'Le Testament du Garçon Empoisonné ': A French 'Lord Randal' in Acadie
by Robert Paquin
Folklore, Vol. 91, No. 2 (1980), pp. 157-172
[Proofed once, not carefully- some of the French text with accents need to be fixed.
R. Matteson 2014]
'Le Testament du Garqon Empoisonne': A French 'Lord Randal' in Acadie
by ROBERT PAQUIN
FRANCIS James Child mentions a Veronese broadside of 1629 as textual evidence of the existence of 'Lord Randal'[1] (No.12) in Italy as early as the 17th century.[2] The ballad, he says, is also found in several other European countries, among which France is not mentioned. And yet, on the eastern coast of Canada, formerly called Acadie, a French 'Lord Randal', classed as 'Le testament du garcon empoisonne' in Conrad Laforte's Catalogue[3] and at the National Museum of Man in Ottawa, has been repeatedly collected. A comparative study of versions of those two ballads will shed light on the nature and extent of contacts between the francophone and the anglophone communities in Eastern Canada, as well as on the role of translation in the formation of the traditional repertoire.
Child publishes fifteen versions of 'Lord Randal,' which he identifies with letters A to O. These versions come from manuscript or printed transcriptions, and were collected in Scotland, in Ireland, in Suffolk, England, and in New England in the United States. Because of variations in the narrative structure, only four of Child's versions concern us here: versions A, B, C, and D, all from Scotland. According to Child, they are 19th century texts, transcribed either at the beginning or in the middle of the last century. Child selects 'Lord Randal' as a critical title even though the hero bears various other names, because, he says, 'that name occurs in one of the better versions, and because it has become famous through Scott's Minstrelsy.'[4]
'Lord Randal' is widely known in North America, where many versions were collected, in particular in the Maritime Provinces of Canada and in New England.[5] Helen Creighton publishes two versions and a fragmentary text from Nova Scotia.[6] Phillips Barry prints fifteen versions in his British Ballads from Maine. One of his texts, version H entitled 'Lord Ronald my Son,' was sent to him from New Brunswick by a lady who had learnt this song from her mother in Scotland. The informant of Barry's L version quitted New Brunswick and settled in Maine before 1870. Version G was collected from an old lady who learned it in her youth in Ireland. Helen Hartness Flanders also publishes nineteen versions or fragments of 'Lord Randal' collected in New England.[8] Some of her versions proceed from Ireland and Scotland, while one informant acknowledges having learnt her version (B) from her mother, born in Abercorn, Quebec, in 1853.
French versions of 'Lord Randal' were collected on the Atlantic coast of Canada, despite the fact that this song is unknown in France. In French, the song is called 'Le Testament du garçon empoisonné.' Marius Barbeau collected three versions in 1923, Dominique Gauthier, one in 1953, and another was collected by the periodical La Voix d'Evangiline and is part of the J. T. LeBlanc collection.[9] Quite recently, Robert Bouthillier and Vivian Labrie have obtained thirteen more versions.[10] Versions of the Barbeau collection proceed from Port Daniel, county Bonaventure in Quebec, while the Gauthier and Leblanc texts proceed from New Brunswick, the former from Evangeline county Gloucester, and the latter from Saint-Antoine county Kent. The Bouthillier-Labrie collection, on the other hand, proceeds entirely from either county Gloucester or Northumberland, in New Brunswick. In short, all versions of 'Le testament du garçon empoisonné' come from that region which, under the French regime, constituted 'Acadie' and is still known under that name by French speakers. In order to assist the reader in following the argument in this comparative study, we will quote one version of 'Le Testament' and one version of 'Lord Randal' in extenso.
'LE TESTAMENT DU GARCON EMPOISONNE'
1. Oiiss' t'as 'te hier au soir, Honoré mon enfant?
Oiiss' t'as 'te hier au soir, dit'-moi mon cher enfant?
J'ai 'te courter les fill', maman rangez mon lit
Car j'ai grand mal au coeur, je veux aller me coucher
2 Quoiss' t'as mangé hier au soir, Honore mon enfant?
Quoiss' t'as mangé hier au soir, dit'-moi mon cher enfant?
Un p'tit poisson saumure, que ma blond' m'a donne
Car j'ai grand mal au coeur, je crois je m'en vas mourir
3 Quoiss' tu donn'ras ? ta mrr', Honoré mon enfant?
Quoiss' tu donn'ras A ta mere', dit'-moi mon cher enfant?
Ma petit' vache a lait, maman rangez mon lit
Car j'ai grand mal au coeur, je veux aller me coucher
4 Quoiss' tu donn'ras? ton per', Honoré mon enfant?
Quoiss' tu donn'ras? ton per', dit'-moi mon cher enfant?
Ma grange et ma maison, maman rangez mon lit
Car j'ai grand mal au coeur, je crois je m'en vas mourir
5 Quoiss' tu donn'ras? ton frer', Honoré mon enfant?
Quoiss' tu donn'ras a ton frer', dit'-moi mon cher enfant?
Mon ch'val et ma charrett', maman rangez mon lit
Car j'ai grand mal au coeur, je veux aller me coucher
6 Quoiss' tu donn'ras? ta soeur, Honoré mon enfant?
Quoiss' tu donn'ras? ta soeur, dit'-moi mon cher enfant?
Ma petit' mont' en or, maman, rangez mon lit
Car j'ai grand mal au coeur, je veux aller me coucher
7 Quoiss' tu donn'ras a ta blond', Honoré mon enfant?
Quoiss' tu donn'ras Ata blond', dit'-moi mon cher enfant?
