The Ballade des dames du temps jadis ("Ballad of the Ladies of Times Past") is a poem by François Villon

François Villon

François Villon was a French poet, thief, and vagabond. He is perhaps best known for his Testaments and his Ballade des Pendus, written while in prison...

 which celebrates famous women in history and mythology, and a prominent example of the "Ubi Sunt

Ubi sunt

Ubi sunt is a phrase taken from the Latin Ubi sunt qui ante nos fuerunt?, meaning "Where are those who were before us?"...

 ?" genre. It forms part of his larger work, the Grand Testament.

The section is simply labelled Ballade by Villon; the title des dames du temps jadis was added by Clément Marot

Clément Marot

Clément Marot was a French poet of the Renaissance period.-Youth:Marot was born at Cahors, the capital of the province of Quercy, some time during the winter of 1496-1497. His father, Jean Marot , whose more correct name appears to have been des Mares, Marais or Marets, was a Norman from the Caen...

 in his 1533 edition of Villon's poems.

Translations and adaptations

Particularly famous is its interrogative refrain, Mais où sont les neiges d'antan? This was translated into English by Rossetti

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Dante Gabriel Rossetti was an English poet, illustrator, painter and translator. He founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in 1848 with William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais, and was later to be the main inspiration for a second generation of artists and writers influenced by the movement,...

 as "Where are the snows of yesteryear?", for which he coined the new word yesteryear to translate Villon's antan. The French word was used in its original sense of "last year", although both antan and the English yesteryear have now taken on a wider meaning of "years gone by".

The refrain is taken up in the bitter and ironic Berthold Brecht/Kurt Weill

Kurt Weill

Kurt Julian Weill was a German-Jewish composer, active from the 1920s, and in his later years in the United States. He was a leading composer for the stage who was best known for his fruitful collaborations with Bertolt Brecht...

 "Nannas Lied", expressing the short-term memory without regrets of a hard-bitten prostitute, in the refrain

Wo sind die Tränen von gestern abend?

Wo ist der Schnee vom vergangenen Jahr?

Where are the tears of yesterday evening?

Where is the snow of yesteryear?

The ballad has been made into a song (using the original Middle French

Middle French

Middle French is a historical division of the French language that covers the period from 1340 to 1611. It is a period of transition during which:...

 text) by French songwriter Georges Brassens

Georges Brassens

Georges Brassens , 22 October 1921 – 29 October 1981), was a French singer-songwriter and poet.Brassens was born in Sète, a town in southern France near Montpellier...

, and by the Czech composer Petr Eben

Petr Eben

Petr Eben was a Czech composer of modern and contemporary classical music.-His life:Born in Žamberk in northeastern Bohemia, Eben spent his youth in Český Krumlov in southern Bohemia. There he studied piano, and later cello and organ...

, in the cycle Sestero piesní milostnych (1951).

In popular culture

• The poem was alluded to in Joseph Heller
  Joseph Heller
  Joseph Heller was a US satirical novelist, short story writer, and playwright. His best known work is Catch-22, a novel about US servicemen during World War II...
  
  's novel, Catch-22
  Catch-22
  Catch-22 is a satirical, historical novel by the American author Joseph Heller. He began writing it in 1953, and the novel was first published in 1961. It is set during World War II in 1943 and is frequently cited as one of the great literary works of the twentieth century...
  
  , when Yossarian asks "Where are the Snowdens of yesteryear?" in both French and English
• The text "Ou sont les neiges" is used as a screen projection in the first scene of Tennessee Williams's play "The Glass Menagerie."
• "And like the snows of yesteryear, gone from this earth" is used by Lt. Archie Hicox in Quentin Tarantino
  Quentin Tarantino
  Quentin Jerome Tarantino is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer and actor. In the early 1990s, he began his career as an independent filmmaker with films employing nonlinear storylines and the aestheticization of violence...
  
  's film Inglourious Basterds to describe the intended effects of a plot to assassinate the Nazi leadership.
• The poem appears in season two, episode three of Mad Men
  Mad Men
  Mad Men is an American dramatic television series created and produced by Matthew Weiner. The series premiered on Sunday evenings on the American cable network AMC and are produced by Lionsgate Television. It premiered on July 19, 2007, and completed its fourth season on October 17, 2010. Each...
  
   - the character Don sits in an almost empty cinema, watching a French film (identity unknown) in which a female narrator reads the poem over a series of stills.
• In chapter five of D.H. Lawrence's book 'Lady Chatterly's Lover' Clifford Chatterly asks "Where are the snows of yesteryear?...It's what endures through one's life that matters". Here he is referring to the short-lived sexual affairs that his wife, Lady Chatterly, has had with other men. He is suggesting that these affairs, like the snows of yesteryear, are ephemeral and once gone leave nothing tangible behind.
• In Act Two, scene II of the play "Blithe Spirit" by Noel Coward, Madame Arcati quotes the line, "Où sont les neiges d'antan?" as she waxes nostalgic about the good old days of "genuine religious belief" when "a drop of holy water could send even a poltergeist scampering for cover."
• In the graphical novel The Crow by James O'Barr the quote "ou' sont les neiges d'antan" appears in the second chapter.
• The phrase "Where are the snows of yesteryear?" is included in Act II of the Broadway musical, "I Do! I Do!," in a song entitled "Where Are the Snows?" It is a duet sung by the leading characters, Michael and Agnes. (Book and Lyrics by Tom Jones. Music by Harvey Schmidt. Copyright 1966, 1968)
• In chapter 13 of Jack Kerouac's The Dharma Bums, the quote "où sont les neiges d'antan?" is referenced by Alvah.

