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Rossetti Archive Textual Transcription

Document Title: A Doctor's Advice
Author: Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Date of Composition: 1866
Type of Manuscript: holograph fair copy
Scribe: DGR

The full Rossetti Archive record for this transcribed document is available.

Image of page [1r] page: [1r]
Note: The title is added by WMR at the lower right of the page.
Manuscript Addition: 13
Editorial Description: WMR's pagination number in upper right corner
Manuscript Addition: The translation is I think Gabriel's own doing
Editorial Description: WMR's note at the lower left.
Manuscript Addition: A Doctor's Advice
Editorial Description: WMR's note at the lower right.
more about A Doctor's Advice

Translated from an inscription in ill-spelt French

verse scratched in the pane of a window at the New Inn,

Winchelsea.

  • My doctor's issued his decree
  • That too much wine is killing me,
  • And furthermore his ban he hurls
  • Against my touching naked girls.
  • How then? must I no longer share
  • Good wine or beauties dark & fair?
  • Doctor, goodbye, my sail's unfurl'd,
  • I'm off to try the other world.
N.B.

Queen Square

1771
Image of page [1r] page: [1r]
more about this work

This is the French inscription, all but bad spelling

which I can't remember.

  • Mon médecin me dit souvent
  • Que trop de vin me tue,
  • Et me défend absolument
  • De toucher aux femmes nues.
  • Faut il renoncer au bon vin,
  • À la brune et à la blonde?
  • Adieu, monsieur le médecin,
  • Je pars pour l'autre monde.
N.B.

Queen Square

1771
Electronic Archive Edition: 1
Source File: 1-1866.dukems.rad.xml
Copyright: By permission of the Special Collections Library, Duke University