Un petit bout' de cib', pour la pend' d'un arb' vert
Ell' l'a bien marité, c'est ell' qui m'a empoisonné
Collection Bouthillier-Labrie No. 1460. Sung by M. Onsime Brideau and his wife Alvina (nee Saint-Pierre), respectively 63 and 53 years old; Saint-Ime, county Gloucester, N.B., summer 1976.
'LORD RANDAL'
1 O what is the matter Henery my son?
O what is the matter my own dearest one?
I've been to my sweetheart mother make my bed soon
I feel sick at the heart and fain would lie down
2 What did she give you Henery my son?
O what did she give you my dearest one?
She gave me golden fishes mother make my bed soon
I feel sick at heart and fain would lie down
3 What will you will your mother Henery my son?
What will you will your mother my own dearest one?
I will you my money mother make my bed soon
I feel sick at the heart and I fain would lie down
4 What will you will your father Henery my son?
What will you will your father my own dearest one?
I will him my land and houses mother make my bed soon
I feel sick at heart and I fain would lie down
5 What will you will your sister Henery my son?
What will you will your sister my own dearest one?
I will her my sheep and cattle mother make my bed soon
I feel sick at heart and I fain would lie down.
6 What will you will your brother Henery my son?
What will you will your brother my own dearest one?
I'll will him my horse and saddle mother make my bed soon
I feel sick at the heart and I fain would lie down
7 What will you will your sweetheart Henery my son?
What will you will your sweetheart my own dearest one?
I'll will her a rope to hang herself on yonder green tree
It was poison she gave me and she has[11] [betrayed] you and me.
Sung by Mr. Ben Henneberry, Devil's Island, Nova Scotia (Helen Creighton, Traditional Songs from Nova Scotia, op. cit., pp.9-10).
'Lord Randal' tells the story of a young man who is betrayed and poisoned by his true-love. No reason is given for the girl's action, no description is given of the relationship of the two lovers. The ballad begins when the deed is done and only portrays the despair of the young man. As with most ballad narratives, the raw materials of the story consist in the type of crime which is daily reported in sensationalist newspapers. The story could easily be made to seem melodramatic or even ridiculous if it were altered but slightly,[12] but the tragic tone and the beauty of the ballad are ensured in great part thanks to the economical way in which the story is told.
There is no impersonal narrator in 'Lord Randal.' The story is entirely revealed through dialogue. Even the change of speakers is not expressed by external means, such as 'he, or she, said.' It is unusual for songs in the form of a dialogue to actually tell a story, at least in English; such songs are usually arguments or pleadings.[13] In the case of 'Lord Randal,' variation must be sought in details rather than in the over-all structure of the ballad. As Bronson remarks, the dialogue is the most constant feature in versions of 'Lord Randal.' This ballad, he says, has held with extraordinary tenacity to its stanzaic pattern, wherever an d whenever it has been found- in Italy in the early seventeenth century or in the Appalachians in our own day: the first half of the stanza a question repeated with only a change of address; the second half an answer, addressed to the questioner, and a premonitary assertion of desperate illness. The name of the protagonist, meanwhile, has changed with kaleidoscopic variety: a page could be filled with his aliases[14].
The dialogue is so important in this narration that it is questionable whether the ballad is concerned with the relation between the hero and h is true-love, or with the relation of the hero with his mother. E. Flatto convincingly argued the latter proposition in an article in which he points out that, after all, the two protagonists on stage in the ballad are the mother and son; the true-love is absent.[15]
The plot is revealed through a sequence of questions and answers. The mother questions and the son answers. The first questions serve to elucidate the hero's feeling of discomfort. 'I am wearied with hunting' and 'I am sick at the heart,' he says. Where has he been? To the woods, hunting, to see his true-love. Whom has he met? His true-love. What has he eaten? Eels, fish, or a herring, or a beverage. What were the fish like? They were speckled or lined. Who ate the left-overs? The dogs. What happened to them? They died. And always, after each answer given, the hero complains of a feeling of discomfort and repeats that he wants to lie down. Through questioning her son, the mother finally understands that he has been poisoned. She then changes her tone from interrogation to assertion: the mother then ceases to be concerned with the past and only thinks of the future. The second half of the ballad consists of a legacy: the mother asks her son what he will leave to members of his family and finally to his true-love. To his parents, brother, and sister he will leave his cattle, his land, his house, his gold and money, his bed, but to his true-love he wills death as a punishment for having poisoned him. Only then do we know for sure, not simply that it was the truelove who poisoned him, but above all that he, the hero, understood this before the questioning even began. On looking back at the song from this moment, the hero's constant reiteration of his weariness and of his heart sickness takes on a different meaning: it becomes a figurative expression of despair as well as an expression of physical discomfort.
This is the story as told in the longer versions (e.g. Child's versions A , B, and C, Creighton's A, or Barry's H, or, in French, in two of Barbeau's texts) and in a prototype ballad which can be constructed from the collation of various elements from different versions. Individual versions do not always conform to such a prototype, however. Thus, all the questions aiming at discovering the circumstances of the poisoning are not asked in each version. The will is not shared identically in all versions either. There are cases-Child D among others- where only the first part of the story is told, ending when the mother understands that her son has been poisoned.
