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

The Flowers of Evil

Votive in the Spanish Style

Madonna, mistress, out of my distress
I'd like to raise an altar in the depths,
And in the blackest corner of my heart,
From earthly joys and mockeries apart,
Hollow a niche, enamelled gold and blue,
Astonished Statue, sanctified for you.
With polished Verses, metal deftly twined,
Learnedly spangled with my crystal rhymes,
I'll weave a Crown for your celebrity;
And, mortal Mary, in my Jealousy
I'll cut your Cloak in the barbaric mode,
Lined with Distrust, a heavy, stiff abode
Emprisoning those charms I hold so dear;
Brocaded not of Pearls, but of my Tears!
My trembling Lust will do me for your Gown,
Surging Desire that rises or sinks down,
Poises on peaks, or in your valleys rests,
Clothing with kisses all your rosy flesh.
From my Respect I'll make some lovely Shoes
Of satin, for your holy feet to use,
Which, holding them within a soft embrace,
Will take the faithful imprint of their shapes.
If I, with all the craft at my command,
Can not cut out a Moon where you may stand,
Under your heels I'll place that gnawing Snake,
That monster puffed with venom and with hate
That eats my entrails - bruise him with your tread
Victorious Queen, redemption's fountainhead.
My thoughts, set out like Tapers, will be seen
Before your flowery altar, Virgin Queen,
Spangling the deep blue ceiling with their rays,
Always to look at you with fiery gaze;
And since I worship you in every sense
All become Benjamin, or Frankincense,
And, white and snowy peak, around your slopes
My stormy Soul will rise in fragrant Smoke.

At last, so you're my Mary perfectly,
And mixing love with pagan cruelty,
Full of a dark, remorseful joy, I'll take
The seven deadly sins, and of them make
Seven bright Daggers; with a juggler's lore
Target your love within its deepest core,
And plant them all within your panting Heart,
Within your sobbing Heart, your streaming Heart!

Přeložil James McGowan

originale française: LVII. A une Madone

český překlad: Jedné Madoně

Vysvětlivky:

Votive in the Spanish Style: 'votive' means 'offered with a vow'. The Spanish Baroque style ran to extremes, as in the images of this poem. Antoine Adam comments that this is a baroque poem, 'where passion borrows the vocabulary of the most fanatical piety, makes appeal to the most sumptuous and refined images to speak of its adorations and its transports'. J. Dupont refers to three types of representations of the Virgin in the Spanish tradition: the hieratic Virgin; the immaculate Virgin with a moon and serpent under her feet; and the Virgin of the Sorrows, pierced by seven swords.
a Moon where you may stand: frequently in the iconography associated with Mary she is standing on a quarter-moon. bruise him with your tread: in Genesis IS, God punishes Adam and Eve for their disobedience, but He also proclaims that Eve's progeny will 'bruise the head' of the serpent who tempted Eve.
The seven deadly sins: pride, covetousness, lust, anger, gluttony, envy, and sloth. Catholics are often taught that when one sins, one penetrates the heart of the Virgin Mary, and Jonathan Culler has mentioned 'the devotional tradition, reflected in art, which represented the seven deadly sins committed by men as seven daggers thrust into the Virgin Mary's heart'. This, then, is the Virgin of the Sorrows, mentioned by Dupont. For Baudelaire to create his perfect Mary, he must subject her to this combination of 'the sumptuous and the barbarian' (Antoine Adam's words); describing her first in the imagery of the Immaculate Virgin, he then plants the deadly sins like daggers in her heart.