EL DESDICHADO ...

[fajrdrako]

For my own reference and amusement.

EL DESDICHADO

Je suis le ténébreux, - le veuf, - l'inconsolé,
Le prince d'Aquitaine à la tour abolie :
Ma seule étoile est morte, - et mon luth constellé
Porte le soleil noir de la Mélancolie.
Dans la nuit du tombeau, toi qui m'as consolé,
Rends-moi le Pausilippe et la mer d'Italie,
La fleur qui plaisait tant à mon cœur désolé,
Et la treille où le pampre à la rose s'allie.
Suis-je Amour ou Phébus ?... Lusignan ou Biron ?
Mon front est rouge encor du baiser de la reine;
J'ai rêvé dans la grotte où nage la sirène...
Et j'ai deux fois vainqueur traversé l'Achéron :
Modulant tour à tour sur la lyre d'Orphée
Les soupirs de la sainte et les cris de la fée.

De Gérard de Nerval

from "Franceweb"



EL DESDICHADO


I am the dark one, - the widower; -the unconsoled,
The prince of Aquitaine at his stricken tower:
My sole star is dead, - and my constellated lute
Bears the black sun of the melancolia.

In the night of the tomb, you who consoled me,
Give me back Mount Posilipo and the Italian sea,
The flower which pleased so my desolate heart,
And the trellis where the grape vine unites with the rose.

Am I Amor or Phoebus? . . . Lusignan or Biron?
My forehead is still red from the kiss of the queen;
I have dreamd in the grotto where the mermaid swims...

And two times victorious I have crosst the Acheron:
Modulating turn by turn on the lyre of Orpheus
The sighs of the saint and the cries of the Fay.


Tr. Robert Duncan

Comments

[puritybrown.livejournal.com]

I have heard this set to music and sung by Donald Swann of Flanders and Swann (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flanders_and_Swann); it's rather beautiful. Thanks for the reminder!

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

How wonderful! I must see if I can find a recording of that.

[idiotgrrl.livejournal.com]

Aha! A Julian May fan? That was the favorite poem of her arch-villain Marc Remillard after he came to grief.

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

I'm amused to see it here. In a recent fanfic (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3678507/1/Survivors) (a sort of warped Gothic rom-com), I had the male lead quote it, and read some other Nerval. He's 700 years old, rather screwed up and occasionally murderous, and that's how he sees himself.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I read a Julian May novel once, embarrassingly long ago, and remember nothing of it. I might have first encountered this poem there, but I don't think so - I think it was from anthologies of French poetry.

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

An old favourite of mine (I fell for it as a schoolgirl!)! Did you spot it being quoted in my fanfic?
The title is a dual reference to Lesage’s Le Diable Boiteaux and to Ivanhoe.
(It's unclear whether Nerval alludes to the French nobleman Biron, or to Byron, whose name he habitually mispelled with an 'i'.)
I've translated the opening as:

I am the one in shadow, the widowed, the unconsoled.
The Prince of Aquitaine in the broken tower.
My only star is dead, and my starred lute
Bears the black Sun of Melancholia.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

An old favourite of mine (I fell for it as a schoolgirl!)!

I think I may have first encountered it as an undergraduate - I read a lot of French poetry back then. Of course I loved it from first reading.

Did you spot it being quoted in my fanfic?

Yes. That got me thinking about it again.

(It's unclear whether Nerval alludes to the French nobleman Biron, or to Byron, whose name he habitually mispelled with an 'i'.)

And her I was (frivolously) thinking of Biron the Bowman and wondering about classical connotations of centaurs.

I like your translation.

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

I think I may have first encountered it as an undergraduate - I read a lot of French poetry back then. Of course I loved it from first reading.

I found it by chance and fell for it! I have a couple of vols of Nerval.

Yes. That got me thinking about it again.

Glad to have sparked it off!
It just suited Raoul so well… What I suspect is his self-image, when he's in his self-absorbed mood.

And her I was (frivolously) thinking of Biron the Bowman and wondering about classical connotations of centaurs.

The centaur's Chiron, if I recall aright.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

The centaur's Chiron, if I recall aright.

The classical one. Biron the Bowman is a centaur in 1960s "Supergirl" comics, and in the "Legion of Super-Heroes". He was normally Supergirl's horse Comet, but he sometimes turned into a centaur, at which point he used the name Biron. At least - that's how I remember the story from when I was ten years old!

<a href="http://members.shaw.ca/legion_roll_call/reserve/pets/comet/>Here</a>, for the fun of it, is a picture and bio.

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

I'm afraid the only comic-books in my frame of reference tend to be Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and V for Vendetta!

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Not any centaurs is them, as I recall! "Supergirl" was a childhood favourite which still is dear to my heart, for its absurdity as much as for its sweetness of spirit.

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

I read comics as a child (Action and Bunty, Misty (which was sort of junior Goth-ette, as I recall), or June – a weird cross-gender juxtaposition!). Comic-books were more expensive US imports, and not widely available, as far as I recall.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Due to the patterns of international commerce, British comics don't come here, whatever their form - or at least, not often, or reliably. So though I've heard of the comics you mention, I don't think I've ever seen them.

When I was living in London in the 1970s, withdrawal from my comic-book addiction hit me hard. I found a cart on Charing Cross Road where they sold American comics at what I thought were extortionate prices - and which now look incredibly cheap. I was heavily into Master of Kung Fu in those days - it was being done by Doug Moench and Paul Gulacy, who were brilliant. I miss Marvel comics even more than I missed CBC radio.

Yes, expensive imports, and very hard to find!

Now there's a 'Forbidden Planet' in every city, it seems. Aah, fans have it easy these days... not like when I was young and comics shops didn't even exist, and we had to walk uphill (both ways) in the rain to find them....

[filkferengi]

And we walked 20 klicks to the comics shop,
Barefoot and uphill both ways,
Through blizzards in summer & winter,
Back in the good old days...

[very loosely paraphrasing the Frank Hayes classic "When I Was A Boy"]

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Yup, that's it exactly!