| Venus Anadyomène | ||
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Venus Anadyomene |
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| Comme d’un cercueil vert en fer blanc, une tête | ||
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As from a green zinc coffin, a head |
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| De femme à cheveux bruns fortement pommadés | ||
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Of a women with heavily pommaded brown hair |
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| D’une vieille baignoire émerge, lente et bête, | ||
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Emerges slowly and sluggishly from an old bathtub |
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| Avec des déficits assez mal ravaudés; | ||
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With rather poorly repaired bald patches; |
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| Puis le col gras et gris, les larges omoplates | ||
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Then the neck fat and grey, the large shoulder blades |
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| Qui saillent; le dos court qui rentre et qui ressort; | ||
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That protrude, the short back that curves in and out; |
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| Puis les rondeurs des reins semblent prendre l’essor; | ||
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Then the curves of the kidney that seems to take flight; |
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| La graisse sous la peau paraît en feuilles plates; | ||
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The fat under the skin appears as though in flat sheets; |
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| L’échine est un peu rouge, et le tout sent un goût | ||
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The backbone is a little red, and everything smells |
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| Horrible étrangement; on remarque surtout | ||
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Horribly strange; one notices in general |
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| Des singularités qu’il faut voir à la loupe… | ||
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The oddities that one must see in a magnifying glass ... |
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| Les reins portent deux mots gravés: CLARA VENUS; | ||
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On the kidneys are two engraved words: CLARA VENUS; |
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| —Et tout ce corps remue et tend sa large croupe | ||
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—And all the body wags and extends its large buttocks |
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| Belle hideusement d’un ulcère à l’anus. | ||
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Hideously beautiful with an uncer on the anus. |
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—Arthur Rimbaud —Translated by Louis Martin |