L’Oiseau Bleu, a journey through female mythology

In 1935, the French composer Louis Beydts completes a song cycle for high voice called Chansons pour les oiseaux, on poems by symbolist poet Paul Fort. In order, the songs are titled La colombe poignardée, Le petit pigeon bleu, L’oiseau bleu and Le petit serin en cage.

This article is about the third mélodie in the cycle, L’oiseau bleu (The blue bird), a true testimony to the essence of French mélodie as musical consideration and expression of French poetry.

To understand better how the music composed by Beydts pays homage to Paul Fort’s poem, we must understand the poem and what it is itself an expression of. Paul Fort as a poet and dramaturg was part of the symbolist movement in France, starting in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. At first glance, the poem L’oiseau bleu seems a random series of female names. A value dear to Paul Fort was the consolidation of many into one, as a stronger unit throughout life and against death: Faisons de nos coeurs un seul coeur […]nos deux corps seront plus faciles à croquer, formant un seul corps (Make of our hearts one heart - our bodies will be easier to devour (allegory of Death devouring bodies) when merged into one).

As such, one can perceive L’oiseau bleu as consolidating many females icons into one beautiful, strong, versatile and “féerique” entity: the blue bird.

Paul Fort was a fervent admirer of Belgian writer Maurice Maeterlinck and evolved in the same Parisian circles as painter Jean Metzinger.

In 1908, Maeterlinck wrote a play called L’oiseau bleu. In 1913, Jean Metzinger completed one of the paintings of his cubist period, L’oiseau bleu. In 1913 also, French writer René Druart wrote a short story named L’oiseau bleu which told of a beautiful blue bird living in a legendary forest, wasting away with sadness. The blue bird used to fly in the world and bring wonder to people. However, it perceived that wonder as a betrayal of their imagination and a cruel reminder that their world was ugly while he came from a beautiful legendary land they would never see. A voice encouraged him to go back to the world, instead of staying unhappy in the forest and let the hands of people yearning for wonder reach out to him and touch him. Unfortunately, once back among mortals, the blue bird is chased, grabbed violently, attacked and hated (the blue bird in Metzinger’s painting is a representation of that stage of the tale). The blue bird eventually returns to the legendary forest and dies of sorrow.

While we can observe that Paul Fort was inspired by the title and fairytale essence of the play by Maeterlinck, his poem’s content does not abide by the desperate character in Druart’s tale and is more closely woven with Metzinger’s cubist painting: an ensemble of shapes (or names, in the instance of the poem) forming one larger entity or scene. Perhaps a wide array of personalities and symbols used as a diverse means of defining one constant idea: women and the love they represent. Facets shining differently in different lights, but still part of and window to one diamond:

Aliénor: name associated with the meaning “God is light” and “compassion”, derived from the name Éléonore in the region of Occitanie (South of France, the West side of the Mediterranean coast). The most notable Aliénor is no doubt Aliénor d’Aquitaine, a duchess from the West of France, who became queen of France and then England throughout her life.

Éléonore: the name is the root of the previous name, however, it is unclear where it came from exactly, with many origins cited over the centuries. That being said, the consensus seems to be that it surfaced first around the tenth century. 

Genièvre: there can be confusion here due to the spelling of the name in the poem. Genièvre as a first name is largely unknown, and as a noun refers to the juniper plant. However, Guenièvre, which differs only by one letter, is much more widespread as a first name, and well-known in Gaelic mythology (wife of King Arthur, in love with Lancelot du Lac). Ernest Chausson did spell her name Genièvre in his opera Le roi Arthus, so we may suppose that the spelling simply disappeared over the years and in modern consciousness the name is known to be spelled with the letter “u”.

Ilse: first name issued from the same root Elizabeth, meaning “God is my oath”, or “she who worships God”.

Nausicaa:  daughter of Pheacian rulers, a people descendants of Poseidon and the Giants in Greek mythology. Nausicaa welcomes Odysseus (Ulysses) after his ship is wrecked on the coast of their island, and rescues him by bringing him back to Ithaca.

Viviane: first name meaning “she who is full of life”. The name is also found in Gaelic mythology: she is the Lady of the Lake in Arthurian legends.

