Black night! Black night!

In the case where fear presses back
Through the air, where the torch has expired
On the orphan river,
In the forest, soulless and tired,
Under the anxious and faded trees,
In the wan woods, squalling trunks
Ululate without respite
Over the accursed tom-toms,
Black night! Black night!

—from "Nuit Noire" by Birago Diop, translated by Uche Ogbuji

This poem is excerpted from Birago Diop's short story "Sarzan", well known among literati with interest in African culture. I can only find it in French online right now, but I first encountered it in the collection Jazz and Palm Wine which my father loved and would sometimes read to the family. The excerpt above is from the very end, and I translated it form the French original:

Dans la case où la peur repasse
Dans l'air où la torche s'éteint,
Sur le fleuve orphelin
Dans la forêt sans âme et lasse
Sous les arbres inquiets et déteints,
Dans les bois obscurcis
Les trompes hurlent, hululent sans merci
Sur les tam-tams maudits,
Nuit noire ! Nuit noire !
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I've watched the "Kony 2012" hype and the subsequent controversy with both amusement and bemusement, thought I've thought whatever comment I might have better kept to myself. I wasn't even paying much attention to the whole affair except for a few nuggets that would strike me, usually from when it was on the news my wife was watching in the other room. The first case was when I believe NBC said they would be sending a crew to Uganda to do some fact-checking on the story. That really annoyed me.
Here is a list just off head:
  • Major unrest in Burkina Faso last year
  • Ethno-religious strife in Nigeria's middle belt
  • Al-Quaeda-inspired terrorism in Nigeria's North
  • The Nigerian fuel subsidy removal unrest
  • An oil spill by Shell almost as bad as the Deepwater Horizon disaster (in terms of environmental impact rather than barrels of oil)
  • South Sudan's independence
  • Eradication of Rhinderpest
  • Famine in East Africa
  • The arrest of Gbagbo in Côte d'Ivoire following the mayhem he caused after elections
  • The election of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf in Liberia
  • One of the most engaging African Cup of Nations competitions in my own memory (OK I had to throw that last bit in there).
So many compelling stories coming out of sub-saharan Africa, and it took a viral Youtube video to get NBC to send a crew to the continent.  Even if you were only interested in Uganda, the non-violent protests led by Besigye against Museveni alone were more newsworthy than "Kony 2012".

Now don't get me wrong. Joseph Kony and the LRA have been shocking and disgusting me for at least fifteen years, and of course I'd love to see him brought to justice, but the problem with Kony 2012 is that it perpetuates the approach of over-hype and lazy hyper-focus on one topic that has characterized so much popular Western attention on the continent. It's "Do they know it's Christmas time at all" all over again, and don't let me start on that unspeakable nonsense.

Anyway another snippet from the "Kony 2012" affair that struck me was the clip of the video's creator I half caught in which he was itching about some U.S. city street in the nude while muttering loudly. It instantly brought back a very powerful reminder of Birago Diop's short story, which Professor Willfried Feuser translated in his collection as "Sarzent the Madman." The "Sarzent" ("sergeant") of the story has returned from his military education in France loudly determined to "civilize" his home village. He becomes possessed by the spirits of his ancestors and goes around raving in poetry. I see the broader lesson of the story about the peril of insincerity couched in self-righteousness, especially when rooted in alien, Western values. That's certainly how the story struck me as a child, and in that wise I find the correspondence to this madness of Jason Russell extremely creepy. A friend of mine mentioned that it's as if the man was stricken by the Igbo deity Agwu Nsi.

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Some of the ravings of Sarzan/Sarzent come from Diop's earlier poetry, including his lovely "Souffles" ("Breaths"):

Écoute plus souvent 
les choses que les êtres. 
La voix du feu s'entend, 
entends la voix de l'eau
écoute dans le vent
le buisson en sanglots.

I found the above video with the poem's recitation. I translate it thusly:

Listen more often
To things than to beings.
The fire's voice is heard,
Hear the voice of the water
Listen in the wind
To the bush a-sobbing.

Out! Out! You must be prised right out...

Out! Out! You must be prised right out
Joyless desire and love's conceit!
You've cranked at my heart such a treat,
Nothing's left there for your grubby onslaught.

Now for my own good may I forget about,
Shrug off this tenant of my very suite.
Out! Out! You must be prised right out!

