October 10, 2006

• There may be some subtlties in the French that I don't get, but is it one woman at 3 harvest seasons? Alive and vibrant in the first, ailing in the second, dead in the third. Or,is that too obvious? Languagehat doesn't come here anymore, so I'm turning on the Wolof signal.
• In the first verse she has no veil & wears her hair long, which means she was an unmarried maiden.
• Youth, middle age, & death in old age. The double fringed drape may have a symbolic significance which escapes me, but the mention of such details suggests that it does.
• I so often fuck around here that I fear people will think I am joking, but I am not. It is the song of an alcoholic. The liquor is at first magic, a source of wonder, an exhillaration. It then becomes is bleak self, causing downfall, sickness and pain. Finally, death. La vigne avait trop de raisin...
• Yeah, I think its just the narrator following a lovely young girl's waning into fatal illness & death. A song of helplessness & tragedy. IMHO.
• I like Ralph's idea.
• Pallas - what's the poem's title in French?
• Found this translation, Pallas Athene, about two thirds of the way down. ... The vine had too many grapes; Love Had gathered its harvest ... (Her curious glow leads me to suspect la belle dame might have had TB, if that's any help.)
• French title is "Trois jours de vendange".
• For the alcoholic, the vine indeed has too many grapes. Love of those grapes tragically manifests itself in sickness and death, and who can harvest too many grapes without being overcome by their nectar?
• Her pallor like that of a ghost in the second stanza does suggest an illness like TB, I agree. I'm wondering if the 'love had gathered its harvest' might suggest something like a broken heart. She's with a companion in the first stanza, but alone & desolate in the second, then dead in the last. I wonder what the symbolism of grapes would be, other than the obvious community work during that season, when people would gather.
• Alcoholism wasn't really recognised as such in ye olden days. Everyone drank, even kids. Wine was consumed all the time, particularly on the continent. The connotations to us are different to what they might have been a century or more ago.
• The three days of harvest. In the first, she is drunk with the most wonderful thing life has, love of a partner. Or so it seems to the drunk upon his first drink. But the partner soon is gone, and at last she is laid to rest as is the singer, overwhelmed by a vineyard of overabundance.
• Alcoholism was certainly understood as such in France in the late nineteenth century, as a quick scan of Zola will show.
• Good lord, Chyren. Throughout recorded history there have been entire societies wiped out when travelling explorers have introduded demon rum to previously dry communities. True, in France, everyone drank and everyones still does. But addiction to alcohol and its recognition is not a modern problem in anyone's write of world history.
• It's true that the notion of alcoholism as chemical dependence was not established in France before 1898, though. The previous theory as to what it was relied mainly on notions of degeneracy and heredity.
• I really don't want to take the discussion of this gorgeous poem off into a tangent of substance abuse terminology, but degeneracy and heredity are still listed, perhaps accurately, as the cause of many persons' fall into alcoholism. The point is, regardless of the genesis, people of all ages have known the drunk as a drunk, and have witnessed the siren's song of alcohol. In the song, they weren't out there harvesting grapes to make marmalade for their freaking croissants.
• The air of a Bacchante and the eyes of an angel! Hanging on the arm of a sweet companion She was walking alone with trembling steps; Her eyes burned with a strange fire... Looks innocent, acts not so. Interesting that hers is a "sweet companion." Alone and trembling--eyes with a strange fire--almost sounds like she's insane. Interesting that she isn't helping to harvest, but rather engaging emotional interludes. I agree with the three stages of life, as well as the idea of the alcoholic viewing his own "romance" with the grape as a progression. According to one of my symbolism books: The transformation of grape into wine parallels the transformation of life through death to rebirth. Bacchus is, of course, the drunken god of the vine, who engages in the fall grape harvest. Grape harvest is often used as a symbol of regeneration and fertility, and that would act in contrast to the disintegration of an alcoholic. The month of September is called the "wine moon."
