"Before my light goes out for ever, if God should give me a choice
of graces,
I would not reck of length of days, nor crave for things to be;
But cry: 'One day of the great lost days, one face of all the
faces,
Grant me to see and touch once more and nothing more to see.
"'For, Lord, I was free of all Thy flowers, but I chose the world's
sad roses,
And that is why my feet are torn and mine eyes are blind
with sweat,
But at Thy terrible judgment-seat, when this my tired life closes,
I am ready to reap whereof I sowed, and pay my righteous
debt'"--
have all the weary hunger, satiety, and unconquerable desire that over
and over again glow out in such sad beauty upon the petals of the
"Fleurs du Mal."
Readers who have followed me so far will observe that I have attempted
hardly any criticism of Baudelaire's work. I have translated Gautier--
that was the task that I set out to do. In this essay I have only
endeavoured to show how Baudelaire has influenced modern English poets,
who, in their turn, have made a lasting impression upon contemporary
thought. I have definitely restricted the scope of my endeavour.
But I have still something to say, something concerned with the few
translations I have made of Baudelaire's poems and some of the "Petits
Poëmes en prose."
The prose of a French author--such is my belief--can be translated into
a fair equivalent. It is a sort of commonplace for people to say that
you cannot translate a foreign author into English. I feel sure that
this is untrue. One cannot, of course, translate a perfect piece of
French or German prose into English which has _quite_ the same subtle
charm of the original. Nevertheless, translation from foreign prose can
be literal and delightful--but only when it is translated by a writer
of _English_ prose.
The reason that so many people believe, and say with some measure of
justice, that French or German prose cannot be adequately translated is
because they do not understand the commercial conditions which govern
such work.
It is very rarely indeed that a master of English prose can find
time to translate from the foreign. He is occupied entirely with his
own creations. Translation, to him, would be a labour of love; the
financial reward would be infinitesimal. This being so, the English
public must depend upon inferior translations made by people who
understand French, but are often incapable of literary appreciation, of
reproducing the "atmosphere" of the authors they translate.
If Oscar Wilde had translated the French verse of Baudelaire into
English verse, for example, then Baudelaire would by now be a household
word. If any well-known stylist and novelist of to-day would spend a
year over translating Flaubert's "Salammbô" then that masterpiece would
rank with "Esmond" or "The Cloister and the Hearth" in the minds of
Englishmen.
But this is too much to expect. Great creative artists are busily
engaged in doing their own work, and French classics must remain more
or less hidden from those lovers of literature who are not intimately
conversant with the language.
We are a commercial race. Successful writers do not care to explain
writers of other countries to their own countrymen. English men of
letters have a deep love for English letters, but very few of them
carry their amourettes over the Channel. Yet if any one doubts my
contention that foreign work can be translated almost flawlessly let me
remind him of John Addington Symonds' "Life of Benvenuto Cellini"; the
Count Stenbock's rendering of Balzac's "Shorter Stories"; Rossetti's
"La Vita Nuova" of Dante, or the translations of Maeterlinck by Mr.
Teixeira de Mattos.
Charles Baudelaire, when once he had found work that appealed to him
enormously, proceeded to translate it into his own language. His
renderings of Poe have not only introduced Poe to the public of
France, but have even improved upon the work of the American.
And Baudelaire says of his master:
"Ce n'est pas, par ces miracles matériels, qui pourtant ont fait
sa renommée, qu'il lui sera donné de conquérir l'admiration des
gens qui pensent, c'est par son amour du beau, par sa connaissance
des conditions harmoniques de la beauté, par sa poésie profonde et
plaintive, ouvragée néanmoins, transparente et correcte comme un bijou
de cristal,--par son admirable style, pur et bizarre,--serré comme
les mailles d'une armure,--complaisant et minutieux,--et dont la plus
légère intention sert à pousser doucement le lecteur vers un but
voulu,--et enfin surtout par ce génie tout spécial, par ce tempérament
unique qui lui a permis de peindre et d'expliquer, d'une manière
impeccable, saisissante, terrible, _l'exception dans l'ordre moral_.
--Diderot, pour prendre un example entre cent, est un auteur sanguin;
Poe est l'écrivain des nerfs, et même de quelque chose de plus--et le
meilleur que je connaisse."
