The Chimeras - Les Chimères
Written by Gérard de Nerval
1854
EL DESDICHADO - THE UNHAPPY
I am the dark one, - the widower, - the disconsolate,
The prince of Aquitaine with the abolished tower:
My only star is dead, - and my constellated lute
Carries the black Sun of Melancholy .
In the night of the tomb, you who consoled me,
Give me back the Pausilippus and the sea of Italy,
The flower that so pleased my desolate heart,
And the vine where the vine and the rose combine.
Am I Love or Phoebus?… Lusignan or Biron?
My forehead is still red from the queen's kiss;
I dreamed in the cave where the syrene swims…
And I crossed the Acheron twice victorious:
Modulating in turn on the lyre of Orpheus
The sighs of the saint and the cries of the fairy.
MYRTHO
I think of you, Myrtho, divine enchantress,
Of the lofty Pausilippus, with a thousand shining lights,
Of your forehead flooded with the light of the East,
Of the black grapes mixed with the gold of your braid.
It was in your cup also that I drank drunkenness,
And in the furtive flash of your smiling eye,
When at the feet of Iacchus I was seen praying,
For the Muse made me one of the sons of Greece.
I know why the volcano there reopened...
Yesterday you touched it with a nimble foot,
And suddenly the horizon was covered with ashes.
Since a Norman duke broke your clay gods,
Always, under the branches of Virgil's laurel,
The pale Hydrangea unites with the green Myrtle!
HORUS
The god Kneph, trembling, shook the universe:
Isis, the mother, then rose from her bed,
Made a gesture of hatred to her fierce husband,
And the ardor of yesteryear shone in her green eyes.
“You see,” she said, “he is dying, this old pervert,
All the frost in the world has passed through his mouth,
Tie up his crooked foot, extinguish his shifty eye,
He is the god of volcanoes and the king of winters !
The eagle has already passed, the new spirit calls me,
I have put on the robe of Cybele for him…
He is the beloved child of Hermes and Osiris! »
The Goddess had fled on her golden conch,
The sea sent us back her adored image,
And the heavens radiated under the scarf of Iris.
ANTEROS
You ask why I have so much rage in my heart
And on a flexible collar an untamed head;
It is because I come from the race of Antaeus,
I turn the darts against the victorious god.
Yes, I am one of those inspired by the Avenger,
He marked my forehead with his irritated lip,
Beneath the paleness of Abel, alas! bloodied,
I sometimes have the implacable blush of Cain!
Jehovah! the last, defeated by your genius,
Who, from the depths of hell, cried: “O tyranny! »
It’s my ancestor Belus or my father Dagon…
They plunged me three times into the waters of the Cocytus,
And protecting my mother Amalécytes alone,
I reseated the teeth of the old dragon at her feet.
DELFICA
Do you know it, DAFNÉ, this ancient romance,
At the foot of the sycamore, or under the white laurels,
Under the olive tree, the myrtle or the trembling willows,
This love song... which always begins again!
Do you recognize the TEMPLE, with its immense peristyle,
And the bitter lemons where your teeth were imprinted?
And the cave, fatal to imprudent guests,
Where the defeated dragon sleeps the ancient seed.
They will come back, these gods that you always cry for!
Time will bring back the order of the old days;
The earth trembled with a prophetic breath…
However, the sibyl with the Latin face
Is still asleep under the arch of Constantine:
— And nothing has disturbed the severe portico.
ARTEMIS
The Thirteenth returns... It's still the first;
And it is always the only one, — or it is the only moment:
For are you queen, O you! the first or last?
Are you king, you the only one or the last lover?…
Love who loved you from the cradle in the bier;
She whom I loved alone still loves me tenderly:
It is death - or the dead... O delight! oh torment!
The rose she is holding is the Hollyhock .
Neapolitan saint with hands full of fire,
Rose with a purple heart, flower of Saint Gudula:
Have you found your cross in the desert of heaven?
White roses, fall! you insult our gods,
Fall, white ghosts, from your burning sky:
- The saint of the abyss is holier in my eyes!
