"Demain dès l'Aube" (Tomorrow at Dawn) Victor Hugo

Jean Pierre · April 04, 2019, 12:45:01 AM

To play and record this song (lyrics...Victor Hugo, music Pierre Bensusan, I had to make (as Roland Dyens, a huge French guitarist who recently died)...an "amicable settlement"

...because playing Pierre Bensusan's arpeges on a guitar tuned in DADGAD (see tablature/score attached) is just impossible!

...or you have to be extraordinarily lax, like Ida Presti

or as Pierre Bensusan

or have 6 fingers on your left hand like Pierre Bensusan

Well, you may not know Pierre Bensusan, Roland Dyens or Ida Presti, but you all know the author...Victor Hugo (Poem is "Demain dès l'Aube" "tomorrow at dawn", in "Les Contemplations", poeme collection , but yes, even Americans have known him since Walt Disney adapted "Notre Dame de Paris" into a cartoon, without ever quoting Victor Hugo or references to the novel!

PS the position of the fingers of the left hand that the picture of Ida Presti is called "the 4 E(note)". try it!

PS2 Lyrics and translation as well as a short explanatory note on the poem "tomorrow at dawn" are in the scrolling screen

Demain, dès l'aube
Demain, dès l'aube, à l'heure où blanchit la campagne,
Je partirai. Vois-tu, je sais que tu m'attends.
J'irai par la forêt, j'irai par la montagne.
Je ne puis demeurer loin de toi plus longtemps.

Je marcherai les yeux fixés sur mes pensées,
Sans rien voir au-dehors, sans entendre aucun bruit,
Seul, inconnu, le dos courbé, les mains croisées,
Triste, et le jour pour moi sera comme la nuit.

Je ne regarderai ni l'or du soir qui tombe,
Ni les voiles au loin descendant vers Harfleur,
Et, quand j'arriverai, je mettrai sur ta tombe
Un bouquet de houx vert et de bruyère en fleur.

Commentaires:
Une poésie célèbre de Victor Hugo.
Wikipédia :
À la lumière des événements qui ont marqué la vie de l'auteur, on comprend que ce poème est autobiographique et que Victor Hugo s'y adresse à sa fille Léopoldine, disparue quatre ans plus tôt, et dont il commémore la mort dans un pèlerinage annuel entre Le Havre et Villequier, le village de Normandie où elle s'est noyée accidentellement avec son mari, et où elle est enterrée.
Victor Hugo allait sur sa tombe tous les jeudis.

Tomorrow, at dawn
Tomorrow at dawn, when the countryside whitens,
I will leave. You see, I know you are expecting me.
I will go through the forests, I will go by the mountain.
I cannot stay away from you any longer.

I will walk with my eyes fixed on my thoughts,
Not seeing anything outside, not hearing any noise,
Alone, unknown, back bent, hands crossed,
Sad, and the day for me will be like the night.

I will not look at the gold evening falling,
Nor at the far off boats sailing towards Harfleur,
And when I arrive, I will put on your grave
A bunch of green holly and heather in bloom.

Commentaires de l'auteur·e :
It's a poem by Victor Hugo, a masterpiece of French literature.
Only three stanzas: the morning, the day and the evening.
The author let us think he will meet the woman he loves.
He knows she is waiting for him.
Then, why is he sad?
Only in the last two verses we find out why: he will visit the woman's grave.
-
In fact, Léopoldine, Victor Hugo's daughter, drowned with her husband.
Their boat capsized in the meanderings of Seine river, by Villequier.
The tragedy happened in 1843, when she was 19 and newly married.

le poeme de Victor Hugo comprends normalement 3 quatrains

Pierre Bensusan a ajouté quelques couplets d'un autre poeme "à Villequier" d'un autre poeme également publié dans le recueil les contemplations