Love Sonnets and Elegies

by Louise Labe

  1548

  During the elaborate September festivities honoring the entry of the new King Henri II and Catherine de’ Medicis into Lyon—stage-managed by Maurice Scève—L.L.’s brother François plays a part in a mock naval battle on the river, the cordage of whose ships was probably provided by her father.

  1549

  Joachim du Bellay publishes his Défense et illustration de la langue française as well as L’Olive, the first major sonnet cycle to be written in French.

  1550

  Pierre de Ronsard publishes the first four books of his Odes.

  1548– 51?

  Death of her father Pierre Charly. Her brother François becomes the head of the family.

  1551

  L.L. and husband Ennemond buy a house with garden near the current place Bellecour in Lyon. Leone Ebreo’s neo-Platonic/cabbalistic Dialoghi d’amore (1535), translated into French by Pontus de Tyard, is published by Tournes.

  1552

  The name of La Belle Cordière is dragged through the mud during an anti-Catholic trial in Geneva that links her to Etiennette Roubet, a Lyonese cousin of L.L.’s. The misogynistic John Calvin would later refer to La Belle Cordière in a 1560 pamphlet as a “plebeia meretrix,” or common whore. Publication of Ronsard’s Amours (eighty-two sonnets).

  1553– 58?

  Legal squabbles over her father’s inheritance between L.L.’s brother François and their mother-in-law Antoinette.

  1554

  New fragments of Sappho published in Paris and Basel. Gaspara Stampa’s Rime appears in Venice. L.L. apparently meets the poet Olivier de Magny in the fall, on his way through Lyon to serve as the secretary to the French ambassador in Rome. Although Magny would later claim to have been L.L.’s lover, there is little to substantiate the legend that he might have been the unnamed male muse (or, indeed, the author) of her sonnets.

  1555

  Aug 12: the official date of the publication of Euvres de Louïze Labé Lionnoize by Jean de Tournes. The octavo volume includes: 1) a dedicatory preface to the young

  Lyonnese noblewoman Clémence de Bourges, 2) a fifty-page prose dialogue, “Débat de Folie et d’Amour” (“Debate between Folly and Love”) 3) three elegies in the tradition of Ovid’s verse epistles, 4) twenty-four sonnets, 5) twenty-four homages by divers hands (and in divers languages and genres) addressed to L.L. by the cream of the literati of Lyon, and 6) a “Privilège du Roy,” according L.L. an exclusive five-year copyright of her Works.

  1556

  Second edition of L.L.’s Works published in Lyon by Tournes. A third edition is published in Rouen, probably through the intermediary of her protector, the Italian banker Thomas Fortin (Fortini), who is linked to the powerful Florentine Strozzi clan, and who helps L.L. with her investments in Lyon. This allows her to buy, on the outskirts of the city, a country house with vineyards, after the death of her husband Ennemond (somewhere between January 1555 and September 1557).

  1557

  Olivier de Magny publishes his Soupirs (Sighs) in Paris, which includes a sonnet lifted from L.L.’s Works. A scurrilous “Chanson nouvelle de la Belle Cordière de Lyon” circulates in the city.

  1559

  Olivier de Magny publishes his Odes in Paris; one of them, “Ode à Sire Aymon,” includes a derisive portrait of L.L.’s late ropemaker husband as a hapless cuckold.

  1560

  L.L. buys additional property at Parcieux, on the outskirts of Lyon.

  1562

  L.L. buys another vineyard. The wars of religion invade Lyon. A number of her family members convert to Protestantism, but she remains Catholic.

  1564

  Lyon struck by the plague. General devastation.

  1565

  In ill health, L.L. writes her will in the presence of her friend and protector, Thomas Fortin. She makes sizeable donations to the General Charity of Lyon, which her father had helped found in 1534.

  1566

  Death of L.L. on February 15.

  1573

  Two local historians of Lyon feud about the image of L.L. The one (Guillaume Paradin) describes her as having “a face more angelic than human,” a spirit “as virtuous as it was chaste,” and praises her for her “excellence in Poetry in the vulgar tongue.” The other (Claude de Rubys) dismisses her as a “wanton” and “public courtesan by profession till the day of her death.”

