Thursday, October 18, 2007

Translation of Complainte de la Seine

Found one here:
Lament Of The Seine

At the bottom of the Seine
there is gold,rusting boats,jewels, weapons...
At the bottom of the Seine
there are dead bodies...
At the bottom of the Seine
there are tears...
At the bottom of the Seine
there are flowers;
in their vase of mud
they are nourished by silt...
At the bottom of the Seine
there are the hearts
that greatly suffered for living life...
And then the rocks
and the grey beasts...
The pipes of the sewers,
blowing out poison...
The rings thrown away
by misunderstood lovers,
feet that a propeller cut off from their trunk...
And the cursed fruits of sterile wombs,
the innocent abortions that no one loved...
The vomit of the big city...
At the bottom of the Seine,
it is there...
Oh, lenient Seine where the cadavers go,
oh, bed with the sheets made from silt,
river of losses without beacon,
nor haven,
singing a lullaby to the morgue and the bridges,
welcoming the poor one,
welcoming the woman,
welcoming the drunkard,
welcoming the crazy one,
mixing theirs sobs to the sound of your blades,
and carrying their hearts among the rocks...
At the bottom of the Seine
there is gold,rusting boats,jewels, weapons...
At the bottom of the Seine
there are dead bodies...
At the bottom of the Seine
there are tears...

Authorship
Translation from French to English copyright © 2004 by Sean Mabrey , a text in French by Maurice Magre (1877-1941) , copyright ©

1 comment:

val said...

Cheery little song!

Theoretically I should be able to translate it myself (my degree is in French) but I really could barely understand a word. But like I said, IMHO the sense was plain from the setting of the song.