OU blog

Personal Blogs

Richard Walker

Raining again

Visible to anyone in the world
Edited by Richard Walker, Saturday, 6 July 2024, 13:15

I don't know what the weather is like where you are but where I am it's

Raining. Again.

I thought of the nursery rhyme

"Rain, rain, go away/Come again another day",

and that set me wondering if there is a similar children's verse in other languages.

When I tried French, I stumbled across the wonderful Mots D'Heures: Gousses, Rames, by Luis d'Antin van Rooten, which the author claims were verses "From the d'Antin Manuscript, Discovered, Edited and Annotated".  [1][2]

Here's Verse 16. Try reading it aloud in your best French accent

Reine, reine,
gueux éveille.
Gomme à gaine,
en horreur, taie."

Van Rooten provides scholarly note to help us with the archaic language of the verses, for example Verse 16 he explains as

"Queen, Queen, arouse the rabble
Who use their girdles, horrors, as pillow slips."

Here are a couple more titles from the book - can you work them out?

Et qui rit des curés d'Oc?

Lit-elle messe, moffette

[1] Wikipedia

[2] Blue Ridge Journal


Permalink
Share post

Comments

Richard Walker

New comment

This rended me of when I was about 11 and my dad wrote this bit of “French” down for me and got me to read it aloud

“Pas d’elle yeux Rhône que nous”