NPWM: Alicante, by Jacques Prévert

an orange on the table
your dress on the carpet
and you in my bed
you present me with this present
if only for the present:
the coolness of the night
the heat of life


French text, along with several other poems, here: http://xtream.online.fr/Prevert/beautes.html

NPWM

Looking back over the last four days' poems, I notice they've all been Christian in character (except the lines from Phèdre, but Phèdre's Christian under the surface). Being an atheist myself, I feel I ought to redress the balance and translate something profane and secular for my next piece. Who's ungodly in French poetry? Victor Hugo was unconventional in his beliefs, but still a praying man I think. Jacques Prévert perhaps?

NPWM: Two men in me

Translated from Racine, “Plaintes d’un Chrétien sur les contrariétés qu’il éprouve au dedans de lui-même”.

My God, what a cruel war!
I think there are two men in me:
The one would, full of love for thee,
Make my heart forever faithful.
The other one is ever hostile
And hardens me against thy law.

The one divine, all full of faith,
Would raise me always up on high,
And when he lifts me to the sky
I count as nothing all the world.
But then the other’s mortal load
Oppresses me upon the earth.

Alas! at war within my heart,
How can I ever come to peace?
I would leave sin, but cannot cease.
I would do good, but cannot move.
I fail to do the good I love,
And do the evil that I hate.

O grace, O ray of God, come save
The man who in these lines implores—
Drive out my sin with gentle force
And make accord between us both
Converting thus this slave of death
Into thy voluntary slave.

NPWM: from Phèdre

Madame, before you go:
I know that you have wished to have a different life.
My father lives no more: it is as I suspected;
Only cruel death, extinguishing his light
Could keep it hidden from our eyes for such a time.
Atropos at last has cut the living thread
Of Hercules’s friend and partner and successor.
I know that in your hatred, which cares not for his virtues,
You hear without regret these names I give to Theseus.
One hope there is that tempers my sadness and bereavement.
Now I can lift from you the cruel interdiction
Placed on you by my father: long have I deplored it.
You shall be sovereign over your life, over your heart,
And in this land of Troezen, the land of Pittheus
My ancestor, the rule of which comes now to me,
Whose people with one voice acclaim me as their king,
I will make you as free and freer than myself.

NPWM: High and Low

after Arnaut Daniel

In field below and bough above,
The fresh flowers bloom both high and low,
And every bird unites to sing
And welcome in the growing Spring.
April sun
Shows on each one
The iridescent colours of its wing.
Though Love weighs heavy on me,
Yet joy shall all my song be.

I give my thanks to God above
Who gave me eyes to see and know
The joy these marks of springtime bring
To chase away my suffering.
Troubles run
From the sun
Like beetles when a ray invades their den.
Leaving the sight of men,
I call on Love again.

I thank you for your company, Love!
Though bitter is the way we go,
Yet salutary is the stinging
Sharpness of the brew you bring;
It shall run
Down my tongue
And wet my throat that I may better sing.
He who laughs in contempt of me,
May he by sores tormented be.

’Tis true, I am most true in love,
And I am proud, but will not show
My love to all those who come seeking
Knowledge of me, lest in speaking
Idle tongue
Should make fun
And so blaspheme her name and Love’s wise teaching.
Instead, in joyful mood,
Around the forest rude,
I’ll hymn my fair love's name in solitude.

NPWM: Parsifal, by Verlaine

This April, for National Poetry Writing Month, I will be translating a poem each day instead of writing one out of my head. Today's poem is Verlaine's "Parsifal":

Parsifal

Parsifal has vanquished the Girls, their gentle
Babble, and sweet desire’s precipitous slope
On which a virgin boy in wantonness may stoop
To adore their swelling breasts, to love their gentle babble;

He has vanquished fair Woman and her subtle charms,
The grasp of her soft hands and her pale throat’s excitement;
He has vanquished Hell and returns now to his tent
With a heavy trophy in his boyish arms,

With the spear that pierced the Flank of the Supreme!
He has healed the king; see, he himself is king,
Priest of the sacred Treasure, holy and essential.

In robes of gold he kneels before the glorious Symbol,
The vessel pure wherein the royal Blood is gleaming.
—And O! those children’s voices, singing in the dome!