The Melancholy Korean

You knew the answer, but you asked her anyway.

Fool.

Quae tibi manet vita? Quis nunc te adibit? Cui videberis bella? Quem nunc amabis? Cuius esse diceris? Quem basiabis? Cui labella mordebis?

What life is left for you?

Marco.

To whom will you be beautiful?

Marco.

Who will now come to you?

Marco.

Whom will you kiss? Whose lips will you bite?

Marco. Marco. Marco.

Whom will you love, in sickness and in health?

Marco.

Fatuus Marcus. Marco the Dunce.

What will they call you, Kitty, now and forever?

Marco’s wife.

Why should not old men be mad?

Young men, too.

Some have known…

I was unlucky.

A girl

a girl?

who knew all Dante once

Live to bear children to a dunce.

They laughed at me, Kitty. 

Seeing that thou comest into such scorn by the companionship of this lady, wherefore seekest thou to behold her?

Mr. Alighieri, if you please.

S’io non perdessi le mie vertudi, e fossi libero tanto che io le potessi rispondere, io le direi, che sì tosto com’io imagino la sua mirabile bellezza, sì tosto mi giugne uno desiderio di vederla, lo quale è di tanta vertude, che uccide e distrugge ne la mia memoria, ciò che contra lui si potesse levare…

I had no choice.

…and it is therefore that the great anguish I have endured thereby is not yet enough to restrain me from seeking to behold her.

Ille mi par esse deo videtur

I think he is equal to a god

(Sappho thought so too)

φαίνεταί μοι κῆνος ἴσος θέοισιν

the one who sits across from you 

qui sedens adversus…

listening to your sweet laughter

γελαίσας ἰμερόεν

dulce ridentem.

“Can she stay the night?”

“We don’t do that, sir.”

“I’ll pay extra.”

“Mrs. Cohen doesn’t allow the girls…”

“I understand.”

(silence)

“The one with the green eyes.”

“I want the one with the green eyes.”

“We can do that, sir. I will now confirm the order. The Marriott Hotel in Annondale, 10pm, two hours, one thousand dollars cash, to be paid to the driver, who will accompany the girl up to your room. Is there anything else?”

“Her name is Kitty.”

“Excuse me, sir?”

“I want her to answer to Kitty.”

Iam super oceanum venit a seniore marito

 “Can she stay the night?” you asked.

Quo properas, Aurora? mane!

Stay! You begged her to stay.

(to lie in her tender embrace, her body so close…)

nunc iuvat in teneris dominae iacuisse lacertis 

She refused.  Two hours, etc etc.

Fool!

To M.

Ripenso il tuo sorriso, ed è per me un’acqua limpida 
scorta per avventura tra le petraie d’un greto, 
esiguo specchio in cui guardi un’ellera i suoi corimbi; 
e su tutto l’abbraccio d’un bianco cielo quieto.

Codesto è il mio ricordo; non saprei dire, o lontano, 
se dal tuo volto s’esprime libera un’anima ingenua, 
o vero tu sei dei raminghi che il male del mondo estenua 
e recano il loro soffrire con sé come un talismano.

Ma questo posso dirti, che la tua pensata effigie 
sommerge i crucci estrosi in un’ondata di calma, 
e che il tuo aspetto s’insinua nella mia memoria grigia 
schietto come la cima d’una giovinetta palma…

I think back on your smile, and for me it’s a clear pool 
found by chance among the rocks of a riverbed, 
little mirror where the ivy can watch her corymbs, 
embraced by a quiet white sky overhead.

This I remember; I can’t say, distant one, 
whether your look gives voice to a simple spirit, 
or if you’re one of those wanderers the world’s evil harms 
who carry their suffering with them like a charm.

But I can say this: that your contemplated image 
drowns extravagant fears in a wave of calm, 
and that your look finds its way into my gray memory 
sharp like the crest of a young palm…

(Eugenio Montale, translated by Jonathan Galassi)

To M.

Il canneto rispunta i suoi cimelli
nella serenità che non si ragna:
l’orto assetato sporge irti ramelli
oltre i chiusi ripari, all’afa stagna.

Sale un’ora d’attesa in cielo, vacua,
dal mare che s’ingrigia.
Un albero di nuvole sull’acqua
cresce, poi crolla come di cinigia.

Assente, come manchi in questa plaga 
che ti presente e senza te consuma:
sei lontana e però tutto divaga
dal suo solco, dirupa, spare in bruma.

