Comme une sœur [English translation]

Like a sister, head cut away1, head cut away

she looked like her doll2, like her doll,

Into the river, she came

to soak her little foot a bit, her little foot3.

With a trick of my own design, my own design,

I made myself look like a fish, like a fish.

I disguised myself as a sperm whale4

and I lay down at the bottom of the water, at the bottom of the water.

I had the good luck, thanks to this method, thanks to this method,

to munch a bit of her foot, a bit of her foot.

Never did a shark, I guarantee it,

ever taste anything as good, anything as good.

She punished me for this cheekiness, for this cheekiness.

by keeping me altogether helpless, altogether helpless5.

And I had, in order to make her pity me,

to pretend to drown, to drown.

Convinced of having killed me, having killed me,

there she was now, getting softer, getting softer,

there she was, kissing me and biting me

to bring me back from the dead, back from the dead.

If that’s the fate we must endure, we must endure,

at the time of our last breath, last breath,

if that is the lot of those who drown

I’m going back again, I don’t care about water, about water.

To her family’s house, the next day, the next day,

I ran to ask for her hand, ask for her hand,

but as I didn’t have anything

in mine, they shouted at me “Be gone!”, shouted “Be gone!”

They delivered it to the appetites, to the appetites

of a sort of profiteer, of profiteer,

a right swindler, a big bag of gold,

older than Herod and than Nestor, and than Nestor.

And since their mariage I’ve waited, waited,

my heart on burning coals, burning coals,

for the Reaper6 to come and

cut the grass at the feet of that skinflint, of that skinflint.

When she is a tearful widow, a tearful widow,

after having properly buried him, buried him,

my hope7 is that she will come

to find her niche in my arms, in my arms.

1. She was up to her neck in the water, so she looked like a separated head2. like a plastic doll’s head floating on the water3. maybe a pun on “menu” is intended as the foot gets bitten in the next but one verse so could be on the menu as well as being small. But I can see no way of doing that pun in English4. but cachalot sounds like “cache à l’eau” which means “hide in the water”, and disguise as a sperm whale in a river is likely to be rather conspicuous5. literally “holding my beak in the water”, but I think it means either keeping helpless or continually and thoroughly telling off for longer than is reasonably endurable, and I guess the former is a better fit to the context6. feminine personification of death7. or, perhaps, expectation

• Artist:Georges Brassens
• Album:Le vieux Léon