This is the last poem written by the "pre-romantic" French poet Andre Chenier. He was brought to trial and guillotined within days after writing this poem during the Reign of Terror in the French Revolution in January, 1793. I will be posting an essay ruminating on the connections I find between this poem and the postmodern problem with justice on my other blog, The Philosopher's Stone. For the french original, click on this link:
Iambe VIII
Andre Chenier
Like a last
beam, like a last West Wind
animating
the end of a
beautiful day,
at the foot of
the scaffold I try again my lyre.
Perhaps soon it
is my turn.
Perhaps before
the hour hand on the circle promenade
has set upon the
shining enamel
during the sixty
steps where its route is borne,
its foot ringing
and vigorous,
the sleep of the
tomb will squeeze my eyelid.
Before the two
halves
of this verse I
begin has reached the end,
perhaps in these
overwhelming walls
the messenger of
death, black scout of shadows,
escorted by
nefarious soldiers,
shaking my name
from these long forlorn corridors,
where alone amid
the mob at the great step
I stray,
sharpening these spears, persecutors of crime
- of the Just
such weak supports -
upon my lips
suddenly he will hang the rhyme;
and burdening my
arms with chains,
they drag me,
amassing a mob by my path
my sad
sequestered companions
who knew me well
before the terrible message,
but who know me
no more.
Ah well! I have
lived too long. What somber freedom,
of male
constancy and honor,
What sacred
examples, sweet to the soul of the righteous,
for whom what
shadow of happiness,
What Themis
terrible to criminal wits,
what tears of a
noble pity,
of ancient
kindnesses what faithful recollections,
what dear
exchanges of friendship
make worthy of
sorrow the abode of mankind?
Fugitive terror
is their god,
opprobrium;
deceit. Ah! So cowardly we are
all, yes, all.
Goodbye, earth, goodbye.
Come, come
death! May death deliver me!
Thus my heart
cast down
yields to the
burden of its ills? - No, no. I can live!
My life means
something to moral courage.
Because the
honest man at last, victim of outrage,
in the cells,
close by the coffin,
lifts up most
lofty his brow and his tongue,
gifts of a
fertile pride.
If it is written
in the heavens that never will a sword
flash upon my
hands,
in the ink and
the bitterness another weapon steeped
can again aide
humanity.
Justice, Truth,
if my hand, if my lips,
if my thoughts
most secret
have never
wrinkled your grim brow,
if the infamous
improvements,
if the atrocious
laughter or more atrocious outrage,
the praise of
hideous villains,
has pierced your
hearts with a long hurt;
save me. Keep an
arm
who hurls your
lightning, a lover who avenges you.
To die without
seeing my bolt!
Without
uncovering, without treading upon,
without molding
their squalor,
these hangmen
scribblers of decree!
These cadaverous
verses of France enslaved,
slaughtered! Oh
my beloved treasure,
oh my quill!
Venom, bile, horror, Gods of my life!
By you alone I
still breathe:
Like boiling
pitch, feverish in one's veins,
resuscitates a
dying flame,
I suffer; but I
live. By you, far from my suffering,
of hope a vast
torrent
transports me.
Without you, like a pale poison,
the invisible
tooth of sorrow,
my oppressed
friends, the successes
of a murderous
liar, the crown of bronze;
of the good
things banished by him the death or the downfall,
the shame of
subjection to his law,
everything has
dried up my life; or against my chest
pressed my
dagger. But what!
Could no one
remain thus to touch the history
of so many
innocents massacred?
To comfort their
sons, their wives, their memory,
so that some
abhorred brigands
shudder in the
black portraits of their resemblance,
to descend to
Hell
to knot the
triple whip, the whip of vengeance
already set upon
these perverts?
To spit upon
their names, to sing their torment?
Come, choke down
your cries;
Endure, oh heart
heavy with hatred, hungry for justice.
You, Virtue,
weep if I die.
