User:WillyMeriwether/Le Navire

Le Navire (The Ship) is a sonnet by Tristan L'Hermite published in the collection La Lyre in 1641.

Context
Le Navire is one of a group of sonnets published in the collection La Lyre, at the end of 1641.

Text
The poem opens with a Latin play on the word pinus, meaning both pin (pine) and navire (ship, boat). Je fus, Plante superbe, en Vaisseau transformée. Si je crus sur un Mont, je cours dessus les eaux Et porte de Soldats une nombreuse armée, Après avoir logé des Escadrons d'Oiseaux.

En rames, mes rameaux se trouvent convertis ; Et mes feuillages verts, en orgueilleuses voiles. J'ornai jadis Cybèle, et j'honore Thétis Portant toujours le front jusqu'auprès des Étoiles.

Mais l'aveugle Fortune a de bizarres lois. Je suis comme un jouet en ses volages doigts, Et les quatre Éléments me font toujours la guerre.

Souvent l'Air orageux traverse mon dessein, L'Onde s'enfle à tous coups pour me crever le sein Je dois craindre le Feu, mais beaucoup plus la Terre. I was, Superb Plant, a transformed vessel. If I grew on a mountain, I float on the waters And of soldiers I carry a considerable army, After sheltering squadrons of birds.

Into oars, my branches now find themselves made; And my green foliage, into proud sails. I once adorned Cybele, and I honor Thetis With brow reaching always up among the stars.

But blind Fortune has some bizarre laws. I am like a toy in her fickle fingers, And with me the four Elements are always at war.

Stormy air often dashes my plans, The wave swells in perpetuum to break my breast, Of course I fear Fire, but much more so the Earth. "Je fus, Plante superbe, en Vaisseau transformée. Si je crus sur un Mont, je cours dessus les eaux Et porte de Soldats une nombreuse armée, Après avoir logé des Escadrons d'Oiseaux.

En rames, mes rameaux se trouvent convertis ; Et mes feuillages verts, en orgueilleuses voiles. J'ornai jadis Cybèle, et j'honore Thétis Portant toujours le front jusqu'auprès des Étoiles.

Mais l'aveugle Fortune a de bizarres lois. Je suis comme un jouet en ses volages doigts, Et les quatre Éléments me font toujours la guerre.

Souvent l'Air orageux traverse mon dessein, L'Onde s'enfle à tous coups pour me crever le sein Je dois craindre le Feu, mais beaucoup plus la Terre."

New Editions
In 1925, Pierre Camo placed Le Navire in his selection of poems entitled La Lyre. IIn 1960, Amédée Carriat retained the sonnet in his Choix de pages (Choice of Pages) of the complete works of Tristan.

Analysis
Tristan's sonnet can be read as "the Drunken Boat of the Grand Siècle in miniature". In both poems, the boat/poet frees himself by metamorphosis from human constraints such as the elements, singing of an always-threatened liberty: The library of Charleville still houses the original editions of all the dramatic work of Tristan, and his verse could have inspired an adolescent Arthur_Rimbaud, avid reader and passionate student of French Literature. In fact, far earlier than the poet who produced the Illuminations, Tristan dedicated himself to a type of poetry that touches upon other domains of the imagination, that respond to the fantasy of the people of his time, a desire not only for power, but also for freedom and astonishment. His poetry suggests an enchanted universe of festivity. .