Ève: first name derived from the Hebrew meaning “alive”. Biblical character of the first woman.

Blancheflor: medieval form of the first name Blanche, also found in Celtic legends as Tristan’s mother. Means “white flower”.

Urgèle: this form is very rare and was referenced in the 1760s as the title of an opera (La fée Urgèle by Egidio Duni in 1762). It may have originated in medieval tales and be one of the different names of Viviane, the Lady of the Lake in the Arthurian legends. The 1762 opera also found inspiration in the Canterbury Tales.

Gwendoloéna: here is another example where the spelling of the name differs from the accepted version linked to a specific legend, as Guendoloéna is a legendary queen on the isle of Brittany (modern-day Great Britain).

Carotte: while the name was used in the eighth century as a man’s name, it is more probable that the reference we find here to this name is an affectionate nickname for a girl with red hair, although I cannot be certain.

Céphise: reference to the naiad in the Greek myth, more specifically introduced in Montesquieu’s tale Céphise et l’Amour. Céphise, a young naiad walking in the woods, stumbles upon Love (Cupid) asleep and, profoundly hurt by men, decides to clip his wings so he no longer flies from one person to the next. When he awakens, Love is brought back to his mother Venus, who helps his wings grow back. Once on the mend, Love decides to take revenge upon Céphise and makes her the most fickle of women.

Amalthée: feeding figure of Zeus in Greek mythology, a goat and motherly character, who provides milk to Zeus as an infant and uses her broken horn as a feeding medium, creating the symbol of the Cornucopia.

Rosalys: literally “roses” and “lilies”, may refer to a female hermit from the twelfth century who is said to have protected the people of Palermo from the plague.

Rosalinde rose: referred to as above for “Rosalys”, also translated as “rose and soft”, it can be seen as a declension of the previous name and the character of the benevolent hermit.

Eunice: name meaning “victorious”, she was one of the fifty nereids in Greek mythology, escort to Poseidon’s carriage.

Éione: also written as Éioné, another nereid, known to be the deity of sandy shores. More recently, the name baptized a city on the shores of the river running in Mesopotamy from Bulgaria to Greece, the Strymon.

Galatée: the name comes from the Greek and means “with the milky white skin”. Two characters come to mind: - one of the fifty nereids, which would make sense and continues the ongoing theme in this section of the poem which seems to invoke nereids. Galatée as a nereid is known to accompany Achilles’ mother as she mourns his future passing; but also to be in love with the shepherd Acis, a union punished by the giant Polyphemus who kills Acis out of jealousy. Galatée then turns the blood of her beloved into a river in which she regularly bathes. - Galatée is also the name of the statue Pygmalion carves as an expression of his vision of the ideal woman, and later falls in love with. Venus eventually gives her life.

Sylphes, nymphes, apothéose: these three words sum up the types of characters brought forth in the first part of the poem. Sylphs are wind genies, proper to French and Celtic mythologies. We can say that the Lady of the Lake, and the references to her in this poem tie into the sylph category. Nereids are lower-ranked deities which refer to the category of sea nymphs (nymphs are always associated with an element of nature). Finally, one must note that the last category is in the singular form: apothéose. The term means the deification of dead heroes. We can see many characters in this past section whose contemporary imprint can be considered as such but the singular form of the word as written by Paul Fort is not anodyne and brings us to see beyond just another simple categorization. Sylphs, nymphs and all the names mentioned in this section may be the elements, the “cubes”, of one apotheosis: facets forming one soaring blue bird - this ties in Druart’s tale of the blue bird as the representation of wonder, whatever reaction he provokes in people. The soaring melodic line of Beydts certainly emphasizes and supports this point.

Muses: the term is rather imprecise in comparison to the rest of the poem’s other elements. Its placement at the beginning of this second section of the poem, plus the upcoming characters brought forth by Paul Fort, may indicate a simple announcement of what is to come.

Musette: the etymology of the name describes it as “she who brings the wine of life”: a woman who inspires artists by certain qualities or beauty or simply being. The wine of life is a typically French analogy, but it may make more sense in other cultures as the salt or spice of life.