• MonkeyFilter: they weren't out there harvesting grapes to make marmalade for their freaking croissants
• There is something that cannot be ignored in the sad, common infatuation with an image that seems angelic, but is then found to be sickly, eventually dead. There is sentimental remembrance of a time so much better. The last two lines, in English: "The vine had too many grapes... Love had made the harvest." ..I think cannot be dismissed, they must tell us the point of the story. They are statements different from what had been previously repeated. The vine, or the concept of the vine was flawed, as what made it attrractive was in excess. The harvest is the end, the outcome of a season of work. Love had created this sorrow. A self-fulfilling prophesy of despair and remorse. Just me.
• Path: Wolof is right; the title is "Trois jours de vendange." Sorry not to have included it earlier. Ralph: Really, really interesting; I hadn't thought about it that way. Next time I practice it, I'll think of what you've said. Chyren, would I be right in thinking of the vendange as a social leveller, in that everyone in town would be expected to drop what they were doing and help get the grapes in during that time? Here's a question: in verse two, is she alive or a ghost? If alive, why is she alone? On preview: oooh, Bluehorse! So the vendange becomes a Dionysia, with the girl as (metaphorical) sacrifice? Your metaphor ties in beautifully with Ralph's, too. Wonderfully interesting ideas from all. An amazing profusion of answers and new questions for me to ponder. Please keep 'em coming!
• Who's the composer?
• What the significance of a double-fringed funeral pall is, I haven't been able to discover. A black funeral pall over a casket is a characteristically Victorian touch, though. The hectic flush of TB was frequently described in literature of the period. Thought the mention of the yellow veil in the first stanza is very curious. What did a yellow veil signify on the continent during the latter 1800s? Rootling about, I happened on this excerpt from Manners, Customs, and Observances: Their Origin and Significance [1994] by Leopold Wagner - The Bride's Veil seems to have been a traditional feature of marriage on the continent. One difficulty I found in accepting RalphtheDog's theory is that Daudet's peculiarly disjointed scenes occurred during the grape harvest - and so, presumably, while the fruit was being picked, and before the wine was made. Folk can guzzle grape juice or - more probably - eat grapes without becoming inebriated. If we must take drunkenness into this, perhaps it is Daudet - or the 'I'- who is intoxicated? and hallucinating this girl-ghost?
• Bacchante, by the way, is another name for a Maenad, one of the wild women who worshiped Dionysus (or Bacchus), driven to bizarre acts of violence, sex and self-mutilation by, well, wine. Quite a contrast to the "dainty feet", "sweet companion", and "Angel's eyes" of the first verse.
• Bees, each of the three stanzas begin alike, "I met her one day during the grape harvest,", the first two also end alike, referencing the day of the harvest. Clearly this day, this event is rhetorical. It isn't a day, it is what is symbolized by that day, the fruits of the much anticipated harvest. What comes of those fruits? What do they mean to the author? They mean his love, his joy, his pain, his despair, and surely his death, all at the hands of his wicked lust for drink. I met "her", she is my love, she is my demon, she is what I will hallucinate about, she is what I will marry. The last verse ends with a twist: "L'Amour avait fait la vendange." Love has made the harvest! Love of the woman? No! Love of what was the woman in the mind of her insane lover. Love of those damned grapes! Of which there were too many. The love of excess leads to excess. The death of the singer is self-directed and morbidly inevitable. The poem is a cry for pity to those who are demonized by suicidal addictions. Who is she? I met her one day during the grape harvest.
• Beauchard: Reynaldo Hahn. I don't know if it's relevant, but over the last three lines of verse 3, the piano part plays the tune of Dies Irae. Bees, wonderful background info and links. That other translation's useful too-- it's certainly more beautiful than mine. I hadn't known about the "hectic flush"; that's useful to know. I'd been theorising about other causes of death-- to me, "the vine had too many grapes" suggested fatal fertility and death in childbirth-- but maybe TB is more realistic.
• Quotations of "Dies Irae" are always relevant. :) It certainly works well with the death imagery going on in the poem. Not familiar with Hahn's work at all (although I do know the name); I was always more of a lieder guy.
