Original French

Dictes moy ou, n'en quel pays,
Est Flora la belle Rommaine,
Archipiades ne Thaïs,
Qui fut sa cousine germaine,
Echo parlant quant bruyt on maine
Dessus riviere ou sus estan,
Qui beaulté ot trop plus q'humaine.
Mais ou sont les neiges d'antan?

Ou est la tres sage Helloïs,
Pour qui chastré fut et puis moyne
Pierre Esbaillart a Saint Denis?
Pour son amour ot ceste essoyne.
Semblablement, ou est la royne
Qui commanda que Buridan
Fust geté en ung sac en Saine?
Mais ou sont les neiges d'antan?

La royne Blanche comme lis
Qui chantoit a voix de seraine,
Berte au grand pié, Beatris, Alis,
Haremburgis qui tint le Maine,
Et Jehanne la bonne Lorraine
Qu'Englois brulerent a Rouan;
Ou sont ilz, ou, Vierge souvraine?
Mais ou sont les neiges d'antan?

Prince, n'enquerez de sepmaine
Ou elles sont, ne de cest an,
Qu'a ce reffrain ne vous remaine:
Mais ou sont les neiges d'antan?


English Translation

Ballad Of The Ladies Of Yore

Tell me where, in what country,
Is Flora the beautiful Roman,
Archipiada or Thais
Who was first cousin to her once,
Echo who speaks when there's a sound
On a pond or a river
Whose beauty was more than human?
But where are the snows of yesteryear?
Where is the leamed Heloise
For whom they castrated Pierre Abelard
And made him a monk at Saint-Denis,
For his love he took this pain,
Likewise where is the queen
Who commanded that Buridan
Be thrown in a sack into the Seine?
But where are the snows of yesteryear?

The queen white as a lily
Who sang with a siren's voice,
Big-footed Bertha, Beatrice, Alice,
Haremburgis who held Maine
And Jeanne the good maid of Lorraine
Whom the English bumt at Rouen, where,
Where are they, sovereign ******?
But where are the snows of yesteryear?

Prince, don't ask me in a week
or in a year what place they are;
I can only give you this refrain:
Where are the snows of yesteryear?

From the French of François Villon

Tell me now in what hidden way is
Lady Flora the lovely Roman?
Where’s Hipparchia, and where is Thais,
Neither of them the fairer woman?
Where is Echo, beheld of no man,
Only heard on river and mere—
She whose beauty was more than human?—
But where are the snows of yester-year?

Where’s Heloise, the learned nun,
For whose sake Abeillard, I ween,
Lost manhood and put priesthood on?
(From Love he won such dule and teen!)
And where, I pray you, is the Queen
Who willed that Buridan should steer
Sewed in a sack’s mouth down the Seine?—
But where are the snows of yester-year?

White Queen Blanche, like a queen of lilies,
With a voice like any mermaiden—
Bertha Broadfoot, Beatrice, Alice,
And Ermengarde the lady of Maine—
And that good Joan whom Englishmen
At Rouen doomed and burned her there—
Mother of God, where are they then?—
But where are the snows of yester-year?

Nay, never ask this week, fair lord,
Where they are gone, nor yet this year,
Except with this for an overword—
But where are the snows of yester-year?

I won't mind being surreal,
if you won't scurry
seeing me in my real self,
and kind enough not to
think of me as outlandish
as something like 'Shrodinger's cat'
kept in a box
that is both alive and dead!
(to the universe outside the box
as the' Copenhagen interpretation' implies,
dont ask me how!)

I am least interested in'quantum entanglement'
which i can do without, but oh! mathematics
that mother of all sciences is hell bent, it seems
to hunt me down till I say uncle.

They have  told me ,
what I am now
is not mathematically possible!
(whatever it means)
They looked at me as if
I don't exist.

(Oh! my poor Shrodinger's cat
I now understand your plight;
oh ! to be both dead and  'undead' theoretically
when reality chooses to go naked!)

I just said this:
I have no use to mathematics
that refuses to believe in me
if maths find me unacceptable
all I want to say is this,
how would maths even touch poetry with a barge pole?
and don't forget, maths creates the poetry of the universe!

Oh! I am confused
forgive me for being Buridan's ***
that sees in maths 'Shrodinger's cat'


They looked horrified
and in a moment
turned to thick smoke
and dissolved!

"Department of space' a signboard shouts aloud
to my perplexity of that moment, it adds
before mind's eye I see the great enigma personified
and try to reason,"Oh! fathomless vastitude, mostly dark
what need you've this quaint building, that before you
would be a frightened Indian bride at her first night?"
Yes, the puny little "department" is not all space, it implies,
has a purpose limited than how it sounds: grandiose!
one doesn't even has any inkling,
what all these means, but a scribe, I have  a thing
with all these seeming inanities, that's the funny part.

Marveling it's esoteric architecture and mulling over
the concept of bringing the limitless to the minuscule,
just enough for a department of government to deal with,
I wait for bus, a personification of impatience, curse the circumstances,
fear reaching late for my appointment, with an eminent scientist.

Fuming against the haphazard, public transport system in this town,
while appreciating the red brick architecture, acts contrary
and make me a bundle of nerves.
Then she 'happens', that's the word
wasn't I looking for an escape from it all?
Freeze, i did, she, to be precise,  her figure was
nothing less than  a show stopper,one should admit.

Her dress, gladly left nothing to guess, and those dark eyes
from the other end of the bus stop eagerly sought me
as if I am assigned officially to pay all her pending bills!

From all round swarms of humming birds, eager admiring eyes
were chasing her, the moment  was an explosion of chrysanthemums ,
for me,  she and I , two spirited dancers on a stage,
(a scene fashioned in my mind, unfolded there ,it seemed)

Am i not to honor commitment as a responsible journalist?
an appointment was fixed with the nuclear physicist,  
with great difficulty it was done, on the way my car conked,
at the nick of the moment, i am here eagerness and anxiety
combined , fighting many demons at once, give me a break..

Yet here i am, finding time to fall in love, like yet another accident,
how fickle is my mind, I'd make any one submit
in an argument, but this red, ripened lips,are alluring
infest my thoughts, those dark eyes plead for love of course,
makes me feel like running to her, true love  may appear even here.

at that moments of dilemma I was another Buridan's ***
wants to do both but can't do one even;
and precisely then  my cell phone rings,
on the other end the nuclear scientist sounds apologetic,
my heart started to pound in my ears, does she want to cancel
the appointment for the day, postponed to another day?
I didn't listen her words, those eyes were scorching me alive.

Belle « à damner les saints », à troubler sous l'aumusse

Un vieux juge ! Elle marche impérialement.

Elle parle - et ses dents font un miroitement -

Italien, avec un léger accent russe.


Ses yeux froids où l'émail sertit le bleu de Prusse

Ont l'éclat insolent et dur du diamant.

Pour la splendeur du sein, pour le rayonnement

De la peau, nulle reine ou courtisane, fût-ce


Cléopâtre la lynce ou la chatte Ninon,

N'égale sa beauté patricienne, non !

Vois, ô bon Buridan : « C'est une grande dame ! »


Il faut - pas de milieu ! - l'adorer à genoux,

Plat, n'ayant d'astre aux cieux que ces lourds cheveux roux

Ou bien lui cravacher la face, à cette femme !