CHRIST WITH THE OLIVE TREES
God is dead! the sky is empty...
Cry! children, you no longer have a father!
Jean Paul.
I
When the Lord, raising his thin arms to heaven,
Under the sacred trees, as the poets do,
was lost for a long time in his silent sorrows,
And judged himself betrayed by ungrateful friends;
He turned towards those who were waiting for him below,
Dreaming of being kings, sages, prophets...
But numb, lost in the sleep of beasts,
And began to cry: “No, God does not exist! »
They were sleeping. “My friends, do you know the news ?
I touched the eternal vault with my forehead;
I am bloody, broken, in pain for many days!
Brothers, I deceived you: Abyss! abyss! abyss!
The god is missing at the altar where I am the victim...
God is not! God is no more! » But they were still sleeping!
II
He continued: “Everything is dead! I have traveled the worlds;
And I lost my flight in their milky paths,
As far as life, in its fertile veins,
Spreads golden sands and silvery waves:
Everywhere the deserted ground is surrounded by waves,
Confused swirls of agitated oceans...
A vague breath moves the wandering spheres,
But no spirit exists in these immensities.
In seeking the eye of God, I saw only a
Vast, black and bottomless orbit; hence the night that inhabits it
Radiates over the world and always thickens;
A strange rainbow surrounds this dark well,
Threshold of the ancient chaos of which nothingness is the shadow,
Spiral, engulfing the Worlds and the Days!
III
Immobile Destiny, mute sentinel,
Cold Necessity!... Chance which advances you,
Among the dead worlds under the eternal snow,
Cools, by degrees, the pale universe,
Do you know what you are doing, original power,
Of your extinguished suns, one crumpling the other...
Are you sure to transmit an immortal breath,
Between a world that is dying and the other reborn?...
O my father! is it you that I feel within myself?
Do you have the power to live and conquer death?
Would you have succumbed under a last effort
Of this angel of the nights who was struck by anathema...
For I feel all alone in crying and suffering,
Alas! and, if I die, everything will die! »
IV
No one heard the eternal victim moan,
Delivering all his poured out heart to the world in vain;
But ready to faint and leaning without strength,
He called the only one - awake in Solyme:
“Judas!” he shouted to him, you know what people value me,
Hurry up and sell me, and finish this deal:
I am unwell, friend! on the earth lying…
Come! O you who, at least, have the strength for crime! »
But Judas left, unhappy and pensive,
Finding himself poorly paid, full of remorse so keen
That he read his darkness written on all the walls...
Finally Pilate alone, who was watching for Caesar,
Feeling some pity, turned by chance:
“Go and get this madman! » he said to the satellites.
V
It was indeed him, this madman, this sublime madman...
This forgotten Icarus who ascended the heavens,
This Phaethon lost under the lightning of the gods,
This beautiful bruised Atys that Cybele revives!
The augury questioned the victim's side,
The earth was intoxicated with this precious blood...
The stunned universe leaned on its axles,
And Olympus for a moment tottered towards the abyss.
“Answer!” cried Caesar to Jupiter Ammon,
What is this new god that is being imposed on the earth?
And if he's not a god, he's at least a demon..."
But the oracle invoked for ever had to remain silent;
Only one in the world could explain this mystery:
— He who gave the soul to the children of the slime.
GOLDEN WORMS
What! everything is sensitive!
Pythagoras.
Man, free thinker! Do you think you are the only thinker
in this world where life bursts into everything?
The forces you hold are at your disposal,
but the universe is absent from all your advice.
Respect in the beast an active spirit:
Each flower is a soul of Nature in bloom;
A mystery of love in metal lies;
“Everything is sensitive!” » And everything about your being is powerful.
Fear, in the blind wall, a gaze that spies on you:
To matter itself a verb is attached...
Do not use it for some impious use!
Often in the dark being there dwells a hidden God;
And like a nascent eye covered by its eyelids,
A pure spirit grows under the bark of the stones!