Three Poems of Rimbaud
Arthur Rimbaud is one of the most controversial figures of French literature, a delinquent, a drunk and a drug addict, a rebel, and a genius. He was openly homosexual and had a torrid relationship with the much older Paul Verlaine. He probably wrote his masterpiece, Le Dormeur du Val at sixteen. And he swore not to write a single line of verse at twenty and died at thirty-seven.
There is a consensus that the three best poems of Arthur Rimbaud are, Le Bateau Ivre (The Drunken Boat), Le Dormeur du Val (A Man Asleep in a Ditch), and Voyelles (Vowels). The first two are unsurprising choices. Le Bateau is a straightforward descriptive and visual poem, albeit with none too opaque symbolism. Le Dormeur is another visual, brutally descriptive, splendid and captivating piece. The shock here is that he was only 16 when he wrote it. Voyelles (Vowels) a sonnet has probably attracted as many comments and controversies as the two more obvious gems. What does it mean? It has been said that no French poem has been more discussed and written about than Rimbaud’s Voyelles. Does it matter what it means? Does one need to know what a symphony is about to appreciate it? Are dreams meaningless because their meanings are not obvious? Should poetry be dismissed if their meanings are not clear? Was Rimbaud taking the piss? Does it matter if he was? A poem, some folks aver, should not be dismissed if one does not immediately find a meaning to it. Might it have multiple meanings? So what? So many questions. There might well be many different answers.
No one, probably not even the perverse Rimbaud knew what Voyelles is about. Some critics have identified it as the ultimate erotic poem, finding sexual allusions in every other word. Even if it’s true that the poet was having fun at our expense, it can be enjoyed for its imagery. Rimbaud was known for being a synesthete, someone who associate letters, numbers, undefined phenomena with colours.
I present the reader with the poem and a translation of mine. Nobody is forced to love the poem, but it might be worth your while to read it, read it aloud even, and to let the sounds of each syllable reverberate in you. You can then decide whether you like it or not, let alone understand it.
Vowels
A poem by Arthur Rimbaud, translated by San Cassimally
Black A, White E, Red I, Green U, Blue O: Vowels
I will now reveal their obscure nomenclature
A, clad in black like a fly, nauseous ordure
Buzzing over disgustingly putrid smells.
.
Shadowy seas; E diaphanous vapours and purses
Spears of proud glaciers, white kings, umbella quivering
I, purple blood, laughter of lips smouldering
In anger of penitent and drunken curses
.
U, cycles, divine vibrations of the verdant sea
Peace of pastures, flocks, grazing, wrinkle-free
With alchemy prints on wide studious furrows
.
O, divine clarion call bursting with strident decibels
Silences crossing the world with its angels
O, the omega, violet ray under its brows
Voyelles
by Arthur Rimbaud
A noir, E blanc, I rouge, U vert, O bleu : voyelles,
Je dirai quelque jour vos naissances latentes :
A, noir corset velu des mouches éclatantes
Qui bombinent autour des puanteurs cruelles,
Golfes d’ombre ; E, candeurs des vapeurs et des tentes,
Lances des glaciers fiers, rois blancs, frissons d’ombelles ;
I, pourpres, sang craché, rire des lèvres belles
Dans la colère ou les ivresses pénitentes ;
U, cycles, vibrements divins des mers virides,
Paix des pâtis semés d’animaux, paix des rides
Que l’alchimie imprime aux grands fronts studieux ;
O, suprême Clairon plein des strideurs étranges,
Silences traversés des Mondes et des Anges :
O, l’Oméga, rayon violet de Ses Yeux !
Le Bateau Ivre de Rimbaud
Comme je descendais des Fleuves impassibles,
Je ne me sentis plus guidé par les haleurs :
Des Peaux-Rouges criards les avaient pris pour cibles
Les ayant cloués nus aux poteaux de couleurs.
J’étais insoucieux de tous les équipages,
Porteur de blés flamands ou de cotons anglais.
Quand avec mes haleurs ont fini ces tapages
Les Fleuves m’ont laissé descendre où je voulais.
Dans les clapotements furieux des marées
Moi l’autre hiver plus sourd que les cerveaux d’enfants,
Je courus ! Et les Péninsules démarrées
N’ont pas subi tohu-bohus plus triomphants.
La tempête a béni mes éveils maritimes.
Plus léger qu’un bouchon j’ai dansé sur les flots
Qu’on appelle rouleurs éternels de victimes,
Dix nuits, sans regretter l’oeil niais des falots !
Plus douce qu’aux enfants la chair des pommes sures,
L’eau verte pénétra ma coque de sapin
Et des taches de vins bleus et des vomissures
Me lava, dispersant gouvernail et grappin
Et dès lors, je me suis baigné dans le Poème
De la Mer, infusé d’astres, et lactescent,
Dévorant les azurs verts ; où, flottaison blême
Et ravie, un noyé pensif parfois descend ;
Où, teignant tout à coup les bleuités, délires
Et rythmes lents sous les rutilements du jour,
Plus fortes que l’alcool, plus vastes que nos lyres,
Fermentent les rousseurs amères de l’amour !
