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Poetry in
Translation
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Stephane Mallarme

Un coup de des jamais n'abolira le hasard

(A throw of the dice will never abolish chance)

The game is done!

'The game is done! '
Gustave Dore (1832 - 1910), The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Samuel Coleridge
Wikimedia Commons

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Translated by A. S. Kline (C) Copyright 2007 All Rights Reserved

This work may be freely reproduced, stored, and transmitted, electronically or otherwise, for any non-commercial purpose.

Contents

Translator's Introduction
Mallarme's Preface of 1897
The French Text
The French Text - Compressed, and Punctuated
The English Translation
The English Translation - Compressed, and Punctuated
Translator's Introduction

The French text displayed here is as close as I could achieve to that printed in the edition of July 1914, which produced a definitive version superseding the original publication of 1897. The English 'translation' is offered as an equivalent text to, or interpretation of, the original. The compressed and punctuated translation is offered as an aid to grasping the poem as a whole, in a swift reading.

Mallarme's Preface of 1897

'I would prefer that this Note was not read, or, skimmed, was forgotten; it tells the knowledgeable reader little that is beyond his or her penetration: but may confuse the uninitiated, prior to their looking at the first words of the Poem, since the ensuing words, laid out as they are, lead on to the last, with no novelty except the spacing of the text. The 'blanks' indeed take on importance, at first glance; the versification demands them, as a surrounding silence, to the extent that a fragment, lyrical or of a few beats, occupies, in its midst, a third of the space of paper: I do not transgress the measure, only disperse it. The paper intervenes each time as an image, of itself, ends or begins once more, accepting a succession of others, and, since, as ever, it does nothing, of regular sonorous lines or verse - rather prismatic subdivisions of the Idea, the instant they appear, and as long as they last, in some precise intellectual performance, that is in variable positions, nearer to or further from the implicit guiding thread, because of the verisimilitude the text imposes. The literary value, if I am allowed to say so, of this print-less distance which mentally separates groups of words or words themselves, is to periodically accelerate or slow the movement, the scansion, the sequence even, given one's simultaneous sight of the page: the latter taken as unity, as elsewhere the Verse is or perfect line. Imagination flowers and vanishes, swiftly, following the flow of the writing, round the fragmentary stations of a capitalised phrase introduced by and extended from the title. Everything takes place, in sections, by supposition; narrative is avoided. In addition this use of the bare thought with its retreats, prolongations, and flights, by reason of its very design, for anyone wishing to read it aloud, results in a score.
The variation in printed characters between the dominant motif, a secondary one and those adjacent, marks its importance for oral utterance and the scale, mid-way, at top or bottom of the page will show how the intonation rises or falls. (Only certain very bold instructions of mine, encroachments etc. forming the counterpoint to this prosody, a work which lacks precedent, have been left in a primitive state: not because I agree with being timid in my attempts; but because it is not for me, save by a special pagination or volume of my own, in a Periodical so courageous, gracious and accommodating as it shows itself to be to real freedom, to act too contrary to custom. I will have shown, in the Poem below, more than a sketch, a 'state' which yet does not entirely break with tradition; will have furthered its presentation in many ways too, without offending anyone; sufficing to open a few eyes (This applies to the 1897 printing specifically: translator's note). Today, without presuming anything about what will emerge from this in future, nothing, or almost a new art, let us readily accept that the tentative participates, with the unforeseen, in the pursuit, specific and dear to our time, of free verse and the prose poem. Their meeting takes place under an influence, alien I know, that of Music heard in concert; one finds there several techniques that seem to me to belong to Literature, I reclaim them. The genre, which is becoming one, like the symphony, little by little, alongside personal poetry, leaves intact the older verse; for which I maintain my worship, and to which I attribute the empire of passion and dreams, though this may be the preferred means (as follows) of dealing with subjects of pure and complex imagination or intellect: which there is no remaining justification for excluding from Poetry - the unique source. '

The French Text

Un Coup de Des - Page 1

Un Coup de Des - Page 2

Un Coup de Des - Page 3

Un Coup de Des - Page 4

Un Coup de Des - Page 5

Un Coup de Des - Page 6

Un Coup de Des - Page 7

Un Coup de Des - Page 8

Un Coup de Des - Page 9

Un Coup de Des - Page 10

Un Coup de Des - Page 11

The French Text - Compressed, and Punctuated

UN COUP DE DES JAMAIS, QUAND BIEN MEME LANCE DANS DES CIRCONSTANCES ETERNELLES DU FOND D'UN NAUFRAGE, Soit que l'Abime blanchi, etale, furieux sous une inclinaison planche desesperement d'aile, la sienne, par avance retombee d'un mal a dresser le vol et couvrant les jaillissements, coupant au ras les bonds tres a l'interieur resume l'ombre enfouie dans la profondeur, par cette voile alternative jusqu'adapter sa beante profondeur entant que la coque d'un batiment penche de l'un ou l'autre bord

