The Crown of Pain - Some Transversions from Les Fleurs Du Mal by Baudelaire

The Crown of Pain

Some Transversions

From

Charles Baudelaire’s

Les Fleurs du Mal

A note of the transversions

I first published The Enemy – Transversions from Charles Baudelaire in 2015 ( Lapwing ). I used the term transversions very explicitly in the title and a note in the preface explaining what I meant by the term, distinguishing what I was doing as opposed to merely ‘translating’. Trans being indicative of change, verse being self- explanatory, so literally ‘changing verse’, or perhaps better ‘changed verse’… Well, the idea was quite clear. Literal translation was an impossibility, so change was the order of the day. Version not being ideal either because what one was attempting to do was render to the original as fully possible in ones own language, but also updating to make further comprehensible for the contemporary reader.

Take the transversion of the poem Sisina in the cycle of poems published here and which I have transversed as Wonder Woman.  In place of the name Théroigne which according to my Flammarion notes is a reference to Théroigne de Mericourt ( 1762 – 1817) who was involved in the French revolution in 1792, the poem makes reference to a particular incident which happened upon a staircase. This same woman appears in the famous French historian Michelet’s Histoire de la Révolution francais, and she also appears in the poet Lamartine’s Histoire des Girondins. Baudelaire was inspired apparently by a drawing by the artist Raffet depicting the incident and which was published by Pommier & Pichois. As the historical connection would be completely lost on contemporary readers, I have supplanted it with the reference to the movie Wonder Woman. You have to choose your battles. I was particularly impressed by the character in the film while watching it with my ten- year old daughter, as I thought it was a very good role model for young girls. This, I believe, is in direct accordance with the symbolism and underlining metaphor in the poem.  Baudelaire’s reference is to another actress, Elisa Neri, who played the role of Théroigne, from what I understand, in theatrical productions during Baudelaire’s day. The poet came into contact with her through his attachment to Mme Sabatier who was to have such an impact on him. I am of course referencing the climax of the Marvel movie when Wonder Woman, played by Gal Gadot, confronts Ares the God of War.

Much in the same way, I have changed the title of the whole book Les Fleurs du Mal – traditionally translated as The Flowers of Evil to The Crown of Pain. Why? My transversions of Baudelaire’s work are made for the 21^st century. Whereas, in 19^th century France, that of Baudelaire’s time, when his book cam out, evil was a term which still had some significance. Yet, a century and a half has passed and in this time we have seen two world wars, the second culminating in almost the systematic annihilation of a whole people. And now, in the 21^st century, sociologists have had to include the term omnicide to that of genocide, in relation to human activities which are now decimating whole continents of wildlife, one only has to look at Australia today. So, evil, as Hannah Arendt well knew, was a mere platitude when compared to the banality of human indifference in the face of complete and utter horror.

In the same way, while working on these transversions over the years, I hope to transverse the complete Fleurs du Mal, it soon appeared quite apparent to me that pain, not evil, was the underlying theme unifying the whole body of work and that Baudelaire’s suffering, in other words his inherent masochism had to be drawn out much more than it previously had, if indeed one wanted people to read his work in a different way. That is to say in a novel way, far from the stereotypical readings of the translations which are constantly been made. For Baudelaire, as I was told by one of the editors of one of the most respected periodicals involved in translation, is one of the most translated figures these days. And for what? if you are not going to get readers to re-engage with him, making him relevant to today?

Peter O’Neill

26/01/2020

Le Tonneau de la Haine

La Haine est le tonneau des pâles Danaïdes;
La Vengeance éperdue aux bras rouges et forts
À beau précipiter dans ses ténèbres vides
De grands seaux pleins du sang et des larmes des morts,

Le Démon fait des trous secrets à ces abîmes,
Par où fuiraient mille ans de sueurs et d'efforts,
Quand même elle saurait ranimer ses victimes,
Et pour les pressurer ressusciter leurs corps.

La Haine est un ivrogne au fond d'une taverne,
Qui sent toujours la soif naître de la liqueur
Et se multiplier comme l'hydre de Lerne.

— Mais les buveurs heureux connaissent leur vainqueur,
Et la Haine est vouée à ce sort lamentable
De ne pouvoir jamais s'endormir sous la table.

