mint Posted October 19, 2016 Share Posted October 19, 2016 [url]https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/19/gun-with-which-verlaine-shot-rimbaud-up-for-auction[/url] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NormanH Posted October 20, 2016 Share Posted October 20, 2016 I would like it; but as my education gave me the taste for fine things but not the means to possess them I shall have to pass... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loiseau Posted October 20, 2016 Share Posted October 20, 2016 I didn,t know they had lived in London together. That house in Camden certainly needs sprucing up; maybe the gun money could go towards that! ;-)Angela Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Patf Posted October 20, 2016 Share Posted October 20, 2016 I don't know if you intended the connection, Mint, but Bob Dylan was greatly influenced by Rimbaud's poetry back in the '60s-70s when he was writing all that incomprehensible stuff.Rimbaud certainly had a colourful life . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mint Posted October 20, 2016 Author Share Posted October 20, 2016 No, I didn't know that, Pat.But here is Verlaine's il pleure dans mon coeur, perhaps his most popular poem and the subject of countless songs and readings.Debussy's treatment is here:[url]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhVyDr7CM9Y[/url] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NormanH Posted October 20, 2016 Share Posted October 20, 2016 A non-literal translation I did, to try to re-create something of Verlaine's sound-world:Tears drop in my heartTears drop in my heart, Rain falls on the town.What is this languorThat pierces my heart?Soft sound of the rainOn the ground and the rooves.A vexed heart is soothedBy the song of the rain.It cries for no reason, This heart sick with hurt.Yet there’s no treason--It grieves for no reason.This is the worst pain --Not to know why,Without love, without hatredMy heart feels such pain.and my personal favourite setting sung by my favourite French baritone https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31fd3nRJgdo&html5=1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mint Posted October 20, 2016 Author Share Posted October 20, 2016 Oh, Norman, I really do like your translation.You know, after I heard it read a few years ago (when my ears were not as well attuned to French as it is now......NOT that my listening skills are great now), I used to think it was il pleut dans mon coeur, comme il pleut sur la ville!Indeed, I am surprised to find some English translations that goes as "it rains in my heart as it rains on the town"! No wonder I was confused[:(]It wasn't till I heard it sung that I realised that it was il pleuRE[:-))]The youtube link is very moving and I could have cried as Verlaine might have done. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NormanH Posted October 20, 2016 Share Posted October 20, 2016 If you liked that you may enjoy another:En sourdineCalmes dans le demi-jourQue les branches hautes font,Pénétrons bien notre amourDe ce silence profond,Mêlons nos âmes, nos coeurs et nos sens extasiés,Parmi les vagues langueurs des pins et des arbousiers.Ferme tes yeux à demi,Croise tes bras sur ton sein,Et de ton coeur endormiChasse à jamais tout dessein.Laissons nous persuaderAu souffle berceur et douxQui vient, à tes pieds, riderLes ondes des gazons roux.Et quand, solennel, le soirDes chênes noirs tomberaVoix de notre désespoir,Le rossignol chantera. MutedTonesCalmin the half-lightCast by the high branches,Allow thisdeep silenceTo penetrate our love. Dissolveour hearts, our souls And our enraptured sensesIn thevague listlessness Of arbutus and pineHalf-closeyour eyes, crossYour arms on your breast;Rid your sleepyheartOf all intent for ever.Yield to the seductionOf the soft whispersRippling the waves ofRussetgrass at your feet.When solemnly theBlack oaks'evening falls,The Nightingale, voiceof our despair, willsing.The wonderful Gérard Souzay singing Fauré'ssetting of the original is one of the highlights of French song forme, and I have never heard the poem better 'declamed' even in astraight reading:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMoos40OKaw Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mint Posted October 21, 2016 Author Share Posted October 21, 2016 Deeply melancholic............both you and Souzay have caught the mood. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NormanH Posted October 21, 2016 Share Posted October 21, 2016 A much less well-known poem which I like to think of as Rimbaud and Verlaine after the passion had gone: ColloquesentimentalDans le vieux parc solitaire et glacéDeuxformes ont tout à l’heure passé.Leurs yeux sont mortset leurs lèvres sont molles,Et l’on entend à peine leursparoles.Dans le vieux parc solitaire et glacéDeuxspectres ont évoqué le passé.– Te souvient-il denotre extase ancienne?– Pourquoi voulez-vous donc qu’ilm’en souvienne?– Ton cœur bat-il toujours à monseul nom?Toujours vois-tu mon âme en rêve? – Non.Ah! les beaux jours de bonheur indicibleOù nous joignions nosbouches ! – C’est possible.– Qu’il était bleu,le ciel, et grand, l’espoir !– L’espoir a fui, vaincu,vers le ciel noir.Tels ils marchaient dans les avoinesfolles,Et la nuit seule entendit leurs paroles.I have made two versions, one of which attempts to highlight the laconic ballad feeling of the poem, and the second which is more literal and keeps the shock of the cold change from 'tu' to 'vous' Heartto heartIn the lonely cold old parkTwo figures have just passed.Their eyes are dead, their lips areslack,We hardly hear their words.In the lonely coldold parkTwo ghosts evoked the past.- Remember ourold ecstasy?- But why remember it?- Your heartbeats faster at my name ?Still see me in your dreams? -No.Ah! the days of blissful joyWhen our lipstouched ! - Perhaps.- The sky was blue and hope wasgreat!- Hope has fled, beaten, to the black sky.Theywandered like this through the wild grass, Andonly the night heard their words.Verion 2 Heartto heartIn the lonely cold old parkTwo figureshave just passed.Their eyes are dead, their lips areslack,We hardly hear their words.In the lonely coldold parkTwo ghosts evoked the past.-Dost thourecall how ecstatic we were?-Why would you want me to thinkabout that ?-Does thy heart still beat faster justhearing my name-Dost thou still see my Spirit in dreams?--No.-Oh those fine days of unspeakable bliss-Whenour mouths joined together -Perhaps.- The sky was blueand our hope was so great!- Hope has fled back , beaten, to theblack sky.They wandered thus through the wild grassAndonly the night heard their words. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mint Posted October 21, 2016 Author Share Posted October 21, 2016 Thank you for those. I think the second version is more lyrical and I prefer it.Now we have got on to love and loss (and it seems that the two are inextricably linked), I like Auden's Stop all the ClocksHe would have known about Verlaine and Rimbaud and he expresses his loss in a much more "anglo-saxon" manner, I think![url]http://homepages.wmich.edu/~cooneys/poems/auden.stop.html[/url] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.