The canebrake sends its little shoots
into the brightness that doesn’t fret with clouds:
the thirsty orchard puts out bristling sprigs
beyond the shut gates, in the stagnant heat.

An hour of waiting climbs the sky,
empty, from the sea that’s turning gray.
A cloud tree grows on the water,
then crumbles like ashes.

Absent one, how I miss you on this shore
that conjures you and fades if you’re away:
you’re gone, so each thing strays
from its furrow, topples, vanishes in haze.

(Montale, translated by Jonathan Galassi)

To M.

Felicità raggiunta, si cammina
per te su fil di lama.
Agli occhi sei barlume che vacilla,
al piede, teso ghiaccio che s’incrina;
e dunque non ti tocchi chi più t’ama.

Se giungi sulle anime invase
di tristezza e le schiari, il tuo mattino
è dolce e turbatore come i nidi delle cimase.
Ma nulla paga il pianto del bambino
a cui fugge il pallone tra le cose.

Happiness achieved, for you
we walk on a knife-edge.
You’re an uncertain glimmer to the eyes,
underfoot taut, cracking ice;
so he who loves you best must never touch you.

If you encounter souls assailed
by sadness and delight them,
your morning’s sweet and aflutter, like nests in the eaves.
But nothing comforts the child who grieves
for the balloon that’s gone between the houses.

(Montale, translated by Jonathan Galassi)

To M.

Ognuno sta solo sul cuor della terra
trafitto da un raggio di sole:
ed è subito sera

We each of us stand alone, along its heart, the earth’s,
Pierced by a ray of the sun:
Then, suddenly, it’s evening.

(Quasimodo, translated by Steven Yong Lee)

To M.

Σὰν ἔξαφνα, ὥρα μεσάνυχτ’, ἀκουσθεῖ 
ἀόρατος θίασος νὰ περνᾶ
μὲ μουσικές ἐξαίσιες, μὲ φωνὲς —
τὴν τύχη σου ποὺ ἐνδίδει πιά, τὰ ἔργα σου
ποὺ ἀπέτυχαν, τὰ σχέδια τῆς ζωῆς σου
ποὺ βγῆκαν ὅλα πλάνες, μὴ ἀνοφέλετα θρηνήσεις.
Σὰν ἔτοιμος ἀπὸ καιρό, σά θαρραλέος,
ἀποχαιρέτα την, τὴν ᾿Αλεξάνδρεια ποὺ φεύγει.
Πρὸ πάντων νὰ μὴ γελασθεῖς, μὴν πεῖς πὼς ἦταν
ἕνα ὄνειρο, πὼς ἀπατήθηκεν ἡ ἀκοή σου·
μάταιες ἐλπίδες τέτοιες μὴν καταδεχθεῖς.
Σὰν ἕτοιμος ἀπό καιρό, σὰ θαρραλέος,
σὰν ποὺ ταιριάζει σε ποὺ ἀξιώθηκες μιὰ τέτοια πόλι,
πλησίασε σταθερὰ πρὸς τὸ παράθυρο,
κι ἄκουσε μὲ συγκίνησιν, ἀλλ’ ὄχι
μὲ τῶν δειλῶν τὰ παρακάλια καὶ παράπονα,
ὡς τελευταία ἀπόλαυσι τοὺς ἤχους,
τὰ ἐξαίσια ὄργανα τοῦ μυστικοῦ θιάσου,
κι ἀποχαιρέτα την, τὴν ᾿Αλεξάνδρεια ποὺ χάνεις.

When suddenly, at midnight, you hear
an invisible procession going by
with exquisite music, voices,
don’t mourn your luck that’s failing now,
work gone wrong, your plans
all proving deceptive — don’t mourn them uselessly. 
As one long prepared, and graced with courage,
say goodbye to her, the Alexandria that is leaving.
Above all, don’t fool yourself, don’t say
it was a dream, your ears deceived you:
don’t degrade yourself with empty hopes like these.
As one long prepared, and graced with courage,
as is right for you who were given this kind of city,
go firmly to the window
And listen with deep emotion, but not
with whining, the pleas of a coward;
listen — your final delectation — to the voices,
to the exquisite music of that strange procession,
and say goodbye to her, to the Alexandria you are losing. 

(Cavafy, translated by Keeley and Sherrard) 

To M.

