A great poet, scoundrel, rogue and murderer
BarcelonaIt is not that François Villon (1431-?) had more or less love in Catalonia, because he must never have come, even though his trail is lost in Paris in 1463. We do not know what he did after that date, nor when he died, nor where. The question is another: Villon has been very little translated into our country. We know of two poems spilled into Catalan by Feliu Formosa in the anthology French poetry, edited by Alain Verjat (Barcelona, Ed. 62, 1985) and the most recent translation of the Ballads, edited by Andreu Subirats (Barcelona, LaBreu Edicions, 2010).
Given Villon's importance in the panorama of French literature, this is not much. One reason for this neglect could be Villon's language, which is not only 15th-century French, but is also laden with the jargon typical of the urban and rural, scoundrel life of the France of his time: a dictionary of the old French language is needed (Greimas's on the history of the language) (perhaps Lucien Rigaud's).
Another important reason, and perhaps there are more, is that Villon is a kind of "accursed poet", a scoundrel, a rogue and a murderer - albeit delicately pious in his verses - prone to vulgarity - like the goliards - and a friend of today's eyes. This current of French poetry has always been a hindrance to Catalan translators, surely because it has made the readers and the literary tastes of the population, previously a lover of decorum –with few exceptions, of Juli Vallmitjana - to Josep Maria de Sagarra -, now subject to the tacit laws of "political correctness". In this sense, Rabelais has not had much luck in the country, nor has he had much luck Baudelaire (despite the efforts of Xavier Benguerel, Pere Rovira and myself), nor the "theater of cruelty" proposed by Antonin Artaud.
Perhaps now that sexual life is rampant, young people would be happy to read some of the ballads, bawdy or not, by maestro Villon. For example, the very famous "Ballad of the passage of time" - sung by many chansonniers–, which resorts to the commonplace ofubi sunt, and which says (in our translation, because we do not have the LaBreu edition) the following. (Before): "What has become of that smooth forehead, / of the blond hair, arched eyebrows, / wide brow, pretty look / that attracted the most clever? [...] The small breasts, fleshy haunches, / high, all smooth and round, / that maintained small parties; / well hidden in her little forest?" (Now): "The forehead all wrinkled, the gray hair, / drooping eyebrows, dull eyes, [...] hanging ears, all moss, / pale and faded face, / wrinkled chin, hairy lips: / look at the good one!, how beautiful! Then see it here.