• Siphilis did cross my mind. That would tie with the love thing, the missing companion in the 2nd stanza & the strange fire in her eyes, as of madness, like bees notes. That was a scourge of the era. "would I be right in thinking of the vendange as a social leveller, in that everyone in town would be expected to drop what they were doing and help get the grapes in during that time?" Everyone except probably the nobles & the parish priest, yeah. Ralph, I agree the alcohol thing does make sense. The beverage that was killing people & driving them to dissolution was usually gin or absinthe, I had thought. But you may well be right, the grape symbolism is puzzling, unless it can be taken to suggest that. I just wonder what the imagery of the grape harvest would suggest to someone in that place & time. The harvest was a communal thing somewhat of festival as well as toil. People would be having fun in the evenings after the work, probably. Lots of people coming together from round about. Church full of harvest displays. It seems like something that might be familiar, a common scene.
• It's not entirely clear to me what an audience is supposed to conclude from all this. Suspect ye will have to sing con brio to gloss over the lack of straightforward narrative in these lyrics ;] and go with the emotional flow, so to speak.
• Chy, gin and absinthe were the intoxicants of those with some coin. The common lush found his haven where 'ere it could be had. Dandelion wine, anyone?
• Whoa up. Folk interested in Hogarth's work probably know gin was for some time the cheapest hooch anyone could lay hands, and gin-shops laid low tens of thousands in London alone. The history of absinthe as summarized here indicates its price declined sharply in the latter 19th century.
• 
• Perhaps he was writing about the place where he caught something....
• /nods. That's what I was thinking. Perhaps the narrator is the companion of the first stanza.
• D'accord, that totally scans. I was unaware he was syphilitic.
• The problem with the "stages of life" metaphor is that the lyrics never suggest anywhere that the girl in question has aged or grown feeble. On the contrary, they suggest that she has grown ill and died (which is not the way someone growing old and dying at least partly due to age would be depicted). My first thought on reading the lyrics was in accord with Beeswacky's - TB. Ralph's idea about alcoholism is intriguing. Just riffing on ideas and symbols: Grapes have symbolism beyond wine, as do "harvests" of grapes. It's a common Christian symbol. For example, Grapes represent the blood of Christ, especially in references to the Eucharist. A vineyard represents the mission field, and grapes in this association may signify good works. A grape vine is a reference to Christ. It's my understanding that "vineyard" often refers to a congregation, or in an expanded sense to all Christian believers. The connotation of "grapes" themselves can similarly be expanded and personified. As far as the Yellow Veil goes, what comes to my mind is images of mid-19th century French rural life, where women working in the fields usually have their heads covered. Among other connotations, yellow can refer to sickness, and yellow or saffron veils have different connotations in different cultures. Greek brides wore them, but so did Jewish women living in Muslim-ruled areas. Here's something else, from the Songs of Bilitis. The girl in the first verse is, for whatever reason, not observing formalities. However, her companion is not identified in any way. The words are gendered male, but I'm not sure if there is a female-gendered version of "companion" in French (there's "copine", which means something like "female pal"). The doux compagnion could be Death, to begin with. If the girl looks like a Bacchante, she's beyond the pale of normal rural life already. I think much of what is said about her is meant to suggest a very attractive sort of profligacy.
• Baudelaire, Verlaine, Daudet - syphilis seems to have been an occupational hazard for men of letters at this period, it was certainly on everyone's mind. One of Kipling's Soldiers Three tales has a syphilitic character who scares the living bejesus out of Mulvaney. Ibsen wrote palys about the dread consequences of the disease. And of course, real people - as opposed to those in the arts - like Winston's Churchill's father, had it. To continue the riff: It occurred to me that the 'sweet friend', ungendered and occurring in a sentence specifying Avignon, might even be Jesus or God. How far is Domremy from Avignon? If it were jeanne d'arc, it would explain the damn curious glow, too.
• palys = plays
• Nietzsche, Gauguin...
• Sleeve note from a Sarah Connolly recording: In ‘Trois jours de vendange’, a Daudet setting from 1891, the folky charm of the opening is gradually transformed into deep sadness as the girl the poet has met sickens and dies: the loss underpinned by the ‘Dies Irae’ in the piano in the final stanza. From programme notes: Alphonse Daudet’s poem "Trois jours de vendange" is one of Hahn’s few narrative songs, beginning with rustic joy when the poetic persona encounters a lovely girl during the grape-gathering harvest in Avignon, only to trace helplessly her decline into mortal illness and death. Not sure how much that helps.
