# Ce que l'homme a de plus beau



## History Detective

Hi all!  I am rather stumped by the last portion of this piece of Racan's poem (the piece I've underlined). 

_"Mais le printemps de nos vies passe et ne retourne plus; tout le soin des destinées est de guider nos journées pas à pas vers le tombeau; et sans respecter personne, __le temps de sa faux moissonne ce que l'homme a de plus beau__."_

My attempt at translation is very rough…  "Time with his scythe harvests what man has of more beauty."

Thank you!

Source: Poésies de Malherbe et de Racan.  Paris: Didot Jeune, 1800.


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## SwissPete

Faux - scythe
Moissonner - to reap

Can you put it together now?


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## History Detective

Hi, SwissPete!  I think I've got the scythe and reaping part , but something about the "ce que l'homme a de plus beau" isn't working out too good for me.  Any ideas?


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## janpol

L'ordre des mots n'est pas celui qu'on choisit habituellement : on dirait plutôt : _le temps moissonne ce que l'homme a de plus beau avec sa faux. ou bien le temps moissonne ce que l'homme a de plus beau. au moyen d'une faux" ou bien "Avec sa faux, le temps moissonne ce que l'homme a de plus beau."
On a longtemps représenté la Mort en dessinant un squelette armé d'une faux.
"ce que l'Homme a de plus beau" ? la vie, peut-être...
_


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## History Detective

Thanks, janpol!  Perhaps in English, "Time reaps what man possesses of beauty with his scythe?"


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## newg

janpol said:


> L'ordre des mots n'est pas celui qu'on choisit habituellement : on dirait plutôt : _le temps moissonne ce que l'homme a de plus beau avec sa faux. ou bien le temps moissonne ce que l'homme a de plus beau. au moyen d'une faux" ou bien "Avec sa faux, le temps moissonne ce que l'homme a de plus beau."
> On a longtemps représenté la Mort en dessinant un squelette armé d'une faux.
> "ce que l'Homme a de plus beau" ? la vie, peut-être...
> _



It's a poem so it's up to the poet to decide how to write it... The question was about the English translation of 'ce que l'homme à de plus beau'. 

My try: 
And time reaps with its scythe the most beautiful thing that mankind holds.


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## History Detective

Thank you, newg--much appreciated!  By the way, I think the kitten in your avatar is absolutely adorable--just had to tell you that!


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## Nicomon

@ Newg - Je suis convaincue que janpol a compris qu'il s'agissait d'un poème... et donné l'ordre habituel des mots pour faciliter la traduction. 

Il a précisé : 





> _On a longtemps représenté la Mort en dessinant un squelette armé d'une faux.
> "ce que l'Homme a de plus beau" ? la vie, peut-être..._


 Compte tenu de ce qui précède (le printemps de nos vies, le tombeau, sans respecter personne) ça me semble assez juste comme interprétation.


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## pointvirgule

(J'avais compris l'explication de janpol comme Nico. _)

_Ma tentative :_ moissonne ce que l'homme a de plus beau → reaps man's finest possession_ ?


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## Nicomon

pointvirgule said:


> [...] Ma tentative :_ moissonne ce que l'homme a de plus beau → reaps man's finest possession_ ?


 À mon avis, ça colle mieux à l'original.  Cette solution « sonne » très bien à mon oreille francophone.


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## History Detective

Merci beaucoup, Nicomon and pointvirgule!  Your help is much appreciated!


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## mgarizona

I wouldn't think it has much to do with possessions myself. Or rather I suspect everyone's favorite punctuation mark may be using 'possession' in a dangerous way, to suggest what this man posseses intrinsically. Like most things do, this line reminds me of one of Char's: "Le temps émondera peu à peu mon visage" ... "Bit by bit shall time pare away at my face" ... when I read "ce que l'homme a de plus beau" I hear "the best part of himself," what is most beautiful in his body and his mind falls prey to time's scythe as he ages and succombs to age. 

I would also argue against "reap" simply because in English 'reap' tends to imply 'gain the benefit of' and Time simply destroys.

So perhaps 'Time's scythe mows away what's finest in a man" ???


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## History Detective

Thank you, mgarizona--some good thoughts on this and very helpful!


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## timpeac

Sorry to disagree - but I would stick with "reap". It doesn't necessarily imply "gain the benefit of" particularly in this context which is reminiscent of "the Grim Reaper". I would keep it. I agree with your suspicion about "possession" though. In English possessions are tangible things. Here, surely, we are talking about attributes such as beauty. "Time with its scythe reaps the best of Man".


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## History Detective

Merci beaucoup, timpeac!  I appreciate your help with this!


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## pointvirgule

OK, it was a bad use of _possession_. I don't know what possessed me to suggest it.


