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2010-11-10

Venus Anadyomène - Arthur Rimbaud



Venus Anadyomene Venus Anadyomene - Titan vc. 1520
Oil on canvas 75.80 cm × 57.60 cm
National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh


Comme d’un cercueil vert en fer blanc, une tête
De femme à cheveux bruns fortement pommadés
D’une vieille baignoire émerge, lente et bête,
Avec des déficits assez mal ravaudés;

Puis le col gras et gris, les larges omoplates
Qui saillent; le dos court qui rentre et qui ressort;
Puis les rondeurs des reins semblent prendre l’essor;
La graisse sous la peau paraît en feuilles plates:

L’échine est un peu rouge, et le tout sent un goût
Horrible étrangement; on remarque surtout
Des singularités qu’il faut voir à la loupe…

Les reins portent deux mots gravés: CLARA VENUS;
—Et tout ce corps remue et tend sa large croupe
Belle hideusement d’un ulcère à l’anus.

English Version

As from a green zinc coffin, a woman’s
Head with brown hair heavily pomaded
Emerges slowly and stupidly from an old bathtub,
With bald patches rather badly hidden;

Then the fat gray neck, broad shoulder-blades
Sticking out; a short back which curves in and bulges;
Then the roundness of the buttocks seems to take off;
The fat under the skin appears in slabs:

The spine is a bit red; and the whole thing has a smell
Strangely horrible; you notice especially
Odd details you’d have to see with a magnifying glass…

The buttocks bear two engraved words: CLARA VENUS;
—And that whole body moves and extends its broad rump
Hideously beautiful with an ulcer on the anus.

from Rimbaud: Complete Works, Selected Letters, a Bilingual Edition
Translated by Wallace Fowlie and revised by Seth Whidden

Jean Nicolas Arthur Rimbaud (b. 20 October 1854, Charleville, France; d. 10 November 1891 Marseille, France)



Ler do mesmo autor, neste blog: O Dorminhoco do Vale; Le Dormeur du Vale; Romance (in English)


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