A lovely piece from Baudelaire, Petits Poèmes en Prose, edition of 1869, no. 33, "Enivrez-vous".
Il faut être toujours ivre. Tout est là: c'est l'unique question. Pour ne pas sentir l'horrible fardeau du Temps qui brise vos épaules et vous penche vers la terre, il faut vous enivrer sans trêve.
Mais de quoi? De vin, de poésie ou de vertu, à votre guise. Mais enivrez-vous.
Et si quelquefois, sur les marches d'un palais, sur l'herbe verte d'un fossé, dans la solitude morne de votre chambre, vous vous réveillez, l'ivresse déjà diminuée ou disparue, demandez au vent, à la vague, à l'étoile, à l'oiseau, à l'horloge, à tout ce qui fuit, à tout ce qui gémit, à tout ce qui roule, à tout ce qui chante, à tout ce qui parle, demandez quelle heure il est; et le vent, la vague, l'étoile, l'oiseau, l'horloge, vous répondront: "Il est l'heure de s'enivrer! Pour n'être pas les esclaves martyrisés du Temps, enivrez-vous; enivrez-vous sans cesse! De vin, de poésie ou de vertu, à votre guise."
Oddly enough, Vanity Fair, of all places, published a translation of it by Aleister Crowley in their December 1915 issue (vol. V, no. 4, p. 51), perhaps as it goes admirably well with certain elements of his own philosophy (compare, for instance, his various commentaries on Liber AL, I.61, "drunkenness of the innermost sense").
While I'm unsure of the author of this particular translation, I offer it instead of Crowley's as it seems to me slightly more correct, and certainly forasmuch as it includes one line near the end that Crowley's version curiously omitted:
Get Drunk
One should always be drunk. That's it: the only question. Not to feel the horrible burden of Time weighing in on your shoulders and bowing you to the earth, you should be constantly drunk.
But with what? Wine, poetry or virtue, whatever you like. But get drunk.
And if sometimes you should happen to wake, on the steps of a palace, on the green grass of a ditch, in the mournful solitude of your room, and find your drunkenness ebbing or already fled, ask the wind and the wave, ask star, bird or clock, ask everything that flies, everything that moans, everything that flows, everything that sings, everything that speaks, ask them the time; and the wind, the wave, the star, the bird and the clock will all reply: "It is Time to get drunk! If you are not to be the martyred slaves of Time, be unceasingly drunk! On wine, poetry, or virtue, as you please."
To me, it also recalls to mind Seneca, de Tranquillitate Animi ("On the tranquility of the mind"), XVII.8–11:
Indulgendum est animo dandumque subinde otium, quod alimenti ac uirium loco sit. Et in ambulationibus apertis uagandum, ut cælo libero et multo spiritu augeat attollatque se animus; aliquando uectatio iterque et mutata regio uigorem dabunt, conuictusque et liberalior potio. Nonnumquam et usque ad ebrietatem ueniendum, non ut mergat nos, sed ut deprimat: eluit enim curas et ab imo animum mouet et, ut morbis quibusdam, ita tristitiæ medetur, Liberque non ob licentiam linguæ dictus est inuentor uini, sed quia liberat seruitio curarum animum et asserit uegetatque et audaciorem in omnes conatus facit. Sed, ut libertatis, ita uini salubris moderatio est. Solonem Arcesilanque indulsisse uino eredunt; Catoni ebrietas obiecta est: facilius efficient crimen honestum quam turpem Catonem. Sed nec sæpe faciendum est, ne animus malam consuetudinem ducat, et aliquando tamen in exsultationem libertatemque extrahendus tristisque sobrietas remouenda paulisper. Nam, siue græco pœtæ credimus, "aliquando et insanire iucundum est"; siue Platoni, "frustra pœticas fores compos sui pepulit"; siue Aristoteli, "nullum magnum ingenium sine mixtura dementiæ fuit". Non potest grande aliquid et super ceteros loqui nisi mota mens. Cum uulgaria et solita contempsit instinctuque sacro surrexit excelsior, tunc demum aliquid cecinit grandius ore mortali. Non potest sublime quicquam et in arduo positum contingere, quamdiu apud se est: desciscat oportet a solito et efferatur et mordeat frenos et rectorem rapiat suum, eoque ferat quo per se timuisset escendere.