Text of the Ballad

The original text is mostly taken from Oxford Book of French Verse. The translation is deliberately close to the original.

Dictes moy où, n'en quel pays,			Tell me where, in which country
Est Flora, la belle Romaine;			Is Flora Flora (mythology) In Roman mythology, Flora was a goddess of flowers and the season of spring. While she was otherwise a relatively minor figure in Roman mythology, being one among several fertility goddesses, her association with the spring gave her particular importance at the coming of springtime... , the beautiful Roman;
Archipiada, ne Thaïs,			Archipiada (Alcibiades Alcibiades Alcibiades, son of Clinias, from the deme of Scambonidae , was a prominent Athenian statesman, orator, and general. He was the last famous member of his mother's aristocratic family, the Alcmaeonidae, which fell from prominence after the Peloponnesian War...  ?), and Thaïs
Qui fut sa cousine germaine;			Who was her first cousin;
Echo, parlant quand bruyt on Maine			Echo, speaking when one makes noise
Dessus rivière ou sus estan,			Over river or on pond,
Qui beaulté ot trop plus qu'humaine?			Who had a beauty too much more than human?
Mais où sont les neiges d'antan!			Oh, where are the snows of yesteryear!
Où est la très sage Helloïs,			Where is the very chaste Heloise Heloise (student of Abelard) Héloïse d’Argenteuil was a French nun, writer, scholar, and abbess, best known for her love affair and correspondence with Peter Abélard.- Background :... ,
Pour qui fut chastré et puis moyne			For whom was castrated, and then (made) a monk,
Pierre Esbaillart à Saint-Denis?			Pierre Esbaillart (Abelard) in Saint-Denis Saint-Denis Saint-Denis is a commune in the northern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the centre of Paris. Saint-Denis is a sous-préfecture of the Seine-Saint-Denis département, being the seat of the Arrondissement of Saint-Denis....  ?
Pour son amour ot cest essoyne.			For his love he suffered this sentence.
Semblablement, où est la royne			Similarly, where is the Queen (Marguerite de Bourgogne)
Qui commanda que Buridan			Who ordered that Buridan
Fust gecté en ung sac en Saine?			Be thrown in a sack into the Seine Seine The Seine is a -long river and an important commercial waterway within the Paris Basin in the north of France. It rises at Saint-Seine near Dijon in northeastern France in the Langres plateau, flowing through Paris and into the English Channel at Le Havre . It is navigable by ocean-going vessels... ?
Mais où sont les neiges d'antan!			Oh, where are the snows of yesteryear!
La royne Blanche comme lis,			The queen "blanche" (white) as lily (Blanche de Castille Blanche of Castile Blanche of Castile , was a Queen consort of France as the wife of Louis VIII. She acted as regent twice during the reign of her son, Louis IX.... )
Qui chantoit à voix de seraine;			Who sang with a Siren's voice;
Berte au grant pié, Bietris, Allis;			Bertha of the Big Foot, Beatrix Beatrice Portinari Beatrice "Bice" di Folco Portinari was a Florentine woman known as the muse of the poet Dante Alighieri. Beatrice was the principal inspiration for Dante's Vita Nuova, and also appears as his guide in the Divine Comedy in the last book, Paradiso, and in the last four canti of Purgatorio... , Aelis;
Haremburgis qui tint le Maine,			Erembourge who ruled over the Maine,
Et Jehanne, la bonne Lorraine,			And Joan (Joan of Arc Joan of Arc Saint Joan of Arc, nicknamed "The Maid of Orléans" , is a national heroine of France and a Roman Catholic saint. A peasant girl born in eastern France who claimed divine guidance, she led the French army to several important victories during the Hundred Years' War, which paved the way for the... ), the good (woman from) Lorraine Lorraine (province) The Duchy of Upper Lorraine was an historical duchy roughly corresponding with the present-day northeastern Lorraine region of France, including parts of modern Luxembourg and Germany. The main cities were Metz, Verdun, and the historic capital Nancy....
Qu'Englois brulerent à Rouan;			That the English burned in Rouen Rouen Rouen , in northern France on the River Seine, is the capital of the Haute-Normandie region and the historic capital city of Normandy. Once one of the largest and most prosperous cities of medieval Europe , it was the seat of the Exchequer of Normandy in the Middle Ages... ;
Où sont elles, Vierge souvraine?			Where are they, oh sovereign Virgin?
Mais où sont les neiges d'antan!			Oh, where are the snows of yesteryear!
Prince, n'enquerez de sepmaine			Prince, do not ask me in the whole week
Où elles sont, ne de cest an,			Where they are - neither in this whole year,
Qu'à ce reffrain ne vous remaine:			Lest I bring you back to this refrain:
Mais où sont les neiges d'antan!			Oh, where are the snows of yesteryear!

External links

• Another verse-translation of the poem, along with a modern adaptation