Christopher Logue (1926-2011)
Logue’s reputation rests securely on his version of Homer. ‘War Music’ may be one of the best narrative poems of the twentieth and twenty first centuries.
But his ‘Selected poems’ show he was equally skilled with shorter, non-narrative forms.
The Selected contains two versions of well known poems by Franciose Villon (?1431-?1463). They are very much versions rather than strict translations. The French original for this one goes by different names: Ballade des pendus, Epitaphe Villon or Frères humains. The most arresting images in Logue’s poem are not in the original, nor is the ‘argument’ the poem offers.
If you’re interested in seeing what Logue did with that original, the French text and a literal translation can be found here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballade_des_pendus
This poem is taken from Christopher Logue, Selected Poems Faber 2019.