  1584

  L.L.’s The Debate Between Follie and Love translated into English by Robert Greene.

  1585

  Antoine du Verdier publishes a sketch of L.L. in his Bibliothèque (see the passage reproduced at the outset of this chronology). He notes that if he has included her in his catalogue of French authors, it is “not because she was a courtesan, but solely because she was a writer.”

  1685

  La Fontaine publishes a verse fable adaptation of L.L.’s “Debate” called “L’Amour et la Folie.”

  1762

  The first modern edition of L.L.’s Works since the sixteenth century, followed by editions in 1767, 1776, 1815, 1824, 1845, 1853, 1862, 1871, 1875, 1887 (by Charles Boy, the edition used by Rilke), 1924, 1927, 1928, 1943, 1953, 1960, 1962, 1965, 1970, 1981, 1986, 2004.

  1790

  According to the Almanach de Lyon, a “Bataillon de la Belle Cordière” celebrates the revolutionary memory of L.L. with a flag featuring her image, holding the cap of William Tell, “the restorer of Helvetic Liberty,” on a pike adorned with a ribbon on which the following couplet is inscribed: “Tu prédis nos destins, Charly, belle Cordière, Car pour briser nos fers tu volas la première” (“You predicted our fates, fair Roper, Charly, For to break our chains you were the first to fly”).

  1833

  Marceline Desbordes-Valmore publishes an encomium in verse, “Louise Labé,” in her volume Les pleurs.

  1910

  L.L. and the dedicatee of her Works, Clémence de Bourges, figure prominently in the final section of Rilke’s Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge.

  1917

  Rilke publishes his German versions of L.L.’s sonnets.

  1943

  Louis Aragon publishes “Plainte pour le quatrième centenaire d’un amour,” a patriotic idyll about “Loyse” (compared to Joan of Arc) and “Olivier” (de Magny), in a wartime edition of L.L.’s works.

  1955

  In his anthology of French sixteenth-century verse, Léopold Senghor pronounces L.L. “the greatest poetess ever born in France.”

  2006

  Mireille Huchon, in her Louise Labé: Une créature de papier, argues that the Works of L.L. were merely a literary hoax, pulled off by Maurice Scève and his coterie of Lyonnese writers, in connivance with the publisher Jean de Tournes.

  À M.C.D.B.L.

