Happy the man who, like Ulysses, has made a fine…
Quote
Happy the man who, like Ulysses, has made a fine voyage, or like that one who won the fleece, and then came home, full of experience and sense, to live among his kin the rest of his days!
Original text
Heureux qui, comme Ulysse, a fait un beau voyage, ou comme cestui-là qui conquit la toison, et puis est retourné, plein d’usage et raison, vivre entre ses parents le reste de son âge !
The story behind this quote
These are the opening lines of sonnet XXXI of Les Regrets. Du Bellay is in Rome, where he followed his cousin Cardinal Jean du Bellay in 1553, and he is pining there. He envies Ulysses and Jason, “that one who won the fleece”, who came home to live among their own people, and asks: “When shall I see again, alas, the chimney of my little village smoking?” The tercets set Rome against Anjou: the house built by his forefathers against the Roman palaces, “my Gallic Loire” against the Tiber, “my little Liré” against the Palatine hill, “and more than the sea air the sweetness of Anjou”.
Les Regrets appeared in 1558, after the poet’s return to France. Far from the great subjects championed by the Pléiade, the collection mixes lament, satire and confidences, like a diary of exile.
Liré is Du Bellay’s native village, on the banks of the Loire. The first line has become the very expression of homesickness, and “happy the man who, like Ulysses” is quoted about every homecoming.
The source
Les Regrets (The Regrets), sonnet XXXI, 1558
Original text checked word for word in the work; the translation is by quotesay.
Author
Joachim du Bellay
A friend of Ronsard and a member of the Pléiade, Joachim du Bellay wrote in 1549 the Defence and Illustration of the French Language, a manifesto for a French poetry equal to the ancients. Four years in Rome in the service of his uncle, a…
Quotes by Joachim du Bellay