J.W.v. Goethe
‘Ganymed’
Wie im Morgenglanze How, in the morning brightness,
Du rings mich anglühst, You all around shine at me,
Frühling, Geliebter! Springtime, Beloved!
Mit tausendfacher Liebeswonne With thousandfold love-bliss
Sich an mein Herz drängt The holy feeling
Deiner ewigen Wärme Of your eternal warmth
Heilig Gefühl, Presses itself upon my heart,
Unendliche Schöne! Unending beauty!
Daß ich dich fassen möcht’ Could I but embrace you
In diesen Arm! In this arm!
Ach, an deinem Busen Ah, upon your breast
Lieg’ ich, schmachte, I lie, languish,
Und deine Blumen, dein Gras And your blossoms, your grass
Drängen sich an mein Herz. press upon my heart.
Du kühlst den brennenden You cool the burning
Durst meines Busens, Thirst of my bosom,
Lieblicher Morgenwind! Lovely morning-wind!
Ruft drein die Nachtigall There calls the nightingale
Liebend nach mir aus dem Nebeltal. Lovingly for me from the misty vale.
Ich komm’, ich komme! I come, I come!
Wohin? Ach, wohin? Whither, ah whither?
Hinauf! Hinauf strebt’s. Up! Up it surges.
Es schweben die Wolken The clouds are leaning
Abwärts, die Wolken Downwards, the clouds
Neigen sich der sehnenden Liebe. Bow down to yearning love.
Mir! Mir! To me! To me!
In eurem Schosse In your lap, clouds,
Aufwärts! Upwards!
Umfangend umfangen! Embracing, embraced!
Aufwärts an deinen Busen, Upwards to thy bosom,
Alliebender Vater! All-loving Father!
Stéphane Mallarmé
Un Coup de Dés Jamais N’Abolira Le Hasard (A Throw of the Dice will Never Abolish Chance)
UN COUP DE DÉS JAMAIS, QUAND BIEN MÊME LANCÉ DANS DES CIRCONSTANCES ÉTERNELLES DU FOND D’UN NAUFRAGE, Soit que l’Abîme blanchi, étale, furieux sous une inclinaison planche désespérément d’aile, la sienne, par avance retombée d’un mal à dresser le vol et couvrant les jaillissements, coupant au ras les bonds très à l’intérieur résume l’ombre enfouie dans la profondeur, par cette voile alternative jusqu’adapter sa béante profondeur entant que la coque d’un bâtiment penché de l’un ou l’autre bord
THROW OF THE DICE NEVER, EVEN WHEN TRULY CAST IN THE ETERNAL CIRCUMSTANCE OF A SHIPWRECK’S DEPTH, Can be only the Abyss raging, whitened, stalled beneath the desperately sloping incline of its own wing, through an advance falling back from ill to take flight, and veiling the gushers, restraining the surges, gathered far within the shadow buried deep by that alternative sail, almost matching its yawning depth to the wingspan, like a hull of a vessel rocked from side to side
LE MAÎTRE, hors d’anciens calculs, où la manoeuvre avec l’âge oubliée surgi jadis, il empoignait la barre inférant de cette configuration à ses pieds de l’horizon unanime, que se prépare s’agite et mêle au poing qui l’étreindrait, comme on menace un destin et les vents, l’unique Nombre, qui ne peut pas être un autre Esprit, pour le jeter dans la tempête en reployer la division et passer fier; hésite, cadavre par le bras écarté du secret qu’il détient plutôt que de jouer, en maniaque: chenu la partie au nom des flots, un envahit le chef, coule en barbe, soumise naufrage, cela direct de l’homme sans nef, n’importe où vaine
THE MASTER, beyond former calculations, where the lost manoeuvre with the age rose implying that formerly he grasped the helm of this conflagration of the concerted horizon at his feet, that readies itself; moves; and merges with the blow that grips it, as one threatens fate and the winds, the unique Number, which cannot be another Spirit, to hurl it into the storm, relinquish the cleaving there, and pass proudly; hesitates, a corpse pushed back by the arm from the secret, rather than taking sides, a hoary madman, on behalf of the waves: one overwhelms the head, flows through the submissive beard, straight shipwreck that, of the man without a vessel, empty no matter where
ancestralement à n’ouvrir pas la main crispée par delà l’inutile tête, legs en la disparition, à quelqu’un ambigu, l’ultérieur démon immémorial, ayant de contrées nulles induit le vieillard vers cette conjonction suprême avec la probabilité, celui son ombre puérile caressée et polie et rendue et lavée assouplie par la vague, et soustraite aux durs os perdus entre les ais né d’un ébat, la mer par l’aïeul tentant ou l’aïeul contre la mer, une chance oiseuse, Fiançailles dont le voile d’illusion rejailli leur hantise, ainsi que le fantôme d’un geste chancellera, s’affalera, folie N’ABOLIRA