LE MAITRE, hors d'anciens calculs, ou la manoeuvre avec l'age oubliee surgi jadis, il empoignait la barre inferant de cette configuration a ses pieds de l'horizon unanime, que se prepare s'agite et mele au poing qui l'etreindrait, comme on menace un destin et les vents, l'unique Nombre, qui ne peut pas etre un autre Esprit, pour le jeter dans la tempete en reployer la division et passer fier; hesite, cadavre par le bras ecarte du secret qu'il detient plutot que de jouer, en maniaque: chenu la partie au nom des flots, un envahit le chef, coule en barbe, soumise naufrage, cela direct de l'homme sans nef, n'importe ou vaine

ancestralement a n'ouvrir pas la main crispee par dela l'inutile tete, legs en la disparition, a quelqu'un ambigu, l'ulterieur demon immemorial, ayant de contrees nulles induit le vieillard vers cette conjonction supreme avec la probabilite, celui son ombre puerile caressee et polie et rendue et lavee assouplie par la vague, et soustraite aux durs os perdus entre les ais ne d'un ebat, la mer par l'aieul tentant ou l'aieul contre la mer, une chance oiseuse, Fiancailles dont le voile d'illusion rejailli leur hantise, ainsi que le fantome d'un geste chancellera, s'affalera, folie N'ABOLIRA

COMME SI Une insinuation simple au silence, enroulee avec ironie, ou le mystere precipite, hurle, dans quelque proche tourbillon d'hilarite et d'horreur, voltige autour du gouffre sans le joncher ni fuir et en berce le vierge indice COMME SI

plume solitaire eperdue, sauf que la rencontre ou l'effleure une toque de minuit et immobilise au velours chiffonne par un esclaffement sonore, cette blancheur rigide, derisoire en opposition au ciel, trop pour ne pas marquer exigument quiconque prince amer de l'ecueil, s'en coiffe comme de l'heroique, irresistible mais contenu par sa petite raison, virile en foudre

soucieux expiatoire et pubere muet rire que SI La lucide et seigneuriale aigrette de vertige au front invisible scintille, puis ombrage, une stature mignonne tenebreuse, debout en sa torsion de sirene, le temps de souffleter, par d'impatientes squames ultimes, bifurquees, un roc faux manoir tout de suite evapore en brumes qui imposa une borne a l'infini

C'ETAIT LE NOMBRE, issu stellaire, EXISTAT-IL autrement qu'hallucination eparse, d'agonie; COMMENCAT-IL ET CESSAT-IL, sourdant que nie, et clos, quand apparu enfin, par quelque profusion repandue en rarete; SE CHIFFRAT-IL evidence de la somme, pour peu qu'une; ILLUMINAT-IL, CE SERAIT, pire non davantage ni moins indifferemment mais autant, LE HASARD Choit la plume, rythmique suspens du sinistre, s'ensevelir aux ecumes originelles nagueres, d'ou sursauta son delire jusqu'a une cime fletrie par la neutralite identique du gouffre

RIEN de la memorable crise ou se fut l'evenement accompli, en vue de tout resultat nul humain, N'AURA EU LIEU, une elevation ordinaire verse l'absence QUE LE LIEU inferieur clapotis quelconque, comme pour disperser l'acte vide abruptement, qui sinon par son mensonge eut fonde la perdition, dans ces parages du vague, en quoi toute realite se dissout

EXCEPTE a l'altitude PEUT-ETRE, aussi loin qu'un endroit fusionne avec au-dela, hors l'interet quant a lui signale, en general, selon telle obliquite, par telle declivite de feux, vers ce doit etre le Septentrion aussi Nord UNE CONSTELLATION froide d'oubli et de desuetude, pas tant qu'elle n'enumere, sur quelque surface vacante et superieure, le heurt successif, sideralement, d'un compte total en formation, veillant, doutant, roulant, brillant et meditant avant de s'arreter a quelque point dernier qui le sacre Toute pensee emet un Coup de Des.

