The Self-Dismembered Man: Selected Later Poems of Guillaume Apollinaire
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Guillaume Apollinaire's final years exactly coincided with the clamorous advent of European Modernism and with the cataclysms of WWI. In The Self-Dismembered Man, poet Donald Revell offers new English translations of the most powerful poems Apollinaire wrote during those years: poems of nascent surrealism, of combat and of war-weariness. Here, too, is Apollinaire's last testament, "The Pretty Redhead," a farewell to the epoch that he—as poet, convict, art-critic, artilleryman and boulevardier—did so much to conjure and sustain until his death on Armistice Day in 1918. Readers of Apollinaire's more familiar early work, Alcools (Wesleyan, 1995), will find here a darker and yet more tender poet, a poet of the broken world who shares entirely the world's catastrophe even as he praises to the end its glamour and its strange innocence. This English translation, facing the original French, illuminates Apollinaire's crucial and continuing influence on the European and American avant-garde. The volume includes a short translator's preface.
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The Self-Dismembered Man - Guillaume Apollinaire
Les Collines
Au-dessus de Paris un jour
Combattaient deux grands avions
L’un était rouge et l’autre noir
Tandis qu’au zénith flamboyait
L’éternel avion solaire
commonL’un était toute ma jeunesse
Et l’autre c’était l’avenir
Ils se combattaient avec rage
Ainsi fit contre Lucifer
L’Archange aux ailes radieuses
commonAinsi le calcul au problème
Ainsi la nuit contre le jour
Ainsi attaque ce que j’aime
Mon amour ainsi l’ouragan
Déracine l’arbre qui crie
commonMais vois quelle douceur partout
Paris comme une jeune fille
S’éveille langoureusement
Secoue sa longue chevelure
Et chante sa belle chanson
commonThe Hills
One day in the sky over Paris
Two great airplanes made war
One was red and the other was black
And still higher at the zenith flamed
Eternity’s sunshine
commonThe one was my entire youth
The other was the future
They made war furiously
Same as the radiant archangel
Struggled with Lucifer
commonSo calculus hates the problem
So night hates day
So my loving batters my love
So hurricane
Uproots the screaming tree
commonBut look at the sweetness
Paris like a girl
Awakens languidly
And shaking her long long hair
She begins to sing
commonOù donc est tombée ma jeunesse
Tu vois que flambe l’avenir
Sache que je parle aujourd’hui
Pour annoncer au monde entier
Qu’enfin est né l’art de prédire
commonCertains hommes sont des collines
Qui s’élèvent d’entre les hommes
Et voient au loin tout l’avenir
Mieux que s’il était le présent
Plus net que s’il était passé
commonOrnement des temps et des routes
Passe et dure sans t’arrêter
Laissons sibiler les serpents
En vain contre le vent du sud
Les Psylles et l’onde ont péri
commonOrdre des temps si les machines
Se prenaient enfin à penser
Sur les plages de pierreries
Des vagues d’or se briseraient
L’écume serait mère encore
commonMy youth was shot out of the sky
Now see how the future burns
Hear me
Announcing to the whole world
The birth of prophecy
commonCertain men are hills
Rising above humanity
And to these men the future
Seems nearer than the present
And cleaner than the past
commonOrnaments of roads and weather
Lead on to everlasting
Let the snake hiss
Vainly against the south wind
The snake charmers are dust
commonA sign of the times
When machines begin to think
Solid gold sea-waves
Break against jeweled beaches
Sea-foam mothers us once again
commonMoins haut que l’homme vont les aigles
C’est lui qui fait la joie des mers
Comme il dissipe dans les airs
L’ombre et les spleens vertigineux
Par où l’esprit rejoint le songe
commonVoici le temps de la magie
Il s’en revient attendez-vous
A des milliards de prodiges
Qui n’ont fait naître aucune fable
Nul les ayant imaginés
commonProfondeurs de la conscience
On vous explorera demain
Et qui sait quels êtres vivants
Seront tirés de ces abîmes
Avec des univers entiers
commonVoici s’élever des prophètes
Comme au loin des collines bleues
Ils sauront des choses précises
Comme croient savoir les savants
Et nous transporteront partout
commonMan flies higher than eagles
Man pleasures the oceans
Man dispels
Shadows and spleen
His dream is real
commonNow is the time of magic
See they return
Billions of prodigies
Fathers to no fables
And unimaginable
commonTomorrow explores
Deep consciousness
And tomorrow new beasts
Whole universes
Will be torn from it living
commonNew prophets arise
Like blue hills at the horizon
They will knows things exactly
Beyond the scientists
They will take us everywhere
commonLa grande force est le désir
Et viens que je te baise au front
O légère comme une flamme
Dont tu as toute la souffrance
Toute l’ardeur et tout l’éclat
commonL’âge en vient on étudiera
Tout ce que c’est que de souffrir
Ce ne sera pas du courage
Ni même du renoncement
Ni tout ce que nous pouvons faire
commonOn cherchera dans l’homme même
Beaucoup plus qu’on n’y a cherché
On scrutera sa volonté
Et quelle force naîtra d’elle
Sans machine et sans instrument
commonLes secourables mânes errent
Se compénétrant parmi nous
Depuis les temps qui nous rejoignent
Rien n’y finit rien n’y commence
Regarde la bague à ton doigt
commonDesire is the sovereign force
Come here and be kissed
Agile little fire
Little pain bird
All ardor and scandal
commonWe shall be scholars of real pain
In a golden age of suffering
Nothing to do with courage
Nothing to do with sacrifice
Nothing to do at all
commonWe shall require from man
More than ever was required
We shall test his will
And the power of it
Naked and unaided
commonKindly gods haunt us
They walk beside us
In times that overwhelm us
Nothing ends nothing begins
If you don’t believe me just look at the ring on your finger
commonTemps des déserts des carrefours
Temps des places et des collines
Je viens ici faire des tours
Où joue son rôle un