She says, “But in contentment I still feel
The need of some imperishable bliss.”
Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her,
Alone, shall come fulfilment to our dreams
And our desires. Although she strews the leaves
Of sure obliteration on our paths,
The path sick sorrow took, the many paths
Where triumph rang its brassy phrase, or love
Whispered a little out of tenderness,
She makes the willow shiver in the sun
For maidens who were wont to sit and gaze
Upon the grass, relinquished to their feet.
She causes boys to pile new plums and pears
On disregarded plate. The maidens taste
And stray impassioned in the littering leaves.

Is there no change of death in paradise?
Does ripe fruit never fall? Or do the boughs
Hang always heavy in that perfect sky,
Unchanging, yet so like our perishing earth,
With rivers like our own that seek for seas
They never find, the same receding shores
That never touch with inarticulate pang?
Why set the pear upon those river-banks
Or spice the shores with odors of the plum?
Alas, that they should wear our colors there,
the silken weavings of our afternoons,
And pick the strings of our insipid lutes!
Death is the mother of beauty, mystical,
Within whose burning bosom we devise
Our earthly mothers waiting, sleeplessly.

(Wallace Stevens)

To M.

Appresso ciò, che io dissi questo sonetto, mi mosse una volontade di dire anche parole, ne le quali io dicesse quattro cose ancora sopra lo mio stato, le quali non mi parea che fossero manifestate ancora per me. La prima delle quali si è che molte volte io mi dolea, quando la mia memoria movesse la fantasia ad imaginare quale Amore mi facea. La seconda si è che Amore spesse volte di subito m’assalia sì forte, che ‘n me non rimanea altro di vita se non un pensero che parlava di questa donna. La terza si è che quando questa battaglia d’Amore mi pugnava così, io mi movea quasi discolorito tutto per vedere questa donna, credendo che mi difendesse la sua veduta da questa battaglia, dimenticando quello che per appropinquare a tanta gentilezza m’addivenia. La quarta si è come cotale veduta non solamente non mi difendea, ma finalmente disconfiggea la mia poca vita. E però dissi questo sonetto, lo quale comincia: Spesse fiate. 

Spesse fiate vegnonmi a la mente
   le oscure qualità ch’Amor mi dona,
   e venmene pietà, sì che sovente
   io dico: << Lasso!, avviene elli a persona? >>;
   ch’Amor m’assale subitanamente,
   sì che la vita quasi m’abbandona: 
   campami un spirto vivo solamente,
   e que’ riman, perché di voi ragiona.
Poscia mi sforzo, ché mi voglio atare;
   e così smorto, d’onne valor voto,
   vegno a vedervi, credendo guerire:
   e se io levo li occhi per guardare,
   nel cor mi si comincia uno tremoto,
   che fa de’ polsi l’amina partire.

Thereafter, this sonnet bred in me desire to write down in verse four other things touching my condition, things which it seemed to me that I had not yet made manifest. The first among these was the grief that possessed me very often, remembering the strangeness which Love wrought in me; the second was, how Love many times assailed me so suddenly and with such strength that I had no other life remaining except a thought which spake of my lady; the third was, how, when Love did battle with me in this wise, I would rise up all colourless, if so I might see my lady, conceiving that the sight of her would defend me against the assault of Love, and altogether forgetting that which her presence brought unto me; and the fourth was, how, when I saw her, the sight not only defended me not, but took away the little life that remained to me. And I said these four things in a sonnet, which is this:—

(Dante, translated by Dante Gabriel Rossetti)

To M.

Torna dinanzi al mio pensier talora
Il tuo sembiante, Aspasia. O fuggitivo
Per abitati lochi a me lampeggia
In altri volti; o per deserti campi,
Al dì sereno, alle tacenti stelle,
Da soave armonia quasi ridesta,
Nell’alma a sgomentarsi ancor vicina
Quella superba vision risorge.
Quanto adorata, o numi, e quale un giorno
Mia delizia ed erinni! E mai non sento
Mover profumo di fiorita piaggia,
Né di fiori olezzar vie cittadine,
Ch’io non ti vegga ancor qual eri il giorno
Che ne’ vezzosi appartamenti accolta,
Tutti odorati de’ novelli fiori
Di primavera, del color vestita
Della bruna viola, a me si offerse
L’angelica tua forma, inchino il fianco
Sovra nitide pelli, e circonfusa
D’arcana voluttà; quando tu, dotta
Allettatrice, fervidi sonanti
Baci scoccavi nelle curve labbra
De’ tuoi bambini, il niveo collo intanto
Porgendo, e lor di tue cagioni ignari
Con la man leggiadrissima stringevi
Al seno ascoso e desiato. Apparve
Novo ciel, nova terra, e quasi un raggio
Divino al pensier mio. Così nel fianco
Non punto inerme a viva forza impresse
Il tuo braccio lo stral, che poscia fitto
Ululando portai finch’a quel giorno
Si fu due volte ricondotto il sole.

