Apollinaire’s “Sous le pont Mirabeau”

30 Monday Apr 2018

Posted by michelinewalker in Art, French Literature, French songs, Love

Tags

a Song, Alcools, Calligrammes, Guillaume Apollinaire, le Tout-Paris, Marie Laurencin, Sous le pont Mirabeau, Visual Poetry

Marie_Laurencin,_1909,_Réunion_à_la_campagne_(Apollinaire_et_ses_amis),_oil_on_canvas,_130_x_194_cm,_Musée_Picasso,_Paris (1)

Marie Laurencin, 1909, Réunion à la campagne (Apollinaire et ses amis), oil on canvas, 130 x 194 cm, Musée Picasso, Paris. Reproduced in The Cubist Painters, Aesthetic Meditations (1913)

Guillaume Apollinaire (Britannica.com)

Sous le pont Mirabeau

de Guillaume Apollinaire (1912)

Sous le pont Mirabeau coule la Seine (1)
Et nos amours
Faut-il qu’il m’en souvienne
La joie venait toujours après la peine

Under Mirabeau bridge flows the Seine and our love. Need I remember ? Joy always came after the pain.

Vienne la nuit sonne l’heure
Les jours s’en vont je demeure

Let night come and the hour ring. Days go away, I remain.

Les mains dans les mains restons face à face (2)
Tandis que sous
Le pont de nos bras passe
Des éternels regards l’onde si lasse

Hand in hand, let us stay face to face. While, beneath (sous) the bridge of our arms, Tired of being stared at eternally, flow waves, so weary.

Vienne la nuit sonne l’heure
Les jours s’en vont je demeure

Let night come and the hour ring. Days go away, I remain.

L’amour s’en va comme cette eau courante (3)
L’amour s’en va
Comme la vie est lente
Et comme l’Espérance est violente

Love goes away as this water runs. Love goes away. How slow life is, and Hope, so pressing (violent).

Vienne la nuit sonne l’heure
Les jours s’en vont je demeure

Let night come and the hour ring. Days go away, I remain.

Passent les jours et passent les semaines (4)
Ni temps passé
Ni les amours reviennent
Sous le pont Mirabeau coule la Seine

Days pass and weeks pass. Neither the past Nor love returns Under Mirabeau bridge flows the Seine.

Vienne la nuit sonne l’heure
Les jours s’en vont je demeure

Let night come and the hour ring. Days go away, I remain.

My translation is mostly literal. The following is more poetical:

Under Mirabeau Bridge the river slips away And lovers Must I be reminded Joy came always after pain The night is a clock chiming The days go by not I We’re face to face and hand in hand While under the bridges Of embrace expire Eternal tired tidal eyes The night is a clock chiming The days go by not I Love elapses like the river Love goes by Poor life is indolent And expectation always violent The night is a clock chiming The days go by not I The days and equally the weeks elapse The past remains the past Love remains lost Under Mirabeau Bridge the river slips away The night is a clock chiming The days go by not I…

https://muse.jhu.edu/chapter/36210

Comments

Guillaume Apollinaire (Wilhelm Albert Włodzimierz Apolinary Kostrowicki), 26 August 1880 – 9 November 1918, is a French writer, born in Rome. He is of Polish descent on his mother’s side. His father is unknown, but he may have been Francesco Costantino Camillo Flugi d’Aspermont (born 1835). Apollinaire learned French as a child, in Rome. His grandfather served in the Russian army and was killed during the Crimean War.

There is an eternal aspect to Apollinaire’s poetry. He writes as did Villon, Ronsard, Du Bellay… But he is associated with Cubism, Surrealism and Orphism. He may have coined all three terms. (See Guillaume Apollinaire, Wikipedia.) Moreover, the apparent simplicity of his poems foreshadows Jacques Prévert‘s Paroles, 1946) Apollinaire’s Calligrammes could be viewed as his contribution to modernisme. Baudelaire would have called it « du nouveau » (something new, Le Voyage, final line). It mixes words and pictures. It is visual poetry. (See La Tour Eiffel, Apollinaire, Calligrammes, Paris à Nu, Gérard, WordPress.com.) It is also a hint of literary nonsense.

