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J'avais
en effet, en toute sincerite d'esprit,
pris l'engagement de le rendre a son etat
primitif de fils du Soleil.
I
have indeed, in all sincerity of spirit
taken the pledge to restore him to his
primitive state as child of the Sun.
"Vagabonds"
Illuminations
I
began translating Illuminations of Rimbaud at about age twenty,
the same age at which Rimbaud quit writing. I did not, however,
complete my translations until I was around thirty. Since that time,
I have published about ten of my Rimbaud translations, but have
never ceased working on them. Michael Hamburger, the great English
translator of writers like Rilke and Paul Celan, once told me that
translations have a brief shelf life. And since Rimbaud's work still
speaks to contemporary issues, and in a sense to present day sensibilities
of those who are still interested in poetry--I feel no shame in
offering yet another version of Rimbaud to newer audiences.
The market is glutted with Rimbaud, but so is the concert hall with
Beethoven's Ninth Symphony and Handel's Messiah. Performances can
be pedestrian, but where there is enough technical excellence, and
inspired performers, the work still renews itself with each passing
decade. Translators are like orchestral conductors: They are always
rethinking the score. A conductor's job is not only to inspire his
audience, but to delve even deeper into the work, providing the
work has depth. A superficial work need only be translated once,
while a masterpiece can be reworked forever. I discovered how important
it is for a translator not only to be inspired by the poetry, but
to probe the sensibility of its creator, to connect the energies
of one mind with another. If a translator is to be successful, he
or she must take risks. It requires organic understanding, intuition,
and technical expertise. To find the pathway to Rimbaud, one must
walk it. To understand what Rimbaud meant by desordre des sens,
one must experience it. The alternative is to translate words, without
ever discovering language. To translate a great poet is a perilous
journey for both the mind and the pen. The translator must strive
to reincarnate, to find a new body for the poem so that what he
seems to be distorting on the literal surface, he is actually delineating.
That has been my pathway to Rimbaud.
Rimbaud's
life has often been a series of fables concocted by those who wanted
to appropriate the urchin poet for their own purposes. Andre Breton
saw him as a surrealist, and exploited the phrase le poete maudit.
Some have idolized Rimbaud for the wrong reasons, perceiving him
to be a revolutionary and a blood brother, such as in Henry Miller's
The Time of the Assassins which I have found to be overly adulatory.
But from all recent accounts, Rimbaud knew exactly what he was doing,
injecting himself into the Parisian literary scene as a lover of
Paul Verlaine, and as an infant terrible whose personal self-indulgence
was regarded as charming and anti-establishment. (Every establishment
needs its fool.) All of the notoriety he received made him, in part,
a known quantity. But my intention here is to show Rimbaud as a
craftsman.
When
I began doing my translating at twenty years old, I was first attracted
to Rimbaud's most famous poem, "Le Bateau Ivre." Later
I began to read translations of Illuminations, most notably, those
of Louise Varese. I noticed that most of her translations seemed
too literal, too stiff. Rimbaud demanded space, and the images needed
to be both fluent and spatial. The work demanded a contemporary
diction, but had to sound like Rimbaud. Translating the Illuminations
too discursively would destroy the beauty and effect of the work,
not to mention the sensibility behind the poetry. Although I sensed
I would fail, I set about, armed with a love of music, painting,
dance, and poetry.
For
one reason or another, translations are usually doomed to fail,
because the translating process is essentially confrontational.
In this case, the failure was both enjoyable and adventuresome.
Rudolph Nureyev was once asked about the difficulties of being a
dancer. He replied, "When I was young, it was half impossible.
Now that I am older, it is completely impossible."
SELECTED
TRANSLATIONS
ENFANCE
I
Cette idole, yeux noirs et crin jaune, sans parents ni cour, plus
noble que la fable, mexicaine et flamande; son domaine, azur et
verdure insolents, court sur des plages nommées, par des
vagues sans vaisseaux, de noms férocement grecs, slaves,
celtiques.
A
la lisière de la forêt, - les fleurs de rêve
tintent, éclatent, éclairent, - la fille à
lèvre d'orange, les genoux croisés dans le clair déluge
qui sourd des prés, nudité qu'ombrent, traversent
et habillent les arcs-en-ciel, la flore, la mer.
Dames qui tournoient sur les terrasses voisines de la mer; enfantes
et géantes, superbes noires dans la mousse vert-de-gris,
bijoux debout sur le sol gras des bosquets et des jardinets dégelés,
- jeunes mères et grandes soeurs aux regards pleins de pèlerinages,
sultanes, princesses de démarche et de costumes tyranniques,
petites étrangères et personnes doucement malheureuses.
