Le nombril des femmes d'agents [English translation]

To see the navel of a copper’s wife

is certainly not a spectacle

which, from the esthetic point of view,

could lift you to a pinnacle...

There was, nevertheless, in old Paris,

a decent chap with no thought of ill

burning to compemplate the navel

of the wife of a police constable.

“I’m getting old, he used to groan,

And, in the course of my life,

I’ve seen a good number of navels

of all shapes and sizes:

navels of pall-bearers wives, navels,

of coalmen’s wives, of clown’s wives,

but I’ve never see that

Of the wife of a police constable...

My father saw, as I see you,

the navels of gendarmes’ wives.

My brother has sampled more than once

the charms of those of the wives of inspectors...

My son saw the navel of the mistress

of a minister of Justice...

And me, I haven’t even seen the navel

of the wife of a police constable...”

Thus he was moaning in public,

this decent old man,

when the legitimate wife of a copper,

offering a helping navel,

said to him: “I’m going to put an end

to your painful suffering,

show you at last the navel

of the wife of a police constable...”

“Alleluia!” went the old guy

“Here’s the release from my torments!

Let thanks be rendered to the Good Lord,

I’m going to realise my dream!”

He began, quite softened,

under the skirts of his benefactress,

To turn his eyes towards the navel

of the wife of a police constable...

But, Alas! he was overcome

by the effects of his obsession,

and as he was attaining the goal

of fifty years of lust

death, death, death took him

on the abdomen of his accomplice:

he never did see the navel

of the wife of a police constable.

• Artist:Georges Brassens
• Album:Je me suis fait tout petit