I took you in without sufficient thought.
Get out! Go find yourself another beat!
Don't even skirt my heart's remotest street!
Too long I've dwelled cowed by your harsh, grim clout.
Out! Out! You must be prised right out!

—Rondeau/Chanczon XI of Alain Chartier, translated by Uche Ogbuji

This morning a friend of mine posted the following on Facebook:

Untitled - by Alain Chartier

I turn you out of doors
tenant desire

you pay no rent
I turn you out of doors
all my best rooms are yours
the brain and the heart

depart
I turn you out of doors

switch off the lights
throw water on the fire
I turn you out of doors

stubborn desire

I have a lot of friends who post fine poetry, of their own, or from others. Most of the time I'd just click "like," possibly comment, and then move on with life. This one seemed set for the pattern at first, a neat little piece, clever device and all. But then I noticed the byline. "Alain Chartier."

I love medieval French poetry: Villon, Chartier, de Pizan, even d'Orléans, who's a decent enough poet, but probably would have been much less remarked if not for his nobility. Anyway, it immediately struck me that the "I turn you out of doors" poem is quite un-Chartier-like, and I certainly didn't recognize it despite having read a fair bit of Chartier in the original and in translation. So just like that began a delightful journey taken up in occasional steps throughout the day.

I found the poem posted on a variety of Weblogs by the occasional romantic. It had clearly gained currency at some point as a mini-meme. But nowhere could I find information about the Chartier original. I did find that the translation was by Edward Lucie-Smith, a new name to me despite the fact that he seems a very prolific and near contemporary author.

Just about every permutation of Google search I could think up with the above info turned up at the very best a cryptic bibliography entry in The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry in Anthologies:

I turn you out of doors.    Alain Chartier.  BoLoP tr. by Edward Lucie-Smith

My friend mentioned she had found it in her copy of "A well-loved book of love poetry from Oxford University Press edited by Jon Stallworthy," which was probably "BoLoP" so I'd hit a dead end.

I ended up searching online editions of Chartier for a variety of likely 15th century French translations of the words in the Lucie-Smith. I didn't have time to do it the old-fashioned way, thumbing through my volumes, but I suspected this was a rarely collected Chartier poem that I probably wouldn't find in my library, anyway.  Guessing at "dehors" led me to a mention of:

XI. Dehors ! dehors ! Il vous fault deslogier, 
Désir sans joye et pensée d'amours. . .

Rondel de dix vers : Grenoble, n° 874, fol. 60 ; ms. du 
cardinal de Rohan, fol. 80 v°; Lyon, n° 1235. Publié dans 
Lyon- Revue, 1886, p. 315. 

In "Mélanges offerts à M. Émile Picot." Alas the full poem was not rendered, but it seemed a passable match for the Lucie-Smith.  I found many more fragmentary references until I did find the full poem in a miscellany of "Ballades, Rondeaux et Chansons" appended to Chartier's celebrated "La belle dame sans mercy"

Here is the full, original poem:

Rondeau/Chanczon XI

Dehors ! dehors ! Il vous fault deslogier
Desir sans joye et pensee d'amours!
Tant aves fait en mon cuer de voz tours
Qu'il n'y a plus pour vous que fourragier.

Nonchaloir vueil desormais hebergier
Avec oubly pour moy donner secours.
Dehors ! dehors ! Il vous fault deslogier!

 Je vous receu ung pou trop de legier.
Departez vous! Allez logier aillours!
N'aprochez plus de mon cuer les faulxbours!
Trop ay vescu soubz vostre dur dangier.
Dehors ! dehors ! Il vous fault deslogier!

(Sources: [1] . [2] . [3])

Well then! That's a rather different creature than the Lucie-Smith. I understand that Lucie-Smith was doing a bit of an Arthur Symons, the modernist gutting a languorous latin procession of poetry, seeking the supposed vortex. If a sonnet or canzone/chanson is like a sphere, you can see Lucie-Smith cutting a spiral out of it, looking for some sort of essence.

It does bring to mind the question of where translation gives way to adaptation or even original work. I generally label a poem adaptation when I feel I've made it too much my own, and I try to be explicit about such cases. I've done so for example in my treatment of “El Amor Ascendía Entre Nosotros,” by Miguel Hernandez, and even in my treatment of Villon's "L'Épitaph (Ballade des pendus)," where the only real liberty I took was with the refrain.