 A Barrelful of Hatred

Vengeance is distracted by a woman’s strong arms

Holding up the mythic Barrel of the Danaid’s,

Precipitating into the void of darkness

Bearing bucketloads of blood and all the tears of the dead.

The demons wove discreet holes into the veils covering the abyss

Where a thousand years of their sweat and effort have flown,

Wherein they would somewhere roam

Resuscitating the dead only to bleed them out again.

Hatred is like a drunk in the backroom of some bar

Who always senses a latent oncoming thirst

Multiplying like the Hydra-headed beast of Lerna.    

 

                     But happy drinkers know and recognise their conqueror,

                  

                             While all Hate is doomed to its lamentable faith;

              

                             Never knowing when to let sleeping dogs lie.

                

                  

Le Flacon

II est de forts parfums pour qui toute matière
Est poreuse. On dirait qu'ils pénètrent le verre.
En ouvrant un coffret venu de l'Orient
Dont la serrure grince et rechigne en criant,

Ou dans une maison déserte quelque armoire
Pleine de l'âcre odeur des temps, poudreuse et noire,
Parfois on trouve un vieux flacon qui se souvient,
D'où jaillit toute vive une âme qui revient.

Mille pensers dormaient, chrysalides funèbres,
Frémissant doucement dans les lourdes ténèbres,
Qui dégagent leur aile et prennent leur essor,
Teintés d'azur, glacés de rose, lamés d'or.

Voilà le souvenir enivrant qui voltige
Dans l'air troublé; les yeux se ferment; le Vertige
Saisit l'âme vaincue et la pousse à deux mains
Vers un gouffre obscurci de miasmes humains;

II la terrasse au bord d'un gouffre séculaire,
Où, Lazare odorant déchirant son suaire,
Se meut dans son réveil le cadavre spectral
D'un vieil amour ranci, charmant et sépulcral.

Ainsi, quand je serai perdu dans la mémoire
Des hommes, dans le coin d'une sinistre armoire
Quand on m'aura jeté, vieux flacon désolé,
Décrépit, poudreux, sale, abject, visqueux, fêlé,

Je serai ton cercueil, aimable pestilence!
Le témoin de ta force et de ta virulence,
Cher poison préparé par les anges! liqueur
Qui me ronge, ô la vie et la mort de mon coeur!

The Flask

There are strong perfumes for which all matter

Is porous. You’d think they might penetrate the glass.

While opening some oriental casket

Whose lock grimaces and balks before crying out,

Or, in a deserted house in some old armoire 

Full of the acrid odour of time, blackened with soot,

Where you might find an old flask

In which pulses the soul of one still alive.

A thousand thoughts sleep, funerary crystals,

Gently trembling in the leaden darkness

Spreading their wings finding their essence,

Azure tinted, crystalized rose, burnished tears.

And so the memory stirs gathering voltage

From the troubled air; the eyes close; vertigo

Seizes the vanquished soul and pushed by both hands

Towards the obscure abyss of human miasms.

They terrace there on the edge of a secular gulf

Where foul smelling Lazarus rips his shroud,

Mute in his awakening like the spectral corpse

Of a rancid love, charming and sepulchral.

Like so, when I become lost to memory

Among men, just like in the corner of some sinister

 Old armoire where someone last left me,

Like some decrepit, dirty, abject, dusty old vicious flask.

I will be your coffin, amiable pestilence.

A testament to your force and violence. 

Dear poison prepared by the angels, the liquor

Which gnawed at both the life and death of my heart.

Le Poison

Le vin sait revêtir le plus sordide bouge
D'un luxe miraculeux,
Et fait surgir plus d'un portique fabuleux
Dans l'or de sa vapeur rouge,
Comme un soleil couchant dans un ciel nébuleux.

L'opium agrandit ce qui n'a pas de bornes,
Allonge l'illimité,
Approfondit le temps, creuse la volupté,
Et de plaisirs noirs et mornes
Remplit l'âme au delà de sa capacité.

Tout cela ne vaut pas le poison qui découle
De tes yeux, de tes yeux verts,
Lacs où mon âme tremble et se voit à l'envers...
Mes songes viennent en foule
Pour se désaltérer à ces gouffres amers.

