François Villon: Rondel
GOODBYE! the tears are in my eyes;Farewell, farewell, my prettiest;Farewell, of women born the best;Good-bye! the saddest of good-byes.Farewell! with many vows and sighsMy sad heart leaves you to your rest;Farewell! the tears are in my eyes;Farewell! from you my miseriesAre more than now may be confessed,And most by thee have I been blessed,Yea, and for thee have wasted sighs;Goodbye! the last of my goodbyes.
About this text
François Villon: Rondel is in the public domain. This text is taken from Ballads and Lyrics of Old France, with Other Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #795, the Andrew Lang translation; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Various, François Villon: Rondel, in Ballads and Lyrics of Old France (1872), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #795, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/lang-old-france/rondel-2.html, id L26887.
Form and metre
François Villon: Rondel is 12 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 50% of the lines: octosyllabic couplets. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 87%).
See other poems in octosyllabic couplets, other poems in iambic tetrameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 ABBAABAABBAA eyesA · prettiestB · bestB · byesA · sighsA · restB · eyesA · miseriesA · confessedB · blessedB · sighsA · goodbyesA
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| GOODBYE! the tears are in my eyes; | 8 | ·/······ |
| Farewell, farewell, my prettiest; | 8 | ·/·/·/˘˘ |
| Farewell, of women born the best; | 8 | ·/·/˘··· |
| Good-bye! the saddest of good-byes. | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Farewell! with many vows and sighs | 8 | ·/·/˘··· |
| My sad heart leaves you to your rest; | 8 | ········ |
| Farewell! the tears are in my eyes; | 8 | ·/······ |
| Farewell! from you my miseries | 8 | ·/···/˘˘ |
| Are more than now may be confessed, | 8 | ······˘/ |
| And most by thee have I been blessed, | 8 | ········ |
| Yea, and for thee have wasted sighs; | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Goodbye! the last of my goodbyes. | 8 | ·/·····/ |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.