    
Jack Foley
New member
Username: Foley
Post Number: 113
Registered: 01-2010
| | Posted on Monday, November 22, 2010 - 09:18 pm: | 
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SOME PLAY WITH VERLAINE--A FEW TRANSLATIONS
Chanson d’automne
Les sanglots longs
Des violons
De l’automne
Blessent mon coeur
D’une langueur
Monotone.
Tout suffocant
Et blême, quand
Sonne l’heure,
Je me souviens
Des jours anciens
Et je pleure;
Et je m’en vais
Au vent mauvais
Qui m’emporte
Deçà, delà,
Pareil à la
Feuille morte.
I tried to catch something of the sound and rhythm of the poem. I changed the violins to guitars—another “weeping” instrument.
Autumn Song
the lonely tears
of guitars
in fall
wound my heart
with a dark
call
pale, choking still
while the still
hour sounds
and I gaze
at dead days
all round
and I weep
to keep
so close to grief—
and I go
to and fro:
fallen leaf
A friend complained about the loss of “monotone.” Here’s a version of the first stanza which includes it, though I don’t think those “guitars” would be producing a “monotone”:
the lonely tears
of guitars
as I stand alone
wound my heart
with a dark
monotone
This is C.F. MacIntyre’s translation. It is far more literal than mine and includes more details from the poem, but I think it sounds just dreadful.
Autumn Song
With long sobs
the violin-throbs
of autumn wound
my heart with languorous
and monotonous
sound.
Choking and pale
when I mind the tale
the hours keep,
my memory strays
down other days
and I weep;
and I let me go
where ill winds blow,
now here, now there,
harried and sped,
even as a dead
leaf, anywhere.
Here is my second attempt:
Autumn Song
long lonely tears
of guitars
in fall
wound my heart
with their dark
call
choking still
while the still
hour sounds
and I gaze:
dead days
go round
I weep,
keep
to this dead grief—
go
to, fro:
fallen
leaf
This is perhaps what E.E. Cummings made of the poem:
l(a
le
af
fa
ll
s)
one
l
iness
And, finally, a homophonic version:
Chances Autumn
the angles long
that run along
the low drum
bless the cur,
the mariner’s
money ton
toots suffer, can
and blame her, canned,
son, sir,
gem soothe wen
day’s joys ascend
asia purr
asia many veh
oh, vent mo’ veh
keen import
dee da dee da
parade, aha
foyer, Mort!
*
Femme et chatte
Elle jouait avec sa chatte;
Et c’était merveille de voir
La main blanche et la blanche patte
S’ébattre dans l’ombre du soir.
Elle cachait, la scélérate,
Sous ses mitaines de fil noir
Ses meurtriers ongles d’agate,
Coupants et clairs comme un rasoir.
L’autre aussi faisait la sucrée
Et rentrait sa griffe acérée,
Mais le diable n’y perdait rien…
Et dans le boudoir où, sonore,
Tintait son rire aérien,
Brillaient quatre points de phosphore.
Woman and cat
She was playing with her cat
It was a marvelous sight:
The white hand and the white paw that
Played in the shadow of the night
And she hid, the little reprobate,
(Under those black silk mittens she wears)
The deadly claws—agate—
Cutting and razor clear.
The other made great pretense
(Drawing her claws in) of innocence
Ah, but the devil lost nothing there…
In the bedroom where—sweet shout!—
Her airy laughter was ringing out,
There shone four points—
the morning star.
Verlaine coined the term “poète maudit.” There is a slightly diabolical aspect to this poem—indeed, “le diable” shows up in it. The woman—to whom the word “diable” may refer—is a kind of witch playing with her familiar. The woman and cat are reflections of each other. (The cat is chatte, female.) The two are beautiful but dangerous; just now they are playing, but they can cause pain. The concluding line, literally “shone four points of phosphorus,” seems resonant but unclear. I think Verlaine is referring to the eyes of the woman and the cat—shining as they play. The word “phosphore” isn’t capitalized, but Phosphor or Phosphorus is the Morning Star. The word means “light-bringing” and is the exact Greek equivalent to the Latin “Lucifer.” Even as darkness comes, the woman and the cat—who have just a touch of the “maudit” about them—remind the poet of morning.
