Another French Poem: Mallarme

I'm starting with short poems that aren't too difficult to translate. I did this one with M Danon in college. I later wrote about translations of the poem for a graduate class "Methods of Comparative Literature."

Le vierge, le vivace et le bel aujourd’hui
Va-t-il nous déchirer avec un coup d’aile ivre
Ce lac dur oublié que hante sous le givre
Le transparent glacier des vols qui n’ont pas fui!

Un cygne d’autrefois se souvient que c’est lui
Magnifique mais qui sans espoir se délivre
Pour n’avoir pas chanté la région où vivre
Quand du stérile hiver a resplendi l’ennui.

Tout son col secouera cette blanche agonie
Par l’espace infligée à l’oiseau qui le nie,
Mais non l’horreur du sol où le plumage est pris

Fantôme qu’à ce lieu son pur éclat assigne,
Il s’immobilise au songe froid de mépris
Que vêt parmi l’exil inutile le Cygne.

from Harvard Center for Hellenic studies (There is a lengthy essay on the poem on this site. Also a translation by Barbara Johnson.)

I remember that M Danon showed us how the last line is a pun: par mille exils inutiles le Signe." I can't remember if he did anything with the beginning of the line. How amazing that I remember this after almost 50 years! 

I showed this to my French-speaking, Proust-loving spouse. He told me the title of a famous book on Proust: "Proust and Signs." That is a bit of cleverness because the first volume of Proust's masterwork is "Swann's Way." Swan=Cygne.

Reading List: A French poem/poem in French

To prepare for retirement
I declare myself semi-retired
I will try to read a French poem every day
Today's poem
I searched for my old textbook--"French Romantic and Symbolist Poetry"
In the meantime, the internet.
I could translate this without much trouble and (mostly) without looking at the translation
Merci to my teachers, esp Ms ??, who quit after a dispute with the administration, M. S. Giordano, M R. Moore and M. S. Danon. For M. Danon, I wrote a paper on Paul Valery. Not one of these teachers  would remember me. That is the way of teachers and students.

1- “La Feuille Blanche” de Paul Valéry – French Poem

En vérité, une feuille blanche

Nous déclare par le vide

Qu’il n’est rien de si beau

Que ce qui n’existe pas.

Sur le miroir magique de sa blanche étendue,

L’âme voit devant elle le lieu des miracles

Que l’on ferait naître avec des signes et des lignes.

Cette présence d’absence surexcite

Et paralyse à la fois l’acte sans retour de la plume.

Il y a dans toute beauté une interdiction de toucher,

Il en émane je ne sais quoi de sacré

Qui suspend le geste, et fait l’homme

Sur le point d’agir se craindre soi-même.

2 – The Blank Sheet – English Translation of the French Poem

In truth, a blank sheet

Declares by the void

That there is nothing as beautiful

As that which does not exist.

]On the magic mirror of its white space,

The soul sees before her the place of the miracles

That we would bring to life with signs and lines.

This presence of absence over-excites

And at the same time paralyses the definitive act of the pen.

There is in all beauty a forbiddance to touch,

From which emanates I don’t know what of sacred

That stops the movement and puts the man

On the point of acting in fear of himself.