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Since it is your trade, miserable poet,
Even in these stormy times, when the mouth is mute,
While the arm speaks, and fiction
Vanishes like a dream at the noise of action;
Since it is your trade to make of your soul
A prostitute, and that, joy or sorrow,
Everything ceaselessly demands to come out of your heart;
Then at least let the histrion, covered with an infamous mask,
Not go, degrading your thought along with him,
To put it in the pillory on ignoble boards;
Let no plan, no detour, no veil overshadow it.
Leave to old men without strength and without courage
This spider’s work, and all those shameful threads
With which pride, fearing eyes, wraps itself trembling.
No altar, no tripod, no backroom for the profane!
Let your muse, breaking the lute of courtesans,
Make the air of liberty vibrate without fear;
Let her walk barefoot, like truth.
O Machiavelli! your steps still resound
On the deserted paths of San Casciano.
There, under ardent skies whose air dries and devours,
You cultivated in vain a lean and waterless soil.
Your hand, weary in the evening from having dug the earth,
Struck your pale brow in the calm of night.
There, you were without hope, without kin, without friends;
Vile idleness, daughter of misery,
Dragged itself slowly everywhere in your shadow,
And drank from your heart the pure waves of your blood:
“Who am I? you wrote; let someone give me a stone,
“A rock to roll; it is the peace of the tomb
“That I flee, and I stretch out arms weary of rest.”
It is thus, Machiavelli, that with you I cry out:
O mediocre, he who for all good
Brings you to this disgusting gambling den of life,
Is a great coward at the game, if he does not say: All or nothing.
I am young; I am arriving. Halfway along my route,
Already weary of walking, I have turned back.
The science of man is doubtless contempt;
It is a right of old age that is not given to me.
But what should I think of it? There exists only one being
Whom I can entirely and constantly know,
In whom my judgment can at least have faith,
Only one!… I despise him. – And that being is myself.
What have I done? What have I learned? Time is so swift!
The child walks joyfully, without thinking of the road;
He believes it infinite, not seeing its end.
Suddenly he encounters a limpid spring,
He stops, he bends down, he sees an old man in it.
What shall I say to myself then? When I have done my penances,
When I hear them say: Alas! it is too late;
When this blood, which boils today in my veins
And grows angry crying out against a cowardly repose,
Stops, frozen to the depths of my bones…
O old age! of what use then is your experience?
What use to you, vain specter, is bending in advance
Toward the common tomb of men, if death
Is silent when it re-enters it, while life leaves it?
Did there not exist then in this lottery
A gambler by fate sufficiently cast down
That, meeting me on the threshold of life,
He might say to me as he leaves: Do not enter, I have lost!
Greece, O mother of the arts, land of idolatry,
Eternal homeland of my mad wishes,
I was born for those times when the flowers of your brow
Crowned in the seas the azure of the Hellespont.
I am a citizen of your ancient centuries;
My soul with the bee wanders beneath your porticoes.
The language of your people, O Greece, may die;
We may forget the name of your mountains;
But when, digging into the breast of your blond countryside,
Our eyes suddenly come to discover
Some god of your woods, some lost Venus…
The language that the heart of Phidias spoke
Will always be alive and always heard;
The marbles have learned it, and will not forget it.
And you, old Italy, where are those tranquil days
When under the roof of courts Rome had sheltered
The arts, those friendly gods, sons of idleness?
When your painters then went through the cities,
Raising palaces, tombs, altars,
Triumphant, honored, gods among mortals;
When everything, at their word, gave birth to wonders,
When Rome fought Venice and the Lombards,
Then they were blessed times for the arts!
There, it was Michelangelo, weakened by vigils,
Pale among the dead, a scalpel in hand,
Seeking life at the bottom of that human nothingness,
Lifting from time to time his heavy head,
To cast a look of anger and envy
On the palaces of Rome, where, from the foot of the altar,
Raphael from afar smiled at his rivals.
There, it was Correggio, poor and modest man,
Working for his heart, leaving the rest to God;
Giorgione, superb, to the young Titian
Showing from the heart of the seas his beautiful Venetian sky;
Bartolomeo, pensive, his brow in the dust,
Breaking his young heart on a stone altar,
Questioned in a whisper about art by Raphael,
And limiting his response to showing him the sky…
Happy times, beloved times! My hands then perhaps,
My cowardly hands, for you might have been able to work;
But today for whom? to what end? under what master?
The artist is a merchant, and art is a trade.
A pale simulacrum, a vile copy,
Are born under the ardent sun of Italy…
Our works have one year, our glories have one day;
Everything is dead in Europe, – yes, everything, – even love.
Ah! whoever you may be, you whom a fatal genius
Drives to this unhappy trade of poetry,
Reject far from you, drive away boldly
All sincerity; take care that no one sees
A few drops of blood fall from your heart;
Otherwise, you will learn that the shortest joy
Costs dear, that the wise man is a friend of repose,
That the indifferent are excellent executioners.
Happy, thrice happy, the man whose thought
Can be written on the edge of the saber or the sword!
Ah! how he must despise those mad dreamers
Who, when they have kneaded from a lifeless mire
A vile phantom, a dream, a cold effigy,
Stop, full of pride, and say: That is enough!
What is thought, alas! when action begins?
One retreats where the other intrepidly advances.
At the dread aspect of reality,
The latter takes the iron, and prepares to fight;
The former, frail idol, which a nothing can knock down,
Turns away, veiling its inanimate brow.
Die, Weber! die bent over your mute harp;
Mozart awaits you. – And you, miserable poet,
Whoever you are, child, man, if your heart beats,
Act! throw away your lyre; to battle, to battle!
Shadow of past times, you are not of this age.
Does one hear the boatman sing during the storm?
To action! to evil! The good remains ignored.
Come! seek an equal for ills without remedy.
Woe to him who made us this denatured sense!
Evil seeks evil, and he who suffers helps us.
Man can hate man, and flee; but in spite of himself,
His pain reaches out to the pain of others.
That is all. As for pity, that word with which they lure us,
And for all those speeches prostituted without end,
That the man with a joyful heart throws at the one who weeps,
As the rich man throws his bread to the beggar,
Who could want it? and how could the vulgar,
When it is you who suffer, feel it,
He whom God has not made capable of suffering?
Go to a public square, spread out on the ground
A body more mutilated than that of a martyr,
Shapeless, disgusting, dragged on a hurdle,
And already lifting up the soul ready to depart;
The crowd will follow you. When pain is true,
It loves it. Your ills, for which you will be thanked,
Will horrify everyone, to some pity.
But change your manner: reveal to them a soul
Broken by grief, a sorrow without disguise,
And in a young heart regrets of an old man;
Tell them that without mother, and without sister, and without woman,
Without knowing where to pour, before dying,
The tears that your breast can still contain,
Until the setting sun you will perhaps not go…
Who will find the time to listen to your misfortunes?
One believes in blood that flows, and one doubts tears.
Your friend will pass by, but without recognizing you.
You swell, my heart?… Tears, would you believe it,
While I was writing have bathed my face.
Do I lack the iron, or has my hand without courage
Cowardly slipped on my bare breast?
No, nothing of all that. But however far the hatred
Of this blind and shameless destiny
Will go, I want to go there. – I will at least have the heart
To lead it so low that shame takes hold of it.
Alfred De Musset
Translation generated by Poésies 123 with assistance from the deepseek-chat artificial-intelligence model.
Text published on Poésies 123: https://www.poesies123.com/en/poem-les-voeux-steriles-alfred-de-musset/