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## History Detective

We appreciate you anyway, pointvirgule--merci!


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## mgarizona

Not bad, like I said "dangerous" ... as in easily misconstrued ... the word 'possession' can apply to such innate matters ... your usage was entirely, 'literally' correct ... but outside the proper context can't be expected to on its own. The economy of poetry forces one to take such things into account.


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## timpeac

mgarizona said:


> Not bad, like I said "dangerous" ... as in easily misconstrued ... the word 'possession' can apply to such innate matters ... your usage was entirely, 'literally' correct


I'm sorry, but no it's not (at least in my opinion). We can "possess" beauty (if we want to use a literary register for the verb) but nonetheless "beauty" is not a possession.

Don't mix up "possession" meaning "the act or fact of possessing" and "possession" meaning "something owned". In the first case we could talk of "her possession of beauty", but in the second, countable, meaning "possessions" are things you can physically hold and not attributes.


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## mgarizona

timpeac said:


> I'm sorry, but no it's not (at least in my opinion). We can "possess" beauty (if we want to use a literary register for the verb) but nonetheless "beauty" is not a possession.
> 
> Don't mix up "possession" meaning "the act or fact of possessing" and "possession" meaning "something owned". In the first case we could talk of "her possession of beauty", but in the second, countable, meaning "possessions" are things you can physically hold and not attributes.



Which is why the word can be misconstrued, but it does not mean that pointvirgule's use of possession was in any way wrong or bad. If one can possess beauty then one may be described as being 'in possession of beauty' and so beauty may be viewed as a possession. An immaterial one. Not the standard usage of the word, whence my warning against it, but not incorrect.

The OED gives possession as "The action or fact of possessing, or condition of being possessed; the holding or having something (material or immaterial) as one's own, or in one's control; actual holding or occupancy, as distinct from ownership." Here beauty is a "something immaterial" which one has as one's own. It is a possession. 

The problem here isn't the word, it's that the concision of verse precludes properly contextualizing the word. In another context where the immateriality of the subject was well established, 'possession' could serve readily. There is simply no room in the verse at hand in which to make that connection.


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## timpeac

mgarizona said:


> Which is why the word can be misconstrued, but it does not mean that pointvirgule's use of possession was in any way wrong or bad. If one can possess beauty then one may be described as being 'in possession of beauty' and so beauty may be viewed as a possession. An immaterial one. Not the standard usage of the word, whence my warning against it, but not incorrect.
> 
> The OED gives possession as "The action or fact of possessing, or condition of being possessed; the holding or having something (material or immaterial) as one's own, or in one's control; actual holding or occupancy, as distinct from ownership." Here beauty is a "something immaterial" which one has as one's own. It is a possession.
> 
> The problem here isn't the word, it's that the concision of verse precludes properly contextualizing the word. In another context where the immateriality of the subject was well established, 'possession' could serve readily. There is simply no room in the verse at hand in which to make that connection.


It seems you are indeed mixing up the two meanings.

To repeat what I said earlier: Possession can mean the act or fact of owning something. This can be something material or indeed immaterial such as beauty. This is also what your quote of the OED says so no complaint. There is a separate usage of the word possession - the most common - which refers to the thing owned and this _cannot_ be immaterial. Surprisingly you don't quote the definition for this usage, but I've checked a few dictionaries and haven't found one which allows "thing owned" to be immaterial.

Your logical step from your OED quote to "here beauty is "something immaterial" which one has as one's own. It is a possession" is incorrect. The dictionary quote wasn't for "*a* possession" but "*the holding or having something* (material or immaterial) as one's own". This refers to the _act _or _fact _of possession as in "possession is nine tenths of the law".

Pointvirgule's usage of "possession" was not of "holding or having something" - try to replace the use of "possession" with that phrase, you can't. He wasn't suggesting that "time reaps man's finest fact of holding or having" but rather "time reaps man's finest thing owned", and as such was completely wrong no matter what the wider context. (I'm sorry pointvirgule - I know that you said straight away that you took your comment back and it's not you arguing for it now).

Mgarizona - you seem to be suggesting that you could answer a question like "what were the old lady's possessions when she died?" with "intelligence, wit and a sarcastic sense of humour" rather than "a house, a car and a cat", which is simply not the case. I agree it is surprising, but it is still the case that although you can "possess" (verb) something immaterial the something immaterial is nonetheless _not _a "possession" (count noun).


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## mgarizona

timpeac said:


> Mgarizona - you seem to be suggesting that you could answer a question like "what were the old lady's possessions when she died?" with "intelligence, wit and a sarcastic sense of humour" rather than "a house, a car and a cat", which is simply not the case. I agree it is surprising, but it is still the case that although you can "possess" (verb) something immaterial the something immaterial is nonetheless _not _a "possession" (count noun).