Je sais les cieux crevant en éclairs, et les trombes
Et les ressacs et les courants : Je sais le soir,
L’aube exaltée ainsi qu’un peuple de colombes,
Et j’ai vu quelque fois ce que l’homme a cru voir !
J’ai vu le soleil bas, taché d’horreurs mystiques,
Illuminant de longs figements violets,
Pareils à des acteurs de drames très-antiques
Les flots roulant au loin leurs frissons de volets !
J’ai rêvé la nuit verte aux neiges éblouies,
Baiser montant aux yeux des mers avec lenteurs,
La circulation des sèves inouïes,
Et l’éveil jaune et bleu des phosphores chanteurs !
J’ai suivi, des mois pleins, pareille aux vacheries
Hystériques, la houle à l’assaut des récifs,
Sans songer que les pieds lumineux des Maries
Pussent forcer le mufle aux Océans poussifs !
J’ai heurté, savez-vous, d’incroyables Florides
Mêlant aux fleurs des yeux de panthères à peaux
D’hommes ! Des arcs-en-ciel tendus comme des brides
Sous l’horizon des mers, à de glauques troupeaux !
J’ai vu fermenter les marais énormes, nasses
Où pourrit dans les joncs tout un Léviathan !
Des écroulement d’eau au milieu des bonaces,
Et les lointains vers les gouffres cataractant !
Glaciers, soleils d’argent, flots nacreux, cieux de braises !
Échouages hideux au fond des golfes bruns
Où les serpents géants dévorés de punaises
Choient, des arbres tordus, avec de noirs parfums !
J’aurais voulu montrer aux enfants ces dorades
Du flot bleu, ces poissons d’or, ces poissons chantants.
— Des écumes de fleurs ont bercé mes dérades
Et d’ineffables vents m’ont ailé par instants.
Parfois, martyr lassé des pôles et des zones,
La mer dont le sanglot faisait mon roulis doux
Montait vers moi ses fleurs d’ombre aux ventouses jaunes
Et je restais, ainsi qu’une femme à genoux…
Presque île, balottant sur mes bords les querelles
Et les fientes d’oiseaux clabaudeurs aux yeux blonds
Et je voguais, lorsqu’à travers mes liens frêles
Des noyés descendaient dormir, à reculons !
Or moi, bateau perdu sous les cheveux des anses,
Jeté par l’ouragan dans l’éther sans oiseau,
Moi dont les Monitors et les voiliers des Hanses
N’auraient pas repêché la carcasse ivre d’eau ;
Libre, fumant, monté de brumes violettes,
Moi qui trouais le ciel rougeoyant comme un mur
Qui porte, confiture exquise aux bons poètes,
Des lichens de soleil et des morves d’azur,
Qui courais, taché de lunules électriques,
Planche folle, escorté des hippocampes noirs,
Quand les juillets faisaient crouler à coups de triques
Les cieux ultramarins aux ardents entonnoirs ;
Moi qui tremblais, sentant geindre à cinquante lieues
Le rut des Béhémots et les Maelstroms épais,
Fileur éternel des immobilités bleues,
Je regrette l’Europe aux anciens parapets !
J’ai vu des archipels sidéraux ! et des îles
Dont les cieux délirants sont ouverts au vogueur :
— Est-ce en ces nuits sans fond que tu dors et t’exiles,
Million d’oiseaux d’or, ô future Vigueur ? -
Mais, vrai, j’ai trop pleuré ! Les Aubes sont navrantes.
Toute lune est atroce et tout soleil amer :
L’âcre amour m’a gonflé de torpeurs enivrantes.
Ô que ma quille éclate ! Ô que j’aille à la mer !
Si je désire une eau d’Europe, c’est la flache
Noire et froide où vers le crépuscule embaumé
Un enfant accroupi plein de tristesses, lâche
Un bateau frêle comme un papillon de mai.
Je ne puis plus, baigné de vos langueurs, ô lames,
Enlever leur sillage aux porteurs de cotons,
Ni traverser l’orgueil des drapeaux et des flammes,
Ni nager sous les yeux horribles des pontons.
I have translated it, and thought Adrift is a more appropriate title than the Drunken Boat
Adrift
As I was drifting the benumbed channel
My oarsmen were not any more in control
Apaches on the warpath had them pummelled
Pinning them down naked to the coloured pole
.
For my crew I gave not a damn, nor my cargo
Of English calico or Flemish provender
When the racket my crew was making they did forego
The waves left me alone to wander and meander
.
Last winter into the ferocious tides flailing
I ran, deafer than the brains of an infant.
As detached bits of land began sailing
Away, I experienced a mayhem triumphant
.
The tempest baptised my maritime wakening
Lighter than a champagne cork I danced on the waves
Eternal rollers of victims by some reckoning
The ten nights with no care for the eyes of knaves
.
Sweeter to children than the flesh of the jujube
Green water penetrated my pinewood shell
And blue wine stains, like something someone spewed
Wash’d o’er me, despatching anchor and hook to hell
.
