Jean Antoine de Baif

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Rating: 4.33

Jean Antoine de Baif Poems

Thou art aged; but recount,
Since thy early life began,
What may be the just amount
Thou shouldst number of thy span:
...

Pluto, bid Rabelais welcome to thy shore,
That thou, who art the king of woe and pain,
Whose subjects never learned to laugh before,
...

O ma belle rebelle!
Las! que tu m'es cruelle,
Ou quand d'une doux souris,
Larron de mes esprits,
...

La froidure paresseuse
De l'yver a fait son tems :
Voici la saison joyeuse
Du délicieux printems.
...

Quand je te vis entre un millier de Dames,
L'elite et fleur des nobles, et plus belles,
Ta resplendeur telle estoyt parmy elles,
Quelle est Venus sur les celestes flames.
...

Viens, mort, à mon secours viens ;
Ô mort, secours, je t'en prie.
- Je t'oy, je viens, que veux-tu ?
- Ô mort, je suis tout en feu
...

Ce n'est point la paquerete,
La marguerite, le lis,
L'oeillet ny la violete,
La fleur où mon coeur j'ay mis
...

D'Amour d'Amour je fu je fu blessé,
Et de mon sang la liqueur goute a goute
En chaudes pleurs hors ma playe degoute,
Qui de couler puis le temps n'a cessé.
...

Tu me desplais, quoy que belle tu soys,
Tu me desplais, croy moy, je le confesse,
Et, bien qu'a moy tu desplaises, sans cesse
Je suy contreint ton amour toutesfoys.
...

Depuis qu'Amour ma poitrine recuit,
Bouillante au feu de sa plus chaude braise
De mille ennuis en immortel malaise,
Dont maint souci dans moy l'un l'autre suit
...

Metz moy au bord d'ou le soleil se léve,
Ou pres de l'onde ou sa flamme s'esteint,
Metz moy aux lieux que son rayon n'ateint,
Ou sur le sable ou sa torche est trop gréve
...

Ô doux plaisir plein de doux pensement,
Quand la douceur de la douce meslée,
Etreint et joint, l'ame en l'ame mellée,
Le corps au corps accouplé doucement.
...

Ô Toy par qui jour et nuit je soupire,
De qui sans gré la superbe valeur
Me fait languir dedans un beau malheur,
Viendray-je point au sommet ou j'aspire ?
...


Sur le haut des monts, çà et là regardant,
J'ai levé mes yeux, si secours me viendrait,
Mon secours me vient du Seigneur, qui fit les
Terres et les cieux.
...

Prete l'oreille à ma complainte, Seigneur Dieu :
Veuilles entendre le murmure de ma pensée.
Ma clameur ois, comme mon Roi, comme mon Dieu. Si te prierai.
...

Ces yeux ces yeux, doux larrons de mon ame,
M'ont eblouy de leur belle splendeur,
Astres fataux qui de malheur ou d'heur
Me vont comblant au plaisir de madame
...

Sire, en ton courroux ne me viens convaincre du forfait :
Non ne me viens châtier en ta bouillante fureur.

Miséricorde de moi, Seigneur, car faible je languis.
Ô, guéris moi, Seigneur : j'ai tous mes os étonnés.
...

Pauvres Cors où logeoyent ces esprits turbulans,
Naguieres la terreur des Princes de la terre,
Mesmes contre le ciel osans faire la guerre,
Deloiaux, obstinez, pervers et violans :
...

Francine a si bonne grace,
Elle a si belle la face,
Elle a les sourcis tant beaux,
Et dessous, deux beaux flambeaux
...

Ha, que tu m'es cruelle,
Que tu reconois mal
Pour t'estre trop fidelle
Tout ce que j'ay de mal !
...

Jean Antoine de Baif Biography

Jean Antoine de Baïf was a French poet and member of the Pléiade. Life He was born in Venice, the natural son of the scholar Lazare de Baïf, who was at that time French ambassador at Venice. Thanks, perhaps, to the surroundings of his childhood, he grew up an enthusiast for the fine arts, and surpassed in zeal all the leaders of the Renaissance in France. His father spared no pains to secure the best possible education for his son. The boy was taught Latin by Charles Estienne, and Greek by Ange Vergèce, the Cretan scholar and calligraphist who designed Greek types for Francis I. When he was eleven years old he was put under the care of the famous Jean Daurat. Ronsard, who was eight years his senior, now began to share his studies. Claude Binet tells how young Baïf, bred on Latin and Greek, smoothed out the tiresome beginnings of the Greek language for Ronsard, who in return initiated his companion into the mysteries of French versification. Baïf possessed an extraordinary facility, and the mass of his work has injured his reputation. Besides a number of volumes of short poems of an amorous or congratulatory kind, he translated or paraphrased various pieces from Bion, Moschus, Theocritus, Anacreon, Catullus and Martial. He resided in Paris, and enjoyed the continued favor of the court. In 1570, in conjunction with the composer Joachim Thibault de Courville, with royal blessing and financial backing, he founded the Académie de musique et de poésie, with the idea of establishing a closer union between music and poetry; his house became famous for the concerts which he gave, entertainments which Charles IX and Henry III frequently attended. Composers such as Claude Le Jeune, who was to become the most influential musician in France in the late 16th century, and Jacques Mauduit, who carried the Academie's ideas into the 17th century, soon joined the group, which remained secretive as to its intents and techniques. Works Baïf elaborated a system for regulating French versification by quantity, a system which came to be known as vers mesurés, or vers mesurés à l'antique. In the general idea of regulating versification by quantity, he was not a pioneer. Jacques de la Taille had written in 1562 the Maniére de faire des vers en français comme en grec et en Latin (printed 1573), and other poets had made experiments in the same direction; however, in his specific attempt to recapture the ancient Greek and Latin ethical effect of poetry on its hearers, and in applying the metrical innovations to music, he created something entirely new. Baïf's innovations also included a line of 15 syllables known as the vers Baïfin. He also meditated reforms in French spelling. His theories are exemplified in Etrenes de poezie Franzoeze an vers mezures (1574). His works were published in 4 volumes, entitled Œuvres en rime (1573), consisting of Amours, Jeux, Passetemps, et Poemes, containing, among much that is now hardly readable, some pieces of infinite grace and delicacy. His sonnet on the Roman de la Rose was said to contain the whole argument of that celebrated work, and Colletet says it was on everybody's lips. He also wrote a celebrated sonnet in praise of the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre. Baïf was the author of two comedies, L'Eunuque, 1565 (published 1573), a free translation of Terence's Eunuchus, and Le Brave (1567), an imitation of the Miles Gloriosus, in which the characters of Plautus are turned into Frenchmen, the action taking place at Orléans. Baïf published a collection of Latin verse in 1577, and in 1576 a popular volume of Mimes, enseignemens et proverbes.)

The Best Poem Of Jean Antoine de Baif

The Calculation Of Life

Thou art aged; but recount,
Since thy early life began,
What may be the just amount
Thou shouldst number of thy span:
How much to thy debts belong,
How much when vain fancy caught thee,
How much to the giddy throng,
How much to the poor who sought thee,
How much to thy lawyer's wiles,
How much to thy menial crew,
How much to thy lady's smiles,
How much to thy sick-bed due,
How much for thy hours of leisure,
For thy hurrying to and fro,
How much for each idle pleasure,—
If the list thy memory know.
Every wasted, misspent day,
Which regret can ne'er recall,—
If all theso them tak'st away,
Thou wilt find thy age but small:
That thy years were falsely told,
And, even now, thou art not old.

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