William Chapman - Notre Langue

[highlyeccentric]

Now, this comes from the Oxford Book of Canadian Verse In English and French, 1960 edition. I don't claim to understand every line of this, but I am charmed by the exuberant Quebeçois linguistic pride. I can't translate, I'm afraid, and I wouldn't if I could - it'd be an offence to the poem's main theme, which is "our language is the best of all languages".

Notre langue naquit aux lèvres des Gaulois.
Ses mots sont caressants, ses règles sont sévères,
Et, faite pour chanter les gloires d'autrefois,
Elle a puisé son souffle aux refrains des trouvères.

Elle a le charme exquis du timbre des Latins,
Le séduisant bri du parles des Hellènes,
Le chaud rayonnement des émaux florentins,
Le diaphne et frais poli des porcelaines.

Elle a les sons moelleux du luth éolien,
Le doux babil du vent dans les blés et les siegles,
La clartée de l'azur, l'eclair olympien,
Les sourpirs du ramier, l'envergure des aigles.

Elle chante partout pour louer Jéhova,
Et, dissipant la nuit où l'erreur se dérobe,
Elle est la messagère immortelle qui va
Porter de la lumière aux limites du globe.

La première, elle dit le nom de l'Éternel
Sous les bois canadiens noyés dans le mystère.
La première, elle fit monter vers notre ciel
Les hymnes de l'amour, l'élan de la prière.

La première, elle fit tout à coup frissonner
Du grand Meschacébé la forêt infinie,
Et l'arbre du rivage a paru s'incliner
En entendant vibrer set langue bénie.

Langue du feu, qui luit comme un divin flambeau,
Elle éclaire les arts et guide la science;
Elle jette, en servent le vrai, le bien, le beau,
A l'horizon du siècle une lueur immense.

Un jour,d'âpres marins, vénérés parmi nous,
L'apportèrent du sol des menhirs et des landes,
Et nos mères nous ont bercés sur leurs genoux
Aux vieux refrains dolents des ballades normandes.

Nous avons conservé l'idiome légué
Par ces héros quittant pour nos bois leurs flaises,
Et, bien que par moments on le crût subjugué,
Il est encore vainquer sous les couleurs anglaises.

Et nul n'osera plus désormais opprimer
Ce langage aujourd'jui si ferme et si vivace...
Et les persécuteurs n'ont pu le supprimer,
Parce qu'il doit durer autant que notre race.

Essayer d'arrêter son élan, c'est vouloir
Empêcher les bourgeons et le roses d'éclore;
Tenter d'anéantir son charme et son pouvoir,
C'est rêver d'abolir les rayons de l'aurore.

Brille donc à jamais sous le regard de Dieu,
Ô langue des anciens! Combats et civilise,
Et sois toujours pour nous la colonne de feu
Qui guidait les Hébreux vers la Terre promise!

Comments

[liv]

Wow, that's quite something, isn't it? I think I would have placed it at least 50 years earlier, maybe even 100 years earlier than 1960 if you hadn't given the date.

Given that it's all about linguistic pride and how those awful anglophones will never erase our language, it comes across slightly creepy in its attitude towards the pre-colonial peoples, and languages of Canada! I can just about believe that French was the first language to name God on Canadian soil (from a certain theological perspective, at least), but the first to raise lovesongs and prayers to heaven?! Hell no.

[highlyeccentric]

It's much older than the anthology itself. The poet lived in the 19th century.

And yeah, there is that icky colonialism thing. A fair swatch of the first part of the anthology has that problem - as does the Oxford Book of Australian Women's Verse which i read earlier in the year. There's a funny balance the anthologist has to make between not lauding such prejudice, and producing a historically useful compilation. I reflected on it at length when I reviewed the Oxford Book of Australian Women's Verse...

[liv]

Oh right, that makes far more sense. I certainly wouldn't expect the anthology to censor historical colonialism. And I read plenty of 19^th century poems without even commenting on the fact that their attitudes wouldn't be acceptable today, it was just the contrast in this one poem between "nobody erases our language!" and "let's just write all the First Nations languages completely out of existence".

One of the reasons it seemed older, apart from the poetic style, was that I would expect a more modern Canadian piece to take pride in specifically Québécois French, making a distinction between that and European French rather than emphasising the continuity. But I'm not sure how recently that trend started happening, so I could have believed that 1960 was still in the era of assuming that European culture is superior.

[highlyeccentric]

I'm afraid I parsed the erasure of all other canadian languages as part and parcel of his hyperbolic exceptionalism. He is, after all, being lead by the SAME FLAME THAT LEAD THE HEBREWS OUT OF EGYPT. All the more amusing since, by his name, one assumes not all his ancestors were French...