Whether such a version is incomplete or satisfactory is debatable: in comparison with other texts it lacks the legacy, but in its own terms it tells all it needs to tell in order to be understandable. On the other hand, there are such versions as Creighton's B version, which are obviously incomplete, because they retain only snatches of the first and second part of the ballad. In this particular case, the imperfectness is even more obvious because this version B lacks the most important question and answer concerning the legacy to the true-love; without this particular article in the testament, the whole legacy is pointless. Though incomplete, such songs still make use of a stanzaic structure and of terms which clearly identify them as versions of 'Lord Randal' or of 'Le testament du garcon empoisonné.' There are also other versions, such as the one from the LeBlanc collection, where the first part is missing altogether. There is no questioning to learn the circumstances of the poisoning, the song begins with the assertion 'I have eaten poison,' and unfolds from there in the form of a legacy which, if it does not reveal the particulars of the crime, at least identifies the guilty person, with the legacy of a rope and death by hanging. Even if it only tells the second part of the prototypal story, such a version is therefore still coherent.
Tristram Potter Coffin distinguishes six different story types among North American versions of 'Lord Randal.'[16] Only two of those story types concern us here. It is the identity of the villain which differentiates them: in most cases, the lover has been poisoned by his true-love, 'sa blonde,' but there are versions where the hero has been poisoned by someone else-his brother, grandmother, sister, or other. Amongst our versions, there is in fact one in French (No. 1670 in the Bouthillier-Labrie collection) where the hero was administered poison by his sister. This version is therefore not distinct from established story types of 'Lord Randal' since, in Barry's F version from Maine, the villain is also the sister.
In short, whether they have all the elements of the longer versions and of the prototype, or whether they are incomplete or simply shorter, all our versions of 'Lord Randal' and of 'Le testament du garcon empoisonné,' elate the same story. They have the same characters in the same situation, only the plot is developed to a greater or a lesser extent. Sometimes only the first part of the story is told, sometimes only the second part is told, and at other times both parts are equally incomplete. In order to determine the type of filiation which links the two songs, we will have to compare stylistic elements in versions of the 'Testament' with elements in 'Lord Randal.'
To begin with, the hero's name. As Bronson says, it varies enormously in England. In French, the hero's name is 'Dollar,' 'Henri,' or pronounced 'Honore,' [Enere], [Onre], [Enre], or [Ondre].[17] There is apparently nothing in common between those French names and the English name 'Randal'; one finds, however, the name 'Lord Donald' in a Scottish version (Child B), while another version, sung by a Scottish lady emigrated to New Brunswick, calls the hero 'Lord Ronald' (Barry, version H). From 'Randal' to 'Ronald,' then to 'Donald,' and eventually to 'Dollar,' the line of descent is not only possible but likely; the name may have evolved thus, even if the 'Donald' version was collected before the 'Ronald' version, since the date at which a song is collected does not necessarily indicate the age of this particular song. On the other hand, 'Henri' and 'Honore' obviously stem from the 'Henery,' in three syllables, recorded by Helen Creighton in her Nova Scotia versions. This 'Henery' may, and probably does in fact, derive from the 'King Henry' in Child's B text.
Sometimes the hero is not named; his mother then calls him 'mon fils,' 'mon enfant,' 'mon garcon,' 'mon cher enfant'; in English, the mother calls him 'my son,' 'my handsome young man.' Excepting 'my son,' the appellation is more straight forward and ordinary in French than in English, but, in all cases, this appellation serves to describe the relation existing between the two speakers; this relation may be qualified ('mon cher enfant' or 'my pretty little one') or direct ('mon fils,' 'my son'). After each of his answers to his mother's questions, the hero always repeats the same three utterances, like a leitmotiv or a refrain:[18] an injunction, an assertion, and a wish or a premonition. When collated, the various shapes taken by those three utterances in Acadian versions appear thus:
(1) 'maman (ma mere) fais (faites, faisez, rangez) mon lit'
or
'maman je vais mourir'
(2) 'car j'ai (un) (grand, bien) mal au (de) coeur'
or
'je suis malade du coeur'
(3) 'je veux (voudrais) (bien) (aller) me (m'y) coucher'
or
'je (crois que je) vais (vas) mourir'
or
'je pretends de mourir'
To those three statements corresponds an identical structure in versions of 'Lord Randal':
(1) 'mother make my bed soon'
(2) '(for) I'm weary (wearied) with hunting'
or
'(for) I'm sick at (to, unto) the (my) heart'
or
'I feel sick at heart'
(3) 'I fain would lie down'
Such elements as 'maman fais mon lit,' 'j'ai mal au coeur,' and 'je veux me coucher' are borrowed from English versions, while 'je vais mourir' appears nowhere in 'Lord Randal.' Similarly, 'I'm weary with hunting' is not found in versions of 'Le testament du garqon empoisonné.' Furthermore, the second French statement varies in a subtle way from the corresponding statement in English: 'avoir mal au coeur' or 'avoir un mal de coeur,' in French, means to have an indigestion, strictly speaking; whereas in English, to be sick at heart has the figurative meaning of being hurt in one's feelings or emotions. In the French expression, the heart is a popular misnomer for the stomach, whereas in the English expression it means the seat of the emotions.
The two expressions, then, use similar terms, with different meanings. When his mother asks him where he has been, the young man in 'Le testament du garqon empoisonné' says that he has been to see 'les filles,' 'ma blonde,' 'mamie,' or he says 'j'aie te courter'[kurte]; in one version he answers directly that he has eaten poison, 'j'ai mange de la poison.' No mention is here made of hunting, nor of the forest, unlike some versions of 'Lord Randal' where the setting is more explicit. On the other hand, whether Randal, or Henery, went hunting or no in English, he has in some versions met his 'true-love' or his 'sweetheart'; in other versions he claims to have 'been courtin'.'' Courter' [kurte] is not a French word and is obviously copied from the English 'courting' which has the same meaning as 'aller voir les filles' or 'aller voir ma blonde.' 'Blonde' and 'mie' in French are stock expressions having the same meaning as 'true-love' and 'sweetheart,' though they do not attempt to translate the English expression word for word.
