Keshav Sharma

on translating Arthur Rimbaud

Arthur Rimbaud’s “Eternity,” published in May 1872, reflects a marked shift in the poet’s form and style, opting for a more subtle tone and delicate imagery to express his desire for spiritual rejuvenation. This follows a period of violent passion, jealousy, and guilt on account of his illicit relationship with fellow poet Paul Verlaine. More importantly, the poem represents a liminal stage in Rimbaud’s poetic career: the departure from poetic convention in the form of verse composition into the individual territory, where he pushed the boundaries of poetic structure and style through his later works. “Eternity” is a timeless depiction of an evanescent moment, the sunset at sea.

The interplay of light and dark and the layered visual and aural imagery that Rimbaud uses to emphasize the abstract nature of the setting portrays eternity as an elusive yet tantalizing experience for the narrator. In keeping with this interpretation while consolidating the original form to the greatest extent possible, I chose to translate allée, which is literally translated as “gone” to “pursues.” By doing so, I aimed to characterize this scene between the sea and the sun as an eternal journey as opposed to an eternal destination for the narrator, thereby setting the stage for the flurry of observations and emotions that ensues. The sun also represents an object of rapture for the narrator, so I translated it in a manner that complements the transience of the moment: “the sun’s infinity” within an “Eternity.”

In the second stanza, I translated âme sentinelle as “oh, vigilant soul,” as opposed to other translations describing a “guardian soul” or “sentinel soul,” as it seems to convey the soul as a better version of the narrator, one that sees more and understands more. This is better suited to Rimbaud’s character, which the narrator presumably reflects, in that the narrator emulates the soul, as Rimbaud intends to become a more idealized version of himself. This further supports my translation of the next line where Murmurons l’aveu becomes “Softly we confess,” a reluctant declaration between the narrator and the soul. The translation imbues the concept of eternity with an air of secrecy and provides further rationale for its elusive nature. The simple change between the next two lines, “night’s empty hole” and “kindling day’s caress,” further demarcates his past from that which he aims to be. By leaving his old self behind, Rimbaud shall “part ways” and “still fly higher,” thereby liberating himself from “human praise” (translated from humains suffrages — a poet’s success is derived from recognition of the quality of their work by others) and “common desires” (translated from communs élans — a pointed allusion to his relationship with Paul Verlaine).

It is now in the fifth and sixth stanzas that Rimbaud speaks of the ill-fated future. I chose to interpret the final two lines, “Le Devoir s’exhale / Sans qu’on dise: enfin,” as Rimbaud foreseeing a futile struggle to live his current life and complete his duties as a poet with satisfaction, thus “Duty’s exhale blown / And no end imagined.” This is only made clearer in the sixth stanza, in which I translated Là pas d’espérance as “There is no hope there,” “there” being his future life as a poet, and Nul orietur as “Nor any rising.” The translation of the third line in the fifth stanza proved to be quite difficult as orietur, an old French noun derived from the Latin verb orior, loosely translated as “to emerge” or “to rise,” had little pertinence to the poem. Of its several meanings, I chose to define orietur as “rising” to express a double entendre with the physical rising of the sun and the spiritual rising of Rimbaud above his former, banal life. With the repetition of the first stanza in the last, Rimbaud emphasizes the derivative nature of eternity and, more importantly, the repetitive and seemingly unresolved struggle he had faced to achieve spiritual reform.