Les yeux bleus
Vont aux cieux.
Les yeux gris
Vont au paradis.
Les yeux verts
Vont en enfer.
Les yeux noirs
Vont au purgatoire.
Blue eyes
to heaven rise.
Grey eyes
go to paradise.
Green eyes
in hell tell lies
Black eyes
in purgatory get wise.
Notes
Literal translation:
Blue eyes
Go to heaven.
Grey eyes
Go to paradise.
Green eyes
Go to hell.
Black eyes
Go to purgatory.
Monique wrote, "I didn't know this one, but when I was a child, we would taunt other children by telling them any line from the rhyme below that would apply to them and we would answer back in the same way:
Yeux bleus,
Yeux d'amoureux.
Yeux verts
Yeux de vipère.
Yeux marron,
Yeux de cochon.
Which translates literally to…
Blue eyes,
Lover's eyes.
Green eyes,
Adder's eyes.
Brown eyes,
Swine's eyes.
I don't remember grey and black eyes being mentioned."
Thanks and Acknowledgements
Thanks to Monique Palomares for the 2nd version of this rhyme of for all of the English translations. The 1st version can be found in The Nursery Rhyme Book, edited by Andrew Lang and illustrated by L. Leslie Brooke (1897).
Merci beaucoup!