Tout cela ne vaut pas le terrible prodige
De ta salive qui mord,
Qui plonge dans l'oubli mon âme sans remords,
Et charriant le vertige,
La roule défaillante aux rives de la mort!

 The Poison

Wine can often redress the most sordid dive

With its miraculous luxury and re-invigorate,

 More so than any fabled gateway,

Through the alchemy of its reddish vapour

Like a Sun setting in the nebulous sky.

Opiates can broaden the expanse of any borders,

Further infuse the unlimited,

Deepen time, aid the voluptuary,

And further enhance the dark and mournful pleasures

Which the soul mirrors at full capacity.

But all of this is nothing compared to the poison which flows

From your eyes, your emerald eyes,

Those twin lakes which further unhinge one…

Causing my dreams to escalate in a screaming riot

To desalinate the bitter gulfs which encroach.

Again, all of this is nothing to the atrocious prodigy

Of the saliva parting from your lips,

 Through your parting kiss, remorselessly

Infecting to the point of a hallucinatory vertigo

The defective roulette played out on the tide of Death.

Sisina

Imaginez Diane en galant équipage,
Parcourant les forêts ou battant les halliers,
Cheveux et gorge au vent, s'enivrant de tapage,
Superbe et défiant les meilleurs cavaliers!

Avez-vous vu Théroigne, amante du carnage,
Excitant à l'assaut un peuple sans souliers,
La joue et l'oeil en feu, jouant son personnage,
Et montant, sabre au poing, les royaux escaliers?

Telle la Sisina! Mais la douce guerrière
À l'âme charitable autant que meurtrière;
Son courage, affolé de poudre et de tambours,

Devant les suppliants sait mettre bas les armes,
Et son coeur, ravagé par la flamme, a toujours,
Pour qui s'en montre digne, un réservoir de larmes.

 Wonder Woman

Imagine Diana and her gallant retinue

Charging through the forests bursting through the thickets,

Mane and throat to the wind, drunk on uproar,

Superbly defiant the best riders!

Have you seen Wonder Woman, lover of carnage,

Happily defending the down-trodden,

Cheek and eye aflame, enfevered in her role,

Assaulting, sword and shield in hand, the staircase?

Just like Gal Jadot! But the gentle warrior

Is as much a charitable soul as she is a seasoned killer;

Her courage, panicking in the explosions and drums,

Is to know when to put aside weapons before suppliants,

And her heart, ravaged by both fire and pain, is always,

For those who have some dignity, also a reservoir of tears. 

Harmonie du soir

Voici venir les temps où vibrant sur sa tige
Chaque fleur s'évapore ainsi qu'un encensoir;
Les sons et les parfums tournent dans l'air du soir;
Valse mélancolique et langoureux vertige!

Chaque fleur s'évapore ainsi qu'un encensoir;
Le violon frémit comme un coeur qu'on afflige;
Valse mélancolique et langoureux vertige!
Le ciel est triste et beau comme un grand reposoir.

Le violon frémit comme un coeur qu'on afflige,
Un coeur tendre, qui hait le néant vaste et noir!
Le ciel est triste et beau comme un grand reposoir;
Le soleil s'est noyé dans son sang qui se fige.

Un coeur tendre, qui hait le néant vaste et noir,
Du passé lumineux recueille tout vestige!
Le soleil s'est noyé dans son sang qui se fige...
Ton souvenir en moi luit comme un ostensoir!

                                                        

Night of Harmony

Here comes the night when the stems vibrate

And every flower burns like incense;

 Sounds and perfumes permeate the air,

A melancholy waltz plays languorously vertiginous!

Every flower burns like incense;

The violin trembles like an afflicted heart;

A melancholy waltz plays languorously vertiginous!

The sky is beautifully sad like a great repository.

The violin trembles like an afflicted heart;

A tender heart craves the great black abyss!

The sky is beautifully sad like a great repository.

The sun is drowning in its own blood which freezes.

A tender heart craves the great black abyss,

The vestiges of a once luminous past are shifting!

The sun is drowning in its own blood which freezes.

The memory of you in me still struggles like a monster.