October 1870, Part 3

AS AN EMBATTLED STAR

     translated and adapted by Brett Rutherford

     from Victor Hugo, l'Annee Terrible, "October 1870"

III.

Seven. The number of evil. The number to which God counts,
as in a vile dungeon, all deadly human faults.
Seven princes. Württemberg and Mecklenburg,
     Nassau and Saxony,
     Baden, Bavaria and Prussia,
          all in a terrible network.

They pitch their sepulchral tents by night.
The circles of hell are there in dreary spirals.
Paris has the seven knots of darkness over it.
Count them: hate, winter, war,
     mourning, and plague, and famine,
          and even boredom joins the fray.

Paris before its wall has seven leaders like Thebes.
Unbelievable spectacle! A lone star is besieged by Erebus.[1]
The whole night sky assaults the light. A shout
of distress the star emits — and nothingness laughs.
Blindness attacks the day; a dismal envy
attacks the august altar-vase of life,
the great central hearth, the one star
     on whom all other stars depend.
All watching eyes spread through infinity
are surprised. What is this? What?
     The one star’s clarity is veiled!

A long thrill of horror runs from orb to orb.

God, save your handiwork,
     you who with a moving breath
put into shade Leviathan
     to where he twists his poisonous arms!
But no, it’s done. The infamous battle begins.
Like the lighthouse that once guarded
     the port of Scée,
a blaze bursts from the star, alerting
the sky that hell rises and night descends.
The abyss is like a huge wall of smoke
where some fierce army swarms,
a monstrous cloud, brass shining through.
Infernal noises indescribable and underground sounds
mingle, and, howling in the depths of Gehenna,
the thunders sound like beasts on a chain.

A shapeless tide where typhoons roar
arrives, grows and rolls with deep cries,
and this chaos is determined to kill this sphere.
He strikes with the flame, she with the light.
The abyss has lightning and the star has rays.
darkness, flood, mist, hurricane, whirlwind,
fall on the star, again, again, again, again,
seeking to pour itself all into this well of dawn,
an assault of cosmic violation.

Who will win? Fear — hope! Shudders!
The splendid roundness of the star, at times,
under horrible swellings of darkness, fades,
and, as a face vaguely trembles and floats,
more and more sinister and pale, it disappears.

Has someone warranted the arrest of a star?
Who has such power? Who then has the right to take
     from the universe
this sacred glow and this deep soul?
Hell seems like a terrible mouth that bites,
a maw so large that sometimes we see nothing.
So, is it dead?

Suddenly a single ray cuts through a gap,
a mane on fire, shaken by winds,
appears… There it is!
The star! The star! Living, loving,
it condemns the Night to dazzlement,
and, suddenly reappearing in its original beauty,
covers it with an immense foam of light.

So, is Chaos defeated? No. The darkness
redoubles, and the reflux of the invading abyss
comes back, and it seems as if God is discouraged.
Again, in the horror, in the night, in the storm,
we seek for the star. Where is it then? What an ambush!
And nothing continues, and everything is in suspense;
All of Creation bears witness to a criminal act,
And the universe gazes with amazement into the Abyss
Which, tirelessly, at the bottom of the vermilion firmament,
Devours light, casting a vomit of shadow on the day.

 

 

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[1] Erebus. In Greek myth, the primordial god of darkness.