Norman R. Shapiro

Norman R. Shapiro is professor of Romance languages and literatures at Wesleyan University. He is also "Writer in Residence" at Adams House, Harvard University. Among his many translations are Four Farces by Georges Feydeau, which was nominated for a National Book Award; The Fabulists French: Verse Fables of Nine Centuries, named Distinguished Book of the Year by the American Literary Translator's Association; One Hundred and One Poems by Paul Verlaine, which won the Modern Language Association of America's Scaglione Prize in 2001; and Charles Baudelaire: Selected Poems from "Les Fleurs du mal," the last published by the University of Chicago Press. With his next volume of La Fontaine translations, Shapiro will have done all the Fables, to go along with a volume of La Fontaine's Contes. Other books of translations include Lyrics of the French Renaissance (published by Yale University Press), The Comedy of Eros (published by University of Illinois Press), and two forthcoming:  Nine Centuries of French Women Poets (title yet to be determined), to be published by Johns Hopkins, and a collection of one-act comedies by Eugène Labiche.

 

Folly, depravity, greed, mortal sin
Invade our souls and rack our flesh; we feed
Our gentle guilt, gracious regrets, that breed
Like vermin glutting on foul beggars' skin.

Our sins are stubborn; our repentance, faint.
We take a handsome price for our confession,
Happy once more to wallow in transgression,
Thinking vile tears will cleanse us of all taint.

On evil's cushion poised, His Majesty,
Satan Thrice-Great, lulls our charmed soul, until
He turns to vapor what was once our will:
Rich ore, transmuted by his alchemy.

He holds the strings that move us, limb by limb!
We yield, enthralled, to things repugnant, base;
Each day, towards Hell, with slow, unhurried pace,
We sink, uncowed, through shadows, stinking, grim.

Like some lewd rake with his old worn-out whore,
Nibbling her suffering teats, we seize our sly
Delight, that, like an orange—withered, dry—
We squeeze and press for juice that is no more.

Our brains teem with a race of Fiends, who frolic
Thick as a million gut-worms; with each breath,
Our lungs drink deep, suck down a stream of Death—
Dim-lit—to low-moaned whimpers melancholic.

If poison, fire, blade, rape do not succeed
In sewing on that dull embroidery
Of our pathetic lives their artistry,
It's that our soul, alas, shrinks from the deed.

And yet, among the beasts and creatures all—
Panther, snake, scorpion, jackal, ape, hound, hawk—
Monsters that crawl, and shriek, and grunt, and squawk,
In our vice-filled menagerie's caterwaul,

One worse is there, fit to heap scorn upon—
More ugly, rank! Though noiseless, calm and still,
Yet would he turn the earth to scraps and swill,
Swallow it whole in one great, gaping yawn:

Ennui! That monster frail!—With eye wherein
A chance tear gleams, he dreams of gibbets, while
Smoking his hookah, with a dainty smile. . .
—You know him, reader,—hypocrite,—my twin!

Translated from the French of Charles Baudelaire's "Au Lecteur"  (please click the hyperlink to see the text of the original poem side-by-side with the translation, and to find information about purchasing Norman R. Shapiro's Charles Baudelaire: Selected Poems from "Les Fleurs du mal" from the   University of Chicago Press). Copyright notice: Excerpted from Selected Poems from Les Fleurs du mal by Charles Baudelaire, translated by Norman R. Shapiro, published by the University of Chicago Press. © 1998 by the University of Chicago. All rights reserved. This text may be used and shared in accordance with the fair-use provisions of U.S. copyright law, and it may be archived and redistributed in electronic form, provided that this entire notice, including copyright information, is carried and provided that the University of Chicago Press is notified and no fee is charged for access. Archiving, redistribution, or republication of this text on other terms, in any medium, requires the consent of both the author and the University of Chicago Press.



Invitation to the Voyage

           Imagine, ma petite,
           Dear sister mine, how sweet
Were we to go and take our pleasure
           Leisurely, you and I—
           To lie, to love, to die
Off in that land made to your measure!
           A land whose suns' moist rays,
           Through the skies' misty haze,
Hold quite the same dark charms for me
           As do your scheming eyes
           When they, in their like wise,
Shine through your tears, perfidiously.

There all is order, naught amiss:
Comfort and beauty, calm and bliss.

           Treasure galore—ornate,
           Time-glossed—would decorate
Our chamber, where the rarest blooms
           Would blend their lavish scent,
           Heady and opulent,
With wisps of amber-like perfumes;
           Where all the Orient's
           Splendid, rich ornaments—
Deep mirrors, ceilings fine—would each,
           In confidential tone,
           Speak to the soul alone
In its own sweet and secret speech.

There all is order, naught amiss:
Comfort and beauty, calm and bliss.

           See how the ships, asleep—
           They who would ply the deep!—
Line the canals: to satisfy
           Your merest whim they come
           From far-flung heathendom
And skim the seven seas. —On high,
           The sunset's rays enfold
           In hyacinth and gold,
Field and canal; and, with the night,
           As shadows gently fall,
           Behold! Life sleeps, and all
Lies bathed in warmth and evening light.

There all is order, naught amiss:
Comfort and beauty, calm and bliss.

Translated from the French of Charles Baudelaire's "L'Invitation au voyage"  (please click the hyperlink to see the text of the original poem side-by-side with the translation, and to find information about purchasing Norman R. Shapiro's Charles Baudelaire: Selected Poems from "Les Fleurs du mal" from the   University of Chicago Press). Copyright notice: Excerpted from Selected Poems from Les Fleurs du mal by Charles Baudelaire, translated by Norman R. Shapiro, published by the University of Chicago Press. © 1998 by the University of Chicago. All rights reserved. This text may be used and shared in accordance with the fair-use provisions of U.S. copyright law, and it may be archived and redistributed in electronic form, provided that this entire notice, including copyright information, is carried and provided that the University of Chicago Press is notified and no fee is charged for access. Archiving, redistribution, or republication of this text on other terms, in any medium, requires the consent of both the author and the University of Chicago Press.



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