Rimbaud and Verlaine, Verlaine or Rimbaud, who comes first ??? A word or two out-of-place, and the World still stays put...
A Self-Tutoring Translation of RIMBAUD's Final Version " Vowels " in Contemporary Terms
(" Vowels " (final version, without the definite article, with the poet's corrections) in RIMBAUD Œuvres complètes. Ed. by Pierre Brunel. Paris : Livres de Poche/La Pochethèque, 1999, pp. 279-280. Please see notes following the translation. T. Wignesan)
A, black ; E, white ; I, red ; U, green ; O, blue ; vowels,
I'll invoke true to day how your latent forms take shape
A, velvety black corset shiny bluebottles armour-plate ape
Pullule hovering over putrefying carrion stench gruels
By leeway gulfs. E, glaring white sheets(1) of vapours and tents,
Icy surges prideful, Oriental Potentates (2), fluttering parasols umbellate,
I, attires purple(3), spat-out blood, laughter from Synchrotron(4) lips ondulate
Through anger or from inebriate benumbing of penitents.
U, cycles, the divine vibrations of emerald-green seas
Peaceful grazing grounds teeming with animals, reposeful furrowed pleats
Some alchemically concocted hand imprints on great foreheads studious ;
O ! stentorian Bugle ! the laden strident shriek deranges,
The calmness pierced by disrupting Worlds and Angels…
--- O ! the ultimate Omega, the violet tincture of Her Eyes(5) !
Notes
(1) " frissons " (word effaced by Rimbaud, according to Brunel's footnotes, to avoid repetitious recall of the same word in the next line and substitured by " candeurs " signifying " ingenuousness " though in its etymological sense : " blancheur ", i.e ;, " whiteness or innocence " ;
(2) " rois blancs " (" White Kings ", according to Brunel's footnotes : " souverains orientaux ", i.e., " Oriental Monarchs " ) ;
(3) " pourpres " (now in the plural referring to " accoutrements " and hence I have used " attires " not to give it its pejorative sense in English ;
(4) " belles " (" beautiful " is a hackneyed and meaningless epithet ; by contrast, the CERN Synchrotron is the most daring, infinitesimally elegant and awe-inspiring human creation) ;
(5) " Ses Yeux " (first letters capitalised by Rimbaud - from what I can gather from the notes and biographical information - refers to a ' violet-eyed damsel ' with whom Rimbaud turned up in Paris one fine day). The colour " violet " also according to the notes is the last of the colours of the spectrum or " prisme " just as " Omega " is the last letter of the Greek alphabet.
I believe I read this before. Perhaps you have totally revised it. Thanks for the translation, but it is still tough to follow the original poet's intent.
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