Afternoon of a faun — Stéphane Mallarmé
translation ~ Goat777
Those nymphs, I would make them permanent
So clear, their light crimson flesh, it trembles in the drowsy air, dense with sleepiness
Did I love a dream?
My doubt now, thick with ancient night, it seems
Drawn up to many subtle branches, yet still remaining the tree’s true self
Proof that triumphant delusion lies waiting, in the ideal imaginings of the roses’ fold?
Let me see…
Are the women which you told, just reflections of your fabulous senses’ thirst?
Illusion faun!
It fled from cold blue eyes, like a fount of tears from the most chaste.
But the other….
She, all full of sighs, like the days warm breath on your fleece alive?
If not?..
Through hebetude, the heavy heat that stifles the fresh morning.
No waters stream, but that which through my flute murmur
Across groves of melody, my double oaten pipe, provides the sole breeze
Tumult subsides before it,
A scattering of the phrase from a halcyon breath,
Flowing unstirred, to replenish the grove
Visible serene emanation made here,
Of inspiration returning again to those deities high and fayre
Oh, Sicilian shores! That limpid lake fringe
My vanity overwhelms, to contend with the sun
As I repose beneath floral flashes, now let me IMPART
That here I cut the hollow reeds, made tame by my own craft and flair
Gold veils green, Its vine offered to the fountain
Ripples and waves, of an animal haze now becoming still
A slow prelude to the birth of the pipes.
A flight of swans?
Nay, of Naiads upturned or plunged….
Inert!
All burns in the tawny hour, but by what art they fled, nought was wrote
Too much of hymen desired and sought, I will wake occupied with that primal tang
Standing upright, alone beneath antique waves of light
Lillies! You among them all to spell out my blundering
This sweet nothing. The lip’s secret gift, the kiss that gives soft assurance before trickery
My puffed out breast, Virgin of proof. Revealing the mystery, a mark bitten from that exalted tooth
But cease! Tis what the arcane sought for confidante, but I dare not tell
As the twin pipes lilt beneath azure ceiling
A turning in, cheeks sucked to dimples
Dreams flow in long solo, so we might amuse
The beauties about, to confuse with false airs
Not knowing, where she begins and where ends the song?
The creation shimmers, a wavering note, to vanish with sealed eyes beyond the languorous doze
Pure flank and breast, the comforting dream, a single, sheer resonant tone.
Strive then, instrument of flight, baleful syrinx, wait by the pool to flower once again
Where I, proud of my murmur, will speak forth at length
Of goddesses and with heathen paintings, remove from shadows their waists finery
So when i’ve sucked the grapes brightness and quelled, feigned remorse the invention of men
Yet laughing, I raise the emptied stem, to the summers sky breathing in their luminous skin
Desiring inebriation, wild longing into the penetrable dusk
O Nymphs! lets rise again upon myriad dream
My eye, piercing the reeds, darts upon each immortal neck, plunging fiery through the waves.
With a cry of rage towards the forest sky;
And the brilliant bath of their hair slipped by
In brightness, a jewelled fire, the crystallising shuddering thrill!
I rush there, when at my feet entwined (There being two, sweet languor bruised)
These sleepers, girls clasped about, lying there in each others embrace.
I seize and steal them still enlaced, carried to this bank of rose, the sun’s heat has lain waste. All perfume hated by the frivolous shade
Where trysts must vanish like the fading day
In the dream I adore you, you fierce goad of virginal wrath
And delight at the bare sacred burden slipping away to flee my fiery lip,
Drinking the secret terrors of the flesh like the lash of sky’s fire
All the way from the feet of the heartless one, to the heart of the most timid
In a moment abandoned by innocence, wet with wild tears or less discouraging mists.
Joyful at conquering such treacherous feats
My misdeed to divide such tangle and tousle, of kisses that gods deigned were destined to mingle
For I’d scarcely begun to hide an ardent laugh
Beneath the meandrous curves of the one nymph now single, holding back
With but a finger, that her swan-down whiteness
Might kindle, to be tinted by her companions more uplifting ardour
When from my arms, undone with passions now dying,
This quarry, ungrateful, forever heedless, frees itself and is gone,
Not pitying my sob with which I fell drunk.
No matter!
Others will lead me to the joys I have missed
By the horns on my brow knotted with many a tress:
You, my passion know, when perfectly ripe, how
Every pomegranate bursts, with a murmur of bees:
And our blood, kindled by some chance fire,
Flows for all the eternal swarm of desire, yet
At this hour, when green becomes gold and ashes
Divine celebration exciting the repose of the leaf:
Etna! It’s on your slopes, visited by Venus
Her innocent heels set upon your lava
When the flame burns low and a sad slumber thunders
….I hold the goddess!
O certain punishment!…
No, but the unvoiced soul and this swoon heavy body,
Succumb at last to noon’s proud silence slowly:
With no more ado, forgetting blasphemy,
Now I must sleep, to lie upon this thirsty sand, and
With eager open mouth, set sail to the beacon of the grape’s wine-red star
Farewell to you, both: I embark again, to see the shadows you now’ve become.
