Mirabeau Bridge (Le pont Mirabeau)
by Guillaume Apollinaire, translated (by me) from the French
Below Mirabeau Bridge flows the Seine
And our loves
Must I remember them
Joy always followed after pain Come the night ring the hour
The days move on I endureHand in hand let us stay face to face
While below
The bridge of our arms pass
Waves weary of constant audience Come the night ring the hour
The days move on I endureLove goes like this running water flows
So love goes
How life can be so slow
And how Hope deals such violent blows Come the night ring the hour
The days move on I endureThough days and weeks pass without end
Not old times
Nor old loves come again
Below Mirabeau Bridge flows the Seine Come the night ring the hour
The days move on I endure
Support my work with a subscription:
Note: no translator has yet come up with a sufficient rhyming solution for the couplet “Comme la vie est lente / Et comme l’Esperance est violente” (How life is slow / And how Hope is violent.”
We all in the end go for meaning over sound, humbled by failure.
In desperation, I made a list of possibilities. As a privileged behind-the-scenes glimpse into the struggle of a translator at the end of her rope, I share that list with you here.
How living drags on
And Hope is a livid dragonLol
How life does drag on
How Hope fights like a dragonwtf
How slowly life unfolds
How lowly Hope makes cuckoldsLife goes at a snail’s pace
Hope imprisons in its embraceHow life is slow
How Hope’s gin is sloeHow Hope is abusing
And life takes a bus inHow life lingers
How hope bites your fingersLife is terribly slow
And hope is slowly terribleHow life is a laggard
Against hope I lack guardsHow life is slow
How brutal Hope lies lowHow life goes slow
How Hope’s light goes lowoh ffs