• I'll see your Nietzsche, Gaugin and raise ye Van Gogh, Stalin, and Hitler.
• Whoops! She upped and she died on him, but we don't know the how or the why. Do we really need to? We're left with the narrator's sadness at the loss of his dear white spectre, and his shudder at her ghost. And the spectacle of those leaky nuns. And the over-graped vine. And Love the Reaper. I say, didn't Terry Pratchett just write this?
• First of all, SQUEE for Hahn! I did his setting of “Oh, quand je dors” in a repertory class long ago, and I’ve always preferred it to the more famous setting by Liszt. As to the jours de vendage, I had a slightly different idea from all the (excellent, and certainly as viable or more so than mine) ones above. He establishes in the first verse that the girl is unmarried, and as verbminx puts it, “not observing formalities.” She’s abandoned propriety. Then there’s the bit about love making the harvest, the girl being alone in the second stanza, and the double fringe… The harvest, and especially the grape harvest, is often a metaphor for fertility. I’m wondering if she got knocked up by the feller in the first verse, abandoned by him in the second, and she and the kid dies in the third (the double fringe being a sign of two bodies in the coffin.) Just a thought.
• He saw a young girl, who reminds him of the love he lost before. Different girls. C'est tout.
• I got the impression this was a young girl like 10. this is why she was not observing the formalities. "The vine had too many grapes..." I would think would have something to do with grape growing i.e. pruning and the lack of. The girl had too much life? I always find these things have some sort of Historical perspective as well. Was there a disease that swept through the area?
• Tuberculosis, TB, aka consumption was sometimes called the White Plague during this period.
• And it can cause burning and redness around the eyes.
• However, her companion is not identified in any way. The words are gendered male, "doux compagnon" = lover.
• While much of the Googleable symbolism surrounding grapes has to do with Christ and the Eucharist, the older tradition is dionysian: pleasure, lust, revelry, and easily broken virtue. (All descriptions courtesy of sites I found on Google.) I doubt that Daudet was likening her to Christ, but it still seems like a sort of parable. Perhaps the moral of the story is "if you play, you must pay."
• Perhaps a plangent tale that mimics the arc of Daudet's life - a youthful indiscretion from which he contracted syphilis, great suffering in his later years and eventual death. Love's bitter harvest. Or it could be an especially tragic case of hemorrhoids..."The vine had too many grapes...". (sorry)
• I'm with them as see the vendage mainly as a bucolic setting, with no need to play up the alcoholic connotations, given what I presume to be its familiarity as a trope for French rural life. Appropriate surroundings for the poet's discovery of rustic beauty, enjoying and embodying sensual pleasures (how I'd read 'bacchante') on the arm of her lover. Then the last lines become love's bitter harvest, the destruction of beauty and innocence, (a neat turn from the whole theme of the vendage which expects to reap something sweeter), so I'd go with those who think it brought her disease or death in childbirth. Her walking alone under burning skies in the second stanza make it possible that she dies from a broken heart after her beau deserts her, rather than physical causes, a suggestion more common in 19th century. On preview: islander stole my 'love's bitter harvest' thunder, but I'll leave it anyway.
• Ye said much more eloquently than I ever could have, Abiezer.
• The dionysian connotation with grapes is indeed suggested by the description of the girl as a "Bacchante." I also had the thought that TUM did (that the girl got pregnant and perhaps died in childbirth), but I don't think it's really suggested by the second verse. There's no child of the girl and her lover (who could, I say, still be Death!) anywhere in this, or any suggestion that there is a child at all.
• (I say the latter part because it seems apparent in the second stanza that she really is ill, and it really is a fever-bearing illness along TB lines. I don't rule out the broken heart idea, but if she's already ill, a broken heart certainly isn't going to speed her recovery...)