We must treat the mind kindly and frequently give it rest, which serves the purpose of food and strength: and we must indulge in outdoor rambles, that the mind may become stronger and be elevated under the open sky and in the fresh air. Sometimes riding, travel, a change of country, a social meal and more liberal drinking will give us strength; sometimes we ought to come even to the point of drunkenness, not for the purpose of drowning ourselves, but of sublimating ourselves deep in wine. For it washes away cares and raises our spirits from the lowest depths, and is a remedy for sadness as also for certain diseases. The inventor of wine is called Liber, not because of the freedom of speaking which comes through him, but because he frees the soul from the servitude of cares, releases it from slavery, quickens it, and makes it bolder for all undertakings. But moderation is wholesome both in freedom and in wine. Men believe that Solon and Arcesilaus were addicted to wine. Drunkenness is charged to Cato: yet whoever shall reproach him with this will more easily prove that this crime is honorable than that Cato was base. But it must not be done often lest the mind contract a bad habit, and yet sometimes it ought to be drawn into exultation and freedom, and gloomy sobriety ought to be case aside for a short time. For whether we believe the Greek poet, 'it is sometimes even pleasant to be mad,' or Plato, 'he who is master of himself has knocked in vain at the doors of poetry;' or Aristotle, 'there is no great genius without a mixture of madness;' the mind cannot express anything lofty and above the ordinary unless inspired. When it despises the common and the customary, and with sacred inspiration rises higher, then at length it sings something grander than that which can come from mortal lips. It cannot attain anything sublime and lofty so long as it is sane: it must depart from the customary, swing itself aloft, take the bit in its teeth, carry away its rider and bear him to a height whither he would have feared to ascend alone.
On a somewhat less salutary note, I find myself reminded too of a bit of Hesse I translated a while ago, from his Wanderung: Aufzeichnungen (1920), “Regenwetter”, p. 71:
Dagegen ist kein Kraut gewachsen. Du kannst nicht ein Vagabund und Künstler, und daneben auch noch ein Bürger und wohlanständiger Gesunder sein. Du willst den Rausch haben, so habe auch den Katzenjammer! Sagst du Ja zum Sonnenschein und den holden Phantasten/Phantasien, so sage auch Ja zum Schmutz und Ekel! Alles das ist in dir, Gold und Dreck, Lust und Pein, Kinderlachen und Todesangst. Sag Ja zu allem, drücke dich um nichts, suche nichts hinwegzulügen! Du bist kein Bürger, du bist auch kein Grieche, du bist nicht harmonisch und Herr deiner selbst, du bist ein Vogel im Sturm. Laß stürmen! Laß dich treiben! Wie viel hast du gelogen! Wie tausendmal hast du, auch in deinen Gedichten und Büchern, den Harmonischen und Weisen gespielt, den Glücklichen, den Abgeklärten! So haben sie im Krieg beim Angriff die Helden gespielt, während die Eingeweide zuckten! Herrgott, was für ein armer Äff und Spiegelfechter ist der Mensch—zumal der Künstler—zumal der Dichter—zumal ich!
By contrast, there’s no cure for it. You can’t be a vagabond and artist and still be a wholesome, respectable citizen. You want the intoxication, you have to take the hangover. You say Yes to the sunshine and sweet fantasies, you also say Yes to the filth and disgust! All of it is in you: gold and muck, pleasure and pain, childhood laughter and the fear of death. Say Yes to everything, give up nothing, lie about nothing! You’re not a good citizen, you’re also not a Stoic, you’re not balanced and master of yourself, you’re a bird in a storm. Let it storm! Let it guide you! How much you’ve lied! A thousand times, even in your poems and books, you’ve played the well-adjusted and wise man, the happy and contented man! The same way men in war played heroes while their stomachs churned! My god, what a pathetic ape and mirror-fencer man is—especially the artist—especially the poet—especially me!
But I should wrap up; consulting with my calendar, I find this is Saturday night, and asking my clock the time, you'll never guess what it replied...
Perhaps tomorrow the reading can be Proverbs, XXXI.6,
תנו־שכר לאובד ויין למרי נפש׃
Give liquor to the broken, give wine to the sad at heart.
...instead of the Luke XXIV passage Nick Cave never stops singing about in my player.
Listening to: Mark Lanegan, "Borracho"
No comments:
Post a Comment