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Re: False Azure, Frost: BB reply
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Here is my translation of Mallarme's "Les fenetres," to which Prof. Boyd
alludes in the discussion of "azure."
Windows
Sick of the ward, sick of the fetid smell
Rising against the curtains' tiresome white
Toward the tired Christ nailed to the bare wall,
The sick man stretches, slyly stands upright,
And shuffles, more to see the common stones
Blaze with sun than to fire his own decay,
Presses a grizzled face gray as his bones
Against the window tinged with dying day,
And greedy for the azure licks his tongue
Across dry lips as if he might regain
That downy cheek he brushed when he was young,
And, with a long kiss, soils the golden pane.
Drunk, he forgets the holy oils and smiles,
Bidding the broths, the clocks, the bed good-bye;
Forgets to cough. Dusk bleeds across the tiles,
And in a sunset gorged with light his eye
Discerns the gilded galleys, fine as swans,
Heavy with spices on a saffron sea,
Etching their burnished flash of lines upon
The lovely nonchalance of memory.
Just so, disgusted with complacent Man,
Whose appetites devour him, whose sole quest
Is to fetch home what scraps of filth he can
To please the hag with urchins at her breast,
I rush, I cling to all those windows where
One turns his back on life; transformed by light,
Washed by eternal dew and swathed in air,
Reflected in the dawn of the Infinite,
I see myself an angel! die and seem
--Let this be Art! Let it be Mysticism!--
To be reborn, wearing my crown of dreams
In the lush beauty of an antique heaven!
But no. The Here and Now lord over me,
Seeking me out no matter where I fly,
And the rank vomit of stupidity
Stops up my nose before the azure sky.
Is there a way for Me, who know such sorrow,
To break this glass soiled by humanity,
To fly on featherless wings into tomorrow--
Risking the plunge into Eternity?
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alludes in the discussion of "azure."
Windows
Sick of the ward, sick of the fetid smell
Rising against the curtains' tiresome white
Toward the tired Christ nailed to the bare wall,
The sick man stretches, slyly stands upright,
And shuffles, more to see the common stones
Blaze with sun than to fire his own decay,
Presses a grizzled face gray as his bones
Against the window tinged with dying day,
And greedy for the azure licks his tongue
Across dry lips as if he might regain
That downy cheek he brushed when he was young,
And, with a long kiss, soils the golden pane.
Drunk, he forgets the holy oils and smiles,
Bidding the broths, the clocks, the bed good-bye;
Forgets to cough. Dusk bleeds across the tiles,
And in a sunset gorged with light his eye
Discerns the gilded galleys, fine as swans,
Heavy with spices on a saffron sea,
Etching their burnished flash of lines upon
The lovely nonchalance of memory.
Just so, disgusted with complacent Man,
Whose appetites devour him, whose sole quest
Is to fetch home what scraps of filth he can
To please the hag with urchins at her breast,
I rush, I cling to all those windows where
One turns his back on life; transformed by light,
Washed by eternal dew and swathed in air,
Reflected in the dawn of the Infinite,
I see myself an angel! die and seem
--Let this be Art! Let it be Mysticism!--
To be reborn, wearing my crown of dreams
In the lush beauty of an antique heaven!
But no. The Here and Now lord over me,
Seeking me out no matter where I fly,
And the rank vomit of stupidity
Stops up my nose before the azure sky.
Is there a way for Me, who know such sorrow,
To break this glass soiled by humanity,
To fly on featherless wings into tomorrow--
Risking the plunge into Eternity?
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm