We don’t trifle with love - Musset

Alfred de Musset (1810 - 1857)

We don’t trifle with love (Extract of the play)
On ne badine pas avec l'amour

All men are liars, inconstant, hollow, talkative, hypocrites, proud and cowards, contemptible and sensual; all woman are perfidious, artificial, vain, curious and depraved; the world is nothing but a bottomless sewer where the most shapeless seals crawl and wriggle on mountains of muck; but there one single thing in this world, saint and sublime, it’s the union of these two beings so imperfect and dreadful. We are often deceived in love, often wounded and often miserable; but we love, and when we are on of the verge of the grave, we look back, and we say: I often suffered, I erred sometimes: but I loved. It is me who lived and not a factitious being created by my pride and my boredom.

To Mademoiselle - Musset

Alfred de Musset

A mademoiselle ***
To Mademoiselle ***

Oui, femmes, quoi qu'on puisse dire,
Yes, women, whataver can be said,
Vous avez le fatal pouvoir
You have the fatal power
De nous jeter par un sourire
To throw us with a smile
Dans l'ivresse ou le désespoir.
In drunkeness or despair.

Oui, deux mots, le silence même,
Yes, two words, even silence,
Un regard distrait ou moqueur,
A distracted glance or a mocking one,
Peuvent donner à qui vous aime
Can give to who loves you
Un coup de poignard dans le cour.
A stab in the heart.

Oui, votre orgueil doit être immense,
Yes, your pride must be huge,
Car, grâce à notre lâcheté,
For, thanks to our cowardice,
Rien n'égale votre puissance,
Nothing equals your strength,
Sinon votre fragilité.
Other than your fragilitiy.

Mais toute puissance sur terre
But any power on earth
Meurt quand l'abus en est trop grand,
Dies when the abuse is too great
Et qui sait souffrir et se taire
And who knows how to suffer in silence
S'éloigne de vous en pleurant.
Moves away from you weeping

Quel que soit le mal qu'il endure,
Whatever the pain he endures,
Son triste rôle est le plus beau.
His sad role is the most beautiful.
J'aime encor mieux notre torture
I better like our torture
Que votre métier de bourreau.
Than your trade of torturer.