Apollinaire knew everyone, le Tout-Paris, including Gertrude Stein, a patron of the arts. She is pictured to his right in the painting featured at the top of this post. (See The Cubist Painters, Aesthetic Meditations, Wikipedia.) Apollinaire wrote poetry, plays, short stories, and he was an art critic. His poem, in the shape of a cat, is a collection of French expressions referring to cats, such as « La nuit tous les chats sont gris. » (At night, all cats are grey.) « Avoir d’autres chats à fouetter [to whip] » means: to have other fish to fry.

Apollinaire was in love with artist Marie Laurencin (« Marie » and, I believe, his amour in « Le pont Mirabeau »). He sustained a brain injury during World War I, and died, two year later, in 1918, of the Spanish Flu, a pandemic.

RELATED ARTICLES

Johann Amos Comenius: Word and Art (7 November 2015)
Marie, the Words to a Love Song (29 June 2015)
Comenius: Orbis Sensualium Pictus (13 November 2011)
La Tour Eiffel, Apollinaire, Calligrammes (Paris à Nu, Gérard, le 20 avril 2018) ♥

Sources and Resources

Alcools (pdf)
Calligrammes is Project Gutenberg [EBook #55569]
Britannica.com

Marie Laurencin, Le Pont, 1940 (Artnet)

Marc Lavoine chante Sous le pont Mirabeau

posterlux-laurencin_marie_1901_1953-marie_laurencin_1908_autoportrait

Marie Laurencin (Modern Art Consulting)

Marie: the Words to a Love Song

29 Monday Jun 2015

Posted by michelinewalker in Art, Literature

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

American Expatriates, Ballets Russes, carpe diem, Guillaume Apollinaire, Léo Ferré, Marie Laurencin, Roses, Translation of "Marie"

Dancer with Rose by Marie Laurencin (Photo credit: www.scene4.com)

I have translated “Marie,” mostly literally, a poem by Guillaume Apollinaire (26 August 1880 – 9 November 1918) set to music by singer-songwriter Léo Ferré. Marie is Marie Laurencin (31 October 1883 – 8 June 1956), an “avant-garde” artist and advocate of Cubism, but not a follower of the movement. However, she was a moderniste. Marie’s paintings are relatively easy to identify. Her style is quite unique.

Marie Laurencin was acquainted with a large number of artists, literary figures, and persons associated with Sergei Diaghilev‘s Ballets Russes, one of whom was a young Pablo Picasso. She also attended the salons of wealthy United States expatriates who made Paris their base and helped propel to fame and sometimes to wealth artists such as Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, and Georges Braque.

Wealthy American Gertrude Stein and her companion, Alice B. Toklas, had a salon at 27, rue de Fleurus. Other American expatriates and salonnières were Claribel and Etta Cone. Marie Laurencin knew famed lesbian writer Natalie Clifford Barney who had a salon at 20, rue Jacob and died in Paris. Many American mécènes (patrons) left their Paris quarters when World War II broke out, dooming Jews, homosexuals and those who were “different.”

Celebrated artist Marie Laurencin was very different. Marie was married to German Baron Otto von Waëtjen from 1814 until 1820, but she was romantically involved with revered and now legendary poet Guillaume Apollinaire, born Wilhelm Albert Włodzimierz Apolinary Kostrowicki. Apollinaire was wounded during World War I and died two years later. He was a victim of the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918, a flu akin to the Swine flu of 1976, but as merciless as the plague.

RELATED ARTICLES

The Genealogy of Style (wordpress.com)
She’s back… (26 June 2015)

Marie

1) Vous y dansiez petite fille
Y danserez-vous mère-grand
C’est la maclotte qui sautille (maclotte is a old dance)
Toutes les cloches sonneront
Quand donc reviendrez-vous Marie

This is where you danced as a little girl/ Will you dance there as a grandmother/
This is maclotte (an old dance) hopping about/ All the bells will ring/
So when will you come back Marie

2) Les masques sont silencieux
Et la musique est si lointaine
Qu’elle semble venir des cieux
Oui je veux vous aimer mais vous aimer à peine
Et mon mal est délicieux