This, of course, is only a paragraph taken from a considerable essay.
But with what insight and _esprit_ is it not said! There is all the
breadth and generality which comes from a culture, minute, severe,
constantly renewed, rectifying and concentrating his impressions in a
few pregnant words.
It is as well, also, that Baudelaire's marvellous _flair_ for
translation should be illustrated in this book. I have had some
difficulty in making choice of an example, in gathering a flower from a
garden so rich in blooms. I think, however, that the following parallel
excerpts from "Ligeia" exhibit Poe in his most characteristic style and
Baudelaire at his best in translation. (For purposes of comparison the
English and the French are printed in parallel columns.)
"There is one topic, however, on which my memory
fails me not. It is the _person_ of Ligeia. In
stature she was tall, somewhat slender, and, in
her latter days, even emaciated. I would in vain
attempt to portray the majesty, the quiet ease of
her demeanour, or the incomprehensible lightness and
elasticity of her footfall. She came and departed as
a shadow. I was never made aware of her entrance into
my closed study, save by the dear music of her low
sweet voice, as she placed her marble hand upon my
shoulder. In beauty of face no maiden ever equalled
her. It was the radiance of an opium dream, an airy
and spirit-lifting vision more wildly divine than the
phantasies which hovered about the slumbering souls
of the daughters of Delos. Yet her features were not
of that regular mould which we have been falsely
taught to worship in the classical labours of the
heathen.
"Il est néanmoins un sujet très cher sur lequel ma
mémoire n'est pas en défaut. C'est la _personne_
de Ligeia. Elle était d'une grande taille, un peu
mince, et même, dans les derniers jours, très
amaigrie. J'essayerais en vain de dépeindre la
majesté, l'aisance tranquille de sa démarche, et
l'incompréhensible légèreté, l'élasticité de son
pas. Elle venait et s'en allait comme une ombre.
Je ne m'apercevais jamais de son entrée dans mon
cabinet de travail que par la chère musique de sa
voix douce et profonde, quand elle posait sa main
de marbre sur mon épaule. Quant à la beauté de la
figure, aucune femme ne l'a jamais égalée. C'était
l'éclat d'un rêve d'opium--une vision aérienne et
ravissante, plus étrangement céleste que les rêveries
qui voltigent dans les âmes assoupies des filles de
Délos. Cependant ses traits n'étaient pas jetés dans
ce moule régulier qu'on nous a faussement enseigné à
révérer dans les ouvrages classiques du paganisme.
'There is no exquisite beauty,' says Bacon, Lord
Verulam, speaking truly of all forms and _genera_
of beauty, 'without some _strangeness_ in the
proportion.' Yet, although I saw that the features of
Ligeia were not of a classic regularity, although I
perceived that her loveliness was indeed 'exquisite,'
and felt that there was much of 'strangeness'
pervading it, I have tried in vain to detect the
irregularity and to trace home my own perception of
the 'strange.' I examined the contour of the lofty
and pale forehead--it was faultless; how cold indeed
that word when applied to a majesty so divine! the
skin rivalling the purest ivory, the commanding
extent and repose, the gentle prominence of the
regions above the temples; and then the raven-black,
the glossy, the luxuriant and naturally curling
tresses, setting forth the full force of the Homeric
epithet, 'hyacinthine'! I looked at the delicate
outlines of the nose, and nowhere but in the graceful
medallions of the Hebrews had I beheld a similar
perfection. There were the same luxurious smoothness
of surface, the same scarcely perceptible tendency to
the aquiline, the same harmoniously curved nostrils
speaking the free spirit. I regarded the sweet mouth.