Even if the poisoning is described with less detail in the 'Testament' than in 'Lord Randal,' there are however several common features. In 'Lord Randal,' Coffin suggests, the poison is probably a dish of snakes served as eels, or fish, fried or boiled. The dogs eat the leavings, and soon die. Thought he scene with the dogs is left out in versions of 'Le testament,' the poison is also in most cases administered as fish, either pickled, salted, as a fish pie, or just as it is. In some versions the poison is administered as a beverage, in a glass; in one case, the hero says that he has eaten poison, 'j'ai mange de la poison.' Since in old French la poison (feminine) meant potion, beverage, and le poison (masculine) meant poisoning," it may be suggested that this version uses a dialectal archaism referring to both meanings at the same time. In addition, the two near homophones 'poisson' [pwase] and 'poison' [pwaze] may also have been confused. In any case, even if the main tradition in 'Lord Randal' is to use fish as a means for administering the poison, Coffin informs us that frequently the true-love 'may serve simply poison or some such corruption as 'ale' (eel).'[20]
Consequently, even the glass in 'elle' ma arrange un verre,' or the poison in 'j'ai manged e la poison,' are found in the tradition of 'Lord Randal' in one form or another. Likewise, if the fish has a different dressing in French and in English, all the same it is fish. The translation is therefore not literal, but adapted to the circumstances of the Acadians.
The details of the apportionment of the legacy do not matter; who, of the brother or father, shall inherit the lands and houses, and who shall inherit the horse and saddle, and whether it is the mother or the sister w ho will get the gold and silver or the money, is really irrelevant. It may never the less be observed that, in America, the legacy is not of the same order as in British versions: the hawk and hounds have left, the lands and houses (plural) have become a house and a land (singular), and so forth; concurrently, the titled British 'Lord Randal' or 'King Henry' has become as 'Hiomnporle,' 'Henery,' or 'Dollar.' It may also be noted that the inheritance is usually not divided haphazardly; the social attribution of wealth and labour among the sexes is taken into consideration and confirmed: a horse, saddle, buggy, land, or house, to a man, and cattle, a watch, jewelry, or a bed, to a woman. Nevertheless, these details are interchangeable with no consequence to the story line, excepting the last legacy which condemns the true-love to death.
This condemnation is the object of considerable variation among versions of 'Lord Randal.' Versions are differentiated according to the character identified as the villain: true-love, sister, grandmother, or other; but they are also identified by the mode of retribution preferred. Some versions condemn the murderess to hell-fire, others condemn her to be hanged. From this point of view, most versions of 'Le testament du garcon empoisonne' agree in condemning the true-love to death by hanging: 'un petit bout de corde (cable) pour la pendre au pied (dans, aupres, au bout) d'un arbre (sur du bois, dans un arbre vert, de mon lit).'
Only one version (Barbeau ms 540) wishes that the earth would open and that she be swallowed up, 'que la terre se rouvrit ... que tu sois engloutie,' in short that the true-love is hurled to hell. The most common pattern in French, though, is to condemn her to death by hanging.
A certain formalistic manner may be observed in many Acadian versions which make an attempt at internal rhyme in the final stanza, relying on dialectal pronunciation: 'cable' pronounced [k3b] rhymes with 'arbre' pronounced [3b]. In one version (Bouthillier-Labrie N o. 1460), the 'arbre'i s 'un arbre vert,' which corresponds word for word to the 'green tree' in Creighton's version A. Likewise, while Acadian versions generally use the French idiomatic expression 'avoir mal au coeur' for 'to be sick at heart,' a fragment recorded by R. Bouthillier and V. Labrie translates by 'je suis malade du coeur'; the latter expression is closer to the English syntax, but still has a different meaning, for to be 'malade du coeur' means to be subject to heart attacks. In spite of a tendency to adaptation in Acadian versions in general, the reliance on patterns originallyset up in 'Lord Randal' is still manifest in more than one case.
In short, the comparative study of stylistic elements of both songs shows that 'Le testament du garcon empoisonne' originates as a translation of the 'Randal' ballad. In addition, the language level in French - the use of dialect and of such popular syntax as 'oiiss' que t'as 6t6,' 'quoi donn'ras-tu,' or 'quoiss' tu donnes' indicate a popular translation, a translation effected by the folk themselves. It has also been noted that French versions tend to adapt the song to its Acadian context, using French stock expressions ('avoir mal au coeur') and inserting characteristic details ('poisson saumure,' pickled fish). However, 'Le testament'
still remains fairly close to stylistic models borrowed from 'Lord Randal': some words are copied directly ('courter'), while others are translated word for word ('arbre vert'). Thus, the Acadian 'Testament' has not only borrowed its story from 'Lord Randal,' it has also copied the very structure of its narrative, and, in some cases, has even duplicated its style and expressions.
If it is fairly easy to establish that 'Le testament du garcon empoisonne' is a translation of 'Lord Randal,' it is however more difficult to determine exactly what text was translated. Certain texts may readily be eliminated, when they plainly evince narrative divergences; versions, for example, where the murder is committed by the grandmother, the brother, the stepmother, ... Versions where the culprit is not wished to the scaffold in the end may perhaps also be put aside, since the only French version (Barbeau ms. 540) which mentions infernal damnation is incomplete, discontinuous, and, especially towards the end, seems contaminated by elements from another song.