The masks are silent/ And the music so distant/
That it seems descended from heaven/ Yes, I want to love you, but love you barely/
And my disease is delicious

3) Les brebis s’en vont dans la neige (s’en aller = to go away)
Flocons de laine et ceux d’argent
Des soldats passent et que n’ai-je
Un cœur à moi ce cœur changeant
Changeant et puis encor que sais-je

Sheep wade away in the snow/ Wool flakes and those of silver/
Soldiers pass by and would that I had/ A heart of my own, this changing heart/
Changing and then also what do I know

4) Sais-je où s’en iront tes cheveux
Crépus comme mer qui moutonne (from mouton: lamb)
Sais-je où s’en iront tes cheveux
Et tes mains feuilles de l’automne
Que jonchent aussi nos aveux

Do I know where your hair will go/ Frizzy like the foaming sea/
Do I know where your hair will go/ And your hands the leaves of autumn/
Also strewn with our avowals

5) Je passais au bord de la Seine
Un livre ancien sous le bras
Le fleuve est pareil à ma peine
Il s’écoule et ne tarit pas
Quand donc finira la semaine (return to [1])

I was walking along the Seine/ An old book under my arm/
The river is like my sorrow/ It flows and does not end/
So when will the week be done (return to [1])

Short comments and Notes

In the fourth stanza, I used the word “foaming” to translate moutonner (from sheep, un mouton). (4)
In the third stanza, I made the sheep “wade away” in the snow. In the French song, they are simply going away: s’en aller). (3)
The imagery used by Apollinaire includes the sheep’s fur and hair: animal, human.
The imagery also includes the masques (2), as in a masquerade ball and the commedia dell’arte.
In fact, Marie Laurencin’s “Dancer,” shown above, is dressed like Harlequin, a masque and a stock character in the commedia dell’arte.
The word snow (neige) takes us to François Villon‘s “neige d’antan” (Ballade du temps jadis) (3) and to Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s “Where are the snows of yesteryear?”
However, the first character Apollinaire introduces is a little girl, petite fille, who will be mère-grand (as mère-grand in The Little Red Riding Hood). (Time passes.)
In Marie Laurencin’s painting, the dancer carries a rose. Roses die, so let us seize the day. The poem therefore contains a carpe diem (Pierre de Ronsard‘s Hélène): “Gather ye rosebuds while ye may.” (petite fille/mère grand)
We have colours, that of the sheep and of the snow: white, but also silver or grey (grey hair).
We hear bells. (1)
There is an allusion to soldiers. Apollinaire had been a soldier.
In the fifth stanza, the poet introduces himself: “Je”. He is walking by the Seine which flows unendingly. (5)
Marie is an anagram of aimer: to love.

Conclusion

This is a rich poem one wishes to explore further, but…

I thank you for your kind words. They’ve helped. My university and the insurance company played with my life and it has been extremely painful. So I am pleased I have my WordPress colleagues and send all of you my love.

With my kindest regards. ♥

Léo Ferré sings “Marie,” by Guillaume Apollinaire,

Fille au chapeau bleu et noir, vers 1950

She is back…

26 Friday Jun 2015

Posted by michelinewalker in Art, French songs, Sharing

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

French Art, Guillaume Apollinaire, Léo Ferré, Marie Laurencin, Nostalgia, Twentieth Century

Marie Laurencin, August 1923 (Photo credit: Etsy.com)

She is posting again…

the house
the vilain
the expert

Various circumstances, illness and a dysfunctional computer mostly, but also memories of the days, better days, when I lived in a blue house, have kept me away for a few days. My blue house is on the market and on my mind and in my hearth.

I cannot afford it at its current price but will try to buy it back. I lost it because an insurance company employee did not tell me that my application for permanent disability benefits had not been approved. Selling the house was conditional upon my application for permanent disability benefits being approved. One does not relocate if granted a temporary leave.

The Independent Medical Examiner to whom she referred me, asked her, in writing, to tell me not to relocate as he believed I would be able to resume my career after an indefinite leave of absence. He wrote that I should not make any important decision for six months. Adjustments would have to be made to my programme-load. But, on the basis of past accomplishments, he was certain I would be able to return to work. He was right.