Upon finding the original Chartier poem I tried my hand at a translation, which is the lead quote of this post. I tried to preserve some of the metrical and rhetorical feel of the original, which in my opinion Lucie-Smith jettisoned, creating an entirely original work of his own. Again I think the Lucie-Smith is a neat poem, but I think its worth giving Chartier a chance to have his own, more direct say. As I wrote of the old master in a poem of mine published last year:

Doubting truth in unseen things
I seek the literal tree,
The prickly fruit, the leaves, the flowers
Some posit it to be.

Uproot the tree of vegetable love
And plant a swooning spray—
I'm well across the gospel of
Our prelate Chartier.

If love is nectar blossoming
But fades to autumn grief,
What heroes championing what gods
Are left to my belief?

—from "What belief" by Uche Ogbuji (Lucid Rhythms, 2011)

Chez Labbé, au-delà de la terre

Je vis, je meurs: je me brule et me noye, 
J’ay chaut estreme en endurant froidure: 
La vie m'est et trop molle et trop dure. 
J'ay grans ennuis entremeslez de joye: 

Tout à un coup je ris et je larmoye, 
Et en plaisir maint grief tourment n'endure: 
Mon bien s'en va, et à jamais il dure: 
Tout en un coup je seiche et je verdoye. 

Ainsi Amour inconstamment me meine: 
Et quand je pense avoir plus de douleur, 
Sans y penser je me treuve hors de peine.

Puis quand je croy ma joye estre certeine, 
Et estre au haut de mon desiré heur, 
Il me remet en mon premier malheur.
—Sonnet VIII by Louise Labbé (I found an English guide to the poem.)

The first time I heard Morcheeba's Au-delà, featuring Manda, the french fan who became a lead singer for a brief spell, I was at a Morcheeba concert in Denver, just before the album Dive Deep came out.  When she started singing the lyrics, I started jumping up and down yelling "C'est Louise Labbé!" I guess half-hoping Manda could hear me.  Yeah, wifey thought I'd gone mad.  She would have thought so even more if she'd realized, as I did quickly, that the lyrics that started with Labbé quickly went its own way.

Morcheeba-DiveDeep.jpg

Je vis, je meurs; je ris, je pleure.
Je vis de la mer; je vis de la terre.
Je le dis aux fleurs; au lac de vapeur.

Au ciel de toutes les couleurs,
Ton soleil réchauffe mon cœur.

Je vis, j'ai peur; je crie de douleurs.
En secret je m'enterre: je cherche la chaleur.
Je m'enfuis dans les airs; au delà de la terre.

Au ciel de toutes les couleurs,
Ton soleil réchauffe mon cœur.
—"Au-delà" by Morcheeba

I live, I die; I laugh, I cry.
I live of the sea; I live of the ground.
I say it to the flowers; to the lake of steam.

In the all-colored sky,
Your sun warms my heart.

I live, I die; I scream of pain.
I bury myself secretly: I am seeking heat.
I abscond into the air; beyond the earth.

In the all-colored sky,
Your sun warms my heart.
—translation by Uche Ogbuji

BTW the last time I mentioned Morcheeba on Copia I was anticipating the new album after Skye Edwards had rejoined them.  "Blood Like Lemonade" came out last year and is I think worth the wait.  If you've been sleeping, wake up and check it out.

vitrail_louise_labbe_gd.jpg


Labbé's sonnet famously brings Petrarca's style of antithetical tropes into French.  Just this morning Au-delà came up in my shuffled playlist and I remembered I'd resolved to translate it, to see if I could preserve some of its music, which has eluded translations I've seen so far.  Here is an excerpt from my attempt:

All at a stroke I laugh and I lament,

And suffer many torments in my pleasures:

They live forever, my absconding treasures:

All at a stroke I wither and augment.

—from "Je vis, je meurs" a translation of Sonnet VIII by Uche Ogbuji

re: lament/augment, you can either accept it as rime riche, or consider the "g" borrowed into its following syllable, as it does sound in my pronounciation.

Tout baigne!