I'm going to have to disagree with you there, categorically, and the OED disagrees with you as well. But that's OK, we each have our own Englishes.


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## Nicomon

Hello,

I have a question for my own education.

I agree that "beauty" may be more like it given the rest of the poem, but what if « ce que l'homme a de plus beau » was indeed "life" (la vie), as janpol suggested? E.g. : Rien ne nous protège contre la mort/la mort n'épargne personne. 

Would the word "possession" have been right, then? As in « la vie est le bien le plus précieux »?


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## timpeac

mgarizona said:


> I'm going to have to disagree with you there, categorically, and the OED disagrees with you as well. But that's OK, we each have our own Englishes.


MG - it doesn't disagree with me, unless there is another section that you didn't quote. Your quoted section related to the uncountable usage of "possession" only. I have said all along that that can relate to immaterial things. The countable use of "possession" can only relate to material things.

You say you disagree with me. So you could answer the question "what were the old lady's possessions?" with "intelligence, wit and sarcasm"? If so we really do speak different types of English.


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## timpeac

Nicomon said:


> Hello,
> 
> I have a question for my own education.
> 
> I agree that "beauty" may be more like it given the rest of the poem, but what if « ce que l'homme a de plus beau » was indeed "life" (la vie), as janpol suggested? E.g. : Rien ne nous protège contre la mort/la mort n'épargne personne.
> 
> Would the word "possession" have been right, then? As in « la vie est le bien le plus précieux »?



Mgarizona could by the sound of it - for me, and according to every example I can see in dictionaries, possessions are physical things and so no, "life" is not a possession.

In summary -

Verb - yes you can possess an immaterial thing. "She possesses a great sense of humour."
Uncountable noun - yes you can relate this fact or act of possessing to an immaterial thing. "She was in possession of a great intelligence."
Countable noun - no you can't relate this to an immaterial thing. "She put her keys, book and other possessions on the table." Something like "*intelligence/life/wit was the possession she most prized" sounds bizarre.


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## Nicomon

Thank you timpeac. So I guess Nikolai Ostrovski (or whoever might have translated it, if the original wasn't in English) didn't know. 


> “Man's *dearest possession is life.* It is given to him but once, and he must live it so as to feel no torturing regrets for wasted years, never know the burning shame of a mean and petty past; so live that, dying, he might say: all my life, all my strength were given to the finest cause in all the world──the fight for the Liberation of Mankind”.


  And in case you were wondering... no, I don't know anything about Ostrovski.  I just found the quote googling.


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## timpeac

Nicomon said:


> Thank you timpeac. So I guess Nikolai Ostrovski (or whoever might have translated it, if the original wasn't in English) didn't know.


Well, anything at all is possible in lyrical prose. I can categorically say that if you ask someone what possessions someone else has then they will only list concrete things, never life, wit, intelligence etc. If anything it goes even further than just not immaterial. It sounds odd with material things that you don't physically hold. For example "Among her possessions the Queen counts Windsor castle and the crown jewels". You could not say "Among her possessions the Queen counts an adoring public" even though the adoring public is a material thing.

I have checked: thefreedictionary, Oxford, Merriam-Webster, Macmillan, dictionary.reference, and Cambridge dictionaries. Under the countable definition of "possession" (which is differentiated from the uncountable definition that mgarizona quoted in all of them) only material items are listed as possessions. Not one gives an example of a possession which you could not physically touch.


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## Nicomon

Je ne serais pas portée à dire en français (même que ça m'énerve quand je le lis) _il/elle « possède » une grande intelligence_. 
Mais « _possède la vie _» ne me choquerait pas. Par contre je dirais « _bien précieux _» et non « _possession_ » (le mot français) en parlant de la vie/la santé. 

Je croyais que "_dearest_ _possession_" pouvait avoir ce sens de "_bien le plus précieux_".


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## timpeac

Note that as a verb "to possess" can be used with immaterial things too. It is only in the case of countable nouns that it becomes material only. I suppose "life" as opposed to wit, intelligence, beauty etc is the most easy to view as a concrete thing (in lyrical style) since the other things are attributes whereas "life" is not an attribute like "intelligence" is, even if you can't physically "put it in a box".


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## mgarizona

Under its *third *definition of the word 'possession,' the one timepac is focussed on--- 3. _concr_. That which is possessed or held as property; (with a, etc.) a thing possessed, a piece of property, something that belongs to one; pl. belongings, property, wealth.--- the OED cites: "Beauty is a woman's best possession till she be old."


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## timpeac

mgarizona said:


> Under its *third *definition of the word 'possession,' the one timepac is focussed on--- 3. _concr_. That which is possessed or held as property; (with a, etc.) a thing possessed, a piece of property, something that belongs to one; pl. belongings, property, wealth.--- the OED cites: "Beauty is a woman's best possession till she be old."


