The recent celebrations of the centenary of the end of the First World War put me in mind of one of my favourite French poems that I translated during my MA. It's not about the First World War but about the French war with Prussia and was written in 1870 when Arthur Rimbaud was only 16 years old but it could be about any soldier. It's a hauntingly beautiful poem and I loved translating it.
The original French poem works so well because the rhythm of the poem (with its multiple enjambments) works against the sense of balance and harmony provided by the assonance,, the rhyme scheme and vocabulary used: there is a contrast between form and content. For me this was the most important thing to convey and for this reason I sacrificed some of the assonance (though I tried to replace it with repetitions of different sounds). I also kept the rhyme scheme to give this sense of discombobulation: it's a traditional sonnet written in alexandrines about something that is at once peaceful and yet horrific, the shock is only hinted at in the final tercets: he sleeps like an ill child, he is cold.
I translated the title as 'The Sleeper in the Vale', it's more usually translated as 'The Sleeper in the Valley' but I liked the idea that 'vale' sounds like 'veil' and foreshadows the idea of the soldier being 'beyond the veil'.
Le Dormeur du Val
Arthur Rimbaud
C’est un trou de verdure où chante une rivière,
Accrochant follement aux herbes des haillons
D’argent ; où le soleil, de la montagne fière,
Luit : c’est un petit val qui mousse de rayons.
Un soldat jeune, bouche ouverte, tête nue,
Et la nuque baignant dans le frais cresson bleu,
Dort ; il est étendu dans l’herbe, sous la nue,
Pale dans son lit vert où la lumière pleut.
Les pieds dans les glaïeuls, il dort. Souriant comme
Sourirait un enfant malade, il fait un somme :
Nature, berce-le chaudement : il a froid.
Les parfums ne font pas frissonner sa narine ;
Il dort dans le soleil, la main sur sa poitrine,
Tranquille. Il a deux trous rouges au côté droit.
The Sleeper in the Vale
Tr. Emily Rose
It’s a green copse where a river chimes,
Clutching at ragged silver weeds in distress;
Where the proud mountain sun shines
Clear: a little valley where rays effervesce.
A young soldier, mouth open, head bare,
With his nape bathing in the cress blue and bright
Sleeps; he is stretched out on the grass, under there,
Pale in his green bed where the sky rains light.
His feet in the gladioli, he sleeps. Smiling like
An ill child smiles, he is sleeping tight:
Nature, rock him closely, he is cold.
Surrounding scents cannot disturb his rest,
He sleeps in the sun, his hand on his chest,
Calm. He has two red holes in his right side.