Paul Valery (1871 - 1945 / Sete / France)

Great fellas, thanks for the firework translations! It's so marvellous to watch a gifted french symbolist, descibing so lonely pictures...

Good job on the translation, Jan! I think I like your version better than that by David Paul in the official Vol.1 of Valery's Collected Works (which is long out of print and damned hard to find!) . Here is Paul's version:

The Footsteps

Your footsteps, children of my silence,
With gradual and saintly pace
Towards the bed of my watchfulness,
Muted and frozen, approach.

Pure one, divine shadow,
How gentle are your cautious steps!
Gods! ...all the gifts that I can guess
Come to me on those naked feet!

If, with your lips advancing,
You are preparing to appease
The inhabitant of my thoughts
With the sustenance of a kiss,

Do not hasten the tender act,
Bliss of being and not being,
For I have lived on waiting for you,
And my heart was only your footsteps.

(The original appeared in some French journal in Nov.1921.)

Footsteps

Children of my silence,
your saintly steps, unrushed,
approach my pallet’s vigil,
frozen, timeless, hushed.

Pure one, divinest shadow,
steps verging on retreat,
Gods – what gifts I envision
borne on those naked feet!

If with lips pressed toward me
you deign to nourish this
dweller in my obsessions
with an appeasing kiss,

don’t hasten to your mercy.
Being and not being is sweet.
My life is a vivid waiting,
my heart your padding feet.

(translation by Jan Schreiber)