The starting point for the following poems lies in Paul Auster’s excellent 1983 translation of Mallarmé’s long poem, Pour un tombeau d’Anatole, released by North Point Press under the title A Tomb for Anatole. These new translations are intended not to replace but to augment and reconfigure both Auster’s translations and the task itself of translating from French to English. Drawing impetus from Walter Benjamin’s claim in “The Task of the Translator” that “a translation issues from the original—not so much from its life as from its afterlife,” the following poems attempt to define the “afterlife” of Mallarmé’s Anatole while carefully acknowledging both Auster’s work and the notion (again Benjamin) that “a translation, instead of resembling the meaning of the original, must lovingly and in detail incorporate the original’s mode of signification, thus making both the original and the translation recognizable as fragments of a greater language.” With the intention of honoring both the sense and form of Mallarmé’s poem (its mode of signification), these new renderings make use of both homophonic and anagrammic translation tools in constructing the English versions (or harmonies) of the original fragments. Employing a set of devices including anagram, same-sound correlations, and exact or near-exact cognates, as well as common etymologies (near-matches of meaning), the poems excerpted here try to rebuild the Mallarmé texts in such a way that both the syntactical variety and the physical shape (letters, words, lines) of the originals are reflected in the English.
| 1 enfant sorti de nous deux—nous montrant notre idéal, le chemin —à nous! père et mère qui lui en triste existence survivons comme les deux extrêmes— mal associés en lui et qui se sont séparés —d’ou sa mort—annu- lant ce petit <<soi>> d’enfant | an infant dies to us both—de monstrates our ideal, child-man —anew! father & mother quietly entrust existence survive a son in the two extremes— malassociating him acquiescing separate —death is more—nul ling this tiny “self” denied |
| 2 (3 meilleures comme s’il <quand> était encore— quelqu’ils fussent, des qualificatifs digne—etc. les heures où vous fûtes et ne fûtes pas | (3 better is he becomes <could>— that which was, engraved qualities dignity—etc. the hours you fought but never fought past |
| 3 malade au printemps mort en automne —c’est le soleil —— - la vague idée la toux 2 | ailing in springtime mourned in autumn —celestial soul ——- the wave idea attacks 2 |
| 4 fils résorbé pas parti c’est lui —ou son frère moi je le lui ai dit deux frères —- | if he’s reabsorbed is a-part it’s he —or his brother me shall i say it two brothers —- |
| 5 refoulée restée en flanc— <juste> sur de moi siècle ne s’écoulera pas juste pour m’in struire | repelled—resting in womb— <just> over me century won’t roll past just for my instruction |
| 6 pas connu mère, et fils ne m’a pas connu!— —image de moi autre que moi emporté en mort! | unknown mother, a face un recognized!— —image of me other than me transported in death! |
| 7 qui s’est réfugié ton futur en moi devient ma pureté a travers vie, à laquelle je ne toucherai pas— | what’s in refuge your future in me become my purity through life, which i shall not touch upon— |
| 8 il est époque de une l’Existence où nous nous retrouverons, sinon un lieu— —et si vous en doutez le monde en sera témoin, en supposant que je vive assez vieux ____ ___ | it’s the epoch of one Existence in us in us retrieved, is not in lieu— —& if you doubt these mundane testimonie s - let’s suppose that i live long enough ____ ___ |
| 9 préf. père qui né en temps mauvais avait préparé à fils— une tâche sublime — <<la double à remplir—d’enfant la sienne—la douleur le désire de se sacrifier à qui n’est plus l’emporteront-ils sur vigueur (homme qui’il n’a pas été) et fera-t-il la tâche de l’enfant | pref. father who eve’n in times gone bad had prepared a son— a touch sublime — “the double re plenished—the child’s his own—the dull hour the desir ed sacrifice to one who’s no more will triumph over vigor (man he wasn’t to be) & through it all the task of infancy |
| 10 le but suprême n’eût été que partir pur de la vie tu l’as accompli d’avance en souffrant assez—doux enfant pour que Cela te soit compté pour ta vie perdue—les tiens ont acheté le reste par leur souffrance de ne plus t’avoir | the highest aim nothing but to part pure from life you accomplish it in advance in suffering all this—gentle infant so that This will be counted part of your due—your kin have bought the rest by their suffering the loss forever |