longer alive.