Gratuous Poetic Post

[salinea]

El Desdichado

Je suis le Ténébreux, - le Veuf, - l'Inconsolé,
Le Prince d'Aquitaine à la Tour abolie :
Ma seule Etoile est morte, - et mon luth constellé
Porte le Soleil noir de la Mélancolie.

Dans la nuit du Tombeau, Toi qui m'as consolé,
Rends-moi le Pausilippe et la mer d'Italie,
La fleur qui plaisait tant à mon coeur désolé,
Et la treille où le Pampre à la Rose s'allie.

Suis-je Amour ou Phébus ?... Lusignan ou Biron ?
Mon front est rouge encor du baiser de la Reine ;
J'ai rêvé dans la Grotte où nage la sirène...

Et j'ai deux fois vainqueur traversé l'Achéron :
Modulant tour à tour sur la lyre d'Orphée
Les soupirs de la Sainte et les cris de la Fée.

Gérard de Nerval

Comments

[klynie1.livejournal.com]

I apologize for writing in English because my French is so unbelievably rusty, but these lines touched me:

Rends-moi le Pausilippe et la mer d'Italie,
La fleur qui plaisait tant à mon coeur désolé

So poignant and heart-wrenching. Thank you for posting this.

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you appreciated it! I love Nerval, he writes such striking lines. I'm impressed that even if it's rusty your French is good enough to appreciate this! I've found it took me long before my English was good enough I could read and enjoy poetry in it ^^

[klynie1.livejournal.com]

I'm awful with conversational French unless I've been immersed in it for a few days, then it starts coming back. But for some reason, I don't have nearly as much trouble reading French, though I'm very slow because I'm still translating it all in my head as I read. I know that I'm missing nuances, but this particular poem has so many classical references in it that I think that I caught more than I would if I were reading a non-classical French poet.

Your language skills, on the other hand, just blow me away. I deeply apologize if this is offensive to you, but when I first met you I thought that perhaps you were English or American and living in France. I realized soon after that my impression was wrong (but only because you spoke of your background a bit). I am so envious and impressed!

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

Classical references are love ♥

Thank you! How could I be offended by such a huge compliment!

English is easy to practice regularly thankfully. Between reading, the internet, subtitled movies and music, it's so difficult to dip within as French would be for you.
I'm getting used to see many fantastic writers who are not native speakers of English, the fandom is full of them. I'm really not very praise worthy compared to them - I make so many mistakes!

[after-nightfall.livejournal.com]

Beautiful poetry is never gratuitious. It is known. :-)
*raises lover-of-classics-with-rusty-French hand*
And I also believe that you learn a lot about people if you know what poems and literary passages touch them. It may not be very good for psychoanalysis, but for impressions, it's invaluable.

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

Yay for lover-of-classics-but-rusty-French friends!

Yes, you've got a good point about what you learn from people ^^ So what do you know of me now? XD

[after-nightfall.livejournal.com]

Now I'm embarrassed that you'll tell me I completely misunderstood the poem. :-)
But it's rather what I guess... that you like tragical heroes who "traverse the Acheron" to obliteration, there and back, and still manage to hold on and not fail by sheer willpower, ang grow... or maybe that you can learn something even from your own misery? (Does it show that I'm reading Viktor Frankl atm? :-))

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

wow, actually that's surprizingly correct, I didn't know you could see all that about me from the poem, I'm impressed!
I don't think you can misunderstand a poem... I certainly wouldn't claim to know all that this one is about!

What is Viktor Frankl? (not a short for Viktor Frankenstein surely?)

[after-nightfall.livejournal.com]

Actually, I'm just projecting on people what I myself see in poems - the general themes, thinking that maybe they notice and appreciate them too, and then jump to conclusions. *blushes* Sounds so silly, to overanalyse myself like that.

Viktor Frankl was a Jewish Austrian psychologist who survived Auschwitz. His book - Man's search for meaning is partly a story of that, and partly an expostulation of his theories for psychological survival, for getting through bad things. It just connected in my mind. :-)

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

I hear you on the overanalysing yourself; I do the same ^^

Viktor Frankl's work sounds very interesting. I'll have to look into it, thank you :)