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Where to flee? Where to hide? What deluge of writings,
In this dim century comes to infect Paris,
In vain I have recoiled before the Solitary,
O God of bad taste! Must one then to please you
Heap up great words always empty of meaning,
Sing the man of the nights, or the spirit of torrents,
But in vain I have wanted to make enter my head,
The lightning that sighs in the bosom of the storm,
Before the Renegade I paled with fright;
And I do not know why spirits frighten me.
O great Hugo, poet and skillful reasoner,
Come show me that art both grand and difficult,
By which talent makes fools admire
Verses, perhaps obscure, but rich in grand words.
O Racine, Boileau! you were not poets,
Lay down the laurels that adorned your heads,
Leave to our authors this merited incense,
Which never intoxicated mediocrity;
May your verses relegated with those of Virgil,
Still bore a stupid Public,
They are flat, little sounding, and often boring,
It was perhaps enough for our sad ancestors,
Heavy and limited minds, without taste and without usage,
But everything is perfected with time and age.
It is as you speak, O sublime authors,
One must not, it is said, dispute about colors,
However rejecting the Romantic style
I dare still, in spite of you, admire the classic
I am original, I know it, I admit it,
But you of Romanticism, O glorious supports,
Go into some clubs or into the Academy
To read the beautiful products of your heavy genius,
Doubtless that day you will be turned out anew,
Adorned with a long jabot and a coat of Elbeuf
You will make resound in the illustrious assembly,
The heavy and plaintive sounds of a bombastic muse.
What, miserable author aged by labor,
So this is the motive of all this gear,
Obscure supernumerary of the Temple of glory,
You seek the bravos of a numerous audience.
What, you do not fear that some long whistles,
Fill the hall with their indiscreet sounds
Covering your heavy voice as you exit the exordium,
Making you cry, mercy, Miséricorde!
And it was for the bait of applause?
That in your study you dried up so long;
So this is the motive of your long hope
What, all was for glory, and nothing for knowledge?
Knowledge would then have no powerful charm
If it were not followed by a brilliant triumph,
And you preferred to it a vain smoke,
Which is not solid and good renown
Without counting, you will say, how flattering it is
To hear murmured: It is he, that great author,
To hear the public quote passages,
And even after death admire his works;
For the deceased, you say, what a dazzling triumph,
Doubtless for the dead it is a great pleasure
His glory will embellish his last dwelling,
The earth that covers him is all the lighter for it.
Ah! It is too much to mock our new authors,
You say, when you yourself have all their faults,
But in vain you wish to censure their works,
You will always see them soliciting votes
You will always see them occupied entirely,
In pulling their writings from the hands of Grocers.
But you, who appear to play the moralist,
Tiresome rigorist of Apollo’s state
What do you get from your moral discourses?
The hatred of authors, and the friendship of fools.
O you who until now have served as my audience
Do you then believe me truly insensitive to glory!
If my Pen ever produced writings;
That ravish the palm from all our fine spirits.
I would love to earn a sincere homage,
But I pity your pride, Rash Writer
Who believes that the bravos you receive at dinner,
Testify to your merit, and are of good alloy.
And that Author still who on the Square invites
To his meager dinner, a meager Parasite
And who says to him afterward at the end of the meal,
“Friends, speak without fraud, and do not flatter me,
“Do you find my verses good? Tell me in conscience”
Can he in your opinion say what he thinks of them?
At the full bar Damis is treated as a thief
He takes for his defense a celebrated orator
How will he defend such a cause?
By words, great words, and one will say, Marvel!
What! Ignorant people, you keep your bravos,
And your repeated cries to incense fools,
Do you believe that by singing a laughable song,
A Poor man to his misfortunes makes me truly sensitive
No, to others more foolish he may address himself,
And the true, the true alone will be able to interest me.
Gérard de Nerval
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-the-writers-gerard-de-nerval/