ancestrally never to open the fist clenched beyond the helpless head, a legacy, in vanishing, to someone ambiguous, the immemorial ulterior demon having, from non-existent regions, led the old man towards this ultimate meeting with probability, this his childlike shade caressed and smoothed and rendered supple by the wave, and shielded from hard bone lost between the planks born of a frolic, the sea through the old man or the old man against the sea, making a vain attempt, an Engagement whose dread the veil of illusion rejected, as the phantom of a gesture will tremble, collapse, madness, WILL NEVER ABOLISH
COMME SI Une insinuation simple au silence, enroulée avec ironie, ou le mystère précipité, hurlé, dans quelque proche tourbillon d’hilarité et d’horreur, voltige autour du gouffre sans le joncher ni fuir et en berce le vierge indice COMME SI
AS IF A simple insinuation into silence, entwined with irony, or the mystery hurled, howled, in some close swirl of mirth and terror, whirls round the abyss without scattering or dispersing and cradles the virgin index there AS IF
plume solitaire éperdue, sauf que la rencontre ou l’effleure une toque de minuit et immobilise au velours chiffonné par un esclaffement sonore, cette blancheur rigide, dérisoire en opposition au ciel, trop pour ne pas marquer exigüment quiconque prince amer de l’écueil, s’en coiffe comme de l’héroïque, irrésistible mais contenu par sa petite raison, virile en foudre
soucieux expiatoire et pubère muet rire que SI La lucide et seigneuriale aigrette de vertige au front invisible scintille, puis ombrage, une stature mignonne ténébreuse, debout en sa torsion de sirène, le temps de souffleter, par d’impatientes squames ultimes, bifurquées, un roc faux manoir tout de suite évaporé en brumes qui imposa une borne à l’infini
a solitary plume overwhelmed, untouched, that a cap of midnight grazes, or encounters, and fixes, in crumpled velvet with a sombre burst of laughter, that rigid whiteness, derisory, in opposition to the heavens, too much so not to signal closely any bitter prince of the reef, heroically adorned with it, indomitable, but contained by his petty reason, virile in lightning anxious expiatory and pubescent dumb laughter that IF the lucid and lordly crest of vertigo on the invisible brow sparkles, then shades, a slim dark tallness, upright in its siren coiling, at the moment of striking, through impatient ultimate scales, bifurcated, a rock a deceptive manor suddenly evaporating in fog that imposed limits on the infinite
C’ÉTAIT LE NOMBRE, issu stellaire, EXISTÂT-IL autrement qu’hallucination éparse, d’agonie; COMMENÇÂT-IL ET CESSÂT-IL, sourdant que nié, et clos, quand apparu enfin, par quelque profusion répandue en rareté; SE CHIFFRÂT-IL évidence de la somme, pour peu qu’une; ILLUMINÂT-IL, CE SERAIT, pire non davantage ni moins indifféremment mais autant, LE HASARD Choit la plume, rythmique suspens du sinistre, s’ensevelir aux écumes originelles naguères, d’où sursauta son délire jusqu’à une cime flétrie par la neutralité identique du gouffre
IT WAS THE NUMBER, stellar outcome, WERE IT TO HAVE EXISTED other than as a fragmented, agonised hallucination; WERE IT TO HAVE BEGUN AND ENDED, a surging that denied, and closed, when visible at last, by some profusion spreading in sparseness; WERE IT TO HAVE AMOUNTED to the fact of the total, though as little as one; WERE IT TO HAVE LIGHTED, IT WOULD BE, worse no more nor less indifferently but as much, CHANCE Falls the plume, rhythmic suspense of the disaster, to bury itself in the original foam, from which its delirium formerly leapt to the summit faded by the same neutrality of abyss
RIEN de la mémorable crise où se fût l’événement accompli, en vue de tout résultat nul humain, N’AURA EU LIEU, une élévation ordinaire verse l’absence QUE LE LIEU inférieur clapotis quelconque, comme pour disperser l’acte vide abruptement, qui sinon par son mensonge eût fondé la perdition, dans ces parages du vague, en quoi toute réalité se dissout
NOTHING of the memorable crisis where the event matured, accomplished in sight of all non-existent human outcomes, WILL HAVE TAKEN PLACE a commonplace elevation pours out absence BUT THE PLACE some lapping below, as if to scatter the empty act abruptly, that otherwise by its falsity would have plumbed perdition, in this region of vagueness, in which all reality dissolves
EXCEPTÉ à l’altitude PEUT-ÊTRE, aussi loin qu’un endroit fusionne avec au-delà, hors l’intérêt quant à lui signalé, en général, selon telle obliquité, par telle déclivité de feux, vers ce doit être le Septentrion aussi Nord UNE CONSTELLATION froide d’oubli et de désuétude, pas tant qu’elle n’énumère, sur quelque surface vacante et supérieure, le heurt successif, sidéralement, d’un compte total en formation, veillant, doutant, roulant, brillant et méditant avant de s’arrêter à quelque point dernier qui le sacre Toute pensée émet un Coup de Dés.
