Ballade des dames du temps jadis
The Ballade des dames du temps jadis ( " Ballad of the women of the past ") is a poem by François Villon and recalls wistfully in the style of " Ubi sunt? " Genres of famous women of antiquity and history. The poem belongs to the late works of Villon and is part of his Grand Testament.
Especially famous is the refrain, où sont les neiges d' corn is antan? ("Where are the snows of yesteryear? "). This was in English by Rossetti Where are the snows of yesteryear? reproduced, yesteryear represented a neologism. Hugo von Hofmannsthal can say the Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier in her famous monologue:
Go you search the snows of yesteryear!
Bertolt Brecht quotes Villon in the chorus of Nanna's song (music Kurt Weill ), where a hardened prostitute sentimentality of the past dismisses:
Where are the tears of yesterday evening? Where are the snows of yesteryear?
A musical version of the complete poem has written Georges Brassens, the success of the songs has meant that even the melody - a self- creation Brassens ' - occasionally François Villon is attributed.
Therefore, some later composers refer equally to Brassens ' melody as on Villon's text, as the songwriter Ulrich Roski, whose song was interpreted by Joana.
The vanitas motif of " snow from last year," has been found in the popular culture of the 20th century and has become widespread as " yesterday's news " a standing phrase in the German language.