  ESTANT LE TEMS venu, Madamoiselle, que les severes loix des hommes n’empeschent plus les femmes de s’apliquer aus sciences & disciplines: il me semble que celles qui ont la commodité, doivent employer cette honneste liberté que notre sexe ha autre fois tant desiree, à icelles aprendre: & montrer aus hommes le tort qu’ils nous faisoient en nous privant du bien & de l’honneur qui nous en pouvoit venir: Et si quelcune parvient en tel degré, que de pouvoir mettre ses concepcions par escrit, le faire songneusement & non dédaigner la gloire, & s’en parer plustot que de chaines, anneaus, & somptueus habits: lesquels ne pouvons vrayement estimer notres, que par usage. Mais l’honneur que la science nous procurera, sera entierement notre: & ne nous pourra estre oté, ne par finesse de larron, ne force d’ennemis, ne longueur du tems. Si j’eusse esté tant favorisee des Cieus, que d’avoir l’esprit grand assez pour comprendre ce dont il ha ù envie, je servirois en cet endroit plus d’exemple que d’amonicion. Mais ayant passé partie de ma jeunesse à l’exercice de la Musique, & ce qui m’a resté de tems l’ayant trouvé court pour la rudesse de mon entendement, & ne pouvant de moymesme satisfaire au bon vouloir que je porte à notre sexe, de le voir non en beauté seulement, mais en science & vertu passer ou egaler les hommes: je ne puis faire autre chose que p
rier les vertueuses Dames d’eslever un peu leurs esprits par-dessus leurs quenoilles & fuseaus, & s’employer à faire entendre au monde que si nous ne sommes faites pour commander, si ne devons nous estre desdaignees pour compagnes tant es afaires domestiques que publiques, de ceus qui gouvernent & se font obeïr. Et outre la reputacion que notre sexe en recevra, nous aurons valù au publiq, que les hommes mettront plus de peine & d’estude aus sciences vertueuses, de peur qu’ils n’ayent honte de voir preceder celles, desquelles ils ont pretendu estre tousjours superieurs quasi en tout. Pource, nous faut il animer l’une l’autre à si louable entreprise: De laquelle ne devez eslongner ny espargner votre esprit, jà de plusieurs & diverses graces acompagné: ny votre jeunesse, & autres faveurs de fortune, pour aquerir cet honneur que les lettres & sciences ont acoutumé porter aus personnes qui les suyvent. S’il y ha quelque chose recommandable apres la gloire & l’honneur, le plaisir que l’estude des lettres ha acoutumé donner nous y doit chacune inciter: qui est autre que les autres recreations: desquelles quand on en ha pris tant que lon veut, on ne se peut vanter d’autre chose, que d’avoir passé le tems. Mais celle de l’estude laisse un contentement de soy, qui nous demeure plus longuement. Car le passé nous resjouit, & sert plus que le present: mais les plaisirs des sentimens se perdent incontinent, & ne reviennent jamais, & en est quelquefois la memoire autant facheuse, comme les actes ont esté delectables. Davantage les autres voluptez sont telles, que quelque souvenir qui en vienne, si ne nous peut il remettre en telle disposicion que nous estions: & quelque imaginacion forte que nous imprimions en la teste, si connoissons nous bien que ce n’est qu’une ombre du passé qui nous abuse & trompe. Mais quand il avient que mettons par escrit nos concepcions, combien que puis apres notre cerveau coure par une infinité d’afaires & incessamment remue, si est ce que long tems apres, reprenans nos escrits, nous revenons au mesme point, & à la mesme disposicion ou nous estions. Lors nous redouble notre aise: car nous retrouvons le plaisir passé qu’avons ù ou en la matiere dont escrivions, ou en l’intelligence des sciences ou lors estions adonnez. Et outre ce, le jugement que font nos fecondes concepcions des premieres, nous rend un singulier contentement. Ces deus biens qui proviennent d’escrire vous y doivent inciter, estant asseuree que le premier ne faudra d’acompagner vos escrits, comme il fait tous vos autres actes & façons de vivre. Le second sera en vous de le prendre, ou ne l’avoir point: ainsi que ce dont vous escrirez vous contentera. Quant à moy tant en escrivant premierement ces jeunesses que en les revoyant depuis, je n’y cherchois autre chose qu’un honneste passetems & moyen de fuir oisiveté: & n’avois point intencion que personne que moy les dust jamais voir. Mais depuis que quelcuns de mes amis ont trouvé moyen de les lire sans que j’en susse rien, & que (ainsi comme aisément nous croyons ceus qui nous louent) ils m’ont fait à croire que les devois mettre en lumiere: je ne les ay osé esconduire, les menassant ce pendant de leur faire boire la moitié de la honte qui en proviendroit. Et pource que les femmes ne se montrent volontiers en publiq seules, je vous ay choisie pour me servir de guide, vous dediant ce petit euvre, que ne vous envoye à autre fin que pour vous acertener du bon vouloir lequel de long tems je vous porte, & vous inciter & faire venir envie en voyant ce mien euvre rude & mal bati, d’en mettre en lumiere un autre qui soit mieus limé & de meilleure grace.

  Dieu vous maintienne en santé.

  De Lion ce 24.

  Juillet

  1555.

  Votre humble amie

  Louïze Labé.

