Marot in Translation

My first translation (column 3) of Marot's  A une Damoyselle malade. (A challenge proposed by Douglas Hofstadter in his book, Le Ton beau de Marot.)

Marot
Ma mignonne,
Je vous donne
Le bon jour;
Le séjour
C’est prison.
Guérison
Recouvrez,
Puis ouvrez
Votre porte
Et qu’on sorte
Vitement,
Car Clément
Le vous mande.
Va, friande
De ta bouche,
Qui se couche
En danger
Pour manger
Confitures;
Si tu dures
Trop malade,
Couleur fade
Tu prendras,
Et perdras
L’embonpoint.
Dieu te doint
Santé bonne,
Ma mignonne.
Hofstadter
My sweet
I bid you
A good day;
The stay
Is prison.
Health
Recover,
Then open
Your door,
And go out
Quickly,
For Clément
Tells you to.
Go, indulger
Of thy mouth,
Lying abed
In danger,
Off to eat
Fruit preserves;
If thou stay’st
Too sick,
Pale shade
Thou wilt acquire,
And wilt lose
Thy plump form.
God grant thee
Good health,
My sweet.
Monroe
My delight,
I invite
you to smile;
For awhile
you¹ve been jailed.
Find your failed
health again.
Open then
the cruel door
to explore
right away,
for I say
you’ve no choice.
Go, rejoice,
since your tastes
lay in waste
while you’re ill;
Have your fill,
cakes devour!
Ev'ry hour
sickness wins,
color thins
from your face,
to displace
roundedness.
May God bless
you tonight,
My delight.


Hofstadter, in sending the translation challenge out to his friends and colleagues, identified the following eight structural features that deserve consideration:
  1. It is made up of 28 lines.
  2. Each line has 3 syllables.
  3. The stress falls on the last of these syllables.
  4. It is a series of rhyming couplets.
  5. The semantic couplets are out of phase with the rhyming couplets.
  6. After line 14 the formal "vous" is replaced by the more colloquial "tu".
  7. The last line echoes the first.
  8. The poet slips his own name into the poem.