Quatre Chansons de Don Quichotte
Music by Jacques Ibert, Poetry by Alexandre Arnoux,
Translation by Barry Carl
Chanson de Depart – Song of Leavetaking
This new chateau, this new edifice
All resplendent with marble and porphyry,
Where all the heavens enhance its beauty –
It is a rampart, a fort against evil
Where the virtuous maiden dwells –
Whom the eye regards and the spirit admires,
(She) forces hearts to do her service.
It is a chateau whose nature is such that none can approach
Unless he has saved his people from great kings.
Victorious, valiant, and amorous –
Any unadventurous cavalier, not being these
Can never gain entrance.
I want to sing here of the lady of my dreams,
Whom I shall exalt far above this (mundane) era of mud.
Her heart is a diamond, pure of deceit.
The rose pales next to her beauty.
For her I have attempted high adventure.
My arm has delivered the princess from slavery.
I have conquered the sorcerer, confounded the liars,
And crossed the Universe to render her homage.
Lady for whom I travel - alone above the earth,
Who is not a prisoner of illusions –
I uphold against all your unequalled brilliance and your excellence.
Ah, each day feels like a year when I do not see my Dulcinee.
But…Love paints her visage, sweetening my yearning
In the fountain and the cloud,
In every rainbow and every flower.
Ah, each day feels like a year when I do not see my Dulcinee
Always close and always far away,
Star of my long wanderings –
Her breath floats to me upon the wind
When it passes through the jasmine.
Ah, each day feels like a year when I do not see my Dulcinee…
Don’t cry, Sancho. Don’t cry, my good friend.
Your master is not dead - he is not far from you.
He lives on a happy isle where all is pure and without deceit –
On a marvelous isle where all will go one day, my friend Sancho.
All the books are burned, and are but a cup of cinders.
Of all the books I’ve read, one would have sufficed for me to live by.
A phantom in life, and real in death –
Such is the strange fate of poor Don Quixote.