1 January 2006

Le Cygne (extrait) -- A Victor Hugo

- Charles Baudelaire

......
Un cygne qui s'etait évadé de sa cage,
Et, de ses pieds palmés frottant le pavé sec,
Sur le sol raboteux traînait son blanc plumage.
Près d'un ruisseau sans eau la bête ouvrant le bec

Baignait nerveusement ses ailes dans la poudre,
Et disait, le coeur plein de son beau lac natal:
'Eau, quand donc pleuvras-tu? quand tonneras-tu, foudre?'
Je vois ce malheureux, mythe étrange et fatal,

Vers le ciel quelquefois, comme l'homme d'Ovide,
Vers le ciel ironique et cruellement bleu,
Sur son cou convulsif tendant sa tête avide,
Comme s'il adressait des reproches à Dieu!

Le Cygne
(2006)
Photographie © de Anndou
II
Pairs change! mais rien dans ma mélancolie
N'a bougé! Palais neufs, échafaudages, blocs,
Vieux faubourgs, tout pour moi devient allégorie,
Et mes chers souvenirs sont plus lourds que des rocs.
......

See Comment for English Translation

1 comment:

dreamhunter said...

A swan, who had escaped from his captivity,
And scuffing his splayed feet along the paving stones,
He trailed his white array of feathers in the dirt.
Close by a dried out ditch the bird opened his beak,

Flapping excitedly, bathing his wings in dust,
And said, with heart possessed by lakes he once had loved:
'Water, when will you rain? Thunder, when will you roar?'
I see this hapless creature, sad and fatal myth,

Stretching the hungry head on his convulsive neck,
Sometimes towards the sky, like the man in Ovid's book --
Towards the ironic sky, the sky of cruel blue,
As if he were a soul contesting with his God!

II
Paris may change, but in my melancholy mood
Nothing had budged! New palaces, blocks, scaffoldings,
Old neighbourhoods, are allegorical for me,
Any my dear memories are heavier than stone.

(trans.) James McGowan 1993