The English Translation

Un Coup de Des - Page 1

Un Coup de Des - Page 2

Un Coup de Des - Page 3

Un Coup de Des - Page 4

Un Coup de Des - Page 5

Un Coup de Des - Page 6

Un Coup de Des - Page 7

Un Coup de Des - Page 8

Un Coup de Des - Page 9

Un Coup de Des - Page 10

Un Coup de Des - Page 11

The English Translation - Compressed, and Punctuated

ATHROW OF THE DICE NEVER, EVEN WHEN TRULY CAST IN THE ETERNAL CIRCUMSTANCE OF A SHIPWRECK'S DEPTH, Can be only the Abyss raging, whitened, stalled beneath the desperately sloping incline of its own wing, through an advance falling back from ill to take flight, and veiling the gushers, restraining the surges, gathered far within the shadow buried deep by that alternative sail, almost matching its yawning depth to the wingspan, like a hull of a vessel rocked from side to side

THE MASTER, beyond former calculations, where the lost manoeuvre with the age rose implying that formerly he grasped the helm of this conflagration of the concerted horizon at his feet, that readies itself; moves; and merges with the blow that grips it, as one threatens fate and the winds, the unique Number, which cannot be another Spirit, to hurl it into the storm, relinquish the cleaving there, and pass proudly; hesitates, a corpse pushed back by the arm from the secret, rather than taking sides, a hoary madman, on behalf of the waves: one overwhelms the head, flows through the submissive beard, straight shipwreck that, of the man without a vessel, empty no matter where

ancestrally never to open the fist clenched beyond the helpless head, a legacy, in vanishing, to someone ambiguous, the immemorial ulterior demon having, from non-existent regions, led the old man towards this ultimate meeting with probability, this his childlike shade caressed and smoothed and rendered supple by the wave, and shielded from hard bone lost between the planks born of a frolic, the sea through the old man or the old man against the sea, making a vain attempt, an Engagement whose dread the veil of illusion rejected, as the phantom of a gesture will tremble, collapse, madness, WILL NEVER ABOLISH

AS IF A simple insinuation into silence, entwined with irony, or the mystery hurled, howled, in some close swirl of mirth and terror, whirls round the abyss without scattering or dispersing and cradles the virgin index there AS IF

a solitary plume overwhelmed, untouched, that a cap of midnight grazes, or encounters, and fixes, in crumpled velvet with a sombre burst of laughter, that rigid whiteness, derisory, in opposition to the heavens, too much so not to signal closely any bitter prince of the reef, heroically adorned with it, indomitable, but contained by his petty reason, virile in lightning

anxious expiatory and pubescent dumb laughter that IF the lucid and lordly crest of vertigo on the invisible brow sparkles, then shades, a slim dark tallness, upright in its siren coiling, at the moment of striking, through impatient ultimate scales, bifurcated, a rock a deceptive manor suddenly evaporating in fog that imposed limits on the infinite

IT WAS THE NUMBER, stellar outcome, WERE IT TO HAVE EXISTED other than as a fragmented, agonised hallucination; WERE IT TO HAVE BEGUN AND ENDED, a surging that denied, and closed, when visible at last, by some profusion spreading in sparseness; WERE IT TO HAVE AMOUNTED to the fact of the total, though as little as one; WERE IT TO HAVE LIGHTED, IT WOULD BE, worse no more nor less indifferently but as much, CHANCE Falls the plume, rhythmic suspense of the disaster, to bury itself in the original foam, from which its delirium formerly leapt to the summit faded by the same neutrality of abyss

NOTHING of the memorable crisis where the event matured, accomplished in sight of all non-existent human outcomes, WILL HAVE TAKEN PLACE a commonplace elevation pours out absence BUT THE PLACE some lapping below, as if to scatter the empty act abruptly, that otherwise by its falsity would have plumbed perdition, in this region of vagueness, in which all reality dissolves

EXCEPT at the altitude PERHAPS, as far as a place fuses with, beyond, outside the interest signalled regarding it, in general, in accord with such obliquity, through such declination of fire, towards what must be the Wain also North A CONSTELLATION cold with neglect and desuetude, not so much though that it fails to enumerate, on some vacant and superior surface, the consecutive clash, sidereally, of a final account in formation, attending, doubting, rolling, shining and meditating before stopping at some last point that crowns it All Thought expresses a Throw of the Dice



Poetry in
Translation
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Stephane Mallarme

Fragments - Anatole's Tomb

Die Toteninsel / The Isle of the Dead

'Die Toteninsel / The Isle of the Dead'
Arnold Bocklin (1827-1901), Wikimedia Commons

Home Download
Translated by A. S. Kline (C) Copyright 2009 All Rights Reserved

This work may be freely reproduced, stored, and transmitted, electronically or otherwise, for any non-commercial purpose.

Introduction

Mallarme's second child, Anatole, born July 1871, became seriously ill when he was seven years old. He suffered from rheumatic fever complicated by an enlarged heart, and died in October 1879, aged eight. Mallarme left a series of fragments for a four-part poetic memorial, a 'tomb'. He was emotionally and artistically unable to forge a finished work from them. This translation or rather adaptation contains many of the two hundred or so fragments, in some cases fragments of the fragments, excluding things I found too partial or obscure to resonate.