Every time I travel down Cavan town’s Farnham Street, and I look at the site once occup0ied by the Farnham Hall, Villon’s refrain from his “Ballade des dames du temps jadis” comes into my mind: “Mais oú sont les neiges d’antan?” (that’s your actual French that is, as Kenneth Williams said). “Where are the snows of yesteryear?” The Farnham Hall was knocked down unceremoniously in an act of barbaric vandalism one October Saturday morning. (It must be said though that the man who did it, while having the social graces of a skunk was an angel of transparency when compared to his two-faced successor.) On the altar of its destruction has risen a building displaying the architectural élan of a six-year-old playing with Lego bricks. But let us return to Villon.
He spent quite a lot of the life known to us in prison. He was very gifted intellectually, and I feel a certain affinity with him, as I often feel imprisoned. He stole money from the Chapel of the College de Navarre, which had probably been gained dishonourably anyway. Then he was sentenced to death. It was while on death row that he wrote his “Ballad of the hanged men”. One manuscript copy of the poem is illustrated by a drawing of a scaffold with three men swinging from it, two at least of whom wear something suspiciously like a smile. But Villon’s death sentence was commuted to banishment from Paris. This was in January 1463. After that he vanishes from history. He may have fallen an anonymous victim of the tavern brawls he delighted in. Maybe he changed his name (he had done it before), or maybe he led a long and fulfilling life in some French provincial backwater, his wants amply catered for by a succession of wenches.
The Ballad of the Hanged Men
Human brothers, who live after us,
Do not harden your hearts against us,
For if you pity us poor sinners,
God will be more merciful to you.
As for our flesh, which we fed too well:
It is long since wasted and rotten,
And our bones become ash and powder;
Let nobody laugh at our bad luck.
But pray that all will be forgiven!
If we call you brother, do not have;
Disdain for us, though we be murdered
Lawfully, since you know all about
How not all men have common sense
Intercede for us who are no more-
With the Son of the Virgin Mary,,
That his grace for us should no0 dry up,
But preserving us from Hell’s lightning.
We are no more, let no soul harry us;
But pray that all will be forgiven!
The wet rain has washed us with its mist,
The hot sun has dried and blackened us;
Magpies and crows have gouged out our eyes
And have torn our beards and our eyebrows.
Never, at no time, are we seated;
Now here, now there, as the wind changes
Ceaselessly, at its pleasure, we move;
We are pecked full of holes like a thimble.
Thus do not be of our fellowship.
But pray that all will be forgiven!
ENVOI
May Prince Jesus who is lord over us all,
Prevent Hell exerting lordship over us:
Let us not have any dealings with it.
Men, nobody is laughing where we are,
Let us pray that all will be forgiven!
(translation by Ciaran Parker)
