"That Damned Angel" (L'Angélot Maudit) has been considered a rimbaldian exercise in gratuitous scatology. Claude Jeancolas, however, suggests that it expresses the 17-year-old's sexual and spiritual distress during his first months in Paris. The "jujubes" - translated here as "sugarplums" - have an erotic connotation similar to that of kiwi fruit. "L'angélot a abusé du gland de son partenaire," says Jeancolas.(Dictionnaire Rimbaud, 1991) Louis Ratisbonne, whom Rimbaud parodies here, was the author of edifying fables for children. |
That Damned Angel
Bluish roofs and doors of white
On the outskirts of the town
Streets and houses, eerie things
At the city's edge, behold
One dark angel who succumbs,
Takes a shit: then disappears:
Below a holy moon like mud, |
L'Angélot Maudit
Toits bleuâtres et portes blanches
Au bout de la ville, sans bruit
La Rue a des maisons étranges
Mais, vers une borne, voici
Un noir Angelot qui titube,
Il fait caca : puis disparaît:
Sous la lune sainte qui vaque,
-Louis Ratisbonne A. Rimbaud |
Translator's Note: The last line, "De sang noir un léger cloaque," contains a set of meanings I've not been able to translate. "Cloaque" can be a sewer or any place filthy with liquids. It also means the vent of a bird or snake, which serves both as intestinal and urinary orifice and as sexual aperture. "Ce 'tout-en-un' a dû enchanter la paillardise rimbaldienne du moment," writes Jeancolas. "This 'all-in-one' would have appealed to Rimbaud's erotic sensibility at that point in time." (Rimbaud, l'Oeuvre, Textuel 2000) |
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Translation copyright © 2002 by Slim Volume