Jonathan Loesberg
Jonathan Loesberg
Thanks for trying. I'm coming to suspect she appeared to Sue in a fever dream.
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- Thread starter kirk wallace
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Thanks for trying. I'm coming to suspect she appeared to Sue in a fever dream.
Jeff Grossman
Jeff Grossman
That's how it seems to us, too.
We're dealing with non-regularized spelling so to do further research one must stay alert for Airey or Ayrie or Arrey, etc.
Jonathan Loesberg
Jonathan Loesberg
Well, French spelling. d'Arée or d'Arai or d'Arey might all be possible. I also, in deference to Flaubert, changed Rosette to Roseannette (no hyphen for this attempt) to see if anything came up. Bubkis. Offline, Cliff has sent equal notes of blank walls where one might find logical suspects.
Really, though, considering this is a wineboard, I'm impressed with the amount of research coming up empty handed. VICTORIA in its palmy days couldn't have done better trying to track down an obscure reference.
Jay Miller
Jay Miller
For those interested here is the quote:
La venue de cette charmante fille parut à l'abbé un coup du sort. Rodolphe avait l'imagination enflammée d'amoureuses chimères; Sarah devait être la réalité ravissante qui remplacerait tant de songes charmants; car, pensait l'abbé, avant d'arriver au choix dans le plaisir et à la variété dans la volupté, on commence presque toujours par un attachement unique et romanesque. Louis XIV et Louis XV n'ont été peut-être fidèles qu'à Marie Mancini et à Rosette d'Arey.
And here is Google Translate's version:
The arrival of this charming girl seemed to Father a twist of fate. Rudolph had inflamed the imagination of romantic fantasies, Sarah would be lovely to replace the reality so many charming dreams, for, thought the priest, before arriving at the choice in the fun and variety in pleasure, we start almost always a unique and romantic attachment. Louis XIV and Louis XV were perhaps faithful to Marie Mancini and Rosette Arey.
I tried googling for a history of Les Côtes-d'Arey thinking that it's likely to be where she was from but didn't come up with anything.
Since Louis IV and Marie's relationship was apparently unconsummated might Rosette also have been a young love rather than a mistress?
La venue de cette charmante fille parut à l'abbé un coup du sort. Rodolphe avait l'imagination enflammée d'amoureuses chimères; Sarah devait être la réalité ravissante qui remplacerait tant de songes charmants; car, pensait l'abbé, avant d'arriver au choix dans le plaisir et à la variété dans la volupté, on commence presque toujours par un attachement unique et romanesque. Louis XIV et Louis XV n'ont été peut-être fidèles qu'à Marie Mancini et à Rosette d'Arey.
And here is Google Translate's version:
The arrival of this charming girl seemed to Father a twist of fate. Rudolph had inflamed the imagination of romantic fantasies, Sarah would be lovely to replace the reality so many charming dreams, for, thought the priest, before arriving at the choice in the fun and variety in pleasure, we start almost always a unique and romantic attachment. Louis XIV and Louis XV were perhaps faithful to Marie Mancini and Rosette Arey.
I tried googling for a history of Les Côtes-d'Arey thinking that it's likely to be where she was from but didn't come up with anything.
Since Louis IV and Marie's relationship was apparently unconsummated might Rosette also have been a young love rather than a mistress?
Jeff Grossman
Jeff Grossman
I found that Baron d'Arey took part in a notable naval action during the War of the Spanish Succession. Plausibly, this girl -- if she existed -- was his daughter and who thus had an entree to court.
Marie is such an one and we know about her....
Maybe Saint-Simon made a note (though he didn't really have much to do with Louis XV)? I made a quick tour through the online editions but it's hard to skim.
Jonathan Loesberg
Jonathan Loesberg
Here's Carolyn's and my translation at this point:
The arrival of this charming young woman seemed to the Abbot a fateful stroke of luck. Here was Rodolphe, his mind inflamed with amorous fantasies. Sarah was made to play the role of the ravishing reality that would take the place of all those charming dreams. In the Abbot’s view of things, before you come to the point of choosing among pleasures and seeking variety in sensual experience, you almost always start with a single, romantic attachment. Marie Mancini and Rosette d’Arey were perhaps the only real loves of Louis XIV and Louis XV
The arrival of this charming young woman seemed to the Abbot a fateful stroke of luck. Here was Rodolphe, his mind inflamed with amorous fantasies. Sarah was made to play the role of the ravishing reality that would take the place of all those charming dreams. In the Abbot’s view of things, before you come to the point of choosing among pleasures and seeking variety in sensual experience, you almost always start with a single, romantic attachment. Marie Mancini and Rosette d’Arey were perhaps the only real loves of Louis XIV and Louis XV
Sharon Bowman
Sharon Bowman
(I decided to translate the passage without looking at your post, for fun.)
This charming girl's arrival seemed a windfall to the Abbé. Rodolphe's imagination burned with amorous will-o'-the-wisps, and Sarah was obviously the ravishing reality that would replace such fond musings, as the Abbé thought that before you made your choice of pleasures amid voluptuous variety, you must almost always start with a one-off romantic attachment. Louis XIV and Louis XV were perhaps faithful only to Marie Mancini and Rosette d'Arey.
A few issues involving alliteration, pacing, and breaking up sentences. I think that your turning around the last is a bit meddling. But maybe it's a kind of EB White passive-removing gesture.
