Mots d'Heures: Gousses, Rames: The d'Antin Manuscript


Mots d'Heures: Gousses, Rames: The d'Antin Manuscript, published in 1967 by Luis d'Antin van Rooten, is purportedly a collection of poems written in French with learned glosses. In fact, they are English-language nursery rhymes written homophonically as a nonsensical French text ; that is, as an English-to-French homophonic translation. The result is not merely the English nursery rhyme but that nursery rhyme as it would sound if spoken in English by someone with a strong French accent. Even the manuscript's title, when spoken aloud, sounds like "Mother Goose Rhymes" with a strong French accent; it literally means "Words of Hours: Pods, Paddles."
Here is van Rooten's version of Humpty Dumpty:

Nursery rhymes

The original English nursery rhymes that correspond to the numbered poems in Mots d'Heures: Gousses, Rames are as follows:
  1. Humpty Dumpty
  2. Old King Cole
  3. Hey Diddle Diddle
  4. Old Mother Hubbard
  5. There Was a Little Man and He Had a Little Gun
  6. Hickory Dickory Dock
  7. Jack Sprat
  8. Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater
  9. There Was a Crooked Man
  10. Little Miss Muffet
  11. Jack and Jill
  12. There Was a Little Girl She Had a Little Curl
  13. Little Jack Horner
  14. Ride a Cockhorse to Banbury Cross
  15. Tinker Tailor Soldier Sailor
  16. Rain Rain Go Away
  17. Pat-a-cake Pat-a-cake Baker's Man
  18. Mistress Mary Quite Contrary
  19. Roses Are Red Violets Are Blue
  20. Tom Tom the Piper's Son
  21. Mary Had a Little Lamb
  22. Cross Patch Draw the Latch
  23. See Saw Margery Daw
  24. The Queen of Hearts She Made Some Tarts
  25. One Two Buckle My Shoe
  26. There Was an Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe
  27. Ladybird Ladybird Fly Away Home
  28. Monday's Child
  29. Lucy Locket
  30. Curly Locks
  31. Here Is the Church, Here Is the Steeple
  32. Simple Simon
  33. I Do Not Like Thee Doctor Fell
  34. Pussy Cat Pussy Cat
  35. Little Bo Peep
  36. Baa Baa Black Sheep
  37. Polly Put the Kettle On
  38. Lock the Dairy Door
  39. This Little Pig Went to Market
  40. Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep

Secondary use

Ten of the Mots d'Heures: Gousses, Rames have been set to music by Lawrence Whiffin.

Similar works

An earlier example of homophonic translation is "Frayer Jerker" in Anguish Languish.
A later book in the English-to-French genre is N'Heures Souris Rames, published in 1980 by Ormonde de Kay. It contains some forty nursery rhymes, among which are Coucou doux de Ledoux , Signe, garçon. Neuf Sikhs se pansent and Hâte, carrosse bonzes .
A similar work in German-English is Mörder Guss Reims: The Gustav Leberwurst Manuscript by John Hulme. The dust jacket, layout and typography are similar in style and appearance to the original Mots d'Heures. The book contains a different selection of nursery rhymes.

Raymond Roussel

Raymond Roussel, was a French author, whose writings are considered to have influenced the Surrealists. Roussel, in writing his novel Locus Solus and elsewhere, used a technique that involved putting together in different contexts words that sound similar. The result produces unexpected and even irrational new meanings, and is a bit similar to van Rooten’s technique when he wrote Mots d'Heures: Gousses, Rames. The two books differ in that Roussel’s technique doesn’t involve bilingualism or humor, at least not in the same way. According to Marcel Jean, the surrealist artist, Marcel Duchamp, discovered Mots D'Heures: Gousses, Rames, and shared it with others.

Publication history

  • 1967, USA, Viking Adult,, hardcover, 40 pp.
  • 1967, UK, Grossman,, 43 pp.
  • 1968, UK, Angus & Robertson,, May 1968, hardcover, 80 pp.
  • 1977, UK, Angus & Robertson,, De Luxe Ed edition, November 17, 1977, 40 pp.
  • 1980, US, Penguin,, November 20, 1980, paperback, 80 pp.
  • 2009, UK, Blue Door,, 29 October 2009, hardcover, 48 pp.