Afternoon of a Faun (excerpts)

Did I love a dream?
My doubt, hoard of ancient night, is crowned
In many a subtle branch, which, remaining the true
Woods themselves, proves, alas! that alone I offered
Myself as a triumph the perfect sin of roses.

Let us reflect ...
on whether the women you describe
Represent a desire of your fabulous senses!
Faun, the illusion flows from the cold blue eyes
Of the most chaste like a spring of tears:
But the other, all sighs, do you say she contrasts
Like the warm day's breeze in your fleece?

Motionless, everything burns in the tawny hour
Without revealing by what art together they fled
Too much hymen desired by one seeking the perfect note:
Then shall I rouse myself to the first fervour,
Upright and alone, under an ancient stream of light,
Lilies! and in my innocence I am one with you.

But let it pass! a certain secret chose as confidant
The great twin reed we play beneath the azure sky:
Which, diverting the cheek's emotion to itself,
Dreams, in a long solo, that we seduced
The beauty that surrounds us by false confusions
Between itself and our credulous song;
And, as high as love is sung, of making
A sonorous, empty, monotonous line
Fade from the familiar dream of the back
Or purest flank that I follow with closed eyes.

O nymphs, let us breathe new life into some MEMORIES.

My eye, piercing the reeds, darted upon each
Immortal neck that drowns its burning in the wave
With a cry of rage to the forest sky;
And the splendid bath of hair disappears
In the lights and shiverings, o precious stones!

When from my arms, defeated by vague deaths,
This eternally ungrateful prey frees herself
Not pitying the sob with which I still was drunk.

Too bad! others will lead me to happiness
By their tresses knotted to the horns upon my brow:
You, my passion, know that, purple and perfectly ripe,
Every pomegranate bursts open and murmurs with bees;
And our blood, in love with whoever will seize it,
Flows for the whole eternal swarm of desire.
At the hour when this wood is tinged with gold and ashes,
A divine celebration excites the dead leaves:
Etna! Venus herself walks among you
Setting innocent heels upon your lava,
When a melancholy slumber rumbles and the flame dies away.
I hold the queen!

O certain punishment ...

No, but the soul
Empty of words and this weighted body
Succumb at last to the proud silence of noon:
Now we must sleep, forgetting blasphemy,
Stretched out upon the parched sand and as it pleases me
To open my mouth to the fruitful star of wine!

Couple, farewell; I go to see the shadow you became.



----- Stephane Mallarme, translated from the French by Alan Edwards, musical prelude by Claude Debussy