Marie: 
Aujourd'hui je bouge
Chercher mon nouveau move
Je n'ai plus de cash
Même pas de crédit card
Je fais façon-façon!
C'est ce qui fond ma conviction! 

Refrain (Marie & co.): Tomana Toma cha na taboo!
Toma na Toma cha ni tout baigne! 
 (4x)
 
Toma! (Tout baigne!)
Na Ouais! ça bouge
Tomana Toma
Ah! Tout baigne 
Mon plan pour ce soir
J'veux pas vous décevoir c'est moi qui vous mène
Et ça en vaut la peine
Trop de frustration
Vivre dans une money nation (money nation)

Dis-moi, toi! 
Arno, dis-moi!
Sans l'argent 
Dans l'attente
Tu fais quoi?

Refrain

Arno: 
Toma ton machin,
Ça c'est bien ça!
Sans argent, t'as pas le choix
On rève, comme un roi charmant
On chante "ah si j'étais riche moi!
(What we're gonna do today?) 

Refrain

My favorite song off Zap Mama's "Supermoon" album.  When she came to Boulder a few years ago to support it (as she does often, happily) one of my keenest disappointments was that she performed the song mostly translated to English, so I couldn't sing along with the French lyrics I knew from the album.

Yeah yeah it's a rat race and blah blah blah and we're all just squirrels trying to get a nut and yada yada.  It's nice to have someone actually having a great deal of fun with those old complaints.  And I love Marie just doing her wacky thing in the video, especially pop-locking in the robot get-up.  Charming chemistry hanging out with French pop-rocker Arno, too.

10611-supermoon.jpg

Today I'm getting my ass in gear
To figure out my new move
I ain't got no more cash
No more on the credit card
I'm just making do
Which is why I'm ain't messing around...

As a bonus, here's a fun music video by Arno:

http://new.music.yahoo.com/videos/--39147064

There's no more left at the deep of our smiles

Aujourd'hui aura lieu. La surface invisible
Délimitant dans l'air nos êtres de souffrance
Se forme et se durcit à une vitesse terrible ;
Le corps, le corps pourtant, est une appartenance.

—from "Le jour monte et grandit, retombe sur la ville" by Michel Houellebecq in Unsplendid 3.2

Translation of the above poem from the volume "Le sens du combat" ("The art of combat") is also featured in Unsplendid, written by Delphine Grass and Timothy Mathews, a team that's put forth translation of several Houellebecq poems lately, in at least Unsplendid and Salt that I've noticed.

Today will happen. Invisible surfaces
Separate our suffering selves in the air
Then form and harden at a terrible pace;
But the body, still our pact with the body.

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I'm glad to see they had the courage to tackle Houellebecq.  He is of course subject of almost constant controversy.  I've always felt that his methods convey mischief rather than malice.  He's more a clever provocateur than a vulgar, racist chauvanist, in my impression, though I'll admit I've never really studied him closely.  I'm not sure I'd actually read any poems from "Le sens du combat," and the Grass & Mathews selections in Unsplendid ("Quand elle m'apercevait, elle tendait son bassin" and "So Long") are just lovely little poems.  I can't say I'm completely enamored of the translation, which strips away much lyrical power from the original.  Just to grab one example from what I've already quoted: "But the body, still our pact with the body" doesn't do justice to "Le corps, le corps pourtant, est une appartenance."  Here is a case where the most literal is much better.  Something more like "The body, yet the body, is but a member," or: "The body, the body yet, is but a member."  Or maybe use "an accessory" in place of "a member."

There are other places where I'd have made much different choices.  But the translators did accomplish their most important work, which is to bring broader attention to fine poems.  I'm now very interested in reading more from that volume myself, and probably offering some of my own translations.  In the title of this post you'll find my own translation of "Il n'y a plus grand-chose au fond de nos sourires".  For now, though, a bit more from Unsplendid:

Il y a toujours une ville, des traces de poètes
Qui ont croisé leur destinée entre ses murs
L’eau coule un peu partout, la mémoire murmure
Des noms de villes, des noms de gens, trous dans la tête.

Grass & Mathews translation:

There’s always a city, and traces of poets
Who have met their destiny within its walls,
Water is leaking, and memory whispers
Names of cities, people, holes in your head.

 

(Picture credit: "Without a Face, a portrait of the Soul" by Sergeant Pablo Piedra)