AUBE from Illuminations (1875)
J'ai embrassé l'aube d'été.
Rien ne bougeait encore au front des palais. L'eau était mortre.
Les camps d'ombres ne quittaient pas la route du bois. J'ai marché,
réveillant les haleines vives et tièdes; et les pierries
regardèrent, et les ailes se levèrent sans bruit.
La première enterprise fut, dans le sentier déjà empli
de frais et blêmes éclats, une fleur qui me dit son nom.
Je ris au wasserfall blond qui s'échevela à travers les sapins:
à la cime argentée je reconnus la déesse.
Alors je levai un à les voiles. Dans l'allée, en agitant les
bras. Par la plaine, oł je l'ai dénoncée au coq. A la grand'ville
elle fuyait parmi les clochers et les dômes, et, courant comme un mendiant
sur les quais de marbre, je la chassais.
En haut de la route, près d'un bois de lauriers. Je l'ai entourée
avec ses voiles amassés, et j'ai senti un peu son immense corps. L'aube
et l'enfant tombèrent au bas du bois.
Au réveil, il était midi.
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DAWN from Illuminations (1875)
I embraced the summer dawn.
Nothing stirred on the face of the palaces. The water was still.
Crowds of shadows lingered on the road to the woods. I walked,
dreaming the warm, brisk winds, and precious stones looked on,
and wings soared in silence.
The first venture, on the path already full of fresh and pale
glitterings, was a flower who told me her name.
I laughed at the white waterfall dishevelled through the
pine trees: at its silvery summit I recognized the goddess.
Then, one by one, I lifted her veils. In the pathway, waving my arms.
In the open field, where I betrayed her to the cock. In the city she fled
amid the steeples and the domes, and running like a beggar on the
marble piers, I chased her.
At the top of the road, near a wood of laurels, I wrapped her in her
mass of veils, and felt a little of her immense body. Dawn and the
child fell at the edge of the woods.
When I awoke it was noon.
— Above version based on the following translations:
— Arthur Rimbaud, Illuminations
translated by Bertrand Mathieu
Boa Editions, Brockport, NY, 1979, pp. 32-33
— Arthur Rimbaud, Illuminations
translated by Daniel Sloate
Guernica, Montreal, Canada, 1990, pp. 78-79
— Arthur Rimbaud, A Season in Hell and Illuminations
translated by Mark Treharne
J.M. Dent, London, 1998 (no page #)
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Web Links to Arthur Rimbaud
•
Books & Writers: Arthur Rimbaud
(Biography, Selected Works)
•
Academy of American Poets: Arthur Rimbaud
(Biography, Poems, Prose, Surrealist & Symbolist Poets)
•
Awakening with Rimbaud
(By Dana Wilde with Rimbaud's "Aube")
•
Wikipedia: Arthur Rimbaud
(Life & work, Influence, Trivia, Bibliography, Online Texts)
•
Arthur Rimbaud & Patti Smith
(Biographical notes on Rimbaud by Fiona Webster)
•
Arthur Rimbaud Website
(By Peter Pullicino)
•
Arthur Rimbaud Timeline
(Rimbaud's Life: October 20, 1854-November 10, 1891)
•
Dawn (English & French version)
•
Aube (Online Text of French)
•
Aube (Critique by Cecil Arthur Hackett)
(5-17-2009)