WARNING: If you like translations of medieval French poetry, then this entry is the one for you. I suggest you print it off and fashion it into a bib, or pin it to your lapel as a kind of medal. Make up a tune called "Bring On the Old French Cant". Sing it at weddings, funerals, graduations, mitvahs bar and bat, Skull and Bones ceremonies, AA meetings, what have you. If someone strikes you down, you will grow more powerful than that someone can possibly imagine.

In Le Ton Beau de Marot, Douglas Hofstadter's book on translation, computer models of intelligence, death and mourning, Hofstadter discusses the problem of translating highly idiomatic texts. The issue is epitomized by French poet Fran�ois Villon's 15th century semi-penetrable "Ballade de Bonne Doctrine � Ceux de Mauvaise Vie," which translates more or less as "The Ballad of Good Conduct for Those Who Live the Bad Life," or "Good Advice for Criminals". Villon, who frequently led la Mauvaise Vie, punctuated his poems with street slang, thieves' cant, and sly jokes. So then. How do you adequately translate a text obscured by so many layers of historical, substantive, and modal difficulty? William Ernest Henley sought a solution by uprooting the poem from 15th century underworld France and transplanting it in 18th (I think) century underworld Britain. The resulting poem is not a precise translation of Villon; it would be fairer to say that Henley imagined what Villon himself would write if he were born in Britain and mingling with the thimble riggers and dead-lurkers of Whitechapel. The result is equally slangy and just about incomprehensible:

Villon's Straight Tip to All Cross Coves

"Tout aux tavernes et aux filles."

Suppose you screeve? or go cheap-jack?
Or fake the broads? or fig a nag?
Or thimble-rig? or knap a yack?
Or pitch a snide? or smash a rag?
Suppose you duff? or nose and lag?
Or get the straight, and land your pot?
How do you melt the multy swag?
Booze and the blowens cop the lot.

Fiddle, or fence, or mace, or mack;
Or moskeneer, or flash the drag;
Dead-lurk a crib, or do a crack;
Pad with a slang, or chuck a fag;
Bonnet, or tout, or mump and gag;
Rattle the tats, or mark the spot;
You can not bank a single stag;
Booze and the blowens cop the lot.

Suppose you try a different tack,
And on the square you flash your flag?
At penny-a-lining make your whack,
Or with the mummers mug and gag?
For nix, for nix the dibbs you bag!
At any graft, no matter what,
Your merry goblins soon stravag:
Booze and the blowens cop the lot.

THE MORAL

It's up the spout and Charley Wag
With wipes and tickers and what not.
Until the squeezer nips your scrag,
Booze and the blowens cop the lot.

For comparison's sake, here's another translation (author unknown, but what meagre bibliographic information I know can be found here). In this version the speaker is more intent on cursing his audience than advising them. He even spares a verse to insult the "coppers, narks, and dubs" who've screwed him over.

VILLON'S GOOD-NIGHT

You bible-sharps that thump on tubs,
You lurkers on the Abram-sham,
You sponges miking round the pubs,
You flymy titters fond of flam
You judes that clobber for the stramm,
You ponces good at talking tall,
With fawneys on your dexter famm-
A mot's good-night to one and all!

Likewise you molls that flash your bubs
For swells to spot and stand you sam,
You bleeding bonnets, pugs and subs,
You swatchel-coves that pitch and slam.
You magsmen bold that work the cram,
You flats and joskins great and small,
Gay grass-widows and lawful jam-
A mot's good-night to one and all!

For you,you coppers, narks and dubs,
Who pinched me when upon the snam,
And gave me mumps and mulligrubs
With skilly and swill that made me clam,
At you i merely lift my gam-
I drink your health against the wall!
That is the sort of man I am,
A mot's good-night to one and all!

Paste 'em and larrup 'em and lamm!
Give Kennedy and make 'em crawl!
I do not care one bloody damn,
A mot's good-night to one and all!

I know a few of the terms and phrases in these two pieces. But ya know, this entry's way too long already. If you're curious, click on the little cowboy below and send me an email.

parode - exode