A Poem of Mallarme
It’s been a long time since I last read the poems of one of my favourite poets, that poet of pure sensations and dreams, Mallarme. I read one this morning. Here it is, the original French version with my own English translation. I did not put in the original "accent" over the French words because it’s quite a hassle to do so. But I don’t think it matters. Those who know French know where the accents should have been placed. Their absence would probably mean nothing to those who don’t know the language.
Une dentelle s’abolit A lace vanishes
Dans le doute du Jeu supreme In the doubt of a supreme Game
A n’entre’ouvrir comme un blaspheme which does not open to each other, like a blaspheme,
Qu’absence eternelle de lit. except as the eternal absence of bed
Cet unanime blanc conflit This uniform white fight
D’une guirlande avec la meme Of a garland with itself,
Enfui contre la vitre bleme Flees against the pallid window,
Flotte plus qu’il n’ensevelit, Flows the more it uncovers
Mais, chez qui du reve se dore, But at the home of one who gilds herself with dreams
Tristement dort une mandore Sadly sleeps a mandola
Au creux neant musicien At the nothingness of its void a musician
Telle que vers quelque fenetre Such that towards some window
Selon nul ventre que le sien, From no belly but her own
Filial on aurait pu naitre. Filial, one might have been born.
I like the poem. I do not know what prompted Mallarme to write the poem. But the way the tiny floral patterns of some lacework evokes in him associations of amorous struggle in the bedroom, the cover and uncovering of clothes, of golden dreams, of the emptiness and from such emptiness, the birth of a child is truly remarkable. The picture of a sad lady who dreams of the music of love. He looks upon the hollows of the floral patterns of the lace with no one to fight with except amongst themselves but which simultaneously try desperately but vainly to cover themselves up. He brings out the irony and the futility of the fight. The more they attempt to do so, the more what is intended to be sought escapes. There is the idea of effort. But the effort proves fruitless in the same way as the lady, perhaps compared to the ancient classical musical instrument, the mandola with a hole at the lower centre of its body or soundbox, its strings yearning to be played by some fingers so that it may finally resonate with the music of her golden dreams ( color of semen?) with which she longs to "cover" herself in the rhythm and harmony of love making but whose wiles all end in nothing.
The longing to be fulfilled is so aptly captured by the image of the lace, done in floral patterns to allure and to attract but which ultimately fails to find any suitable suitors. The coy display of her flesh is aptly suggested by the abundance of "open-ness" , the lack of cover of the gaps between the embroidered parts of the lace and its delicate semi-transparence. Yet nothing is certain, everything is a supreme Gamble and full of risk.
I like the use of the reflexive verb "’s’abolit" in the first line of the poem. It literally means "abolishes itself" in doubt and uncertainty. There is the idea of "self-destruction" and of suicide which can’t be suitably translate. Perhaps Mallarme is suggesting there that the lady brought the misery of her "eternally" empty bed upon herself? The word "Jeu" can be translated either as "play" "game" or "gamble", three qualities which most aptly describe what the lady is trying to do and the ambiguous mixture of playfulness, risk and danger involved.
Whatever may have been Mallarme’s true intentions, he suggests that it’s a blasphemy against Life to have one’s longing for union and for the creation of more life frustrated! The bed has been transformed into a sacred altar: its sanctity being suggested by the word "blaspheme" and its importance suggested by the word "eternal" . What previously was reserved for God is now reserved for the secular "desire" for more human life. The use of the word "filial" is a most exquisite choice. In French, a son is a "fils", a daughter is a "fille" and "fil" also means a line, a string, which ties in nicely with the many strings which go to make up the lace!
The poem is so short and yet so much is said! The conflict of reason and emotion, of the heart and the head, the play of presence and absence, of loneliness longing for company, of openness and the need for cover, the ambiguity of desire which hesitates between need and fear is wonderfully captured in connotations of sight and sound, of colour and the rhythm of its words.
