Ballade des dames du temps jadis

The "Ballade des dames du temps jadis" ("Ballade of the Ladies of Times Past") is a poem by François Villon that celebrates famous women in history and mythology, and a prominent example of the ubi sunt? genre. It is written in the fixed-form ballade format, and forms part of his collection Le Testament.

The section is simply labelled Ballade by Villon; the title des dames du temps jadis was added by Clément Marot in his 1533 edition of Villon's poems.

Translations and adaptations

Particularly famous is its interrogative refrain, Mais où sont les neiges d'antan? This was translated into English by Rossetti as "Where are the snows of yesteryear?", for which he coined the new word yester-year to translate Villon's antan. The French word was used in its original sense of "last year", although both antan and the English yesteryear have now taken on a wider meaning of "years gone by". The phrase has also been translated as "Yet, what became of last year's snow?" (box right)

O tell me where, or in what land,
Dwells Flora fair, renowned of Rome?
Or Archipiades the bland
Cousin of Thaïs of burning domes?
Or Echo, faint, saying, where stand
Pools, streams flow, winds blow,
Her beauty too much over-human …
Yet, what became of last year’s snow?

Where is wise Heloïse,
For whom Pierre Abelard became
First eunuch, then a monk at Saint Denis?
‘Twas for his love he suffered shame.
Or likewise (and not long ago)
The queen who ordered Buridan
Trussed in a sack and slung
Into the Seine? Yet
What became of last year’s snow?

Where is Queen Blanche the lilywhite
Who like a siren to a rower sang?
Or Bertha Club-foot, Beatrice, Alice,
Arembourgis who held Maine?
Or Joan that good maid of Lorraine
The English burnt at Rouen?
Where, O sovereign Virgin, are they now?
Yet, what became of last year’s snow?

Prince, do not ask—this week, this month,
This year—where beauties go,
Lest this refrain ring with you still:
'Yet, what became of last year’s snow?'

The refrain is taken up in the bitter and ironic "Lied de Nana" ("Nana's Song") by Bertolt Brecht and Hanns Eisler, from Die Rundköpfe und die Spitzköpfe (Round Heads and Pointed Heads), also set by Kurt Weill in 1939, expressing the short-term memory without regrets of a hard-bitten prostitute, in the refrain

Wo sind die Tränen von gestern abend?
Wo ist der Schnee vom vergangenen Jahr?

Where are the tears of yesterday evening?
Where is the snow of yesteryear?

The ballade has been made into a song (using the original Middle French text) by French songwriter Georges Brassens, and by the Czech composer Petr Eben, in the cycle Sestero piesní milostnych (1951).

Text of the ballade

The text is from Clement Marot's Œuvres complètes de François Villon of 1533, in the Le Grand Testament pages 34 and 35.

Dictes moy où, n'en quel pays,
Est Flora, la belle Romaine ;
Archipiada, né Thaïs,
Qui fut sa cousine germaine;
Echo, parlant quand bruyt on maine
Dessus rivière ou sus estan,
Qui beauté eut trop plus qu'humaine?
Mais où sont les neiges d'antan!

Où est la très sage Heloïs,
Pour qui fut chastré et puis moyne
Pierre Esbaillart à Sainct-Denys?
Pour son amour eut cest essoyne.
Semblablement, où est la royne
Qui commanda que Buridan
Fust jetté en ung sac en Seine?
Mais où sont les neiges d'antan!

La royne Blanche comme ung lys,
Qui chantoit à voix de sereine;
Berthe au grand pied, Bietris, Allys;
Harembourges qui tint le Mayne,
Et Jehanne, la bonne Lorraine,
Qu'Anglois bruslerent à Rouen;
Où sont-ilz, Vierge souveraine ?
Mais où sont les neiges d'antan!

Prince, n'enquerez de sepmaine
Où elles sont, ne de cest an,
Qu'à ce refrain ne vous remaine:
Mais où sont les neiges d'antan!

Tell me where, in which country
Is Flora, the beautiful Roman;
Archipiada (Alcibiades?), born Thaïs
Who was her first cousin;
Echo, speaking when one makes noise
Over river or on pond,
Who had a beauty too much more than human?
Oh, where are the snows of yesteryear!

Where is the very wise Heloise,
For whom was castrated, and then (made) a monk,
Pierre Esbaillart (Abelard) in Saint-Denis?
For his love he suffered this sentence.
Similarly, where is the Queen (Marguerite de Bourgogne)
Who ordered that Buridan
Were thrown in a sack into the Seine?
Oh, where are the snows of yesteryear!

