..:: Charles Baudelaire - Poezie a próza ::..

The Flowers of Evil

When Don Juan had descended to the waves
Of Hell, and given coin for Charon's chores,
A beggar with Antisthenes' proud gaze
Took an avenger's grip around the oars.

Showing their hanging breasts through open gowns,
Sad women writhed beneath that blackened sky;
Like victims chosen for the kil1ing ground
They trailed behind him, lowing moumfully.

Sganarelle badgered him to get his pay,
While Don Luis, with trembling gesture there,
Showed all the dead who lined the waterway
That shameless son, who'd mocked his old grey hair.

Quivering with grief, Elvira, chaste and thin,
Near to her lover and unfaithful spouse,
Seemed to be begging one last smile of him,
In which would shine the grace of his first vows.

A great stone man, stiff in his uniform,
Was the stem helmsman on that gloomy run,
But our calm hero, bent upon his sword,
Stared at the wake, and gave his glance to none.

Přeložil James McGowan

originale française: XV. Don Juan aux Enfers

český překlad: Don Juan v Podsvětí

Vysvětlivky:

This poem was also entitled 'The Impenitent', which allies it in theme to the succeeding poem, about a man punished for his pride. Don Juan was a legendary seducer of women and a favourite subject for many dramatists, including Moliere and Mozart (the libretto for Mozart's Don Giovanni was by Lorenzo da Ponte). In their versions, the story ends with Don Juan's being condemned to Hell; this poem, then, picks up where that story leaves off. J. Dupont points out that around 1853 Baudelaire was contemplating writing an opera entitled The End of Don Juan.
coin for Charon's chores: Charon was the boatman in Greek and Roman mythology who ferried the souls of the dead to the Underworld (called Erebus or Tartarus) across the river Acheron, or in some versions, the Styx. A coin to pay Charon was placed between the lips of the dead.
A beggar with Antisthenes' proud gaze: Antisthenes was a Greek philosopher, disciple of Socrates, who became the head of the school of the Cynics. It is not clear why the philosopher is referred to in this poem, but there appears in Moliere's Dom Juan, Act III, pursuing the hero, a beggar who might have taken 'an avenger's grip around the oars'.
Sad women: Don Juan has become the prototype of the heartless philanderer, having no regard, for example, for the vows he made to his wife Elvira, or to any of his many mistresses.
Sganarelle ... Don Luis ... Elvira ... A great stone man: all characters in Moliere's comedy Dom Juan; Sganarelle was Don Juan's servant, Don Luis his father, Elvira his wife. The 'great stone man' recalls the statue of the Commander, the agent for condemning Don Juan to Hell in the traditional story.