Into my thoughts your image makes it way
From time to time, Aspasia. Whether, fleeting,
It flashes on me, where the living meet,
Out of strange faces; or in empty fields,
Beneath the sun, beneath the silent stars,
As though some music brought it into being,
Within this soul (which stands almost appalled)
That glorious vision rises once again.
How much adored, O gods, how much one time
All my delight and pain! So that I never
Find out the perfume of a floral slope,
Or catch the breath of flowers in city streets,
But that I see you as you were that day
When, nestling in the charm of your apartment
Which had the scent of all the freshest blooms
Of spring, and clothed in garments of the colour
Of darkest violets, your angel shape
Offered itself to me, your curving thigh
Resting on glossy furs, with all around
Arcane voluptuousness; while you—you so
Accomplished temptress—kept on loosing hot
Resounding kisses down upon your children’s
Curved lips, which meant you often had to stretch
Your snowy neck, and with your gentle hand
To press your children, strangers to your motive,
Against your breast, hidden, desired. New heaven,
New earth appeared to me, in almost more
Than mortal light. And so it was that you
Drove into my not unprotected side
Most forcibly that dart, which afterwards
I carried, howling out with pain, until
The day the sun had come full circle twice.

(Leopardi, translated by J. G. Nichols)

To M.

Τιμὴ σ’ ἐκείνους ὄπου στὴν ζωή των
ὥρισαν καὶ φυλάγουν Θερμοπύλες.
Ποτὲ ἀπὸ τὸ Χρέος μὴ κινοῦντες·
δίκαιοι κ’ ἴσιοι σ’ ὅλες των τὲς πράξεις,
ἀλλὰ μὲ λύπη κιόλας κ’ εὐσπλαχνία·
γενναῖοι ὁσάκις εἶναι πλούσιοι, κι ὅταν
εἶναι πτωχοί, πάλ’ εἰς μικρὸν γενναῖοι,
πάλι συντρέχοντες ὅσο μποροῦνε·
πάντοτε τὴν ἀλήθεια ὁμιλοῦντες,
πλὴν χωρὶς μῖσος γιὰ τοὺς ψευδομένους.

Καὶ περισσότερη τιμὴ τοὺς πρέπει
ὅταν προβλέπουν (καὶ πολλοὶ προβλέπουν)
πὼς ὁ ᾿Εφιάλτης Θὰ φανεῖ στὸ τέλος,
κ’ οἱ Μῆδοι ἐπὶ τέλους Θὰ διαβοῦνε.

Honor to those who in the life they lead
define and guard a Thermopylae.
Never betraying what is right,
consistent and just in all they do
but showing pity also, and compassion;
generous when they are rich, and when they are poor,
still generous in small ways,
still helping as much as they can;
always speaking the truth,
yet without hating those who lie.

And even more honor is due to them
when they foresee (as many do foresee)
that in the end Ephialtis will make his appearance,
that the Medes will break through after all.

(Cavafy, translated by Keeley and Sherrard)

To M.

La rue assourdissante autour de moi hurlait.
Longue, mince, en grand deuil, douleur majestueuse,
Une femme passa, d’une main fastueuse
Soulevant, balançant le feston et l’ourlet;

Agile et noble, avec sa jambe de statue.
Moi, je buvais, crispé comme un extravagant,
Dans son œil, ciel livide où germe l’ouragan,
La douceur qui fascine et le plaisir qui tue.

Un éclair… puis la nuit! — Fugitive beauté
Dont le regard m’a fait soudainement renaître,
Ne te verrai-je plus que dans l’éternité?

Ailleurs, bien loin d’ici! trop tard! jamais peut-être!
Car j’ignore où tu fuis, tu ne sais où je vais,
O toi que j’eusse aimée, ô toi qui le savais!

