LVII. TO MADONNA - BAUDELAIRE TRANSVERSION

                                             Madonna and Jean Paul Gaultier, Herb Ritts, 1990.

 

 

To Madonna

From Baudelaire to a Pop Icon

 

Growing up in the eighties in Cork was an incredibly repressive and suffocating experience for me, so when the pop icon Madonna exploded onto the international scene, bringing with her all the illusive energy and vulgar sex appeal of a modern day Calypso, she helped me, along with I am sure, millions of other young males and females, to live out my adolescent fantasy. This meant, of course, masturbatory sessions chiefly inspired by the American singer typically enabled by a photo often inserted into a mainstream magazine. Remember, this was pre-internet. So, the saturation of free porn content, which exists today, was non-existent. Images of her typically in fishnets and stilettos, ripped jeans and Perfectos, blonde hair and all kinds of sexual innuendo emitting from her persona, all helped to fire up a young boy’s imagination and help ignite a what would probably have been a really boring and banal masturbatory session, and to transform it then into something much more powerful and yes, sublime.

So, when I came to translate the poem Á une Madone by Charles Baudelaire, I couldn’t help but dedicate it to my childhood muse and heroine, as a token of my gratefulness. There is another reason. She has come in for a lot of attack since she made a public appearance and her face has clearly undergone some major transformation due to plastic surgery. It's all quite sad, really. Sad to see this one- time Queen of the music industry and major cultural icon of our time, reduced to such levels of debasement and abuse. And in my own small part, with the following translation, I wanted to acknowledge my debt to her, and my profound admiration for all that she has achieved and done.

My most consistently popular post on my blog, and being so for a number of years, has been my transversion of poem number  fifty nine in Les Fleurs Du Mal, Sisina, and which I transversed as Wonder Woman. Amazons are the feminine ideal which Baudelaire targets in the very first section of his monumental work, and it is because of his views on women, just like Shakespeare, whose heir he is, that he remains so immensely popular as a poet. In today’s world, where women have finally managed to break away from the typically submissive domain that was originally their sole destiny, and mainly thanks to role models like Madonna, Baudelaire’s poems, such as the one published here, number 57 from Les Fleurs, reveal just how modern Baudelaire’s poetic vision was. I often wonder how he would have felt, if he were able to come back from the dead, and if he were able to look around him today and see women, like Gal Gadot in the role of Wonder Woman or Madonna in the role of her persona in Blonde Ambition, the role which was to have such an impact on me growing up as a boy. What would he think to see his fantastic creations, these wondrous Amazon, stalking their male counterparts all along the contemporary savannahs!... 

 

     

 

 

 

LVII. Á UNE MADONNA

Ex-voto dans le gout espanol

 

 

Je veux bâtir pour toi, Madona, ma maîtresse,

Un autel souterrain au fond de ma détresse,

Et creuser dans le coin le plus noir de mon cœur,

Loin du désir mondain et du regard moquer,

Une niche, d’azur et d’or tout émaillée,

Où tu te dresseras, Statue émerveillée.

Avec mes Vers polis, treillis d’un pur métal

Savamment constellé de rimes de cristal,

Je ferai pour ta tête une énorme Couronne ;

Et dans ma Jalousie, ô mortelle Madone,

Je saurai te tailler un Monteau, de façon

Barbare, roide et lourde, et doublé de soupçon,

Qui, comme un guérite, enfermera tes charmes ;

Non de Perles brodé, mais de toutes mes Larmes !

Ta Robe, ce sera mon Désir, frémissant,

Onduleux, mon Désir qui monte et qui descend,

Aux pointes se balance, aux vallons se repose,

Et revét d’un baiser tout ton corps blanc et rose.

Je te ferai de mon Respect de beaux Souliers

De satin, par tes pieds divins humiliés,

Qui, les emprisonnant dans une molle étreinte,

Comme un moule fidèle en garderont l’empreinte,

Si je ne puis, malgré tout mon art diligent,

Pour Marchepied tailler une Lune d’argent,

Je mettrai le Serpent qui me mord les entrailles

Sous tes talons, afin que tu foules et railles,

Reine victorieuse et féconde en rachats,

Ce monstre tout gonflé de haine et des crachats.

Tu verras mes Pensers, rangés comme les Cierges

Devant l’autel fleuri de la Reine des Vierges,

Étoilant de reflets le plafond peint en bleu,

Te regarder toujours avec des yeux de feu ;

Et comme tout en moi te chérit et t’admire,

Tout se fera Benjoin, Encens, Oilban, Myrrhe,

Et sans cesse vers toi, sommet blanc et neigeux,

En vapeurs monteras mon Esprit orageux.

 

Enfin, pour contempléter ton rôle de Marie,

Et pour mêler l’amour avec la barbarie,

Volupté noire ! des sept Péchés capitaux,

Borreau pleine de remords, je ferai sept Couteaux

Bien affilés, et, comme un jongleur insensible,

Prenant le plus profond de ton amour pour cible,

Je te planterai tous dans ton Cœur pantelant,

Dans ton Cœur sanglotant, dans ton Cœur ruisselant !

 

 

 

 

 

LVII. TO MADONNA

In the Spanish Style

 

 

I should like to build for you, Madonna, Mistress,

A subterranean alley at the bottom of my distress,

And dig there in the darkest corner of my heart

Far from mundane desires and mocking looks,

An azure and gold niche all in enamel

Where you will be finally installed, marvelous statue,

With my polished verses trellised in pure metal,

Sage constellations caught in crystalised rhymes

I will fashion for your head a great crown,

And in my jealousy, o mortal Madonna,

I will tailor for you a great cloak, in the Barbarous

Style, stiff and heavy, and doubled with suspicion,

Like a sentry box it will guard your charms;

Not with braided pearls, but with my tears!

Your dress, it shall be, like my desire, trembling,

Undulating, my Desire which rises and falls,

On point its balance, in valleys repose,

And covering all of your body rose and white in a kiss.

I will fashion from my respect beautiful slippers

Of satin, where your divine humiliated feet

Will be imprisoned in their gentle embrace,

Like a faithful mold they will guard their imprints.

If I cannot, despite my diligent art,

Craft from the silvery moon a step ladder,

I will put in its place a serpent which gnaws at my entrails

Beneath your talons, before you swarm and sneer,

Victorious Queen fecund at redeeming,

The monster all blown up with hateful spit.

You will see all of my thoughts, arranged like candelabra,

Before the flowering altar of the Virgin Queen,

Astonishing the reflections upon the blue coloured roof,

You who always look with a fire in your eyes;

And like all in me who cherish and admire you,

Bearing resin, incense, olives and myrrh,

And ceaselessly gravitating towards you; like an icy

Summit, with vapours outpouring toward my stormy spirit.

 

Finally, to complete your role as Mary,

And to mix blood with barbarity,

Darkly voluptuous! The seven deadly sins,

Torturer full of remorse, I will make you seven knives,

Blades sharpened, and, like a heartless juggler,

And choosing your deepest love as a target,

I will plant all several of them into your beating Heart,

Into your bleeding Heart, into your crimson Heart!