Charlotte Church -- Plaisir d'Amour

lyrics	my translation *)
Plaisir d'amour ne dure qu'un moment, Chagrin d'amour dure toute la vie. J'ai tout quitté pour l'ingrate Sylvie, Elle me quitte et prend un autre amant . Plaisir d'amour ne dure qu'un moment, Chagrin d'amour dure toute la vie. "Tant que cette eau coulera doucement Vers ce ruisseau qui borde la prairie, Je t'aimerai", me répétait Sylvie. L'eau coule encor, elle a changé pourtant. Plaisir d'amour ne dure qu'un moment, Chagrin d'amour dure toute la vie.	The joys of love are but a moment long, The heartache of love lasts for life. I have left everything for ungrateful Sylvia, But she left me and took another lover. The joys of love are but a moment long, The heartache of love lasts for life. "As long as the water flows gently To the stream that borders the meadow, I will love you", repeated Sylvia to me. The water still flows, yet she has changed. The joys of love are but a moment long, The heartache of love lasts for life.

lyrics

my translation *)

Plaisir d'amour ne dure qu'un moment,
Chagrin d'amour dure toute la vie.
J'ai tout quitté pour l'ingrate Sylvie,
Elle me quitte et prend un autre amant .
Plaisir d'amour ne dure qu'un moment,
Chagrin d'amour dure toute la vie.
"Tant que cette eau coulera doucement
Vers ce ruisseau qui borde la prairie,
Je t'aimerai", me répétait Sylvie.
L'eau coule encor, elle a changé pourtant.
Plaisir d'amour ne dure qu'un moment,
Chagrin d'amour dure toute la vie.

The joys of love are but a moment long,
The heartache of love lasts for life.
I have left everything for ungrateful Sylvia,
But she left me and took another lover.
The joys of love are but a moment long,
The heartache of love lasts for life.
"As long as the water flows gently
To the stream that borders the meadow,
I will love you", repeated Sylvia to me.
The water still flows, yet she has changed.
The joys of love are but a moment long,
The heartache of love lasts for life.

Music: Giovanni Martini (arr. Julian Smith)
Lyrics: Jean Lenoir

From: Charlotte Church (1999).

Source of the lyrics: the CD-booklet, with thanks to Jim Waters.
Two corrections are made, thanks to Olivier Laruaz-Gaillard: lines 3 and 9 have "Silvie", and line 4 has "amans" in the CD-booklet.

*) Notes on the translation

I did this translation myself, even though my French is rather poor, simply by using a dictionary and thinking what could be meant. (AltaVista's translator was no real help in this.)
Thanks to Sam Waring and Olivier Laruaz-Gaillard for improvements and information.

The translation of the first two lines ("Plaisir ... / Chagrin ...") is based on the Plaisir d'amour sung by Vicki Brown, though it has been made somewhat more literal; Vicki sings:

The joy of love, it only lasts one day
The pain of parting can last for eternity
Olivier Laruaz-Gaillard writes that "un chagrin d'amour" is a common French expression for the English "heartache" and German "Liebeskummer".
By the way, Charlotte's version is nicer to hear than Vicki's.
In line eight "prairie" is "meadow" here: translating it simply as "prairie" seems quite out of place.
In lines seven to nine: is it Sylvia promising the singer she will always love him. In French "me répétait Sylvie" is normal grammar after a quote; Placing this at te beginnen, one gets: "Sylvie me répétait: 'Tant que ...'."
In line ten "pourtant" is "however", "nevertheless", "in the end" or so, represented here by "yet". What is meant here is that Sylvia did not love him forever as she had promised.
The spelling "encor" in line ten, Olivier adds, is a poetic form for the normal spelling "encore" and indicates that the final "e" should not be pronounced.

Various versions

As the difference between the Charlotte Church and Vicki Brown lyrics show, there are several versions of Plaisir d'amour around, as happens often with folk songs. See my page The joys of love / Plaisir d'amour for some notes and a fully English version.

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Charlotte Church -- Plaisir d'Amour

Various versions

created: 17 February 2000 last modified: 26 January 2003

created: 17 February 2000
last modified: 26 January 2003