'Il n'y a pas de beauté exquise,' dit lord Verulam,
parlant avec justesse de toutes les formes et de
tous les genres de beauté, 'sans une certaine
_étrangeté_, dans les proportions.' Toutefois, bien
que je visse que les traits de Ligeia n'étaient pas
d'une régularité classique--quoique je sentisse
que sa beauté était véritablement 'exquise,' et
fortement pénétrée de cette 'étrangeté,' je me suis
efforcé en vain de découvrir cette irrégularité
et de poursuivre jusqu'en son gîte ma perception
de 'l'étrange.' J'examinais le contour de front
haut et pâle--un front irréprochable--combien
ce mot est froid appliqué à une majesté aussi
divine!--la peau rivalisant avec le plus pur ivoire,
la largeur imposante, le calme, la gracieuse
proéminence des régions au-dessus des tempes et
puis cette chevelure d'un noir de corbeau, lustrée,
luxuriante, naturellement bouclée, et démontrant
toute la force de l'expression homérique: 'chevelure
d'hyacinthe.' Je considérais les lignes délicates
du nez--et nulle autre part que dans les gracieux
médallions hébraïques je n'avais contemplé une
semblable perfection. C'était ce même jet, cette
même surface unie et superbe, cette même tendance
presque imperceptible à l'aquilin, ces mêmes narines
harmonieusement arrondies et révélant un esprit
libre. Je regardais la charmante bouche.
Here was indeed the triumph of all things heavenly,
the magnificent turn of the short upper lip, the
soft, voluptuous slumber of the under, the dimples
which sported, and the colour which spoke, the teeth
glancing back, with a brilliancy almost startling,
every ray of the holy light which fell upon them in
her serene and placid, yet most exultingly radiant of
all smiles. I scrutinised the formation of the chin
--and here, too, I found the gentleness of breadth,
the softness and the majesty, the fulness and the
spirituality of the Greek--the contour which the god
Apollo revealed but in a dream to Cleomenes, the son
of the Athenian. And then I peered into the large
eyes of Ligeia."
C'était là qu'était le triomphe de toutes les choses
célestes: la tour glorieux de la lèvre supérieure, un
peu courte, l'air doucement, voluptueusement reposé
de l'inférieure,--les fossettes qui se jouaient et
la couleur qui parlait,--les dents réfléchissant
comme une espèce d'éclair chaque rayon de la lumière
bénie qui tombait sur elles dans ses sourires sereins
et placides, mais toujours radieux et triomphants.
J'analysais la forme du menton, et là aussi je
trouvais le grâce dans la largeur, la douceur et la
majesté, la plénitude et la spiritualité grecques--ce
contour que le dieu Apollon ne révéla qu'en rêve à
Cléomène, fils de Cléomène d'Athènes. Et puis je
regardais dans les grands yeux de Ligeia."
I have said, and I thoroughly believe, that it is possible for a great
writer to translate the prose of another country into fine and almost
literal prose of his own.
It is, however, when we come to verse that we find the literal
translation inadequate. A verse translation, by the very necessity of
the limits within which the artist works--that of metre and cadence
--must necessarily have a large amount of freedom. The translator
has first to study the poem with a care that directs itself to the
dissecting, analysing and saturating himself with what the poet _means
to convey_, rather than the actual words in which he conveys it. One
does not translate _ventre à terre_ as "belly to the earth" but as "at
full gallop." The translator must have a kind of loving clairvoyance,
an apprehension of inner beauty, if he is to explain another mind in
the medium of poetry.
It seems unkind to instance what I mean by quoting a translation of
some lines of Baudelaire which, while literally accurate, fail to
give the English reader the least hinting of an atmosphere profoundly
wonderful in the original.
I need not mention names, however, but will contrast the following
lines--
"A languorous island, where Nature abounds
With exotic trees and luscious fruit;
And with men whose bodies are slim and astute,
And with women whose frankness delights and astounds"--
with Baudelaire's own corresponding verse from that lovely poem "Parfum
exotique."
"Une île paresseuse où la nature donne
Des arbres singuliers et des fruits savoureux;
Des hommes dont le corps est mince et vigoureux,
Et des femmes dont l'œil par sa franchise étonne."
Voltaire once said of Dante that his reputation would go on growing
because he was so little read. That was a satire, not upon Dante, but
upon humanity.
Baudelaire has a great reputation, but is still comparatively little
known to English readers.
It is my hope that this translation of Gautier, and the small attempts
at rendering Baudelaire, may serve as _hors d'œuvre_ to a magic feast
which awaits any one who cares to wander through the gates of the
garden where flowers of unexampled beauty blow ... and not only Flowers
of Evil.