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IEMOUURE POUR VOUS DOUCHER - VNE SEUL ME PLESSE


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This seems to be a hard one.

 

No results on the web. (Family members with much better knowledge of the French language can´t find out the meaning of the words. IEMOUURE = l´amour ?)

 

tok095n.jpg

 

ca. 1500-1700 AD.,

Copper Jeton (25 mm / 4,44 g),

Obv.: IEMOUURE POUR VOUS DOUCHER , Amor in a heart has shot one arrow left to a burning heart(?).

Rev.: VNE SEUL ME PLESSE , Amor has shot 6 arrows right to a heart (fixed to an aim?), one meeting the heart, the rest not.

.

 

rgds.

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My feeble attempt

 

Je moure pour vous doucher = I die for your shower ?

 

Une seul Me plesse = alone to me be pliable/accepting?

 

Or in plain english, I die for your (love to) shower on me, alone to me be pliable/accepting?

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LOL Arminius -- I guess this jeton is more common than I thought! Link to previous CP post on this same jeton

 

I really like the translation "I'm dying to give you a shower" :ninja: The (intended) text can only be "Je meure pour vous toucher" and "Une seule [flèche/personne] me blesse"'-- "I am dying to touch you / I die if I touch you" and "Only one [arrow, person] wounds me". These are typical French early 16th-century conceits, very much in the Petrarchan tradition, along with the woodcut-like depictions of Cupid shooting arrows. I don't think this jeton is that old, though, and I still think it's a later German creation, given the very un-French misspellings that suggest a foreign pronunciation ("ou" for "eu" in "mouure"; the unaspirated [t] in "toucher" probably sounds like a [d] to a German speaker, who would also likely mis-hear "blesse" as "plesse." So far I've not learned anything new about this jeton... maybe someone new will see your post Arminius and come up with some more info!

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I was also thinking plesser should be blesser - plesser just doesn't seem to resemble anything, but blesser is to wound, and one arrow does go into the heart. I love the confusion created by non-standardized spelling of an relatively unfamiliar language ;)

 

Really great token!

 

So we have, "I die to touch you" (To touch you kills me / Your touch kills me, very poetic) on one side, not sure what is going on there LOL..

 

On the other side, cupid is a really crummy aim and misses from close range with most of his shots, finally hits with one arrow; "A single (arrow) wounds me".

 

Sorry, but I don't get it. ;) which is cool :ninja:

 

Now what's the story behind the images?

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Does it not look like the heat from the heart is condensing into rain clouds to rain down/shower? pluie se doucher :ninja:

 

My attempt was "I die for your (love to) shower on me" ie rain down on me, not "I'm dying to give you a shower" that is a misquote! Completely different meaning!

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:ninja: possibly.. you can really let your imagination go on something as werid as this, I will have to get me one some day.

 

The clouds and rain had meanings that were associated with love, fertility & life by many different peoples in the past.

 

The natural phenomena was not well understood till modern times, superstition was rife etc.

 

Even now "love rain down on me" is a modern song lyric.

 

It is good to let your imagination run wild now and again, but I did not imagine doucher ;)

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But was "doucher" a verb back then, or is it more modern?

 

Excellent question -- My Petit Robert gives a date of 1642 for doucher (from douche, 1588); toucher on the other hand is much older, from 1080. The dates don't really settle the question, though, of course; it could be a later piece.

 

[later edit] Something I hadn't really thought of: My Robert also notes that toucher is commonly used to mean "to strike or hit a target," as a boxer hitting his foe, or a fencer landing a hit (which is why we say "Touché!" when someone lands an especially cutting remark), or an arrow striking a target: toucher la cible. Poets who copied Petrarch's style (such as Bembo, and later southern French poets) revelled in these sorts of mannerist paradoxes, which often portray falling in love as a violent displacement of the self, to the point of confusion between lover and beloved. So the phrase "Je meurs pour vous toucher" conflates viewer and viewed (the gaze is often represented as a piercing arrow), meaning: I, the male lover, die when I see you; your gaze kills me. Does this make any sense? :ninja: I wrote my doctoral thesis on Scève's Délie of 1544, a cycle of 100 poems interspersed with woodcuts, many very similar to the images on this jeton. In fact this is why I got into coins in the first place -- the iconography on French jetons.

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