O Canada

Adolphe-Basile Routhier (1880) and Robert Stanley Weir (1908)

What do you do when you want a national anthem, but your people speak two very different languages? I guess you could write the anthem in one of the two, and translate it into the other, and that’s what I’d long assumed had been the case with the national anthem of America’s good friend to the north, Canada. But it wasn’t really so. Here is what happened.

In 1880, the Lieutenant-Governor of Quebec, Theodore Robitaille, wanted an anthem ready for June 24, the feast day of Saint Jean-Baptiste, the patron saint of the province. The result was rousing and triumphant and majestic. The march-like melody, which you’d better get perfect if you are going to sing it at all, was written by the organist and composer Calixa Lavallée — a man, by the way; his baptismal name was Calixte, after Saint Calixtus, who among other things was for a long while the superintendent of catacombs along the Appian Way, which my family and I visited in 1998, though I had to keep an iron grip on Davey, four years old at the time, lest he wriggle free and get lost down there. We might well have known one of his kin or descendants, Ray Lavallee, professor of French at Providence College, because in fact Calixa Lavallée lived in Rhode Island for many years, and even joined the 4th Rhode Island Infantry at the onset of the Civil War in 1861, as a band-leader and musician. The man was something of a child prodigy, taught by his father, who taught him to play the organ by age 11. The elder Lavallée studied under Joseph Casavant, the patriarch of what may be the greatest organ-building company in the world — one of whose organs is in Woonsocket, that once Francophone mill city in Rhode Island, at the boyhood church of our Davey’s own organ teacher, Henri Saint-Louis. Small world, small world!

The lyrics were written by Adolphe Basile-Routhier, a judge and politician and poet, back in the days when a judge or a politician could be a poet too. The French lyrics are deeply religious. I’ll include them too in the text below. Most notable are the lines that affirm that the sons of Canada can wield the sword and bear the Cross; that their brows are crowned with the aureole of their patron, the Forerunner of the true God; that they shall repeat the victorious cry of their fathers, “For Christ and for the king!” For the French Canadians, those hardy farmers, trappers, lumbermen, and fishermen, the church was the warm beating heart of their lives. It’s why, if your village was on a lake, you might build your church with its front facing the water, because the people would arrive there by boat, or by horse and sled over the ice in the winter. If you want a feeling for that life, read the profound and deeply moving novel of life along the Lac Saint-Jean, Maria Chapdelaine, by Louis Hemon.

The song quickly became quite popular throughout Canada — for you must understand, there were and still are plenty of French speakers in certain areas of Manitoba (Portage-la-Prairie, Saint-Boniface), New Brunswick (Moncton, Edmundston), Nova Scotia (where we are now!), and Newfoundland (Cap Saint-Georges, Port-aux-Basques). But that meant that somebody had to provide lyrics in English. Those were written by one Robert Stanley Weir, another politician and poet. But Weir didn’t translate Routhier’s verses. He wrote his own, much less pointedly religious, and, to my ear, also less powerful and less of an affirmation of patriotic zeal. I don’t mean to say that the English lyrics are poor — only that I find them just a tad pallid by comparison with the French.

The English lyrics have been recently jiggered to get rid of the masculine and personal term “sons,” replaced by “all of us,” which doesn’t call up any image in the mind. I’ll give the lyrics as I find them in my copy of Twice 55 Community Songs, Canadian Edition, printed in 1917, in which the song appears with an asterisk after the author’s name, with the note: “Used by courtesy of the author.” Then I’ll give the French lyrics, with my prose translation. I love this song — and as always, I think that patriots understand each other even when they come from different nations.

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In English

Et en Francais!

1  O Canada!  Our home and native land!
True patriot love in all thy sons command.
With glowing hearts we see thee rise,
The true north strong and free,
And stand on guard, O Canada,
We stand on guard for thee!
Refrain.  O Canada! glorious and free!
We stand on guard, we stand on guard for thee!
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee!

2  O Canada! Where pines and maples grow,
Great prairies spread and lordly rivers flow,
How dear to us thy broad domain,
From East to Western Sea,
Thou land of hope for all who toil!
Thou True North, strong and free!  Refrain.

3  O Canada! Beneath thy shining skies
May stalwart sons and gentle maidens rise,
To keep thee steadfast through the years
From East to Western Sea,
Our Fatherland, our Motherland!
Our True North, strong and free!  Refrain.

4  Ruler Supreme, Who hearest humble prayer,
Hold our dominions in Thy loving care.
Help us to find, O God, in Thee
A lasting rich reward,
As waiting for the better day
We ever stand on guard.  Refrain.

FRENCH LYRICS:

1  Ô Canada! Terre de nos aïeux,
Ton front est ceint de fleurons glorieux!
Car ton bras sait porter l'épée,
Il sait porter la croix!
Ton histoire est une épopée
Des plus brillants exploits.
Et ta valeur, de foi trempée,
Protégera nos foyers et nos droits,
Protégera nos foyers et nos droits.

(O Canada, land of our ancestors, thy brow is garlanded with wreaths of glory! For thine arm knows how to wield the sword, how to bear the Cross!  Thy history is an epic of the most brilliant deeds, and thy valor, steeped in faith, will protect our hearths and our rights.)

2  Sous l'œil de Dieu, près du fleuve géant,
Le Canadien grandit en espérant.
Il est né d'une race fière,
Béni fut son berceau.
Le ciel a marqué sa carrière
Dans ce monde nouveau.
Toujours guidé par sa lumière,
Il gardera l'honneur de son drapeau,
Il gardera l'honneur de son drapeau.

(Beneath the eye of God, by the mighty river, the Canadian grows tall in hope.  He is born of a proud race, with blessings on his cradle; Heaven has set its seal on his career in this new world; ever guided by its light, he will guard the honor of his flag.)

3  De son patron, précurseur du vrai Dieu,
Il porte au front l'auréole de feu.
Ennemi de la tyrannie
Mais plein de loyauté,
Il veut garder dans l'harmonie,
Sa fière liberté;
Et par l'effort de son génie,
Sur notre sol asseoir la vérité,
Sur notre sol asseoir la vérité.

(From his patron, the Forerunner of the true God, he bears on his brow the circlet of fire.  Foe of tyranny, but filled with fidelity to the law, he seeks to guard, in harmony, his proud freedom, and by the force of his inborn power, to establish the truth on our soil.)

4  Amour sacré du trône et de l'autel,
Remplis nos cœurs de ton souffle immortel!
Parmi les races étrangères,
Notre guide est la loi :
Sachons être un peuple de frères,
Sous le joug de la foi.
Et répétons, comme nos pères,
Le cri vainqueur : « Pour le Christ et le roi! » 
Le cri vainqueur : « Pour le Christ et le roi! » 

(Sacred love of throne and altar, fill our hearts with thine immortal breath!  Amidst peoples strange to us, our guide is the law: let us live as a people of brotherhood, under the yoke of the faith.  And let us repeat, as did our fathers, the victorious cry, "For Christ and the king!"

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