I’m trying to cobble together the phrase:
“The Beautiful Woman My Only Regret”
and have managed:
La Belle Dame Mon Seul Regret
(after an incorrect adverb usage – don’t asked, I still smell the shame)
Then someone tells me:
Can anyone help me here? I’d like to get this right.
“My only regret” does translate into “mon seul regret” in French, but since the phrase you want translated isn’t a complete sentence, and I’m not sure in which context it is found, I can’t say for sure if your translation is correct. Do remember that French uses fewer capital letters than English, though, so you’d probably write “La belle dame mon seul regret” or “La Belle Dame mon seul regret” in French. (If it’s a title, I’d go for the second one: as far as I can remember, words in French titles take capital letters up to and including the first noun.)
Still, both your English and French phrases sound wrong to me syntactically.
Ditto - so how about changing the order ? “Mon seul regret, la belle femme” ?
BTW to me “dame” is more akin to lady.
It *is *‘lady’–as in ‘madame’, my lady or milady (Mrs. currently: “Mrs. Jones” = “Madame Jones” or “Mme. Jones”; “Miss Jones” or “Ms. Jones” = “Mademoiselle Jones” or “Mlle. Jones”).
“La belle femme” is a more literal (but less elegant or complimentary) translation of “the beautiful woman”.
In what context does this whole phrase show up?
I’m using it in the title of a poem and it is an allusion and echo of the phrase, La Belle Dame Sans Merci by Keats – The beautiful woman, my only regret is the intended title – and I would like it in French specifically to echo Keats.
Against better judgement here is the poem:
La Belle Dame Mon Seul Regret
I am in New York
could be London
or Paris
or any city alive
with the noisy
stench of decadence
Unnoticed
I sit among my silent
prayers
drinking water
eating hummus
at a small
sidewalk café
Disturbed by a rose
growing broken from
a pale hand
“God loves you”
I look, she is perhaps twenty
soft, scented sweet
“God loves you,”
“Don’t be sad,
He has a plan for
your life”
I notice her eyes
lovely and green
her lips like the rose
her skin bright clean
She wears her
beauty like summer wears
sunlight
how can she
not know herself a harlot
she is temptation
I will not have
I take the flower
pricked by the thorn
mumble through
her apology
that it is all right
that yes
there is a plan
Her eyes swallow me
I hear the click
it is come
This café is the mortar
and I the pestle will
grind out holy retribution
many sounds
mix with the
agonies of terror
pain fills and
fulfills me
I bloom fire and steel
a flower of divine
anger a roar to
smite the
unworthy
I could be in Paris
red lips near mine
perfume whispering
unholy acts in my head
emerald eyes my world
I apologize, it is a work in progress, but hopefully it will clear up the context and help with the translation – which I appreciate to no end.
Thank you.
Kytheria, this is one of those things always have trouble with - when I want to say “a person of the female persuasion told me” or “there was a woman here asking about …” I always hesitate between dame and femme.
“Woman” is “femme” in French. “Lady” is “dame”. But, as in English, the French words can sometimes be used interchangeably. In the context of a poem’s title, I would go for “dame”. “La belle dame” sounds more “poetic” to me than “la belle femme”.
Also, ddgryphon, I see you put a comma in the English phrase in your last post. I would put it in French too. It makes more sense this way.
Cool, thanks.
How about “Je ne regrette que la belle dame” (essentially, I do not regreat anything except the beautiful woman).