Quel
ennui, l'heure du "cher corps" et "cher coeur"!
II
C'est
elle, la petite morte, derrière les rosiers. - La jeune maman
trépassée descend le perron. - La calèche du
cousin crie sur le sable. - Le petit frère - (il est aux
Indes!) là, devant le couchant, sur le pré d'oeillets,
- les vieux qu'on a enterrés tout droits dans le rempart
aux giroflées.
L'essaim
des feuilles d'or entoure la maison du général. Ils
sont dans le midi. - On suit la route rouge pour arriver à
l'auberge vide. Le château est à vendre; les persiennes
sont détachées. - Le curé aura emporté
la clef de l'église. - Autour du parc, les loges des gardes
sont inhabitées. Les palissades sont si hautes qu'on ne voit
que les cimes bruissantes. D'ailleurs il n'y a rien à voir
là dedans.
Les
prés remontent au hameaux sans coqs, sans enclumes. L'écluse
est levée. O les calvaires et les moulins du désert,
les îles et les meules!
Des
fleurs magiques bourdonnaient. Les talus le berçaient. Des
bêtes d'une élégance fabuleuse circulaient.
Les nuées s'amassaient sur la haute mer faite d'une éternité
de chaudes larmes.
III
Au
bois il y a un oiseau, son chant vous arrête et vous fait
rougire
Il y a une horloge qui ne sonne pas.
Il y a une fondrière avec un nid de bêtes blanches.
Il y a une cathédrale qui descend et un lac qui monte.
Il y a une petite voiture abandonnée dans le taillis ou qui
descend le sentier en courant, enrubannée.
Il y a une troupe de petits comédiens en costumes, aperçus
sur la route à travers la lisière du bois.
Il y a enfin, quand l'on a faim et soif, quelqu'un qui vous chasse.
IV
Je
suis le saint, en prière sur la terrasse, comme les bêtes
pacifiques paissent jusqu'à la mer de Palestine.
Je suis le savant au fauteuil sombre. Les branches et la pluie se
jettent à la croisée de la bibliothèque.
Je suis le piéton de la grand'route par les bois nains; la
rumeur des écluses couvre mes pas. Je vois longtemps la mélancolique
lessive d'or du couchant.
Je
serais bien l'enfant abandonné sur la jetée partie
à la haute mer, le petit valet suivant l'allée dont
le front touche le ciel.
Les
sentiers sont âpres. Les monticules se couvrent de genêts.
L'air est immobile. Que les oiseaux et les sources sont loin! Ce
ne peut être que la fin du monde, en avançant.
V
Qu'on
me loue enfin ce tombeau, blanchi à la chaux avec les lignes
du ciment en relief, - très loin sous la terre.
Je m'accoude à la table, la lampe éclaire très
vivement ces journaux que je suis idiot de relire, ces livres sans
intérêt.
A
une distance énorme au-dessus de mon salon souterrain, les
maisons s'implantent, les brumes s'assemblent. La boue est rouge
ou noire. Ville monstrueuse, nuit sans fin!
Moins
haut, sont des égouts. Aux côtés, rien que l'épaisseur
du globe. Peut-être les gouffres d'azur, des puits de feu?
C'est peut-être sur ces plans que se rencontrent lunes et
comètes, mers et fables.
Aux
heures d'amertume, je m'imagine des boules de saphir, de métal.
Je suis maître du silence. Pourquoi une apparence de soupirail
blêmirait-elle au coin de la voûte?
CHILDHOOD
I
That idol, black eyes, golden mane,
without ancestry or court, nobler than fable,
Mexican or Flemish, his domain, azure
and insolent green -- runs along beaches of shipless waves,
the barbarous Greek, Celtic Slav,
At
the entrance to the forest -- dream flowers tinkle,
flash, flare -- the girl with saffron lips, her knees
a floodgate for water that flows out from the fields,
her nakedness shrouds fords, dresses the rainbows,
the flora, the sea.
Ladies
who strill on terraces above the sea;
children and giant women, superb negroes
in the greenish-blue moss, jewels upright on groves
and melting gardens -- young mothers and elder sisters with eyes
glazed
for pilgrimage, sultanas, czarinas in haughty costumes,
little foreigners, and those of delicious discontent.
What
a bore! the hour of the "cherished body" and
"dear heart."
