fiddling with French

Meeting today was endurable. I have somehow ended up organising the Secret Santa and the Christmas Lunch for our team.

Go me.

Due to lack of writing inspiration, am currently working on gloves/scarf kit which my parents gave me for my birthday, and which I feel it would be politic to have at least started (if not hopefully finished) before Christmas, to take home with me. Fiddly small stripes, but it's going well so far. (A whole one stripe.) Nice yarns. Bamboo and alpaca. Unfortunately the instructions are in French (they got the kit while on holiday in the Pyrenees) and my dictionary is not much help on French knitting terms, but I have managed to deduce that "rab" means "rib", so we advance.

I was entertained by a bit of GetBackers today in the French translation. Volume 23: one of the leaders of the group has just made a pronouncement on strategy, and then a junior member (bodyguard to one of the other leaders makes a statement from his own area of expertise. To which the first speaker replies:

"Je ne me souviens pas t'avoir demand ton avis, Onigumo. Tu es prie de rester a ta place."

Now the first bit is straightforward enough to cast into properly disdainful English: I do not recall/remember having asked for your opinion, Onigumo. But the second is a little more fiddly, because we have combined the polite construction of tu es prie de rester a ta place -- you are requested to remain in your place -- with tu es, the familiar or superior-to-inferior form of you are. It's a touch of unnecessary politeness or haughtiness of manners which I'm not quite sure of how to render into English. Kindly do me the courtesy of remembering your place, perhaps.

---

Gare au Gorille

Through the bars of a large enclosure
The village ladies intently stared
Where a gorilla with massive composure
Was impassively combing his hair
They were shamelessly interested
Eying devoutly a certain spot
But my mother's especially requested
I refrain from telling you what
Brother Gorilla

The door of the circus lockup
Where the noble brute had been put
By an administrational cockup
Was unwisely left unshut
"I'm going to lose it at last," he cried
Swinging lissomely out of his cage
Referring, of course, to his chastity
He was just of the difficult age
Brother Gorilla

Those self-same ladies who previously
Had been licking their lips from afar
Did a bunk which shows how devious
And whimsical women are
In the path of the lovesick monkey
There were two who wouldn't budge
A little old lady all shrunken
And a petty sessions judge
Brother Gorilla

The old girl said "It would be surprising
And unlikely in the extreme
If anyone found me appetising
And beyond my wildest dreams"
The judge intoned with tranquility
"To take me for a female ape
Would be the height of improbability"
Even judges make mistakes
Brother Gorilla

It would be curious and uncanny
Say, if the choice were up to you
To ravish a judge or a granny
And you didn't know which to do
If I were in such a position
And the choice had got to be mine
I'd beg the old lady's permission
But go for grandma every time
Brother Gorilla

Though the gorilla is very proficient
In the role of a paramour
His mental equipment's deficient
And his eyesight's awfully poor
With a paleolithic leer
He gave the old lady the miss
And grabbing the judge by the ear
Gave him an introductory kiss
Brother Gorilla

In time the gorilla's desires
Were more or less gratified
The judge, being rather biased
Couldn't see the funny side
He was kicking and screaming and wailing
When his moment of truth had come
Like those wretches he orders daily
To be taken away and hung

-- George Brassens, translated by Jake Thackray