The Enemy
My youth was nothing but a storm of shadows
Star-crossed, here and there, by the occasional sun-shaft.
Thunder rolled, rain ravaged (mourning skies)--
My tree never had a chance for fruit to speak of.
I live in the great fall of the mind, now,
Reaping not what I sow, the earth dark and deep (hanging sweet, hanging low).
I dig at trenches--water seeps, mud heaps onto sluit graves.
I dig at trenches--water seeps, mud heaps onto sluit graves.
The meaninglessness of toil, life--tell me, what is it worth?
Will that of which I dream ever bear ripe with ripening fruit?
No, it is pain, pain--she eats at the marrow of life.
The great obscure Enemy sucks the blood, gnaws the strength
right out of me.*
*translation & photographie by Cora Charis
Hi Cora
ReplyDeleteL'Ennemi (masculin!) this poem has been translated a lot I think.
Ma jeunesse ne fut qu'un ténébreux orage,
Traversé çà et là par de brillants soleils;
Le tonnerre et la pluie ont fait un tel ravage,
Qu'il reste en mon jardin bien peu de fruits vermeils.
Voilà que j'ai touché l'automne des idées,
Et qu'il faut employer la pelle et les râteaux
Pour rassembler à neuf les terres inondées,
Où l'eau creuse des trous grands comme des tombeaux.
Et qui sait si les fleurs nouvelles que je rêve
Trouveront dans ce sol lavé comme une grève
Le mystique aliment qui ferait leur vigueur?
— Ô douleur! ô douleur! Le Temps mange la vie,
Et l'obscur Ennemi qui nous ronge le coeur
Du sang que nous perdons croît et se fortifie!
— Charles Baudelaire
Now I am no expert, far from it, but in your, beautiful translation, I do miss the flowers he mentioned.
Roy Campbell did a rhyming translation:
The Enemy
My youth was but a tempest, dark and savage,
Through which, at times, a dazzling sun would shoot
The thunder and the rain have made such ravage
My garden is nigh bare of rosy fruit.
Now I have reached the Autumn of my thought,
And spade and rake must toil the land to save,
That fragments of my flooded fields be sought
From where the water sluices out a grave.
Who knows if the new flowers my dreams prefigure,
In this washed soil should find, as by a sluit,
The mystic nourishment to give them vigour?
Time swallows up our life, O ruthless rigour!
And the dark foe that nibbles our heart's root,
Grows on our blood the stronger and the bigger!
I think both your translations are interesting.
Campbell's was done in the early 50's and, like the poem says, time swallows up our life, it also changes the language we use.
Ina