II
It is she, the little dead one, behind the rose bushes.
--The young mama, a ghost trailing the stairs,--
The cousin's carriage squeaks on the sand. --
The young brother (He's in India!)
there, facing the sunset on a meadow of pinks.
Old men are buried upright in the rampart overgrown
with wallflowers.
In
the South, a hive of golden leaves lassoes the general's
house. -- You follow the cobbles into the village,
arriving at an inn which is empty. The country house
is up for sale, the shutters hanging loose. The rector
will have pocketed the key to the church. Around the park
the servants' quarters are deserted; the high fence shows
but a mote of daylight through a pageantry of elms.
Besides, there's nothing to see inside.
The
meadow winds upward to the town. The gate
is raised. O Calvaries without cocks, without anvils,
just windmills fanning desert, islands,
stacks of hay!
Mystic
flowers reverberating on the slopes. The cradled him.
Creatures of imagination roamed about the atmosphere.
The clouds grew round the hollowed sea like an eternity, layer
upon layer of warm salt tears.
IIII
In the forest, there's a bird whose song makes you
stop and blush.
There
is a clock that never strikes.
There
is a shaft with a snow-white nest of ermine.
A
cathedral falls through a sky-blue lake.
There's
a broken carriage wheel plummeting
down a sandy path.
There are mountebanks in costume
glimpsed on the path -- through the wood's green
camouflage.
There
is finally, when you are hungry and thirsty,
someone who would drive you away.
IV
I am the saint meditating on the terrace,
as the sheep graze down the sea at Palestine.
I
am the scholar in a dark armchair. Rainy branches
hurl themselvs at the windows in my study.
I'm
the mountebank on the high-road through the Alpine
wood -- the fountains drown my footfalls
I observe the last melancholy wash of the sunset
I
may be the orphan standing on a wharf
about to be swept out to the high seas, or the farm boy
running on a footpath lengthwise across the sky.
The
paths are rouhg, the uplands are shrouded.
The air is still. How distant are the birds
and springs. It can only be the end of the world
advancing.
V
Let them hire me, at last, this bleached tomb
with cement cracks in relief, -- far below
the earth.
I
crouch my elbows on the table, the lamp
illuminates these journals and books I idiotically peruse
over and over again.
At a star's distance above my subterranean
valut, houses take root, a vile fog gathers.
The mud flows red of black. City of monstrosities,
of endless nights!
Halfway
up there are sewers. Nothing at the edges
but the density of the globe. Sky-blue chasms,
shafts of fire, perhaps. It may be that on these planes
moons, comets, seas and fables meet.
In
hours of isolatoin, I imagine spheres of sapphire,
of metal. I am master of silence. Why should
this brief semblance of light pale at a corner
of the vault?
VIES
I
O les énormes avenues du pays saint, les terrasses du temple!
Qu'a-t-on fait du brahmane qui m'expliqua les Proverbes? D'alors,
de là-bas, je vois encore même les vieilles! Je me
souviens des heures d'argent et de soleil vers les fleuves, la main
de la compagne sur mon épaule, et de nos caresses debout
dans les plaines poivrées. - Un envol de pigeons écarlates
tonne autour de ma pensée. - Exilé ici, j'ai eu une
scène où jouer les chefs-d'oeuvre dramatiques de toutes
les littératures. Je vous indiquerais les richesses inouïes.
J'observe l'histoire des trésors que vous trouvâtes.
Je vois la suite! Ma sagesse est aussi dédaignée que
le chaos. Qu'est mon néant, auprès de la stupeur qui
vous attend?
II
Je suis un inventeur bien autrement méritant que tous ceux
qui m'ont précédé; un musicien même,
qui ai trouvé quelque chose comme la clef de l'amour. A présent,
gentilhomme d'une campagne maigre au ciel sobre, j'essaie de m'émouvoir
au souvenir de l'enfance mendiante, de l'apprentissage ou de l'arrivée
en sabots, des polémiques, des cinq ou six veuvages, et quelques
noces où ma forte tête m'empêcha de monter au
diapason des camarades. Je ne regrette pas ma vieille part de gaîté
divine: l'air sobre de cette aigre campagne alimente fort activement
mon aigre scepticisme. Mais comme ce scepticisme ne peut désormais
être mis en oeuvre, et que, d'ailleurs, je suis dévoué
à un trouble nouveau, - j'attends de devenir un très
méchant fou.