  DEDICATORY EPISTLE

  To M.C.D.B.L

  THE TIME HAVING come, Mademoiselle, when the stern laws of men no longer bar women from devoting themselves to the sciences & other branches of learning: it seems to me that that those who have the opportunity to do so ought to take advantage of that honorable liberty which persons of our sex formerly so desired, in order to study such matters: & to show men the harm they have done us by depriving us of the benefit & the honor which should have been our due: and if any of us rises to the level that allows her to set down her conceptions in writing, she should do so with care &, far from spurning glory, instead adorn herself with this accomplishment rather than with chains, rings, & sumptuous clothes: which we cannot truly claim as ours, save by custom. But the honor that learning confers on us shall be entirely our own: it cannot be taken from us, not by the cunning of a thief, not by the violence of our enemies, not by the course of time. Had I been so blessed by Heaven as to possess a mind capacious enough to comprehend whatsoever it desired, I would here be citing myself as an example rather than merely offering counsel & advice. But having passed a portion of my youth in the practice of Music, & having found the time remaining me too short for the rudeness of my understanding, & unable on my own merits to satisfy the good will that I bear toward our sex, to see it surpass or equal men not only in beauty but in learning & worthiness: I can do little else than to beg Ladies of character to raise their sights a bit higher than their distaffs & spindles, & to set about showing the world that if we are not made to command, we nevertheless ought not be disdained as companions in affairs both domestic & public by those who govern & demand obedience. And above & beyond the reputation that our sex shall have earned, we shall have furnished the public with a reason for men to put more effort & study into worthy fields of knowledge, lest they be ashamed of seeing themselves surpassed by those to whom they have always pretended to be superior in all things. For this reason, we must inspire one & another to engage in such a praiseworthy endeavor: To this goal you should earnestly apply your mind, endowed as it is with so many different talents: and make full use of your youth & those other favors that fortune has granted you, in order to acquire this honor which science & letters commonly bestow on those who pursue them. If there is something beyond fame & honor to recommend the study of letters, the pleasure that it commonly affords should incite every one of us to engage in it: this pleasure is distinct from other diversions: in the case of the latter, once one has taken from them as much enjoyment as one wants, one cannot boast of anything except of having passed the time. But study rewards us with a sense of self-contentment, which remains with us far longer. For we take delight in the past, & it is of greater service to us than the present: yet the pleasures of the sentiments swiftly vanish, never to return, & sometimes the memory of them is as deficient as the acts were delectable. And as for other pleasures of a more sensual kind, though memories of them may arise, we can no longer place ourselves back in the same disposition: & however powerful the image imprinted in our minds, we know only too well that it is but a shadow of the past which deceives & misleads us. But when we manage to set down our conceptions in writing, no matter how much our minds, ever restless, might subsequently get caught up in other distractions, once we again take up what we have written, even if this be long after the fact, we return to the same point & same disposition as before. Our delight is thus redoubled: for we rediscover the past pleasure that we took in what we were writing, or in mastering the fields of knowledge we were then studying. Furthermore, the judgment that our fertile second conceptions provide of our first ones offers us a singular satisfaction. These two benefits of writing ought to spur you on, assured as you are that the former will not fail to accompany what you write, as it will all your other acts & conduct of life. As for the latter benefit, it is up to you to take or leave, depending on whether you are happy with what you have written about. As for myself, both during my initial writing of these works of my youth & during my subsequent reviewing of them, I sought in them nothing more than an honorable pastime & a way of escaping idleness: & had no intention that anybody but myself should ever see them. But since some of my friends managed to peruse them without my knowledge, & since (how easily we believe those who shower us with praise) they convinced me I should publish them: I did not dare to dismiss them, though I did threaten to make them drink half the measure of shame that would thereby result. And because women do not willingly appear in public alone, I have chosen you to serve as
my guide, dedicating this small work to you, which I do not send your way for any other reason than to assure you of the goodwill I have long borne you, & to instill in you, once you have seen this rude & roughly hewn work of mine, the desire to publish another that would far surpass it in its polish & poise.

  God keep you in good health.

  From Lyon, this 24 July

  1555.

  Your humble friend Louïze Labé.

  Sonnets

  I

  Non havria Ulysse o qualunqu’altro mai

  Più accorto fu, da quel divino aspetto

  Pien di gratie, d’honor & di rispetto

  Sperato qual i’ sento affanni e guai.

  Pur, Amour, co i begli occhi tu fatt’hai

  Tal piaga dentro al mio innocente petto,

  Di cibo & di calor già tuo ricetto,

  Che rimedio non v’è si tu n’el dai.

  O sorte dura, che mi fa esser quale