Versions where the hero's name is 'Honore' all seem to be related to versions where the hero is 'Henery' in English. In one of those versions (Bouthillier-Labrie No. 1670), however, 'Honore' has been poisoned by his sister; this version recalls Barry's version F, in which the hero is 'Billy' and which, as we have seen, bears some melodic likeness to versions of the 'Testament.' Since in Barry's version the hero is always called 'O Billy,' in three syllables, this 'O Billy' may perhaps stem from a 'Henery' who, as in this version F, would have been poisoned by his sister. This hypothetical version would then have inspired a dissidence among versions of the 'Testament.' On the other hand, an Acadian singer may quite possibly have introduced this variation himself, referring to no English version in particular; after all, only a lack of memory is needed, and any member of the family may be guilty, since, as a matter of fact, 'Honore' does not say where he was 'last night' in this version. The text would be incoherent if he began by saying that he had been to see his 'blonde,' and then revealed that it was his sister who poisoned him; as it is, he only says to his mother that he has eaten poison, not specifying where or how; the version thus makes sense. Versions where the hero's name is 'Dollar' are even more difficult to trace, because they are akin to more than one version: 'Dollar' resembles 'Donald' found in the Scottish Child B; but 'Dollar' versions are also akin to some 'Henery' versions and to the 'Ronald' text obtained in New Brunswick from a Scottish informant. It could also be argued that some 'Honore' versions are not akin to 'Henery' versions only, but to other texts as well; thus, 'courter' is imitated from Child B where the hero's name is 'Donald'. With so many details partially overlapping, it is impossible to identify with any degree of certainty a unique source for versions of 'Le testament du garqon empoisonne.'
In order to help us understand how this Anglo-Scottish ballad could have become part of the French repertoire in Acadie, let us look at another Acadian version, recorded, this time, 2500 miles from New Brunswick, in Louisiana. A song entitled 'Seigneur Randal' was published in 1964 by Mr. Theodore Toulon Beck, in Notes and Queries, with the following comment:
There exists today in the Cajun dialect of Louisiana a version of the ballad Lord Randal. Handed down by word of mouth among the displaced Acadians expelled from Nova Scotia, it is a remarkably faithful rendition, notwithstanding several purely Cajun expressions.[21]This version is worth looking at because it throws light on the conclusions drawn from the study of Canadian versions.
What connexion is there between these versions of the same song found in the repertoire of two groups of people, both descending from the same Acadian ancestors, one established in Louisiana and the other on the East Coast of Canada, and both in contact with bearers of the Anglo-Scottish tradition? Could such an occurrence constitute a missing link with the French tradition, or again with the English tradition? When confronted with the evidence, neither of those suggestions holds out, however seducing it may seem.
Mr. Toulon Beck's claim that this version was 'handed down by word of mouth' takes a different meaning when one reads his own footnote which states more precisely that this version 'was taught at the convent school of the Daughters of the Holy Cross in Mansura, Louisiana, in the nineteenth century.[22] (Italics mine.) Teaching in the framework of a school generally requires written material, and, even if this Louisiana version was transmitted orally after it had been learned in school, it is logical to look for a written text which could have served as teaching material originally. The collector of this ballad rightly refers to Child D text, first published by Sir Walter Scott in 1803,[23] for, in fact, the Louisiana version is more than a 'remarkably faithful
rendition,' it is an exact literal translation of Scott's text. The Louisiana text follows the development of the story, as told in Child D, event for event, stanza for stanza, line for line, and even word for word. Like version D, it has five stanzas of four lines each, and only tells the first part of the story, ending also with the discovery of the poisoning.
To illustrate the exactness of the translation, it is useful to quote one whole stanza of the two texts in parallel:
Et ofi toi t'as te, Seigneur Randal, mon fils?
O where hae ye been, Lord Randal, my son?
Et ofi toi t'as fete, mon joli jeune homme?
O where hae ye been, my handsome young man?
Je soye au boise; ma mere, fais vite mon lit (suis?)
I hae been to the wild wood; mother make my bed soon
Je suis lass6 avec chasser, et je veux me coucher.
For I'm weary wi hunting, and fain wald lie down.
The translation is faithful to the English text to the point of sacrificing French grammar remorselessly. For example, the Louisiana text says 'Je suis lasse avec chasser,' following the English 'I'm weary wi hunting,' while French usage demands 'lasse de chasser'; similarly, 'poisonne' in the Louisiana text copies 'poisoned' in English, while the correct French word is 'empoisonne'. Many expressions in the Louisiana text closely follow the corresponding expressions in English, and sound awkward in French: for example, 'mon joli jeune homme,' 'my handsome young man'; 'mon amour-doux,' 'my true-love.' This comparison could be elaborated, but it would stretch the point needlessly.
There seems to be an exact transfer of English words here; it is difficult, however, to determine how much of the transfer is the result of a translation of 'Lord Randal' specifically, and how much is simply the use of a sub-standard dialectal French. Indeed, the preposition avec is sometimes used in place of de in certain French dialects, in particular French Canadian[24], and poisonner is an old French form for 'to give drink;' these words may, therefore, possibly not have been borrowed from the English for the particular purpose of translating 'Lord Randal,' and may simply have been part of the dialect beforehand. Two
expressions which likewise clearly belong to the local Cajun-French dialect are 'choupic bouilli en rou(x)' and 'tailleux.' The 'choupic,' or 'choupique' is a fresh-water fish, otherwise known as 'bowfin,' 'bowfish,' 'swampfish,' 'mudfish,' 'grindle,' and under the scientific name of Amia calva. As for 'tailleux,' it means 'hound,' and is an adaptation of the standard French 'taiaut,'
meaning 'tally-ho.'[25]
The closeness of the two texts - the Louisiana version and Child D version (previously published by Scott) - is so obvious that it is impossible not to conclude that 'Seigneur Randal' with its anglicisms is a translation of the Child-Scott text; a translation which, in the 19th century, a little after Scott had published his version, became available to the Sisters of the convent at Mansura, Louisiana, who taught this version to their pupils.
Most likely, the translator of 'Seigneur Randal' was at least half-educated, could read in English, and was familiar with the Cajun-French dialect. This is hardly surprising since, until the second world war, most Louisiana Frenchspeakers were illiterate, and, because of their American context, they were more inclined to learn how to read and write in English than in French. Dependent on print for its origin, the Louisiana 'Seigneur Randal' relied on oral transmission until it reached Mr. Toulon Beck, who mentions, in a footnote to his article, the existence of another version distinguished from this one by the substitution of
'mon fameux jeune homme' for 'mon joli jeune homme,' in the second line of each verse. This instance of variation is evidence of oral circulation and adoption by the folk in Louisiana.
What is noteworthy here is that the Louisiana version can very easily be traced to a printed text, whereas it is impossible to trace French Canadian versions to any one printed text. In the first place, we must say that there are not many printed texts of 'Lord Randal.' Scott's Minstrelsy is one of the oldest instances where this ballad is found in print, as already mentioned; only recently have texts collected from oral tradition been published. Phillips Barry points out that contrary to such extremely popular ballads as 'Bonny Barbara Allan' (Child No. 84) and 'Lord Thomas and Fair Annet' (Child No.73), which have been many
times reprinted in pocket songsters, 'we know of no American broadside or songster text of 'Lord Randall.'[26] Not only is it fair to say that the ballad owes its widespread popularity in English-speaking communities solely to its own intrinsic merits and beauties, but it may be added that it is undoubtedly the beauty of this ballad which has allowed it to transcend the barrier of languages and take root in a different culture, without the help of print. Even if French Canadian versions could not be traced to printed texts, they might have been traced to texts recorded from oral tradition only recently; however, our comparative study of stylistic differences shows that French Canadian texts borrow details from more than one English text and adapt them to their means. Because of the popular language level, because of occasional anglicisms and literal borrowings, but also because of the existence of variants among versions, and of modifications brought to English models, we can safely conclude that
French Canadian versions of the 'Testament' are the result of popular translation, effected, moreover, by more than one folk translator who borrowed from more than one version of 'Lord Randal.' The fact that the translators of the English ballad were literarily untrained illiterate lumbermen does not mean that they were not aware of the tradition; on the contrary, they were singers themselves, and, in effect, adapted this English ballad to their own French repertoire.
It is interesting to contrast the Louisiana version with French Canadian versions because it illustrates two different attitudes towards translation. The Louisiana version shows a faculty of adoption, whereas French Canadian versions exercise a power of adaptation. For instance, the statement 'I'm sick at the heart' in English has been translated literally by 'Je suis malade au coeur' in Louisiana, whereas in Canada it is 'J'ai mal au coeur'; the Louisiana version sacrifices French usage to comply with the English written text, while French Canadian versions modify slightly the meaning of the English ballad in order to comply with rules of the French language.
Briefly then, it is not possible to say that the song 'Le testament du gargon empoisonne' came to Canada from France, since it has never been recovered in France; it could not have come directly from Italy either (even if it can be argued that the song originated there),[27] since contacts with Italy were minimal until recent immigration; neither is it possible to believe that the French Canadian ballad came from Louisiana, nor that the Louisiana text came from Canada, since a comparison of versions reveals stylistic differences, source differences, as well as different attitudes toward source material; 'Le testament' is undoubtedly copied from English Canadian and/or American versions of 'Lord Randal' with which French Canadian singers came in contact.
None of the informants could tell Robert Bouthillier and Vivian Labrie who had translated this song; some singers, though, remembered having heard it in English, and one of them even sang the opening stanza of 'Lord Randal,' in English.[28] This evidence suggests that 'Le Testament du garcon empoisonne' has been part of the Acadian traditional repertoire for over a hundred years.
How can 'Lord Randal' have succeeded in crossing the barrier of languages? A poem in the shape of a legacy is nothing new in French, Villon's 'Testament' being the most famous literary antecedent, and there being other Testaments in the French folk tradition; [29] but the story of 'Lord Randal' has no equivalent. We can only speculate on the reasons which may have motivated such a borrowing, since no reasons were supplied by the informants themselves. The dramatic effectiveness of the ballad, its economy of detail, its repetitive and incremental qualities, in sum, the most striking characteristics of this ballad, must have impressed a French audience. The dramatic rendering of the ballad is made even more effective when two
informants, M. and Mme Brideau, sing the song as a dialogue, each assuming a distinct role.[30] Such an original initiative indicates clearly that the dramatic dialogue in 'Lord Randal' is one of the most attractive features of this song. The economy of narration is typically increased in Canadian (French and English) versions, when such details as the hounds are considered superfluous and left out. The repetitive structure of the ballad is retained, in part, surely, because it acts as a support to memory; it is easier to learn and remember this way. Indeed, if one remembers a few repetitive forms, one only needs to fill in blanks with names of members of the family or with names of various domestic objects:
Que donneras-tu B , Honore mon garcon?
What will you give to , Henery my son?
Que donneras-tu g , dis-moi-le cher enfant?
What will you give to , my own dearest one?
Mon (ou Ma) , 6 ma mere faites mon lit
I will give him (or her) my , mother make my bed soon
Car j'ai un grand mal de coeur, je m'en vais en mourir
I feel sick at the heart and I fain would lie down.
