Stephane Mallarme

 

 

 

 

 

“A Throw Of The Dice Will Never Abolish Chance”

      Translated by A. S. Kline

 

A 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





 

             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


 

 

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  

 


 

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

 

 


 

 

         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

                                                                          


 

                                                  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

                                                                          


 

 

 

                    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

                                                                          


 

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

 

 

L’Apres-midi d’un Faune

Eclogue

The Faun

These nymphs, I would perpetuate them.

So bright

Their crimson flesh that hovers there, light

In the air drowsy with dense slumbers.

Did I love a dream?

My doubt, mass of ancient night, ends extreme

In many a subtle branch, that remaining the true

Woods themselves, proves, alas, that I too

Offered myself, alone, as triumph, the false ideal of roses.

Let’s see….

or if those women you note

Reflect your fabulous senses’ desire!

Faun, illusion escapes from the blue eye,

Cold, like a fount of tears, of the most chaste:

But the other, she, all sighs, contrasts you say

Like a breeze of day warm on your fleece?

No! Through the swoon, heavy and motionless

Stifling with heat the cool morning’s struggles

No water, but that which my flute pours, murmurs

To the grove sprinkled with melodies: and the sole breeze

Out of the twin pipes, quick to breathe

Before it scatters the sound in an arid rain,

Is unstirred by any wrinkle of the horizon,

The visible breath, artificial and serene,

Of inspiration returning to heights unseen.

O Sicilian shores of a marshy calm

My vanity plunders vying with the sun,

Silent beneath scintillating flowers, RELATE

‘That I was cutting hollow reeds here tamed

By talent: when, on the green gold of distant

Verdure offering its vine to the fountains,

An animal whiteness undulates to rest:

And as a slow prelude in which the pipes exist

This flight of swans, no, of Naiads cower

Or plunge…’

Inert, all things burn in the tawny hour

Not seeing by what art there fled away together

Too much of hymen desired by one who seeks there

The natural A: then I’ll wake to the primal fever

Lily! And the one among you all for artlessness.

Other than this sweet nothing shown by their lip, the kiss

That softly gives assurance of treachery,

My breast, virgin of proof, reveals the mystery

Of the bite from some illustrious tooth planted;

Let that go! Such the arcane chose for confidant,

The great twin reed we play under the azure ceiling,

That turning towards itself the cheek’s quivering,

Dreams, in a long solo, so we might amuse

The beauties round about by false notes that confuse

Between itself and our credulous singing;

And create as far as love can, modulating,

The vanishing, from the common dream of pure flank

Or back followed by my shuttered glances,

Of a sonorous, empty and monotonous line.

Try then, instrument of flights, O malign

Syrinx by the lake where you await me, to flower again!

I, proud of my murmur, intend to speak at length

Of goddesses: and with idolatrous paintings

Remove again from shadow their waists’ bindings:

So that when I’ve sucked the grapes’ brightness

To banish a regret done away with by my pretence,

Laughing, I raise the emptied stem to the summer’s sky

And breathing into those luminous skins, then I,

Desiring drunkenness, gaze through them till evening.

 

O nymphs, let’s rise again with many memories.

‘My eye, piercing the reeds, speared each immortal

Neck that drowns its burning in the water

With a cry of rage towards the forest sky;

And the splendid bath of hair slipped by

In brightness and shuddering, O jewels!

I rush there: when, at my feet, entwine (bruised

By the languor tasted in their being-two’s evil)

Girls sleeping in each other’s arms’ sole peril:

I seize them without untangling them and run

To this bank of roses wasting in the sun

All perfume, hated by the frivolous shade

Where our frolic should be like a vanished day.’

I adore you, wrath of virgins, O shy

Delight of the nude sacred burden that glides

Away to flee my fiery lip, drinking

The secret terrors of the flesh like quivering

Lightning: from the feet of the heartless one

To the heart of the timid, in a moment abandoned

By innocence wet with wild tears or less sad vapours.

‘Happy at conquering these treacherous fears

My crime’s to have parted the dishevelled tangle

Of kisses that the gods kept so well mingled:

For I’d scarcely begun to hide an ardent laugh

In one girl’s happy depths (holding back

With only a finger, so that her feathery candour

Might be tinted by the passion of her burning sister,

The little one, naïve and not even blushing)

Than from my arms, undone by vague dying,

This prey, forever ungrateful, frees itself and is gone,

Not pitying the sob with which I was still drunk.’

 

No matter! Others will lead me towards happiness

By the horns on my brow knotted with many a tress:

You know, my passion, how ripe and purple already

Every pomegranate bursts, murmuring with the bees:

And our blood, enamoured of what will seize it,

Flows for all the eternal swarm of desire yet.

At the hour when this wood with gold and ashes heaves

A feast’s excited among the extinguished leaves:

Etna! It’s on your slopes, visited by Venus

Setting in your lava her heels so artless,

When a sad slumber thunders where the flame burns low.

I hold the queen!

O certain punishment…

No, but the soul

Void of words, and this heavy body,

Succumb to noon’s proud silence slowly:

With no more ado, forgetting blasphemy, I

Must sleep, lying on the thirsty sand, and as I

Love, open my mouth to wine’s true constellation!

Farewell to you, both: I go to see the shadow you have become.


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