Open Rehearsal: The Court Theatre Blog
October 22, 2009
Mystery Allusion #3 - BUT WHERE ARE THE SNOWS OF YESTERYEAR?
Charles Ludlam’s knowledge of literature was formidable, and he peppered The Mystery of Irma Vep with canny allusions. We’re featuring several of those allusions every week until the opening of The Mystery of Irma Vep. Today’s selection is:
BALLAD OF THE LADIES OF BYGONE TIMES
(Ballade des dames du temps jadis)
BACKGROUND: This medieval French poem was composed by François Villon for his greatest work, The Grand Testament. Born in 1431, the French poet Villon was also known as a vagabond, a thief, and a murderer.
THE ALLUSION: Jane (Erik Hellman) utters the line, “But where are the snows of yesteryear?” (In the play, she’s musing about the disappearance of werewolf footprints.) It is a famous English translation by Dante Gabriel Rossetti of the line “Mais où sont les neiges d’antan?”
Here’s Rossetti’s translation of the poem in full. (French translation is here.)
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 Héloise, 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,
Save with this much for an overword,—
But where are the snows of yester-year?
Check this blog again for a brand new Ludlam literary trick!
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