Ballade des dames du temps jadis

The "Ballade des dames du temps jadis" ("Ballade of Ladies of Time Gone By") is a Middle French 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 in which it is followed by the Ballade des seigneurs du temps jadis.

Ballade des dames du temps jadis
by François Villon
The poem in the Stockholm manuscript, late 15th century
Original title	Ballade des dames du temps jadis
Written	1461
Country	France
Language	Middle French
Subject(s)	Lives of illustrious women
Form	Ballade
Meter	iambic tetrameter
Rhyme scheme	ababbcbC ababbcbC ababbcbC bcbC
Media type	Manuscript
Lines	28

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.

Flora

Thaïs

Echo (right)

Héloïse (right)

Margaret of Burgundy

Blanche of Castile

Aélis

Bertha Broadfoot

Alcibiades ("Archipiada")

Joan of Arc

Beatrice (right)

Eremburga of Maine (drawing of 12th-century lady's costume)

The women (and man) mentioned in the Ballad

Translations and adaptations

Particularly famous is its interrogative refrain, Mais où sont les neiges d'antan?, an example of the ubi sunt motif,^[1] which was common in medieval poetry and particularly in Villon's ballads.^[2]

This was translated into English by Dante Gabriel Rossetti as "Where are the snows of yesteryear?",^[3] for which he popularized the word "yesteryear" to translate Villon's antan.^[4] 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 "But where are last year's snows?".^[5]

The ballade has been made into a song (using the original Middle French text) by French songwriter Georges Brassens,^[6] and by the Czech composer Petr Eben, in the cycle Šestero piesní milostných (1951).^{[citation needed]}

Text of the ballade, with literal translation

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

Dictes moy où, n'en quel pays, Est Flora, la belle Romaine ; Archipiada, ne 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,[a] or 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 Héloïse, For whom was castrated, and then made a monk, Peter Abelard in Saint-Denis? For his love he suffered this sentence. Similarly, where is the Queen Who ordered that Buridan Be thrown in a sack into the Seine? Oh, where are the snows of yesteryear! The queen white as a lily Who sang with a Siren's voice; Bertha Broadfoot, Beatrice, Aélis; Eremburga who ruled over the Maine, And Joan, 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 refrain Mais où sont les neiges d'antan? has been quoted or alluded to in numerous works.

• In Der Rosenkavalier (1911), the opera by Richard Strauss to an original German libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal, the Marschallin asks, in her monologue toward the end of Act 1 as she considers her own, younger self: “Wo ist die jetzt? Ja, such' dir den Schnee vom vergangenen Jahr!” (“Where is she now? Yes, look for the snow of yesteryear.”)
• In Bertolt Brecht's 1936 play Die Rundköpfe und die Spitzköpfe (Round Heads and Pointed Heads), the line is quoted as "Wo sind die Tränen von gestern abend? / Wo is die Schnee vom vergangenen Jahr?" ("Where are the tears of yester evening? / Where are the snows of yesteryear?") in "Lied eines Freudenmädchens" (Nannas Lied) ("Song of a joy-maiden [prostitute]" (Nanna's song)); music originally by Hanns Eisler, alternative arrangement by Kurt Weill.^[8]
• The original 1945 manuscript of the play, “The Glass Menagerie” by Tennessee Williams, contains optional stage directions for projecting the legend “Où sont les neiges d’antan?” on a screen during Amanda's monologue in Scene One where she recounts her (likely exaggerated) past life as a popular Southern belle.
• 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.^[9]
• Umberto Eco quotes the line "Where are the snows of yesteryear?" in the final chapter "Last Page" of The Name of the Rose.^[10]
• James O'Barr wrote "Oú sont les neiges d'antan Villon" in his 1981 graphic novel The Crow" under an image of The Crow lying broken hearted and empty.^[11]
• In S2:E9 of Downton Abbey, the Dowager Countess of Grantham, played by Dame Maggie Smith, quotes the refrain "Mais où sont les neiges d'antan?" in its original French, when referring to the father of the present Lord "Jinks" Hepworth, who she knew in the 1860s.

See also

• poetry portal

• Le Testament
• François Villon
• Ballade des pendus

Notes

1. "Archipiada" is thought to be Villon’s misremembering of Alcibiades, a friend of Socrates who was reputed to be a model of beauty, and who in the Middle Ages was therefore assumed to be a woman.^[7]