Description
Étienne de LA BOÉTIE. Vers François de feu Estienne De La Boetie... Small booklet in-4, burgundy morocco, triple fillet, two-ribbed spine decorated with title in full, interior lace, gilt edges ( Godillot). De Backer, 326 // Tchemerzine-Scheler, III-784 // USTC, 29152. 19 f. / A-E4 (the last blank) / 100x 162 mm. Extremely rare first edition, dated 1571. Étienne de La Boétie lived a short life, but left us his poetry and his Discours de la servitude volontaire, one of the masterpieces of French literature. Born in Sarlat in 1530, he was orphaned at an early age and sent to the Collège de Bordeaux, where he received a solid education. Appointed councillor to the Bordeaux Parliament in 1552, he befriended Montaigne, who was then a member of the Court of Aides in Périgueux. Essais of the touching friendship between the two men. He embarked on a literary career at the same time as practicing law, translating Xenophon, Plutarch, and then composing his most famous work, his Discours... in protest against the tyranny of kings. He contracted an illness at an early age and died in 1563, at the age of thirty-three, in the arms of Montaigne. This rare volume of poems was published by Montaigne in homage to La Boétie, as a follow-up to Xenophon's Mesnagerie de Xenophon, which he had also published the same year. The verses of François de La Boétie are preceded by an epistle from Montaigne to M. de Foix, ambassador to Venice (f.2-4) in which he recalls the memory of the dearly departed and his wish to publish his writings lest they disappear: i'ai prins party qu'il seroit bien plus excusable à luy, d'avoir ensevely avec soy tant derares faveurs du ciel, qu'il ne seroit à moi d'enseburir encore la cognoissance qu'il en avait donné m'en. [I have] recueilly tout ce que i'ai trouvé d'entier parmy ses brouillars & papiers éparses ici & là, le iouët du vent et de ses estudes... La Boétie's collection of verses opens with a long address to his wife Marguerite de Carle, in which he denies ever wanting to translate: Si mal i'escris n'ayant prins de personne A nul qu'à moy le blasme ie n'en donne Si i'ai honneur à cela que i'invente I'm satisfied with this honor of mine But for her, and since she so desires, he will translate Ariosto's song of Bradamant: But to this blow by your command I turned Bradamant's mourning to you [... ] Ie tourneois pour toy non pas des vers Mais bien ie croy tout le monde à l'envers [... ] To obey the blink of your eye I would turn on it under the heavens... Following said Chant XXXII of Bradamant's complaints, a song and 24 sonnets. The whole is in decasyllables, except for the sonnets composed in alexandrines. Copies with the date 1571 are very rare. The following year, the publisher printed a new title, dated 1572, in order to join this volume of verse to the Xenophon's Mesnagerie, which he had just published. The USTC lists only three copies kept in institutions. A very fine copy, despite minor marginal restorations.
93
Étienne de LA BOÉTIE. Vers François de feu Estienne De La Boetie... Small booklet in-4, burgundy morocco, triple fillet, two-ribbed spine decorated with title in full, interior lace, gilt edges ( Godillot). De Backer, 326 // Tchemerzine-Scheler, III-784 // USTC, 29152. 19 f. / A-E4 (the last blank) / 100x 162 mm. Extremely rare first edition, dated 1571. Étienne de La Boétie lived a short life, but left us his poetry and his Discours de la servitude volontaire, one of the masterpieces of French literature. Born in Sarlat in 1530, he was orphaned at an early age and sent to the Collège de Bordeaux, where he received a solid education. Appointed councillor to the Bordeaux Parliament in 1552, he befriended Montaigne, who was then a member of the Court of Aides in Périgueux. Essais of the touching friendship between the two men. He embarked on a literary career at the same time as practicing law, translating Xenophon, Plutarch, and then composing his most famous work, his Discours... in protest against the tyranny of kings. He contracted an illness at an early age and died in 1563, at the age of thirty-three, in the arms of Montaigne. This rare volume of poems was published by Montaigne in homage to La Boétie, as a follow-up to Xenophon's Mesnagerie de Xenophon, which he had also published the same year. The verses of François de La Boétie are preceded by an epistle from Montaigne to M. de Foix, ambassador to Venice (f.2-4) in which he recalls the memory of the dearly departed and his wish to publish his writings lest they disappear: i'ai prins party qu'il seroit bien plus excusable à luy, d'avoir ensevely avec soy tant derares faveurs du ciel, qu'il ne seroit à moi d'enseburir encore la cognoissance qu'il en avait donné m'en. [I have] recueilly tout ce que i'ai trouvé d'entier parmy ses brouillars & papiers éparses ici & là, le iouët du vent et de ses estudes... La Boétie's collection of verses opens with a long address to his wife Marguerite de Carle, in which he denies ever wanting to translate: Si mal i'escris n'ayant prins de personne A nul qu'à moy le blasme ie n'en donne Si i'ai honneur à cela que i'invente I'm satisfied with this honor of mine But for her, and since she so desires, he will translate Ariosto's song of Bradamant: But to this blow by your command I turned Bradamant's mourning to you [... ] Ie tourneois pour toy non pas des vers Mais bien ie croy tout le monde à l'envers [... ] To obey the blink of your eye I would turn on it under the heavens... Following said Chant XXXII of Bradamant's complaints, a song and 24 sonnets. The whole is in decasyllables, except for the sonnets composed in alexandrines. Copies with the date 1571 are very rare. The following year, the publisher printed a new title, dated 1572, in order to join this volume of verse to the Xenophon's Mesnagerie, which he had just published. The USTC lists only three copies kept in institutions. A very fine copy, despite minor marginal restorations.
You may also like