Amid the deafening traffic of the town,
Tall, slender, in deep mourning, with majesty,
A woman passed, raising, with dignity
In her poised hand, the flouces of her gown;

Graceful, noble, with a statue’s form.
And I drank, trembling as a madman thrills,
From her eyes, ashen sky where brooded storm,
The softness that fascinates, the pleasure that kills.

A flash… then night! — O lovely fugitive,
I am suddenly reborn from your swift glance;
Shall I never see you till eternity?

Somewhere, far off! too late! never, perchance!
Neither knows where the other goes or lives;
We might have loved, and you knew this might be!

To M.

He went up to her and took her by the shoulders to say something affectionate and cheering, and at that moment he saw himself in the looking-glass.

His hair was already beginning to turn grey. And it seemed strange to him that he had grown so much older, so much plainer during the last few years. The shoulders on which his hands rested were warm and quivering. He felt compassion for this life, still so warm and lovely, but probably already not far from beginning to fade and wither like his own. Why did she love him so much? He always seemed to women different from what he was, and they loved in him not himself, but the man created by their imagination, whom they had been eagerly seeking all their lives; and afterwards, when they noticed their mistake, they loved him all the same. And not one of them had been happy with him. Time passed, he had made their acquaintance, got on with them, parted, but he had never once loved; it was anything you like, but not love.

And only now when his head was grey he had fallen properly, really in love—for the first time in his life.

Anna Sergeyevna and he loved each other like people very close and akin, like husband and wife, like tender friends; it seemed to them that fate itself had meant them for one another, and they could not understand why he had a wife and she a husband; and it was as though they were a pair of birds of passage, caught and forced to live in different cages. They forgave each other for what they were ashamed of in their past, they forgave everything in the present, and felt that this love of theirs had changed them both.

In moments of depression in the past he had comforted himself with any arguments that came into his mind, but now he no longer cared for arguments; he felt profound compassion, he wanted to be sincere and tender…

“Don’t cry, my darling,” he said. “You’ve had your cry; that’s enough… Let us talk now, let us think of some plan.”

Then they spent a long while taking counsel together, talked of how to avoid the necessity for secrecy, for deception, for living in different towns and not seeing each other for long at a time. How could they be free from this intolerable bondage?

“How? How?” he asked, clutching his head. “How?”

And it seemed as though in a little while the solution would be found, and then a new and splendid life would begin; and it was clear to both of them that they had still a long, long road before them, and that the most complicated and difficult part of it was only just beginning. 

(Chekhov, translated by Constance Garnett)

To M.

At home in Moscow everything was in its winter routine; the stoves were heated, and in the morning it was still dark when the children were having breakfast and getting ready for school, and the nurse would light the lamp for a short time. The frosts had begun already. When the first snow has fallen, on the first day of sledge-driving it is pleasant to see the white earth, the white roofs, to draw soft, delicious breath, and the season brings back the days of one’s youth. The old limes and birches, white with hoar-frost, have a good-natured expression; they are nearer to one’s heart than cypresses and palms, and near them one doesn’t want to be thinking of the sea and the mountains.

Gurov was Moscow born; he arrived in Moscow on a fine frosty day, and when he put on his fur coat and warm gloves, and walked along Petrovka, and when on Saturday evening he heard the ringing of the bells, his recent trip and the places he had seen lost all charm for him. Little by little he became absorbed in Moscow life, greedily read three newspapers a day, and declared he did not read the Moscow papers on principle! He already felt a longing to go to restaurants, clubs, dinner-parties, anniversary celebrations, and he felt flattered at entertaining distinguished lawyers and artists, and at playing cards with a professor at the doctors’ club. He could already eat a whole plateful of salt fish and cabbage…

In another month, he fancied, the image of Anna Sergeyevna would be shrouded in a mist in his memory, and only from time to time would visit him in his dreams with a touching smile as others did. But more than a month passed, real winter had come, and everything was still clear in his memory as though he had parted with Anna Sergeyevna only the day before. And his memories glowed more and more vividly. 