La Liseuse, vers 1913

Le Baiser, vers 1927

Photo credit: Page Marie Laurencin

The Scenario

no sabbatical leave
new courses

When requested to prepare two new courses, I had to abandon a sabbatical leave I was devoting to my long-awaited book on Molière in order to prepare two new courses, one of which was Animals in Literature. I could not refuse assignments because the Chair of my department was prone to anger. I once fainted in his office and landed on the back of my head. No, I would not have survived Chernobyl!

What is very strange is that I still like him, but he will no longer serve as Chair of a department, which is a blessing for everyone. There is no advantage to being Chair, financial or otherwise, at least not where I worked.

I was also the person who had to create a multi-media lab component for a language course. It was not upgraded during my sabbatical and I was not told. I upgraded it when I returned to work, which is why I fell ill. Every lecture of my course on Animals in Literature was prepared, but it had been a huge effort. I had no energy left for extra work. I should have asked for that component of the course to be cancelled until the following academic year and assigned to someone else.

The Illness

the illness
the ‘arrangement’

At any rate, when suddenly I lost the ability to look after myself properly, the biggest challenge is brushing one’s teeth, my doctors requested I leave the classroom immediately. I phoned the Dean, who was at a complete loss, and I presented a doctor’s note to the effect that I was sick. My doctor’s note was not taken seriously. As a result, my students no longer had a teacher. The secretary of the Department remarked that I could still walk and that I should “negotiate an arrangement” with the Chair.

I therefore “negotiated an arrangement” with the Chair. For two weeks I would continue to teach Animals in Literature. During that time, he would teach my two other courses, provided I graded the students’ last quiz and all their assignments. He also asked me to return to work in time to prepare the students for their final examination, which I would also have to grade, etc.

Under the circumstances, I did not have to “negotiate an arrangement.” However, my Chair is not entirely to blame because the Dean would not let him hire a replacement.

Fille au chapeau bleu et noir, vers 1950

The Punishment

When my case manager learned I had finished my teaching assignment for the year, she rushed to judgment. I had been on a sabbatical, which she probably viewed as a holiday, and could not prepare a new course! My application was fraudulent. She didn’t know that I was granted a sabbatical to write my book, at long last. Sabbaticals are seldom granted for the preparation of new courses.

To punish me, she did not relay the doctor’s message to me. As I wrote above, the IME had specified that I was too sick to make serious decisions for at least six months. The sale of the house was conditional upon my application for permanent disability benefits being approved. When it sold, my blue house was not for sale.

I am unlikely ever to recover fully from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. My fatigue is due to a cerebral blood flow problem triggered by a flu I caught in 1976. But I have worked despite this problem. It meant reorganizing my life and eliminating outings in the evening.

At any rate, I lost my house and now, several years later, my share, one ninth of the small building I live in, is for sale. My co-owners will not create a reserve fund for the upkeep of the building, which is a major problem and a deterrent for persons who would otherwise be interested in buying. One never knows when the next bill will land at one’s door. Others may enjoy this form of gambling, but I would not have survived Chernobyl.

I chose the apartment, but my family bought it on my behalf. The notary they hired did not tell me there was no reserve fund. Moreover, I had requested, in writing, that the apartment and building be examined by a certified inspector. I am not blaming anyone. It would not help.

The rest I will not tell. The above, however, happens in several teaching institutions. One simply works a person out of his or her position. In fact, I told this story in an earlier post, but differently.

Conclusion

I do not think I will be returning to blue house, but I will have tried. If I can’t purchase my blue house back, it may be easier to forget.

There is more to say about Gabriel Franchère. When the Astorians travelled away from Fort Astoria, they named Mount St Helens. It was then an active volcano, but no one ever suspected the tragic events of 18 May 1980. At 8 hours 32, it exploded and then “imploded,” sort of. The mountain folded in.

I apologize for my tardiness and send my kindest regards. ♥

—ooo—

I will try to find the words to “Marie.”

Léo Ferré sings “Marie,” a poem by Guillaume Apollinaire (26 August 1880 – 9 November 1918)