I'm focussed on it because it is the relevant one for what we are discussing.

That sounds like a very old quote - not often you get a present subjunctive these days. I stand by all that I say for modern usage - and it really is a disservice to suggest otherwise. Many grammatical structures have been possible in the past and are possible in lyrical style that do not make up part of modern usage.

Won't you answer my question?

Could you answer a question like "what were the old lady's possessions when  she died?" with "intelligence, wit and a sarcastic sense of humour"  rather than "a house, a car and a cat"?


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## mgarizona

timpeac said:


> Could you answer a question like "what were the old lady's possessions when she died?" with "intelligence, wit and a sarcastic sense of humour" rather than "a house, a car and a cat"?



I certainly could, and would ... though I think if someone actually asked me that question, my answer might be, "More tact than you."

I have no problem with the notion of abstracts as possessions and I do not recognize any such firewall as you discuss between the verb "to possess" and the noun "possession" ... but then my English is not much infected by legalese. By which I mean, that there are contexts in which such a firewall might serve a genuine and useful purpose seems entirely logical to me. I just don't happen to find myself constrained within such a context, nor is the poem this thread is discussing.


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## timpeac

mgarizona said:


> I certainly could, and would ... though I think if someone actually asked me that question, my answer might be, "More tact than you."
> 
> I have no problem with the notion of abstracts as possessions and I do not recognize any such firewall as you discuss between the verb "to possess" and the noun "possession" ... but then my English is not much infected by legalese.


We will always be at loggerheads on this, then. For me they are unacceptable - not through any influence of legalese on me either - just by the fact that it sounds bizarre to my ear. It's interesting that archaic and lyrical examples aside that examples of it aren't given in dictionaries, whilst lots of examples with concrete items are given.
Well, I've signalled my strong advice to foreign speakers not to use the countable word possession to refer to immaterial things, and you've signalled that you have no problem with it - so there we are.


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## Nicomon

Thank you, to both of you timpeac and mgarizona. 

I personally see beauty as an asset, more so than a possession. However, the use of "possession" doesn't strike me as odd, when it comes to life/health. 
Hence my initial question. As I wrote earlier, I do associate vie/santé with « bien précieux », while I wouldn't say in French « la beauté est un bien précieux ». 
I'd be more likely to say « un précieux atout ». 

Timpeac, does "possession" in the bilingual example sound wrong to you? : 





> Le don de sang dépend entièrement de la générosité des personnes prêtes à partager leur *bien le plus précieux*, *leur santé. *Blood donation relies entirely on the generosity of people willing to share their *most precious possession: their health.*


 And if it does sound wrong, what would you replace it with?


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## timpeac

Nicomon said:


> Thank you, to both of you timpeac and mgarizona.
> 
> I personally see beauty as an asset, more so than a possession. However, the use of "possession" doesn't strike me as odd, when it comes to life/health.
> Hence my initial question. As I wrote earlier, I do associate vie/santé with « bien précieux », while I wouldn't say in French « la beauté est un bien précieux ».
> I'd be more likely to say « un précieux atout ».
> 
> Timpeac, does "possession" in the bilingual example sound wrong to you? :  And if it does sound wrong, what would you replace it with?


It does sound strange to me, yes, Nico - or perhaps lyrical. It sounds similar to anthropomorphism, making concrete something that isn't to highlight its importance. I would say "Blood donation relies entirely on the generosity of people to share the most precious gift possible: their health".


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## Nicomon

I should have though of "gift". I actually liike it better.


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## CarlosRapido

_le temps de sa faux *moissonne ce que l'homme a de plus beau*_

...reaps what man holds dearest?

@ mgarizona; with so many people trading on it, I am not so sure that beauty is an immaterial possession


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## Uncle Bob

So far it seems to me that most suggestions have put it into modern English style. Is that what you want or are you aiming for a more 17th century English or, at least, something that sounds like it?



mgarizona said:


> I would also argue against "reap" simply because in English 'reap' tends to imply 'gain the benefit of' and Time simply destroys.



Time destroys from the point of view of man but once one anthropomorphises time then he/she can happily "reap" or "harvest". (That's alongside Timpeac's arguments).


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## History Detective

Hi, everyone!  Thank you so much to all who have responded to my question.  I must say the conversation has been very interesting, though I apologize to have started some controversy.  Uncle Bob, you ask about whether I look for a modern or 17th Century style--a very good question!  I am hoping to translate to the closest I can get to what the poet in his time meant to say, and yet I am sure the pieces I've been working at translating bear much evidence of my modern-day English.  Racan lived from 1589 to 1670, so that would be what I'm hoping to bring alive in the translation.


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