Jean de La Ceppède: "Love Made HIm From High Olympus Come Down"

 Introduction

Jean de La Ceppède (c. 1550-1623) was a French nobleman, judge, and poet, best-known for his sonnet series Theorems on the Sacred Mystery of Our Redemption, sometimes known as the Spiritual Theorems for short.  Below, I have given a translation of one of the best-known of these sonnets. My translation is a poetic one, which matches La Ceppède's rhyme scheme (ABAB BABA CCD EDE); for a more literal translation, see Christopher O. Blum's article on La Ceppède, "A Poet of the Passion of Christ." To keep a rhythm and to keep the rhyme, I sometimes had to reword some of La Ceppède's lines, or omit phrases.  The last tercet is the oddest in translation, particularly the first line: "Beauty for whom this Beauty dies alove."  A literal translation of the French is "Beautiful woman for whom this beautiful man dies while loving you well."  This is far too wordy for my rhythm, hence my compression.  For the final phrase, and to make the rhyme with the last line, I borrowed an old English way of making compounds, in which the a- prefix means "in the condition of" or "in the process of."  Thus "alove" means "while in love" or "while loving," hence reflecting the French en vous bien-aimant.  The alove-Love rhyme feels poor, but it recalls the similar rhyme in the French: aimant and amant.  In the penultimate line, "meed" means reward or recompense; this is a bit of a change from torture or torment, the normal meaning of supplice, but this fits the rhyme, and it focuses on a particular aspect of Christ's torture: this is how He was repaid for His love.

 

Love Made Him From High Olympus Come Down

Jean de La Ceppède

Love made Him from high Olympus come down;
Love made Him put on the sin of man;
Love made Him all of His blood pour out;
Love made Him suffer the spittle's brand.

Love made Him wear these thorns as a band;
Love made Him hang upon this bough;
Love made Him fix these nails in His hands;
Love will soon see Him in His shroud.

His love is so strong, His love is so grand
That He'll attack Hell, lay death in the sand,
That He'll snatch back His Eurydice.

Beauty for whom this Beauty dies alove,
See if 'twas ever so cruel a meed,
See if 'twas ever so perfect a Love.

 

L'amour l'a de l'Olympe ici-bas fait descendre:
L'amour l'a fait de l'homme endosser le péché;
L'amour lui a déjà tout son sang fait épandre:
L'amour l'a fait souffrir qu'on ait sur lui craché:

L'amour a ces halliers à son chef attaché:
L'amour fait que sa Mère à ces bois le voit pendre;
L'amour a dans ces mains ces rudes clous fiché:
L'amour le va tantôt dans le sépulchre étendre.

Son amour est si grand, son amour est si fort
Qu'il attaque l'Enfer, qu'il terrasse la mort,
Qu'il arrache à Pluton sa fidèle Eurydice.

Belle pour qui ce beau muert en vous bien-aimant,
Voyez s'il fut jamais un si cruel supplice,
Voyez s'il fut jamais un si parfait amant.

 

Source: The Penguin Book of French Verse, Volume 2, Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries, ed. Geoffrey Brereton (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1958), 119. 

Translation ©2025 Brandon P. Otto.  Licensed via CC BY-NC.  Feel free to redistribute non-commercially, as long as credit is given to the translator.