Stéphane Mallarmé: 'Sainte'

Painting of St. Cecilia by Domenichino

 

Sainte

 

À la fenêtre recelant

Le santal vieux qui se dédore

De sa viole étincelant

Jadis avec flûte ou mandore,

 

Est la Sainte pâle, étalant

Le livre vieux qui se déplie

Du Magnificat ruisselant

Jadis selon vêpre et complie:

 

À ce vitrage d’ostensoir

Que frôle une harpe par l’Ange

Formée avec son vol du soir

Pour la délicate phalange

 

Du doigt que, sans le vieux santal

Ni le vieux livre, elle balance

Sur le plumage instrumental,

Musicienne du silence.

 

 

Saint

 

At the stained window that reveals

The age-old gleaming sandalwood

Of her viol whose gilding peels

Once played with mandora or flute,

 

There sits the pale Saint, spreading flat

The age-old book and laying bare

The stream of the Magnificat

For vespers and for evening prayer:

 

A harp on these glazed monstrance panes

Formed by the Angel’s evening flight

Is being played on by the Saint’s

Delicate finger brushed with light

 

Which, with no viol’s complement

Nor aid of book, she balances

On her full-feathered instrument,

Maker of music’s soundless bliss.

 

Paul Bénichou, in his most helpful book ‘Selon Mallarmé’, points out that ‘vitrage’ does not mean the same as ‘vitrail’ and that it is simply a collection of random non-coloured panes: here those of the window, which reflect the rays of the setting sun and gleam around the Saint like a monstrance.

 

There is Swedish translation of the poem on p. 73 of Axel Englund’s book Mallarmé: Dikter i översättning.