Il pleure dans mon Coeur…
Il pleut doucement sur la ville.
—Arthur Rimbaud
Il pleure dans mon Coeur
Comme il pleut sur la ville,
Quelle est cette langueur
Qui pénètre mon Coeur?
O bruit doux de la pluie
Par terre et sur les toits!
Pour un Coeur qui s’ennuie
O le chant de la pluie!
Il pleure sans raison
Dans ce Coeur qui s’écoeure.
Quoi! nulle trahison?
Ce deuil est sans raison.
C’est bien la pire peine
De ne savoir pourquoi,
Sans amour et sans haine,
Mon Coeur a tant de peine.
My heart weeps…
The rain falls softly on the city.
—Arthur Rimbaud
Pain in my heart
Like the rain in the street
What is this deep dart
That pierces my heart?
Sweet sound of the rain
On the earth and the roof
Heart sees: all vain—
The sound of the rain
No reason.
I weep and am sick:
No betrayal, nor treason
Offers a reason.
No greater pain
Than not to know why
No love or hate—vain.
My heart has so much pain.
*
Art Poétique
De la musique avant toute chose,
Et pour cela préfère l'Impair
Plus vague et plus soluble dans l'air,
Sans rien en lui qui pèse ou qui pose.
Il faut aussi que tu n'ailles point
Choisir tes mots sans quelque méprise :
Rien de plus cher que la chanson grise
Où l'Indécis au Précis se joint.
C'est des beaux yeux derrière des voiles,
C'est le grand jour tremblant de midi,
C'est, par un ciel d'automne attiédi,
Le bleu fouillis des claires étoiles !
Car nous voulons la Nuance encor,
Pas la Couleur, rien que la nuance !
Oh ! la nuance seule fiance
Le rêve au rêve et la flûte au cor !
Fuis du plus loin la Pointe assassine,
L'Esprit cruel et le Rire impur,
Qui font pleurer les yeux de l'Azur,
Et tout cet ail de basse cuisine !
Prends l'éloquence et tords-lui son cou !
Tu feras bien, en train d'énergie,
De rendre un peu la Rime assagie.
Si l'on n'y veille, elle ira jusqu'où ?
O qui dira les torts de la Rime ?
Quel enfant sourd ou quel nègre fou
Nous a forgé ce bijou d'un sou
Qui sonne creux et faux sous la lime ?
De la musique encore et toujours !
Que ton vers soit la chose envolée
Qu'on sent qui fuit d'une âme en allée
Vers d'autres cieux à d'autres amours.
Que ton vers soit la bonne aventure
Eparse au vent crispé du matin
Qui va fleurant la menthe et le thym...
Et tout le reste est littérature.
Ars Poetica
Music above all
And for that chose the Odd, the Uneven
Vaguer and melting into the air
Without anything in it that weighs it down or affixes it.
You must also not go about
Choosing your words without some scorn
Nothing sweeter than a gray song
In which the Wavering joins to the Precise
Beautiful eyes behind veils
A great day trembling at noon—
For a cool autumn sky,
The blue disorder of clear stars
For we want Nuance again
Not Color, nothing but Nuance!
Oh! Nuance alone joins
Dream to dream and the flute to the horn!
Flee from the asinine epigrammatic “Point,”
Cruel Wit and impure Laughter
Which make the eyes of the Deep Blue weep,
And all that garlic of low cuisine!
Take eloquence and wring its neck!
While you’re at it, you’d do well
To make Rhyme a little wiser—
If we’re not on the watch, where will it go?
Oh, who can tell the wrongs of Rhyme?
What deaf child or mad Negro
Has forged this cheap jewel
Which sounds hollow and false under the file—heard well?
Music again and always!
May your verse be a winged thing
Which we feel flies from one moving soul
Towards other skies and other loves.
May your verse be the lucky chance
Scattered on the shriveled-up wind of morning
That goes flowering of mint and thyme…
And everything else is literature. |