EXCEPT at the altitude PERHAPS, as far as a place fuses with, beyond, outside the interest signalled regarding it, in general, in accord with such obliquity, through such declination of fire, towards what must be the Wain also North A CONSTELLATION cold with neglect and desuetude, not so much though that it fails to enumerate, on some vacant and superior surface, the consecutive clash, sidereally, of a final account in formation, attending, doubting, rolling, shining and meditating before stopping at some last point that crowns it All Thought expresses a Throw of the Dice
…
1. The larger and smaller words in capitals in the poem are to be read as intertwined statements, and dominant and secondary threads of the poem, in accordance with the hints in Mallarmé’s Preface.
2. The French Septentrion meaning the North, derives from the Latin Septentrio also meaning the North, but specifically referring in addition to the constellation Ursa Major known variously as the Great Bear, Wain, Plough or Big Dipper. Note that a constellation is a chance arbitrary visual formation of often widely disparate stars, delineated and designated purely by the human mind.
3. Note the following possible literary echoes, which may equally indicate no more than Mallarme’s absorption of, and interest in, common 19th century themes:
Coleridge’s The Ancient Mariner (1797-1799: especially the casting of dice on the deck of the spectral barge);
4. The legends of the Flying Dutchman, and of the Maelstrom (See for example the final chapter of Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, 1870); Shakespeare’s Hamlet who also appears in a Mallarmé sonnet (The Clown Chastised); Rostand’s Cyrano (First performed 1897) with his defiant plume (also of course in French a pen and a quill or swan’s feather, a key multiple meaning impossible to capture in English); Melville’s Moby Dick (1851: for Ahab’s defiance, and his pursuit of the White Whale that signifies Le Néant, and not merely for its compulsive and obsessive digressions!)
J. C. F. Hölderlin
Wurzel alles Übels / The Root of All Evil
Einig zu seyn, ist göttlich und gut; woher ist die Sucht den
Unter den Menschen, daß nur Einer und Eines nur sie?
Being at one is god-like and good, but human, too human, the
mania. Which insists there is only die One, one country, one truth and
one way.
….
Lebenslauf / The Course of Life
Größers wolltest auch du, aber die Liebe zwingt
All uns nieder, das Laid beuget gewaltiger,
Doch es kehret umsonst nicht
Unser Bogen, woher er kommt.
Aufwärts oder hinab! herrschet in heiPger Nacht,
Wo die stumme Natur werdende Tage sinnt,
Herrscht im schiefesten Orkus
Nicht ein Grades, ein Recht noch auch?
Diß erfuhr ich. Denn nie, sterblichen Meistern gleich,
Habt ihr Himmlischen, ihr Alleserhaltenden,
Daß ich wüßte, mit Vorsicht
Mich des ebenen Pfads geführt.
Alles prüfe der Mensch, sagen die Himmlischen,
Daß er, kräftig genährt, danken für Alles lern’,
Und verstehe die Freiheit,
Aufzubrechen, wohin er will.
More you also desired, but every one of us
Love draws earthward, and grief bends with still greater power;
Yet our arc not for nothing
Brings us back to our starting place.
Whether upward or down—does not in holy night
Where mute Nature thinks out days that are still to come,
Though in crookedest Orcus,
Yet a straightness, a law prevail?
Tbis I learned. For not once, as mortal masters do,
Did you heavenly ones, wise preservers of all,
To my knowledge, with foresight
Lead me on by a level path.
All a man shall try out, thus say the heavenly,
So that strongly sustained he shall give thanks for all,
Learn to grasp his own freedom
To be gone where he’s moved to go.
The Space Ape
Up In Flames
Be the first ones to criticise
Be the last ones to stay alive
Be the first ones to take a stand
Be the only ones to understands
Be the last ones to shut your mouth
Be the first ones to spit it out
Be the first ones to say you will
Be the last ones to take the pill
Be the first ones to violate
Be the last ones to tolerate
Be the last ones to take a life
Be the first ones to blow the device
Be the only ones still on the run
Be the last ones staring at the sun
Be the brave one who shouts from the roof
Be the sage one looking for the proof
Be the young man whose older than his time
Be the old man whose living in his prime
Be the last ones to see yourself
Be the only ones to be yourself
Be the first ones to feed your brain
Be the last ones to go insane
Be the devil all up in flames
Be a rebel man it’s all the same
Be the first ones to criticise
Be the last ones to stay alive
(You can see this poet’s brilliance here: https://thespaceape.wordpress.com/tag/poems/)