And from that moment on I was luxuriating
In the Poem of the Sea bubbling with stars
The Milky Way green azures swallowing
Where a drowned dreamer sometimes ventures
.
Where, suddenly painting the blueness, the desires
And unhurried rhythms of the blossoming day
Stronger than spirits, vaster than our lyres
Effervesce the bitter redness of love’s sway
.
I’ve known the skies to open up and spit out lightning
Surfs and currents: and I have lived the night
Of exalted dawn like a flock of doves cooing
And I’ve seen what Man has held in his sight
.
I’ve seen the low sun stained with mystic horrors
Shining on lanky violet-hued congelations
Like they do in very old dramas the actors
The eddies rolling from afar in trepidation
.
I’ve dreamt of cold green nights in dazzling snows
Reaching the eyes of the sea a kiss languorous
As the incredible life-giving sap gently flows
And the chorus of golden and blue phosphorous
Underwater seascape by Sean Low (Unsplash)
.
For months I’ve watched the hysterical stampede
Of the swells assaulting the reefs mercilessly
Never thinking that the Mary prows might succeed
In soft’ning the force of the ocean breathlessly
.
I barged, don’t you know, into floral paradises
Of glorious rainbows stretching across the seas
Where panthers in human skins have hid their eyes
Among the petals, to waves of creepy fleece
.
I have seen fishing nets in massive bogs bubbling
Where in reeds a whole Leviathan turns miasma
Waterfalls in the midst of the calm cataracting
Through long distances into the chasm
.
Glaciers, silver suns, milky waves, skies of ember
Unsightly wrecks at the bottom of brown lagoons
Where gigantic bug-ridden snakes slither
Down gnarled twisted trees with black perfumes
.
I’d have liked to show the kids those gilt-headed breams
From the blue waves, those golden singing whales
Foams of flowers rocking my straying dreams
Ineffably propelled by oceanic gales
.
And sometimes a martyr, weary of pole or zone
The sea whose teardrops softened my pitch and toss
Raised its star-shaped suckers towards one
And I froze there like a kneeling woman at a loss
.
Floating jetsam bobbing up with screaming
And droppings of back-stabbing birds with eyes of amber
I roamed and across my weakened rigging
The Drowned back-stepped into eternal slumber
.
Poor me, boat entangled in the cove’s algae
Tossed by the fierce gales into the birdless ether
That no merchant Monitor would go out of its way
To salvage the drunken wreckage from the water
.
Free, exuding smoke in a mist of violet
I who pierced the incandescent sky like an arrow
Bearing gifts of exquisite sweets to the poet
Of sun-made lichens and azure gobbets of marrow
.
I who ran covered in lunulas electric
An errant plank led by sea-horses black as night
When Julys were battering with a massive stick
Ultramarine skies in funnels of lambent light
.
Trembling as from afar I hear the agonies,
Behemoth’s mating calls and the roar of Maelstrom
Immortal weaver of blue immobilities
I pine for the parapets of my European home
.
I’ve seen starry archipelagos! and the isles
Whose delirious skies are open to the wayfarer
Is it in the depths of night that you sleep and exile
Yourself, millions of birds of gold, Oh, future fervour
.
But it’s true that I’ve wept too much! Dawns are ghastly
The moon is always awful and the sun too bitter
Lethal love has filled my pores with lethargy
May my keel shatter! May I be sucked down under
.
If there’s an expanse of water in Europe I yearn for
It’s a dark and cold basin of Ardeche, whereby
At scented dusk a squatting sorrowful bairn of four
Once let go a paper boat as frail as a May butterfly
.
Oh waves! I can no more, possessed by your torpor
Erase the ruts made by hauliers of cotton
Or sail against the pride of the flag and the banner
No, swim in the awful stare of the ponton
Le Dormeur du Val
C’est un trou de verdure où chante une rivière
Accrochant follement aux herbes des haillons
D’argent ; où le soleil de la montagne fière,
Luit : C’est un petit val qui mousse de rayons.
Un soldat jeune, bouche ouverte, tête nue,
Et la nuque baignant dans le frais cresson bleu,
Dort ; il est étendu dans l’herbe, sous la nue,
Pâle dans son lit vert où la lumière pleut.
Les pieds dans les glaïeuls, il dort. Souriant comme
Sourirait un enfant malade, il fait un somme :
Nature, berce-le chaudement : il a froid.
Les parfums ne font pas frissonner sa narine ;
Il dort dans le soleil, la main sur sa poitrine
Tranquille. Il a deux trous rouges au côté droit.
I translated this as
Finally at Rest
In a green hollow where hums a river
Clinging desperately to rags of silver
Where from the splendid mountain glows
There’s a hollow out of which sunlight blows.
A young soldier, bare-headed, mouth agape
His neck half-hid in the fresh blue cress
Under the skies he lies, on the ground, he rests
Pallid on his green couch which light invades
His feet in the gladioli, he slumbers smiling,
Like a sick child would smile, dozing
Mother nature rock him gently, he’s freezing
The fragrance leaves his nostrils unimpressed
He’s sleeping in the sun, his hand on his chest
Two red holes on his right_he’s now at rest