Mélusine: a fresh-water spirit or fairy present in European folklore. She is often depicted half-woman, half-snake or fish and her tale originated in the Poitou region of France. She is said to have been a fairy cursed with immortality. The only way to lift her curse would be to marry a knight who would agree never to lay eyes on her on Saturdays, which is the day her legs turn to scales. If he were to see her, she would forever take on this half-monster shape. She met a lord from Lusignan, a town near Poitiers and fell in love with him. She agreed to marry him and helped him build many castles with her powers, as he agreed never to see her on Saturdays. After they ascertained his power over the region with many castles and had multiple children together, the lord had some concerns about his wife, as their children were all somewhat deformed, and he started to wonder what secret she may keep from him on Saturdays. One Saturday, he surprised her while she was bathing and immediately saw her fish tail. The fairy turned in a flying siren and flew away, shrieking, cursing the lord and his empire to destruction.

Musidora, muse adorée: this reference is absolutely fascinating, a break from folklore and mythology, and a direct link to the period of the poem: contrary to the rest of the characters in the poem, who are all from folklore, fairytales and mythology, Musidora was a well-known actress in the late nineteenth century, early twentieth. She was the muse of director Louis Feuillade and had such an impact on culture at the time that the poet Louis Aragon nicknamed her “the tenth muse”  (there are nine muses in Greek mythology).

Germaine tourangelle: legend part of the folklore of the Touraine region, located about two hours South West of Paris. “Germaine tourangelle” is mentioned in Paul Fort’s book Ballades Françaises, first as “Hélène tourangelle”, a female huntress with beautiful silver-lined green eyes. The poet is deeply in love with Hélène and Paul Fort creates the character of Germaine for the name’s similar sounding to “j’aime” which means “I love”. The not-quite homophone is used by Paul Fort as a segue to develop on the poet’s love for Hélène/Germaine but limited information in provided in the Germaine tourangelle tale about the character itself.

Ondine: from the Latin “unda”, which means waves. In Paul Fort’s poem, it most likely refers to the fairytale “Undine”, a German folk tale told by French author LaMotte-Fouqué in his eponymous book “Ondine”. The tale is about a young water spirit who marries a knight in order to gain a soul. Its mention in Paul Fort’s poem and here in Beydts’ music is not the only use in classical music: two German operas, one by Lortzing, the other by Hoffmann, are named after and based on the tale. We can also easily link its story to the one of The Little Mermaid.

Calliope: one of the nine muses in Greek mythology and mother of Orpheus. The name in Greek kalliope means “the beautiful song, beautiful singing”. Calliope is also considered the patron of epic poetry.

Clio dorée: in Greek mythology, one of the nine muses, whose name means to celebrate, to sing. Muse of History, she is often depicted holding a book and accompanies Apollo’s flock.

Vénus Anadyomède: Venus rising from the sea is a well-know representation of the goddess throughout art history. Something worth noting here is that the actual name is Vénus anadyomène not anadyomède. Regardless of this particular depiction, Venus is forever known as the symbol of love and sexuality. 

Irène: also Eiréné from the Greek word meaning peace. Daughter of Zeus, she represents peace and her mother is one of the Hours, a group of female deities symbolizing the seasons.

Roxane: this name means dawn and we first encounter it when reading about Alexander the Great’s wife Roxana, a princess he married when she was in her late teens or early twenties after falling in love with her at first sight. She was the only one to give him a legitimate son, but after his death, both Roxana and her son were murdered.

Io: Greek for “scream”, a mortal priestess of the temple of Hera. Zeus fell in love with Io, who at first rejected him. Myths have him turn Io into a cow to hide her from his wife but some versions says Hera herself turned her into a cow - in any case, Io ended up back in Hera’s temple. Zeus eventually freed Io, still in the form of a cow, and Hera, to avenge her loss, condemned Io to wander the earth, restless, while being constantly stung by a gadfly (cattle fly). She eventually crossed over to Egypt, where Zeus restored her human form, and she bore him a child.

The poem then goes into an enumeration of the categories of women it just mentioned: queens, empresses, fairies, voices happy to be fairies…Ah! The ensuing vocalise must be sung with extreme precision, filled with enthusiasm and delight.