This repetitive structure applies perfectly to a legacy, and in effect it is the legacy, that is to say the second half of 'Lord Randal,' which best survives in French. Judging by the way in which the most important characteristics of 'Lord Randal' have not only been preserved but occasionally improved, the popularity of this ballad with a French audience must be assigned to those very peculiarities which set it apart from other ballads.
This ballad must have been borrowed from the Anglo-Scottish repertoire thanks to the propinquity in which French- and English-speaking timber workers found themselves in the lumbercamps of Maine and New Brunswick. Once the song was learnt, though, it was sung by women as well as men, contrary to certain songs which are transmitted exclusively by men. The case of 'Lord Randal' and of 'Le testament du garcon empoisonne' is not necessarily unique. Robert Bouthillier and Vivian Labrie have unearthed other similar cases during their recent interviews in New Brunswick: 'Our Goodman' (Child No.274) and 'L'ivrognec ocu,' 'The Cruel Mother'( Child No.20) and 'Les enfants tugs par leur mere,' 'The Butcher Boy' and 'La fille d'un boucher,' 'Mary of the Wild Moor' and 'La fille mariee malgre ses parents.' Many will be disconcerted by such a permeability of the French traditional repertoire, more especially as this observation contradicts the a priori judgments of a certain nationalism.
In Canada, as elsewhere, folk studies have always been coloured with nationalism. The latter assumes two contradictory shapes in this country: There is a French nationalism which mostly restricts itself to the Province of Quebec, and there is a Pan-Canadian nationalism usually expressed by English-speakers across Canada. To the French Canadian nationalists, the relation between the two communities has always been one of domination exerted by the English over the French, and there have been no contacts between the two communities except those imposed by this very domination. The Pan-Canadian nationalists, on the other hand, believe in the absolute unity of purpose of the two 'founding nations' (an expression often applied to the French-speaking and the English speaking communities). Those two kinds of nationalism are often reflected in the
attitudes of folk collectors and critics in Canada.
Without supporting the French nationalist propositions in their entirety, Marguerite and Raoul d'Harcourt illustrate this way of thinking when they observe the lack of influence of the British tradition on the French tradition in Canada, and attempt to explain it:
On the British side, the imprint is remarkably nearly absent; the French peasant evinced an evident ill will [mauvaise volonte] in learning the language of the conqueror.[31] (My translation) And yet, a few pages later, the same authors mention a singer who memorized a long enumerative song in English after hearing it only once from an Irishman.[32]
On the other hand, J. Murray Gibbon perfectly exemplifies Canadian idealism in his Canadian Folk Songs (Old and New). Gibbon published a number of French Canadian songs, which he translated into English, hoping thus to make it possible for English-speakers to sing with French-speakers:
The translator has always kept in view that gatherings of French and English people might wish to sing these songs together, each using their own language, and has therefore aimed at versions in which the French and the English words would not orally clash in such community singing.[33]
One need not rely solely on imagination to picture the cacophonic effect of such bilingual 'community singing,' one can actually witness it when the bilingual Canadian national anthem is sung at the beginning of the ice hockey matches in Montreal. Needless to say, Gibbon's encouragements remained a dead letter; when the French and the English do sing together in social
gatherings in Canada, they either sing in French or in English, never in both languages at the same time. It is surprising that Gibbon, for all his love of the French songs, failed to understand that they would become meaningless and lose their beauty if they were performed as he intended.
The difference in language constitutes a barrier which only the strongest incentives can abolish. When people have reason enough to learn another language, they learn it. Historically, it was in the towns in Eastern Canada that the reasons for the French to learn English were the strongest, because work was controlled by English-speaking bosses in industry and commerce. If, in some areas of Eastern Canada, only French is spoken, it is not so much through ill will or for nationalist reasons, but because there is no need to learn English. In the same way, if most English-speakers of Canada have never learned French, it is because they have never felt the need for it; they either never came in contact with French-speakers, or, if they did, it was in industrialized areas where the French had to learn English to secure a job.
It was different in rural regions. Even if linguistic communities were isolated because of the vast distances of the country, the men met each winter in lumber camps in Quebec, Ontario, New Brunswick, or in New England. Notwithstanding occasional conflicts between the two linguistic groups,[34] these lumber camps were favourable to the development of contacts, comradeship, and even friendship between French, Irish, Scottish, English, or American timber workers. Exchanges between the holders of the two oral traditions occurred in these camps.
Clearly, within the working and peasant classes of Canada, there have always been more contacts inspired by solidarity, regardless of creed or language, than intellectuals would imagine. At the same time, however, the political and economic situation of the country has always encouraged rivalry and distance between the two communities. For this reason, it is only exceptionally that true relations of friendship leading to exchange have appeared.
Folk songs should not be considered as the exclusive property of one nation or another; rather, they should be looked upon as belonging to one social class existing in all nations. It is only natural that rural communities, their life pulsating with the same ritual rhythm (birth, death, sowing, reaping, work, rest), sharing the same anxieties and the same joys, express their reality in analogous artistic forms, occasionally borrowing one of those forms - a song which they find particularly successful - from another linguistic community.
What happened in the case of 'Lord Randal' on the American continent illustrates one of the ways in which some of the old traditional songs in Europe have crossed linguistic barriers and have taken root in nearly all European languages.[35] Consider the French song 'Renaud le tueur de femmes' which Child entitles 'Lady Isabel and the Elf Knight' (No. 4) and of which Holger Olof Nygard has studied all the European and American linguistic variants.[36] Consider also the equivalences in many foreign languages which Child himself evokes for each of the Anglo-Scottish ballads in his anthology. As for 'Lord Randal,' some of
those ballads must unmistakably have been translated from one language to another, adapting to their new environment, and being assimilated inside a stable and coherent repertoire. In this fashion, translation contributes to the enrichment of the oral tradition.
