OSL : L'Oreiller du tatou

Dans le cadre, tout à fait peu cadré, de mes divers albums de limericks, je propose aujourd'hui une traduction française. L'original, qui est extrait du Jingle Book de Carolyn Wells (1901), se trouve ici, avec illustration d'origine.

 

Un tatou, satanée bestiole,

Un jour se fit une cabane sous un saule.

Et puis ce loustic

Prit un porc-épic

Comme oreiller – mais quel mariole !

 

W.M. 58 : Deusdedit

The WP entry Deusdedit

Is one anyone can edit.

If named Frithona

I'v'n't had the hona' 

To decide who actually said it.

W.M. 57 : Le Roitelet de Madère

 

How I love the Madeira Firecrest,

 A tiny bird that has no rest!

 There can be no eira

 It lives in Madeira…

 And here’s a limerick I’ve exprest.

Nuffield (W.M. 36)

A young simpleton from Nuffield

Asked a fair lass when she would yield.

When told "You're a bore !"

He said "I love you more",

At which the girl took to the field.

Ah, l'ouette, gentille, etc.

There once was an Upland Goose

Who met a cruel and fierce mongoose.

Said the goose : "Goéland

Does rhyme with Magellan !"

At which the mongoose bit the goose.

A garden in garbage garb

Frightful is the longnose gar

Whom, to observe, I'd go quite far.

Despite its beak,

It's sober and meek :

I've never seen one in a bar !

Hake mail

A fishmonger called Confucius

Was praising his stock of Merluccius.

His wife : "For pete's sake

Just call it a hake !

Won't make the fish less deluccius."

W.M. 30 : Sappho in Chew Stoke

There was a fair lass in Chew Stoke

Who loved a girl and not a bloke.

When told, in a wrath,

They sent her to Bath —

— The sophistic sapphist-haters from Chew Stoke.

W.M. 22 : from the English WP, and in English

A great fellow was Henry Wood,

Conduct symph'nies, indeed he could :

When faced with Tchaikovsky

He would never offski

Or sing carols by Will'm Horwood.

Button => Bouton

Une fois n'est pas coutume, voici la traduction d'un limerick "classique" (d'Edward Lear) :

 

There was an Old Person of Dutton,

Whose head was as small as a button;

So to make it look big

He purchased a wig,

And rapidly rushed about Dutton.

 

A Capbreton, un vieux croûton :

Sa tête tout comme un bouton !

Pour qu'on oublie sa nuque

Il s'acheta perruque,

Ce vieux coureur de Capbreton !

 

 

OSL #1

A frightful creature is the binny

 – Found in Egypt, not in Guinea.

If fishing Amenhotep

Tries to scale it on a step,

It cries out loud “I’m not a ninny !”

 

(Après avoir dûment francisé le genre du limerick, et l'avoir géolocalisé autant que webmaticisé, je reviens à mes vieilles amours, oxoniennes : j'ai dû, en 1995-96, composer des dizaines de limericks en anglais, tous perdus.)