Nourdjebane: as far as my research took me, this name is not found “as is" anywhere else than in Fort’s poem. Decomposing the name, “Nourd” means “from the North” and the only reference to the name “Jebane” I was able to find is in the Dictionnaire de la Langue Française by Emile Littré (published in 1874), page 1952, where in the historic definition of the French word sire (gentleman, sire in English), Jebane refers to a woman from Fontaines-sur-Saône, a village north of Lyon in France.

Badroulboudour: original name of the princess Aladdin falls in love with in the One Thousand and One Nights / Arabian Nights tale. The name in Arabic means full moon of full moons, the full moon representing female beauty.

La Sulamite et la Sultane: those two words are in direct reference to Badroulboudour and picture her origins and evolution as a character in Arabian Nights. Aladdin is being led to the princess by the jinni in the bottle. The jinni was locked in the bottle in the first place because it had displeased king Solomon: the female form of Solomon, declined from shalom, meaning peace in Hebrew, is “sulamite” (of Solomon), here introducing her as a direct by-product of the king. La sultane is what she becomes as a daughter of the sultan, when she marries Aladdin.

Yseut: while the name is familiar to most as Isolda or Iseult, the spelling here indicates Paul Fort refers directly to the Norman tale from the 12th century by Béroul “Tristan”, the earliest known depiction on the tale, of which only one copy remains at the Paris Bibliothèque Nationale. Many versions of the story of Tristan and Iseult have circulated since the 12th century, but Béroul’s version is known as the onset of the common branch versions of the tale, where the emphasis resides more in the suffering the lovers experience while in exile, and the impossible, forbidden quality of their love affair, instead of the more romantic and chevaleresque depictions found in the courtly branch versions of the tale.

Isoline: this name refers to a fairytale by Camille Mendès, which was set as an opera by André Messager in 1888. The tale speaks of a princess cursed to become a man in her bridal bed on the day of her wedding. After a few adventures, Isoline and her prince Isolin are wedded, but not before her fairy godmother ensures Isolin turns into a woman upon their first kiss, since Isoline is cursed to turn into a man herself.

Peau d’Âne: translates in English to donkey skin, a seventeenth-century tale by Charles Perrault speaking of a princess whose father, grief-stricken by his wife’s death, sets out to fulfill his promise to her to find a new wife, equally or more beautiful than she was. The king’s wealth and power come from his most prized possession: a donkey which produces gold and diamonds. After much research, the king falls in love with a portrait of a woman he is surprised to learn is his own daughter. The princess is rather taken aback to find out her own father wants to marry her and, following the advice of her fairy godmother, states that she will marry him only if he delivers different types of extravagant dresses (moon-colored, weather-colored, sun-colored) to test him. After he successfully gives in to her requests, she decides the only thing she can ask for that he cannot give her is the skin of his prized donkey. The king surprisingly agrees and leaves the skinned animal on her bed one night while she is asleep. Mortified and determined not to marry her father, she flees the castle, dressed in the donkey’s skin, and settles in a dilapidated cabin in the forest, where she meets a wandering prince. She bakes the prince a cake and leaves her ring in it. Smitten, the prince searches for her in vain and finally decides to call upon every young woman in his kingdom to try on the ring, until he is reunited with the woman he fell in love with. There is a great French movie from 1971 that is absolutely worth watching, with Catherine Deneuve as Peau d’Âne, Jacques Perrin as the Prince and Jean Marais as the King. The music by Michel Legrand and the period-meets-technology humorous take on the tale makes the movie a must-watch.

As an homage to artists dear to him, following his passion for symbolism, legends and folklore, Paul Fort delivered a poem that is a journey through female mythology as an expression of the symbolism of Love women can represent, whether as lovers, mothers, godmothers, benevolent spirits, or wives. Louis Beydts gives that journey the perfect vector; a cubist harmonic progression which gives a different flavor, shape and importance to each name and story, while linking them together in a smooth and glowing thread, culminating in a silent, all-encompassing, slow-motion firework-like climactic umbrella of Love: amour, amour, amour, amour…