NOTES
1. Italicized titles of songs between quotation marks are critical titles.
2. F.J. Child, The English and Scottish Popular Ballads (1882-1898) 5 vols.; New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1965 reprint) I, , 152.
3. Catalogudee l a chanson fo lklorique francaise (Quebec: Les Presses Universitaires La val, 1958).
4. Child, op. cit., p. 152.
5. For a list of published A mericanv ersions,s ee TristramP . Coffin, The B ritish T raditional
Ballad i n NorthA merica(r ev.e d.; PhiladelphiaT: he AmericanF olkloreS ociety,1 963),p p.36-37.
6. TraditionaSlo ngsfr omN ovaS cotia( Toronto:T he RyersonP ress, 1950),p p.9-11.
7. (New Haven:Y aleU niversityP ress, 1929),p p.46-72.
8. Ancient Ballads TraditionallyS ung in New England,I (PhiladelphiaU: niversity of
PennsylvaniPa ress, 1960),1 75-207.
9. CollectionM ariusB arbeauN, os 3581,3 478,m s 540;c ollectionD ominiqueG authierb, ob.G
25, enreg.G 238;c ollectionJ .T. LeBlancm, s No. 846;a t the NationaMl useumo f Man,i n Ottawa,
Canada.
10. CollectionB outhillier-LabrNieo, s 580, 601, 944, 1460,1 603,1 606,1 654,1 670,2 036,2 209,
2516, 3276;a t the Centred 'Etudess ur la Languel, es Artse t les Tradition(sC ELAT)i,n Quebec
city, Canada.
11. Betrayed? (C reighton'ns ote).
12. Therei s a burlesque'm ountaineerinvge' rsiono f 'LordR andal'e ntitled' Greena ndY ella'
which I have learnedf romE ddisT homas,W elshb ornt houghl iving in London,E nglandM. r.
Thomas also sings the beautiful Welsh version of 'Lord Randal,' 'Mab Annwyl Dy Fam.' The
burlesquee ffecti n the 'mountaineerinvge' rsioni s achievedth rought he exaggeratioonf stressa nd
the deformatioonf words,a s in 'greena ndy ella,'a ndt hrought heu se of a bouncyi rregularrh ythm.
13. RogerD . Abrahamasn dG eorgeF oss,A nglo-AmericFaonl ksonSgt yle( EnglewoodC liffs,N .J.:
Prentice-HallI,n c., 1968),p . 85. 'Edward('C hildN o.13) is anothere xampleo f dialoguew hich
revealsa story.T he mostc ommont ype of song in the formo f a dialogueis exemplifiedb y 'The
MaidF reedfr omt heG allows('C hildN o.95),w heret he heroines eeksh elpf romv ariousm emberos f
her familyi n successionu ntil her lovera cceptst o freeh er.
14. BertrandH arrisB ronson,T he TraditionaTl uneso f the ChildB allads,I (PrincetonN, .J.:
PrincetonU niversityP ress, 1959),1 91.
15. 'LordR andal,S' outhernF olklorQe uarterlyX, XXIV,N o.4 (December1 970),3 31-36.
16. Op. cit., pp.37-38.
17. Phonetict ranscriptionuss e the InternationaPlh oneticA lphabe(tI PA).
18. The texto f the LeBlancc ollectiond oesi n facta rrangteh eset hreeu tteranceisn the shapeo f a
refrain.
172 ROBERT PAQUIN
19. Frdefric Godefroy, Dictionnaire de l'ancienne languefranjaise (Paris: Librairie des sciences et
des arts, 1938).
20. Coffin, op. cit., p.38.
21. CCIX (January 1964), 34.
22. Idem.
23. Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, III (Edinburgh, 1803), 292.
24. See Societ6 du parler franqais au Canada, Glossaire du parler franjais au Canada (Quebec,
1930) and N.E. Dionne, Le parler populaired es Canadiensf ranfais (Quebec: Laflamme & Proulx,
Imprimeurs, 1909).
25. William A. Read, Louisiana-French(B aton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1931),
pp. 72, 88. These were corroborated by Mr. James Redfern, Chairman of the Department of
Foreign Languages at Louisiana State University.
26. Barry, op. cit., p.65.
27. See Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco, Essays in the Study of Folk Songs (London,
1886), pp. 214-27.
28. M. David Basque, 84 years old, in Pont Lafrance, county Gloucester, New Brunswick
(Collection Bouthillier-Labrie No. 2251).
29. Cf. 'Le testament d'un prisonnier' and 'Le testament de la moutonne' in Laforte, op. cit.
30. The Brideau version is quoted in full at the beginning of this study.
31. Marguerite and Raoul d'Harcourt, Chansons folkloriques franfaises au Canada (Qu6bec:
Presses Universitaires Laval, 1956), p.4.
32. Ibid., p.14.
33. J. Murray Gibbon, Canadian Folk Songs (Old and New) (London and Toronto: J. M. Dent &
Sons, Ltd., 1927), p. xiii.
34. For an analysis of the antagonism between rival gangs of French Canadian and Irish timber
workers, see Michael S. Cross, 'The Shiner's War: Social Violence in the Ottawa Valley in the
1830s,' Canadian Historical Review, LIV, No. 1 (March 1973), 1-26.
35. On this subject, see Gordon Hall Gerould, The Ballad of Tradition (New York: Gordian
Press, 1974 reprint of 1957 ed.), pp. 16-24, where the case of 'Lord Randal' is mentioned among
others.
36. The Ballad of Heer Halevijn (Knoxville, Tenn.: The University of Tennessee Press, 1958).