[Christopher Mulrooney]

Rimbaud was an extraordinarily precise poet, and he knew it. "I have fixed vertigos." Fowlie describes this as "a very important document on Rimbaud's early sexuality", or some such nonsense, which it very patently is not.

The myth of Rimbaud centers on a precocious career terminated early. "It isn't when you begin," Godard says somewhere, or almost says, "it's that you begin at all, which is why Mozart's K.1 is not unworthy of K.622." And at a certain point, he had had enough, it might be said.

I have only Fowlie's slender authority for the translation of the last line ("—et tirons-nous la queue!").


Remembrances of the old idiot

Father, forgive me!
BANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POST Young, at country fairs,
I sought, not trite galleries where every shot is fair,
But the places full of cries where donkeys, with feeble
Flanks, deployed that long bloodred tube
I still can't comprehend!...

BANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POST BANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTAnd then my mother,
Whose chemise had a bitter aroma
Though crumpled below and yellow as a quince,
My mother who climbed into bed with a noise
—Son of labor, for all that—my mother, with a woman's
Ripe thighs, with those very fat loins where the linen
Folds, gave me warm feelings you hush.

A cruder and a calmer shame, was
When my little sister, home from class,
Having worn her sabots out on the ice,
Peed, and saw escape from her nether
Lips, closed and pink, prissy urine in one thread!...

O forgive me!
BANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTI considered my father at times:
Evenings, the racier words and the card games,
The neighbor, and me they kept out, things seen...
—For a father is troubling!—and the things conceived!...
His knees, at times cuddly; his pantaloons
Whose slit my fingers wanted to open... oh! zounds!
To have my father's fat, hard and dark bit,
Whose hairy hands rocked me!...

BANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POST BANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTI would omit
The pot, the handled dish, glimpsed in the attic,
The almanacs covered in red, and the basket
Of rags, and the Bible, and the loos, and the nanny,
The Blessed Virgin and the crucifix...

BANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POST BANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTOh! no-one
Was so frequently troubled, as if astounded!
And now let forgiveness unto me be granted:
Since my infected senses have me victimized,
I freely confesss to youthful crimes!...
.................................................. ........
Then!—let me be allowed to speak to the Lord!—
Why late puberty and the misfortune
Of the tenacious and too-oft consulted glans? Why the hairs
So slow beneath my belly? and those numberless fears
Always heaped on my joy like black gravel?
Me, I have always been stupefied! What savvy?
.................................................. ........

Forgiven?...
BANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTPull up that blue footmuff,
Father.
BANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTO that childhood!...........................
.................................................. ........
.......................................—and let's jerk off!


The Illuminations and other poems by Arthur Rimbaud, tr. C.M.



[This message has been edited by Christopher Mulrooney (edited February 09, 2001).]

[Alan Sullivan]

Hello, Christopher. I followed your link, and I see that you have been long at work. Not having much of a taste for Rimbaud, and not having the French text at hand, I cannot speak of your translation per se. Perhaps one of our savants will comment.

Alan Sullivan

[Christopher Mulrooney]

It's a fairly literal translation. Fowlie's confusion probably rests on the identity of "Father" ("Père") as priest and sire.




[This message has been edited by Christopher Mulrooney (edited February 09, 2001).]