"Ca ira mon amour" - Rod Janois (1789 Les Amants de la Bastille)

Despite having taken some translation classes, the Amateur Historian is a very indifferent poet. Therefore this translation is more literal than poetic. If I have made any errors, Gentle Readers, please comment and I will fix it. Many thanks and happy listening! (Also important to note, the phrase 'Ça ira' is an important revolutionary slogan, and the name of a cheerfully violent revolutionary song (are there any other kind?) about hanging aristocrats on lampposts.)

IT WILL BE MY LOVE

(Translation by the Amateur Historian, will whatever vague intellectual property things come from an amateur internet translation. If you use it, Gentle Readers, steer people back to my blog, is what I'm saying.)

This fear which undresses me

To have dared to put your name on my skin

And these tears which remove your make-up

Come take my reason under their streams

Despite it all

The looks which shoot

Close to us

The flag that wavers

After all

We don’t care

Care, care, care….

It will be, my love!

Ah! It will be forever!

Go, lovers, declare our forbidden vows

It will be my love!

One will forget the military drums

On all the walls I will write, I swear it,

Dear Liberty!/ Liberty my dear!

I have dreamed of our touching bodies

Caressed by the spirit of our ideals

I put my tongue on your mouth

Savoring the essence of your smallest words

Despite it all

Desire is fragile

Close to us

Pleasure in danger

After all

We don’t care

Care, care, care….

It will be my love!

Ah! It will be forever!

Go, lovers, declare our forbidden vows

It will be my love!

One forgets the military drums

On all the walls I will write, I swear,

Dear Liberty!/ Liberty my dear!

My love

It’s your life that I marry/ take on

In that day

Set in red roses

Go, lovers

One must laugh and dance

Here is the free spring!

It will be my love.

We will write that great day

I will offer you my nights for life

It’s promised.

It will be my love!

Ah! It will be forever.

Go, lovers, declare our forbidden vows.

It will be my love.

One will forget the military drums

On all the walls I will write, I swear it,

LIBERTY!

1789 Ca ira mon amour - Rod Janois (clip officiel)

One of the Amateur Historian's friends sent her this lovely video. If the Amateur Historian feels inspired/ bored enough, perhaps there will be a translation for those Gentle Readers who do not speak French. If not, pray enjoy the break-dancing prisoner of the Bastille and the dance troupe formally known as the National Guard.

Bringing New Meanings to Crimes Against Fashion

Though now-a-days the top hat is seen as a conservative anachronism, when it was first debuted in 1795, it was treated like one of Lady Gaga's more bizarre creations.

London haberdasher John Hetherington decided to wear his on the Strand on January 15, 1795, and caused such a riot that he was brought before the Lord Mayor the next morning. He was charged with "walking down a public highway wearing upon his head a tall structure having a shining lustre calculated to alarm the people."

The Lord Mayor, taking into account eye-witness accounts that "women had fainted... children had gone into hysterics and... one lad sustained a broken arm through the violence of the mob" ignored Hetherington's assertion that he had the right to dress as he chose and fined him the modern-day equivalent of $5,000.

Cutest Napoleon Ever?

Fun fact: Napoleon wasn't actually all that short, he a) liked surrounding himself with six-foot-odd bodyguards and b) was actually of average height, just measured himself in French units instead of British ones, thus causing centuries of confusion. Still, I don't think world domination has ever been this cute before.

Remember, remember... the other thirteen people involved.

The Three Musketeers Never Do Use Muskets

In honor of the new film adaptation of 'The Three Musketeers', which the Amateur Historian is still not sure she wants to see, have this better book title:

Halloween Poe-st

The Amateur Historian realizes that this is a bit late, but what better than a hauntingly autumnal and metafictional take on Edgar Allen Poe's last days to celebrate Halloween? Too bad we shall have to wait until March to see how this horror story unfurls.

A little Halloween inspiration?

For the Gentle Readers who cannot read the text, it is as follows:

FIRST YOUNG GENT: What a miwackulous tie, Fwank, How the doose do you manage it?

SECOND YOUNG GENT: Yas. I fancy it is rather grand; but then, you see I give the whole of my Mind to it!

Fwank, you are an inspiration to us all.

Shocking

Mention has been made of Nikola Tesla, who is, quite possibly, one of the only real mad scientists to exist. How did he get his start? With cats!

Even though, later in life, Tesla spoke to pigeons, he grew up with cats and when petting his family cat, got shocked. He became interested in electricity and eventually made a 130 foot bolt of lightening from one of his Tesla coils and potentially invented a "Teleforce Beam" which shot ball lightening at 60 million volts.

Truly electrifying research, wouldn't you agree?

Heeeeeeeere's Johnny! Keats!

No one hates an author more than another author, particularly if they are authors in the same time period. (Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses come to mind), but few can be as sneering in prose as Lord Byron:

Lord Byron on John Keats (1820)

“Here are Johnny Keats’ piss-a-bed poetry, and three novels by God knows whom… No more Keats, I entreat: flay him alive; if some of you don’t I must skin him myself: there is no bearing the drivelling idiotism of the Mankin.”