BERNEVAL

A passage about what is stolen.

Je vous dis qu’ils nous ont volé notre temps quotidien.

Notre précieux temps de tous les jours pour jouer dehors, dedans, dans la verdure de la tendresse mutuelle. Notre temps à nous autres, temps de feu, de passion dans le velours rouge des bercements d’extase, des embrassement du corps. Notre temps de grand midi sous les branches de l’arbre-mère-en-fleurs, fontaine de transparence des salives, des baisers mouillés qui se font actes de reconnaissance. Il y a longtemps que je t’aime, toujours je t’aimerai. Notre temps pour boire à la mer.

Jovette Marchessault “chronique lesbienne du moyen-âge québécois” in tryptique lesbien.

With this passage, Yvonne M. Klein does something interestingly smart. By way of an act of reconnaissance/recognition, in translating to English she retains and italicizes the French Il y a longtemps que je t’aime, toujours je t’aimerai. and it now leaps up that these are lyrics to a song: a traditional French folk song (“À la claire fontaine“) whose refrain does contain the first phrase — il y a longtemps que je t’aime — which continues with a promise to never forget — jamais je ne t’oublierai. Marchessault has morphed the promise of remembrance to one of love, ongoing, continuous love — toujours je t’aimerai.

What is interesting here is the reversal of the negative which is also at work in the next sentence: Notre temps pour boire à la mer. This is a play on the proverbial “ce n’est pas la mer à boire” — it’s not as big a deal as drinking the sea (i.e. the impossible). Of course there is also at play a sort of toast: drinking to the health of the sea (and by homophony the mother (mère)). The lexicographers locate the origin in a fable by La Fontaine “Les deux chiens et l’âne mort” and the lines

     Tout cela, c’est la mer à boire;
     Mais rien à l’homme ne suffit :
Pour fournir aux projets que forme un seul esprit
Il faudrait quatre corps ; encor loin d’y suffire
A mi-chemin je crois que tous demeureraient :
Quatre Mathusalems bout à bout ne pourraient
     Mettre à fin ce qu’un seul désire.

Never enough time in this time-worn single body. This desiring body.

All this talk of the sea brings to mind the story of King Canute and the waves. And alternative to translate that tricky bit about drinking to the sea or drinking by the sea: our time to buck the tide.

And so for day 1690
30.07.2011

There is a central image from Adam Zagajewski “Transformation” in Mysticism for Beginners translated by Clare Cavanagh that captures well the tall flowers at their maturity.

I’ve seen sunflowers dangling
their heads at dusk, as if a careless hangman
had gone strolling through the gardens.

There is nothing careless in the attribution via possible simile: the careless hangman may or may not have passed by — we are left dangling.

And so for day 1689
29.07.2011