• You guys are amazing. I'm hugely enjoying reading this. Some thoughts: The clash between Dionysian and Christian imagery is right there in the line "L'air d'une Bacchante et les yeux d'un ange." It seems to me that both metaphors are present and valid. Is the girl's lover Dionysus, Death, Satan, the poet himself, or just some dude? Is her death a Dionysian sacrifice or the wages of sin? Who is the girl? In the first verse, she could be a pretty peasant girl; in the second verse, she may be outcast due either to contagion or the moral stigma of an out-of-wedlock pregnancy. In the third verse, she's being buried in a velvet-covered coffin-- I think the "double fringe" could be another indication of wealth. All the nuns of Avignon are in tears, so she was not only wealthy but well known. Could it be a reference to a historical person? Nothing I've seen in the history of Avignon provides any clues. Does this mean she was the singer's social superior? Does he only realise who she was when she's being buried? If she's just some pretty girl that he met twice, why does he dream of her funeral almost every day? The best answer I've been able to come up with is "Because he saw her in verse two, and did nothing to help." The various theories of what she's suffering from in verse two: TB Other illness (plague)? Broken heart Pregnancy Insanity Late-stage addiction (metaphorical or actual) Or possibly she's already dead and a ghost. Did I get them all? Any one of these could explain why she's alone and walking outside of town. More than one might apply; she could be pregnant and insane, or ill with TB and broken-hearted. Anyway, I think you're doing better than I am here. Carry on!
• She's Mary Magdalene.
• More than one might apply; she could be pregnant and insane, or ill with TB and broken-hearted. What's with the "or?" Why can't she be a knocked-up consumptive broken-hearted drunken loony?
• Poetry's a verbal art. And a poem can't be summed up as meaning alone. If it could be, it would be prose. This is what MacLeish was getting at when he said: A poem should not mean but be. So what ye have is Hahn's music plus a poem - an example of a verbal art interwoven with an aural one, resulting in an art song. Anyhow, I wish ye well - be fun to hear what ye do with it all.
• MonkeyFilter: a knocked-up consumptive broken-hearted drunken loony Fin
• I met a girl who had no veil, Next time I saw her, she looked pale, Then mortal coils she shuffled off, and Nuns crled 'round her fringe-draped coffin. Why's she die? The crowd supposes. Too much booze? Tuberculosis? Broken heart? A bastard birth? Or lunacy's unseasonable mirth? Oh, the questions that she raises: Why does she puch up the daisies?
• Wunnerful. Now run to the Indian Toilet thread and do the same thing there, TUM. Man, we need more minstrels around these parts.
• Micely minstreled, MUM.
• *holds up lighter* Gave My Love a Cherry! Scarborough Fair!
• ))) for the Monster!!!
• Yeah! Go TUM!! Bees: yes, interpreting a song can be confusing. You've got to figure out what the poet meant, and then what the composer thought the poet meant, and then you've got to find your own interpretation in the midst of that. (No wonder singers are all screwy.) You put it better than I could: "a verbal art interwoven with an aural one," a pas de deux for the left and right brain. Did you guys know Hahn was Marcel Proust's long-term lover? You probably did. Go Reynaldo!
• I wonder what sort of veil novices wore in Avignon? That would explain the nuns at the funeral... if the girl had been a wayward novice. If the yellow veil is just the one on a field laborer, then the girl wasn't rich; however, we also don't know when the poem is supposed to be set. The interpretation can be different if it's set c. 1200 (when everyone was wearing veils) vs c. 19th century (when only specialized segments of society were wearing various types of headcloths). I didn't know about Proust and Hahn. Go Marcel!
• MonkeyFilter: a pas de deux for the left and right brain
• Heh. Recalling what Artur Schnabel said: The notes I handle no better than many pianists. But the pauses between the notes -- ah, that is where the art resides!
• This poem is about the grapes that never make it to the wine press!
• (Part two of my previous comment): ...And then all symbolism and all other relations to human life can be ascertained.
• beauty one GramMa!
• No bites on the Magdalene? I thought that was a fucking slice of fried gold, myself. There is a tradition that she travelled to France & ended up in Provence, which is basically next to Avignon. This story wasn't made up by Dan Brown, either, it's gen-u-wine.