III
Dans un grenier, où je fus enfermé à douze
ans, j'ai connu le monde, j'ai illustré la comédie
humaine. Dans un cellier j'ai appris l'histoire. A quelque fête
de nuit, dans une cité du Nord, j'ai rencontré toutes
les femmes des anciens peintres. Dans un vieux passage à
Paris on m'a enseigné les sciences classiques. Dans une magnifique
demeure cernée par l'Orient entier, j'ai accompli mon immense
oeuvre et passé mon illustre retraite. J'ai brassé
mon sang. Mon devoir m'est remis. Il ne faut même plus songer
à cela. Je suis réellement d'outre-tombe, et pas de
commissions.
LIVES
I
O enormous avenues of the Holy Land, its pure terraces
and tetmples! what became of the Brahmin who watered
my eyes with the Proverbs? I can see the old women beyond time and
space
reach out their gnarled fingers to me. I remember quicksilver hours
and the green-branched sunlight on the rivers, arm in arm,
as we crossed the pungent plains. -- A horde of wine-red pigeons
thunder
about my reflections. Exiled, I mimic all the great literary themes
having a part in their craetion, lost in the history of every discovery
But wisdom like chaos is suspect. What is my vacuum compared
to the lethargy that awaits you?
II
I am an inventor far more deserving than all
my predecessors; a musician perhaps, having
discovered love's key. Now I'm a country gentleman
presiding over an arid land and sobering sky.
I try to rouse myself with flashbacks of my beggar's
childhood, my apprenticeship, my arrival in sabots,
polemics, widowings, some five or six, and of
certain merriments when my level-headedness kept me
from rising to the harmony of my comrades. I regret nothing
of my old divine portion: the sober air of this bleak
real estate nourishes my leaden skepticism, and since
this useless attitude is of no use to me, and since
I am dedicated to a new torture,-- I suppose
I shall become a very wicked madman.
III
In an old attic in which I was shut up at about age twelve
I came to know the world, myself an illustration
of the human comedy. I learned history in a storeroom.
At a soiree in Provence, I met the wives of the old masters.
In a deserted alley i nParis I studied the classical sciences.
In a shrine by the sea facing the whole East
I completed the great work, retiring from the world
to meditate in a flowering green wood.
Blood ringed my eyes. I have done my duty;
I remove it like a loose gown. You see
I am really from beyond the grave
and no commissions.
VAGABONDS
Pitoyable
frère! Que d'atroces veillées je lui dus! "Je
ne me saisissais pas fervemment de cette entreprise. Je m'étais
joué de son infirmité. Par ma faute nous retournerions
en exil, en esclavage." Il me supposait un guignon et une innocence
très bizarres, et il en ajoutait des raisons inquiétantes.
Je répondais en ricanant à ce satanique docteur, et
finissais par gagner la fenêtre. Je créais, par delà
la campagne traversée par des bandes de musique rare, les
fantômes du futur luxe nocturne.
Après cette distraction vaguement hygiénique, je m'étendais
sur une paillasse. Et, presque chaque nuit, aussitôt endormi,
le pauvre frère se levait, la bouche pourrie, les yeux arrachés,
- tel qu'il se rêvait! - et me tirait dans la salle en hurlant
son songe de chagrin idiot.
J'avais en effet, en toute sincérité d'esprit, pris
l'engagement de le rendre à son état primitif de fils
du Soleil, - et nous errions, nourris du vin des Cavernes et du
biscuit de la route, moi pressé de trouver le lieu et la
formule.
VAGABONDS
Pitiful
brother! What cruel vigils I kept!
"I didn't relish the undertaking with any
enthusiasm. I made light of his ilness. It would be
my fault if we returned to our exile, our bondage."
He credits me with bad luck, and a strange innocence, and he
provided some disquieting excuses.
I replied, jeering at the satanic doctor, and ended up
by escaping through the window. I conjured, beyond
the countryside with its passages of strange music,
the ghosts of some distant nocturnal pleasance.
After that separation, vaguely hygenic, I
bedded down on a mattress of straw, and almost every night
as soon as sleep fell, the poor brother got up, his mouth rotted,
his eyes torn away, -- just as he dreamed -- and dragged me
into the hallway, howling his remorseful, idiotic reverie.
I have indeed, in all sincerity of spirit, taken
the pledge to restore him to his primitive state as child
of the Sun, -- and we wandered, nourished by wine from caves,
and biscuit on the road, myself hard-pressed to find the place
and the formula.
July,
2001, Boston
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