The document provides biographical information about François Villon, a 15th century French poet. It discusses his uncertain background and reckless lifestyle. Villon is best known for his poetry works called Testaments and the Ballad of the Dead Ladies. The Ballad of the Dead Ladies, translated by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, asks where famous women of history and myth have gone, comparing them to the snows of past years that have melted away with time. The poem's theme addresses the inevitability of death and the effects of time on all people and things.

1. BALLAD OF THE DEAD LADIES
Eng. Ed. 13

2. Biography
of
François
Villon

3. Life
Villon's real surname has been a matter
of dispute; he has been called François
de Montcorbier and François Des Loges
and other names, though in literature
Villon is the sole name used.
Villon was born in 1431, almost certainly
in Paris. The singular poems called
Testaments, which form his chief if not
his only certain work, are largely
autobiographical.

4. Life
 The name "Villon" was stated by the sixteenth-century
historian Claude Fauchet to be merely a common noun,
signifying "cheat" or "rascal," but this seems to be a mistake.
It is, however, certain that Villon was a person of loose life,
and that he continued, throughout his recorded life, a
reckless way of living common among the wilder youth of
the University of Paris.
 It is possible that he derived his surname from his uncle, a
close friend and benefactor named Guillaume de Villon,
chaplain in the collegiate church of Saint-Benoît-le-
Bestourne, and a professor of canon law, who took Villon
into his house.

5. Life
• . As the author of the 1911
Encyclopædia Britannica article writes,
"Attempts have been made, in the usual
fashion of conjectural biography, to fill
up the gap with what a young graduate
of Bohemian tendencies would, could,
or might have done, but they are mainly
futile."

6. Life
• On 5 June 1455, the first major recorded incident of his life
occurred. In the company of a priest named Giles and a girl
named Isabeau, he met, in the Rue Saint-Jacques, a Breton,
Jean le Hardi, a master of arts, who was also with a priest,
Philippe Chermoye (or Sermoise or Sermaise). A scuffle broke
out, daggers were drawn and Sermaise, who is accused of
having threatened and attacked Villon and drawn the first blood,
not only received a dagger-thrust in return, but a blow from a
stone, which struck him down. He died of his wounds. Villon
fled, and was sentenced to banishment – a sentence which was
remitted in January 1456 by a pardon from King Charles VII
after he received the second of two petitions which made the
claim that Sermaise had forgiven Villon before he died.

7. Life
He is perhaps best known for his Testaments
and his Ballade des Pendus, written while in
prison. The question "Mais où sont les neiges
d'antan?", taken from the Ballade des dames
du temps jadis and translated by Dante
Gabriel Rossetti as "Where are the snows of
yesteryear?", is one of the most famous lines
of translated secular poetry in the English-
speaking world.

8. LITERARY WORKS
• Petit Testament, Lais, or "Legacy."
• the Grand Testament
• "Ballade des dames du temps jadis"
("The Ballad of Yesterday's Belles"),
• THE BALLAD OF THE DEAD LADIES
(“Ballade des dames du tempsjadis" in a
1533 edition of Villon's poems (Les
Oeuvres de Françoys Villon).

9. THE BALLAD OF THE DEAD LADIES
 "Ballade des dames du tempsjadis“in a 1533 edition of Villon's
poems (Les Oeuvres de Françoys Villon).
 One may translate the title of the poem in many ways, including
“Ballad of the Ladies of Bygone Days,” “Ballad of the Ladies of
Times Past,” and “Ballad of the Ladies of a Distant Age.
 In the nineteenth century, English poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti—
who himself wrote many famous poems, such as "The Blessed
Damozel"—translated the title as "Ballad of the Dead Ladies,"
taking the liberty of rendering temps jadisas dead.

10. THE BALLAD OF THE DEAD LADIES
 , temps jadis means a remote or distant age or a time
long ago.
 As used by Villon, the term can include the ancient
age of mythology, as well as the historical past. But
Rossetti's use of the worddead works well in his
translation of the title: It is brief and to the point, and
the historical ladies of the poem are, after all, quite
dead.
 Rossetti's translation of the entire poem, which
appears on this page, is probably the finest rendering
of it in English. His translation of ballade as ballad
may be justified because of the presence of the
refrain.

11. THE BALLAD OF THE DEAD LADIES
Tell me now in what hidden way is
Lady Flora, the lovely Roman?
Where’s Hipparchia, and where is Thais,
Neither of them the fairer woman?
Where is Echo,beheld no man
only heard on river and lake
She whose beauty was more than human?
But where are the snows of yester-year?

12. Where’s Heloise, the learned nun,
For whose sake Abielard, I ween,
Lost manhood and put priesthood on?
(From love he won such unhappiness and
trouble)
And where, I pray you, is the Queen
Who willed that Buridan should steer
Sewed in a sack’s mouth down the Seine
But where are the snows of yester-year?

13. White Queen Blanche, like a queen lily
With a voice like any mermaiden---
Bertha Broadfoot, Beatrice, Alice,
And that good Joan whom Englishmen
At Rouen doomed and burned her there;
Mother of God, where are they then?
But where are the snows of yester-year?
Nay, never ask this week, fair lord.
Where they are gone, nor yet this year,
Save with this much for an overword----
But where are the snows of yester-year?

14. • Summary
• .......In the first three stanzas, the poem's
speaker asks where famous women of long
ago—women of history and myth—have gone.
(The poem also mentions several men who
associated with the women.) In the final stanza,
the speaker addresses his listener, a prince,
telling him never to ask about these women
unless he also asks where the snows of long
ago have gone. This conclusion is a reminder
that death claims everyone, even women
immortalized by their deeds, just as the
warming temperatures of spring melt the snows

15. Theme
• .......The theme of the poem is the
inexorable march of time and the
inevitability of death,