When in the evening stillness he heard from his study the voices of his children, preparing their lessons, or when he listened to a song or the organ at the restaurant, or the storm howled in the chimney, suddenly everything would rise up in his memory: what had happened on the groyne, and the early morning with the mist on the mountains, and the steamer coming from Theodosia, and the kisses. He would pace a long time about his room, remembering it all and smiling; then his memories passed into dreams, and in his fancy the past was mingled with what was to come. Anna Sergeyevna did not visit him in dreams, but followed him about everything like a shadow and haunted him. When he shut his eyes he saw her as though she were living before him, and she seemed to him lovelier, younger, tenderer than she saw; and he imagined himself finer than had been in Yalta. 

In the evenings she peeped out at him from the bookcase, from the fireplace, from the corner—he heard her breathing, the caressing rustle of her dress. In the street he would watch the women, looking for some one like her.

(Chekhov, translated by Constance Garnett)

To M.

Si tu veux nous nous aimerons
Avec tes lèvres sans le dire
Cette rose ne l’interromps
Qu’à verser un silence pire

Jamais de chants ne lancent prompts
Le scintillement du sourire
Si tu veux nous nous aimerons
Avec tes lèvres sans le dire

Muet muet entre les ronds
Sylphe dans la pourpre d’empire
Un baiser flambant se déchire
Jusqu’aux pointes des ailerons
Si tu veux nous nous aimerons.

We’ll love each other if you choose
With speechless lips a little while
Do not interrupt this rose
Or worse silences shall spill

Never yet from song arose
The radiance of a sudden smile
We’ll love each other if you choose
With speechless lips a little while

Softly, sylph, between the rounds
In purple robes go softly still
A flaming kiss torn off shall rouse
The very wing tips with a thrill
We’ll love each other if you choose.

To M.

Un oiseau chante ne sais où
C’est je crois ton âme qui veille
Parmi tous les soldats d’un sou
Et l’oiseau charme mon oreille

Écoute il chante tendrement
Je ne sais pas sur quelle branche
Et partout il va me charmant
Nuit et jour semaine et dimanche

Mais que dire de cet oiseau
Que dire des métamorphoses
De l’âme en chant dans l’arbrisseau
Du coeur en ciel du ciel en roses

L’oiseau des soldats c’est l’amour
Et mon amour c’est une fille
La rose est moins parfaite et pour
Moi seul l’oiseau bleu s’égosille

Oiseau bleu comme le coeur bleu
De mon amour au coeur céleste
Ton chant si doux répète-le
A la mitrailleuse funeste

Qui claque à l’horizon et puis
Sont-ce les astres que l’on sème
Ainsi vont les jours et les nuits
Amour bleu comme est le coeur même

A bird is singing I can’t tell where
He is I think your soul that waits
Among all the twopenny soldiers
And the singing bird enchants my ear

Listen to him sing tenderly
I can’t tell on what branch he sits
And everywhere he bewitches me
Day and night the whole week long

But what can I tell you about the bird
Or about the metamorphosis
Of the soul to a song in the shrubbery
Or the heart to sky or of sky to roses

The bird of all soldiers is love
And my love is a girl
A rose is less perfect than she is
And to me alone does the bluebird call

Bird as blue as the blue heart
Of my love whose heart is heavenly
Warble that sweet song once more
To the deadly burst of machine-gun fire

Chattering on the horizon Say
Are those the stars someone is sowing
This is how days and nights flow by
Love as blue as the heart itself

To M.

La chevelure vol d’une flamme à l’extrême
Occident de désirs pour la tout déployer
Se pose (je dirais mourir un diadème)
Vers le front couronné son ancien foyer

Mais sans or soupirer que cette vive nue
L’ignition du fue toujours intérieur
Originellement la seule continue
Dans le joyau de l’oeil véridique ou rieur

Une nudité de héros tendre diffame
Celle qui ne mouvant astre ni feux au doigt
Rien qu’à simplifier avec gloire la femme
Accomplit par son chef fulgurante l’exploit

De semer de rubis le doute qu’elle écorche
Ainsi qu’une joyeuse et tutélaire torche.

The flight of flaming hair at the extreme
West of desires unfurling it forth
Comes to rest (as it were a dying diadem)
On the crowned brow its ancient hearth

Then sigh for no gold but this could that lives
The kindling of an always interior flame
Originally the only one it gives
To the truthful or laughing eye its gleam

The tender nudity of heroes demeans
The one on whose fingers no stars wave or fires
Whose dazzling head is the only means
By which woman simplified with glory conspires

To sow with rubies the doubt she would scorch
In the manner of a joyous and tutelary torch.

(Stéphane Mallarmé, translated by Henry Weinfield)