Pandemonium 41-50

Victorious, tramples in the nether planes

The spirit of Deception where it reigns.

If the perfumed and iridescent curtain

Drawn by the clouding smoke were more uncertain,

We could see these pale faces at our leisure

And of their noble portents take the measure.

The brows, developed to capacious size,

The eyes’ rough hollows, holding demon’s eyes,            

Lips pridefully aquiver, and the skin

Well-tinted by the lion’s blood within,

Original:

Pousse d’un pied vainqueur, dans les limbes funèbres,

L’Esprit fallacieux qui préside aux ténèbres.

Si le tissu moiré du nuage odorant

Que la fumée élève était plus transparent,

Vous pourriez avec moi de ces pâles figures

Explorer à loisir les généreux augures.

Le développement capace de ces fronts,

Les rudes cavités de ces yeux de démons,

Ces lèvres où l’orgueil frémit, ces épidermes

Qu’un sang de lion revêt de tons riches et fermes,

Pandemonium 31-40

Projected on the walls in disarray.

The ceiling’s darkened crevices display

Dust-covered mannequins, Gothic regalia,

And yellowed skeletons; Scattered paraphernalia

Snake over shelves: medallions, figurines,

Gilt fragments, Spanish paper, and tureens.

Up from outlandish scaffolding there rises

A noble sculpted figure that comprises

A biblical and most exotic sight.

The stately angel, spirit of the Light,

Original:


Pêle-mêle en saillie à la paroi des murs.

Le plafond laisse voir, dans ses angles obscurs,

De poudreux mannequins, de jaunâtres squelettes,

De gothiques cimiers ; sur deux rangs de tablettes,

Serpente un clair-semé de bosses, d’oripeaux,

De papel espagnol, de médailles, de pots.

Aux bras d’un échafaud de bizarre structure,

Surgit pompeusement une œuvre de sculpture.

C’est un sujet biblique et tout oriental :

L’Esprit de la lumière, ange monumental,

Pandemonium 21-30

And swim amid the motes of Muslim smoke

That twenty pipes, like a deluge, evoke!

What faerie strangeness in the variegation

Of colors in the fire’s undulation,

And how they play across the locks of hair,

The manly necks and muscled bodies there!

Off the carousers’ rings there glints a slight                                   

And dreaming and uncertain sort of light

Which out of the fantastic dimness brings

The flickering specters of artistic things,

Original:

Nage au sein des flocons de vapeur musulmane

Qui des vingt calumets, comme un déluge, émane !

Quelle étrange féerie en la profusion

Des diverses couleurs que l’ondulation

Des flammes fait jouer parmi ces chevelures,

Sur ces traits musculeux, ces mâles encolures !

A travers les anneaux du groupe des viveurs,

Glissent quelques rayons vagues, douteux, rêveurs,

Qui s’en vont détacher des ombres fantastiques

Le spectre vacillant des objets artistiques,

Pandemonium 11-20

A score of young men, artists all at heart,

With mocking eyes, cigars or pipes at part

Of lips, beards in the Jeune-France style, and caps

Of Phrygia, and orgiastic wraps                                               

On bodies sprawled around on damasked beds

Worn through by many centuries of heads.

And the dark studio’s sole illumination:

The punch, spirituous hallucination.

What pure Ossianism in the way

Their olive brows are crowned! See how they sway

Original:

Vingt jeunes hommes, tous artistes dans le cœur,

La pipe ou le cigare aux lèvres, l’œil moqueur,

Le temporal orné du bonnet de Phrygie,

En barbe jeune-France, en costume d’orgie,

Sont pachalesquement jetés sur un amas

De coussins dont maint siècle a troué le damas.

Et le sombre atelier n’a pour tout éclairage

Que la gerbe du punch, spiritueux mirage.

Quel pur ossianisme en ce couronnement

De têtes à front mat, dont le balancement

Pandemonium 1-10

First Night: Pandemonium

I

A modern painter would, this moonlit hour—

My soul!—be fortunate to have the power

To contemplate with thorough concentration

The darkly framed and radiant location

The studio of Jehan, statuary,                                                           

Hides in its deep and magic sanctuary!

           

The center of the room: an iron urn

Of fine punch where prismatic fires burn.

Its size would match the chalices of hell—                                   

A sulfurous lake where surges crest and swell.

Original:

I

Pour un peintre moderne, à cette heure de lune,


Ce serait, sur mon âme, une bonne fortune


De pouvoir contempler avec recueillement


La scène radieuse au sombre encadrement,

Que le jeune atelier de Jehan, le statuaire,


Cache dans son magique et profond sanctuaire !



Au centre de la salle, autour d’une urne en fer,


Digne émule en largeur des coupes de l’enfer,


Dans laquelle un beau punch, aux prismatiques flammes,


Semble un lac sulfureux qui fait houler ses lames,

Accueil

Théophile Dondey de Santeny was born in Paris 1811. He spent his professional life as an unassuming government functionary. He spent his free time as a poet and devoted member of the Petit Cénacle, a multidisciplinary pack of artists, writers, etc. who made it a point of politico-artistic pride to be, generally, as ultra-Romantic, as eminently offbeat, and as unsettling to the bourgeoisie as they could possibly manage.

In 1833, Théophile Dondey published—under the whimsical anagram Philothée O'Neddy—a book of poems called Feu et flamme. It's the only complete work he ever published, and it is by turns ecstatic and morose, worshipful and apostate, triumphal and self-absorbed, well-executed and just a touch clumsy. It is worth keeping around.

So I'll post ten lines of it, in English translation, per day.

As far as I know, Feu et flamme only partially exists in English, and "partially" only because of what appears here.

There's a good chance you know more than I do about French and/or French history (especially French history). Constructive criticisms, contextualizations, and things I've missed are welcome.

If you're interested in reading more about O'Neddy and friends, you should read Olchar Lindsann's estimable blog and poke around Orlo Williams' Vie de Bohème: A Patch of Romantic Paris.

Ten lines per day! They start tomorrow.