Au seul souci de voyager …
Stéphane Mallarmé
Au seul souci de voyager
Outre une Inde splendide et trouble
– Ce salut soit le messager
Du temps, cap que ta poupe double
Comme sur quelque vergue bas
Plongeante avec la caravelle
Ecumait toujours en ébats
Un oiseau d’annonce nouvelle
Qui criait monotonement
Sans que la barre ne varie
Un inutile gisement
Nuit, désespoir et pierrerie
Par son chant reflété jusqu’au
Sourire du pâle Vasco.
Stéphane Mallarmé
Outre une Inde splendide et trouble
– Ce salut soit le messager
Du temps, cap que ta poupe double
Comme sur quelque vergue bas
Plongeante avec la caravelle
Ecumait toujours en ébats
Un oiseau d’annonce nouvelle
Qui criait monotonement
Sans que la barre ne varie
Un inutile gisement
Nuit, désespoir et pierrerie
Par son chant reflété jusqu’au
Sourire du pâle Vasco.
Stéphane Mallarmé
This last poem, “Au seul souci de voyager” (To life’s sole goal of sailing onwards) was written to celebrate the 400th anniversary of da Gama’s voyage to India, but Mallarmé also saw, in the great explorer’s persistence in sailing into the unknown against all odds, an image of his own unwavering pursuit of the ideal world, despite disappointments and setbacks.
This acceptance of the “souci de voyager” (goal of the traveler) as a substitute for the more ambitious “souci d’arriver” (goal of arrival) can also be perceived in what is no doubt the most original and hermetic of all Mallarmé’s works, Un coup de dés jamais n’abolira le hasard.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/stephane-mallarme
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au seul souci de voyager = omwille van het reizen
la vergue = de ra
la barre = de helmstok
un gisement = de ligging (vd kust)
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https://academic.oup.com/fs/article-abstract/XX/2/139/526319?redirectedFrom=PDF
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manuscript:
http://bljd.sorbonne.fr/ark:/naan/a011429863483ip9SqV
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Stephane Mallarme, the symbolist poet whose works impacted the radical art movements such as Futurism, Dadaism, Surrealism, etc., wrote an elegy to Vasco de Gama to celebrate the four-hundredth anniversary of his voyage to India in “Au seul souci de voyager” (“To life’s sole goal of sailing onwards”), highlighting the soul’s need to march on despite struggles and disappointments, ignoring (or celebrating) the age of colonialism ushered in by the discoveries of De Gama:
“For the sake of travelling
Beyond a splendid and dim India
Let this salutation be the messenger
Of time, cape that your prow doubles
As on some low yardarm
Plunging with the caravel
Foaming always in ecstasy
A bird makes a new announcement
Crying monotonously
Without the wheel changing
A useless field
Night, despair, and jewels
By its song reflected inhttps://scroll.in/article/915168/a-brief-journey-through-india-as-seen-by-the-french-poetic-imagination-of-the-19th-century
The smile of the pale Vasco.”
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https://www.encyclopedia.com/people/literature-and-arts/french-literature-biographies/stephane-mallarme
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