• Excuse me while I derail just a moment, won't you? *squint, pause* According to The Real Da Vinci Code, a BBC docu-travel-fan-tary, the story of Mary Magdelene arriving on the shores in a boat with her daughter Sara is a misinterpretation of a legend that one of the other Marys from the biblical days of Jebus story (sigh) and someone completely different from a daughter named Sara arrived on the shores in a boat. Which they celebrate every year. If I had the disc I'd find that part and get it more specific but that's the gist of what they said. I don't necessarily think that disproves anything that may or may not have been there, and the docu-thingy also completely discounted the Templars and the Merovingian parts etc. so pfftth to them and there you go. A fun watch tho. Okay. Thanks.
• It's not that it actually happened, but that Daudet may have believed it to have been so. Anyway, it was just a thought.
• Pouring fresh ink into these murky waters.
• Avignon, throughout much of its history, was a Papal territory-- ruled by a Bishop rather than by nobles. There would have been lots of nuns around, so it's possible our girl could be a novice. ("guimpe", the French word I translated as "veil," also means "wimple.") The Mary Magdalene theory's interesting! Would certainly explain why she makes such an impression on a man who only sees her twice. Wiser heads than mine may have stronger opinions.
• I once met -- at grape harvest time -- A girl who was truly sublime. But when her boyfriend Met an untimely end She departed this earth in her prime.
• )))))
• I once awoke Among the grapes And looked to the sky to see A face of an angel Looking down At the condition of me She shook her head And walked away Leaving me in my state With trembling legs I rose to my feet That's when I saw her fate A tractor drove Through the field But oblivious was she She was walking backwards With the intent Of keeping her eye on me Closer drew the red machine And closer yet Drew she I waved my arms and yelled Look out! Beware! Still oblivious was she When it was over The tragic scene Was attended by the nuns Said one to me She would have survived But English she spoke none
• Excellent work, Argh; many ))) to ye!!!
• PA - OK, yeah, I think chances are pretty good the girl is a wayward novice. WAGES OF SEX = EARLY CONSUMPTIVE DEATH. ;)
• The veil was not just worn by novices, but by any young woman. False lead. When a woman comes to maturity, she doesn't wear her hair long, she wears it in a cap, hat or veil, for sake of modesty. Long hair was once a sign of sexuality. This tradition continued in rural areas up until the 19th century.
• Also, novices would not work the harvest, I think. They'll be in the convent. They would not be in contact with any men.
• Dante Gabriel Rossetti's "Lady Lilith" Of Adam's first wife, Lilith, it is told (The witch he loved before the gift of Eve,) That, ere the snake's, her sweet tongue could deceive, And her enchanted hair was the first gold. And still she sits, young while the earth is old, And, subtly of herself contemplative, Draws men to watch the bright web she can weave, Till heart and body and life are in its hold. The rose and poppy are her flower; for where Is he not found, O Lilith, whom shed scent And soft-shed kisses and soft sleep shall snare? Lo! as that youth's eyes burned at thine, so went Thy spell through him, and left his straight neck bent And round his heart one strangling golden hair.
• Chy, yeah, I think you're right: her antics in verse 1 disqualify her as a novice. You're right about the hair-concealment being a general social thing and not just for réligieuses. Bananes aux poetes!
• Just remember, I'm always right, and we'll get along fine. ;)
• Duly noted!
• Reading this, I thought of this thread, though there's no necessary correspondence here. Yet, there's an atmosphere, a mood: Deposition I am in the foreground in mid-swoon, still reeling, red cloak blowing in the sudden storm. Darkness obscures the horizon and behind me a construction site, men on a ladder, the fence that became your cross -- behind the fence a church spire blessing nothing. The sword that I have always known would pierce my heart cuts through me. The young corpse slung over your father's friend and namesake is yours. The pasty boy-flesh stark against the weathered arms bearing you is yours. My women friends are all named Mary. They lean into me, murmuring Aramaic consolations. Bent in sorrow, they catch my fall. A column of light pans the scene from above. The vast Wyoming sky bursts with a waterless electric rain. The palladian arch framing the scene contains my grief. That's how I know this ia a dream. -- Peg Boyers