The queen Blanche (white) as a lily (Blanche de Castille)
Who sang with a Siren's voice;
Bertha of the Big Foot, Beatrix, Aelis;
Erembourge who ruled over the Maine,
And Joan (Joan of Arc), the good (woman from) Lorraine
Whom the English burned in Rouen;
Where are they, oh sovereign Virgin?
Oh, where are the snows of yesteryear!

Prince, do not ask me in the whole week
Where they are - neither in this whole year,
Lest I bring you back to this refrain:
Oh, where are the snows of yesteryear!

In popular culture

• the phrase is used by José Saramago in "As Intermitencias da Morte" : "como folhas que das árvores se desprendem e vão tombar sobre as folhas dos outonos pretérit, mais oü sont les neiges d'antan, do formigueiro interminável dos que, pouco apouco"
• The poem is alluded to, and the phrase, Mais où sont les neiges d'antan is used as an epigraph in Algernon Charles Swinburne's poem, "Félise".
• The poem was alluded to in Joseph Heller's novel, Catch-22, when Yossarian asks "Where are the Snowdens of yesteryear?" in both French and English, Snowden being the name of a character who dies despite the efforts of Yossarian to save him.
• The text "Ou sont les neiges" is used as a screen projection in the first scene of Tennessee Williams's play The Glass Menagerie.
• "And like the snows of yesteryear, gone from this earth" is used by Lt. Archie Hicox in Quentin Tarantino's film Inglourious Basterds to describe the intended effects of a plot to assassinate the Nazi leadership.
• The poem appears in season two, episode three of Mad Men - the character Don sits in an almost empty cinema, watching a French film (identity unknown) in which a female narrator reads the poem over a series of stills.
• In chapter five of D.H. Lawrence's book Lady Chatterley's Lover, Clifford Chatterley asks, "Where are the snows of yesteryear?...It's what endures through one's life that matters." Here he is referring to the short-lived sexual affairs that his wife, Lady Chatterley, has had with other men. He is suggesting that these affairs, like the snows of yesteryear, are ephemeral and once gone leave nothing tangible behind.
• In Act Two, scene II of the play Blithe Spirit by Noël Coward, Madame Arcati quotes the line, Où sont les neiges d'antan? as she waxes nostalgic about the good old days of "genuine religious belief" when "a drop of holy water could send even a poltergeist scampering for cover."
• In the graphical novel The Crow by James O'Barr the quote "ou' sont les neiges d'antan" appears in the second chapter.
• The phrase "Where are the snows of yesteryear?" is included in Act II of the Broadway musical, I Do! I Do!, in a song entitled "Where Are the Snows?" It is a duet sung by the leading characters, Michael and Agnes. The musical has book and lyrics by Tom Jones and music by Harvey Schmidt.
• In chapter 13 of Jack Kerouac's The Dharma Bums, the quote "où sont les neiges d'antan?" is referenced by Alvah.
• During the season 2 Christmas special of Downton Abbey, the Dowager Countess Grantham (Maggie Smith) quotes, "Où sont les neiges d'antan" while reminiscing with her son about old acquaintances.
• In HBO's Boardwalk Empire (episode 6 of season 3) prosecuting attorney Esther Randolph quotes, "Where are the snows of yesteryear" in response to Enoch 'Nucky' Thompson's assertion that his days as County Treasurer of Atlantic City are past.
• In a late-career ballade entitled "Snow Jobs", poet James Merrill took up the refrain "Where is the slush of yesteryear?" explicitly mentioning Teapot Dome, Watergate, the Iran-Contra affair and the Whitewater scandal. The poem appeared in the posthumous collection A Scattering of Salts (1995).
• "Vanished Like the Snow," a track off Irish band Solas's 1997 album Sunny Spells and Scattered Showers, follows the poem thematically, with three stanzas about Helen, Heloise and Abelard, and Joan of Arc.
• Reinhardt, a character in Overwatch, quotes the refrain in one of his voicelines: "Forgive and forget, like snow from yesteryear."
• Umberto Eco quotes the line "Where are the snows of yesteryear?" in the final chapter "Last Page" of The Name Of The Rose.
• In Act One of Henrik Ibsen's Peer Gynt, the titular character says to his mother "Hvor er Sneen fra ifjor?" or "Where is the snow from yesteryear?" This is said in response to Aase lamenting her late husband's money squandering, which left her and Peer in poverty after his death.
• In the Act One monologue of the Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier, she says "such' dir den Schnee vom vergangenen Jahr", a german translation of Villon's famous line, when contemplating the passage of time.

See also

• Le Testament
• François Villon
• Ballade des pendus

References

Notes