Name: Que Suis-Je Helas?
Duration: P00H05M24S
Description: Air taken from the site at Fotheringhay on the morning of the anniversary of her execution, 8th February 1587.

Que Suis-Je Helas?

from In My End Is My Beginning by MacGillivray

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about

Air taken from the site at Fotheringhay on the morning of the anniversary of her execution, 8th February 1587.

lyrics

Lyrics are transposed from the words of Mary Queen of Scots in her final poem, Sonnet Written at Fotheringhay Castle, (trans. Robin Bell)

Que suis-je helas? Et de quoi sert ma vie?
Je ne suis fors qu'un corps prive de coeur,
Une ombre vaine, un objet de malheur
Qui na plus rien que de mourir en vie.

Alas what am I? What use has my life?
I am but a body whose heart's torn away,
A vain shadow, an object of misery
Who has nothing left but death-in-life.

Plus ne me portez, O ennemis, d'envie
A qui n'a plus l'esprit a la grandeur.
J'ai consomme d'excessive douleur
Votre ire en bref de voir assouvie.

O my enemies, set all your envy aside;
I've no more eagerness for high domain;
I've borne too long the burden of my pain
To see your anger swiftly satisfied.

Et vous, amis, qui m'avez tenue chere,
Souvenez-vous que sans coeur et sans sante
Je ne saurais aucune bonne ouevre faire,
Souhaitez donc fin de calamite

And you, my friends who have loved me so true,
Remember, lacking health and heart and peace,
There is nothing worthwhile I can do;
Ask only that my misery should cease

Et que, ici-bas etant assez punie,
J'aie ma part en la joie infinie.

And that, being punished in a world like this,
I have my portion in eternal bliss.

credits

from In My End Is My Beginning, released February 8, 2022
MacGillivray, prepared piano, vocals.

license

about

MacGillivray Scotland, UK

MacGillivray is a Scottish poet and musician, signed to Antigen Records and 100 Acre Recordings and published by Bloodaxe, 'The Nine of Diamonds: Surroial Mordantless' 2016 and 'The Last Wolf of Scotland' (2nd edition) Redhen, Los Angeles. MacGillivray has performed with The Fall, Arlo Guthrie, Thurston Moore, Alan Moore, Shirley Collins and many others. ... more

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