À l'enfant [English translation]
À l'enfant [English translation]
In the town of Careol lived a lord
Who, to his king, was entirely devoted
He had for a wife a magnificent woman
Of whose beauty, all men spoke highly
This woman brought into the world a daughter
Who filled the lord with happiness
Up until the wretched day, when the king
Fell instantly and deeply in love
With the lord's wife
But she refused herself to him,
She implored him:
Was she not married
To his most loyal subject?
But the king, obstinate,
Commanded his advisor
To find a trick
By which, one day, to possess her
To the child who saw
What it never ought to have
Who in this way lost its carelessness
To the child who saw only
In its life, one lone way out:
To quench its sorrows in the violence
Of sweet revenge
So the advisor, a magician moreover,
Developed the most terrible of tricks:
One night, when the lord left for battle,
The magician gave his appearance to the king
The castle doors opened to the king
And the wife, taking him for her husband,
Loved him in all innocence
But the child saw that he wasn't her father,
And so she screamed her suffering to the world
To the child who saw
What it never ought to have
Who in this way lost its carelessness
To the child who saw only
In its life, one lone way out:
To quench its sorrows in the violence
Of sweet revenge
That night, the lord died in battle
His wife never recovered from this abuse of authority
Uther Pendragon was the name of this king
And from this illegitimate union was born a son:
Arthur