Jonathan Loesberg
Jonathan Loesberg
To get the English to sound right, both Carolyn and I have done some meddling, though more interpretation. For instance, in English, claiming that the two Louis were faithful has a stronger sense of sexual faithfulness, which was obviously false. The Abbot thinks they were the only women for which the two kings experienced something like love and that they stayed in love with them even as they became libertines. Your more literal translation might get you there but lacks what Sue is saying about the Abbot's imagination. He doesn't want Rodolphe to choose from among pleasures by the way. He wants him to become a vitiated libertine so that the Abbot may rule in the state as his prime minister. I think your literary taste leads you away from Sue's melodramatic breathlessness at times. I like "windfall" though and may steal it.
Sharon Bowman
Sharon Bowman
Maybe d'Arey means "from Arey" and that is a place (including Harrey)?
To make matters more amusing, Google books also has it as "Rosette d'Arcy"—lovely scan, that.
As for the translation, I think that saying Abbot is odd, for Abbé. It isn't the same function, and the usage is to keep Abbé. Also, as with Russian patronyms, it isn't jarring for the reader if they know that that's that dude's title.
The scansion is a bit choppy w/r/t the French; I think there is a way to keep the dilated sentences within a perfectly normal English rhythm.
To make matters more amusing, Google books also has it as "Rosette d'Arcy"—lovely scan, that.
As for the translation, I think that saying Abbot is odd, for Abbé. It isn't the same function, and the usage is to keep Abbé. Also, as with Russian patronyms, it isn't jarring for the reader if they know that that's that dude's title.
The scansion is a bit choppy w/r/t the French; I think there is a way to keep the dilated sentences within a perfectly normal English rhythm.
Jeff Grossman
Jeff Grossman
I ignored all of the "d'Arcy" hits because there was a family of that name that came over with the Norman invasion. Presumably, those "northerly" folks were not the ones who appeared at a French court.
Jonathan Loesberg
Jonathan Loesberg
Could you explain? According to the usual dictionaries and my experience visiting French abbeys an abbé is the director of an abbey. That is also what an abbot is. I have always wondered what monastery Polidori could possibly have directed, but that's not my problem.
Sharon Bowman
Sharon Bowman
"Since the mid-16th century, the title abbé has been used for all young clergymen with or without consecration."
"Since those abbés only rarely commanded an abbey, they often worked in honourable families as tutors, spiritual directors, etc.; others became writers."
"The connection many of them had with the church was of the slenderest kind, consisting mainly in adopting the title of abbé, after a remarkably moderate course of theological study, practising celibacy and wearing a distinctive dress—a short dark-violet coat with narrow collar. Being men of presumed learning and undoubted leisure, many of the class found admission to the houses of the French nobility as tutors or advisers. Nearly every great family had its abbé. The class did not survive the Revolution; but the courtesy title of abbé, having long lost all connection in people's minds with any special ecclesiastical function, remained as a convenient general term applicable to any clergyman."
Abbé.
And.
Jonathan Loesberg
Jonathan Loesberg
I am persuaded. I also find in the OED that there an English word, abbe, without the accent for this position. I will change the translation.
Sharon Bowman
Sharon Bowman
That's not really the point, given that it's his title. No one translates Laclos' cruel lady as the Marchioness of Merteuil.
And hardly anyone calls the king's son Dolphin.
Jonathan Loesberg
Jonathan Loesberg
Actually in this case it is the point. There is an English word and I was using the wrong one. The Count of Monte Cristo's teacher is called the Abbe Faria.
But you seem not to want to take yes for an answer.
Titles are always tricky. We're also retaining marquise. The title marchioness barely exists in English. On the other hand, Comte is count. And I frequently see dauphin either as prince or as heir apparent. Do you think there is an etymological relation between the two meanings in French? I'd always heard the title derives from Delphin as in Apollo Delphinios, but I wouldn't bet on it.
Sharon Bowman
Sharon Bowman
It derives from the dolphins on the prince's coat of arms.
Jonathan Loesberg
Jonathan Loesberg
originally posted by Sharon Bowman:
It derives from the dolphins on the prince's coat of arms.
I've seen that. It way postdates the etymology. It merely takes advantage of the homophone. Why, after all, what it be on the coat of arms in the first place? The question is whether the latin delphinus actually does come from the name for Apollo or something else and whether that word too meant dolphin.
Sharon Bowman
Sharon Bowman
If you mean that there were no .jpg back in the fourteenth century, yes, but it was the Dauphin's coat of arms, nonetheless, inspiring the handle. (Hence the name of the Dauphiné region, of which he was lord.)
Why he chose dolphins could relate to your other matter, but I have not the time for research this AM.
Why he chose dolphins could relate to your other matter, but I have not the time for research this AM.
Sharon Bowman
Sharon Bowman
It's not like Abbes are running the streets, either.
The point is that there are certain ways we talk about people with foreign titles in English renderings of works describing them. That was my sole point.
We don't say Sir Quijote, or what have you. And we tend to say Abbé for French abbés, because the function hasn't an Anglo equivalent. But strip the é if you think that makes the best English.
I am a little bit worried—and I say this nicely—that a few sentences have stirred up so much muck. How long's that Sue novel, again? 1,000 pages, give or take?