Yeats, William Butler, 116
Young Girls at the Piano (Renoir), 20
Zend (supposed Persian language), 253, 304n
Zeno of Elea, 231
Zeno’s paradox, 232
Zola, Emile, 16, 19, 103, 113, 121, 263, 264
Zone (Apollinaire), 26, 268, 270
Zurich Polytechnic Institute, 279
ALSO BY R. HOWARD BLOCH
Medieval French Literature and Law
Etymologies and Genealogies:
A Literary Anthropology of the French Middle Ages
The Scandal of the Fabliaux
Medieval Misogyny and the Invention of Western Romantic Love
God’s Plagiarist:
Being an Account of the Fabulous Industry and Irregular
Commerce of the Abbé Migne
The Anonymous Marie de France
A Needle in the Right Hand of God:
The Norman Conquest of 1066 and the Making
and Meaning of the Bayeux Tapestry
Text rendering of “ONE TOSS OF THE DICE NEVER WILL ABOLISH CHANCE” / “UN COUP DE DÉS JAMAIS N’ABOLIRA LE HASARD”
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ONE TOSS OF THE DICE
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NEVER
EVEN WHEN THROWN IN THE MEASURELESS
CIRCUMSTANCES
FROM THE DEPTHS OF A SHIPWRECK
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EVEN
if
the Abyss
turned white
stalled
roiling
beneath a desperately
sloping incline
of its own
wing
in
advance fallen back from the difficulty of trimming its sails
and stopping the gushing
preventing the surges
deep in the very heart
the shadow buried in the deep by this alternative sail
almost the length
of the wingspan
of the great hull’s gaping breadth
a vessel
listing from side to side
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THE MASTER
risen
implying
from this conflagration
that there is
as one threatens
a unique Number which cannot
hesitates
by its arms a corpse
rather
than playing sides
like a cranky graybeard
on behalf
of the waves
one
that shipwreck
beyond old calculations
where skills are lost with age
once he grasped the helm
at his feet
of the seamless horizon
readied
moiling and merging
with the fist that would clasp it
fate and the winds
be any other
Spirit
to heave it
into the storm
to fold up division and pass proudly
separated from the secret it guards
invades the head
flows through the undulant beard
of the man himself
without a ship
no matter
where vain
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from ancient times not to open the hand
clenched
above the worthless head
legacy amidst disappearance
to someone
ambiguous
the ulterior immemorial demon
having
from dead lands
led
the old man toward this final meeting with probability
this one
his boyish shade
caressed and polished and restored and washed
made supple by the waves and freed
from the hard bones lost between the planks
born
of a revel
the sea enticing the sire or the sire against the sea
an idle chance
Betrothal
whose
veil of illusion fluttered their obsession
like the phantom of a gesture
will tremble
will collapse
madness
WILL ABOLISH
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AS IF
A simple
in the silence
in an oncoming
hovers
insinuation
tangled in irony
or
the mystery
hurled
howled
eddy of hilarity and horror
round the vortex
without scattering
or fleeing it
and cradles its virgin symbol
AS IF
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a solitary wandering plume
save
a glancing encounter with a toque of midnight
that fixes it
in velvet crumpled by a dark guffaw
this rigid whiteness
ridiculous
in opposition to the sky
too much
not to mark
faintly
anyone
bitter prince of the reef
wears it like a heroic headpiece
irresistible but limited
by his trifling manly mind
in a thunderbolt
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anxious
expiatory and pubescent
mute
The lucid and lordly aigrette
on the invisible brow
scintillates
then shadows
a delicate dark form
in its sea siren’s sinuosity
with impatient terminal scurf
laughter
that
IF
of vertigo
upright
time enough
to slap
forked
a rock
false manor
all at once
evaporated in mists
which imposed
a limit on infinity
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IT WAS
born of the stars
IT WOULD BE
worse
neither
more nor less
indifferent but as much
THE NUMBER
IF IT EXISTED
other than as agony’s flickering hallucination
IF IT BEGAN AND ENDED
rising only to be denied and shut down when revealed
at last
by some profusion lavished in scarcity
IF IT HAD AMOUNTED
to a totality however meager
IF IT HAD ILLUMINATED
CHANCE
Falls
the plume
rhythmic suspense of disaster
to be sunk
in the first foam
whence once its delirium surged to a peak
withered
by the identical sameness of the vortex
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NOTHING
of the memorable crisis
or the event
might
have been accomplished with no result in sight
human
WILL HAVE TAKEN PLACE
an ordinary swell pours out absence
BUT THE PLACE
some lapping below as if to water down the empty act
abruptly which else
by its lies
would have justified
extinction
in this region
of waves
where all reality dissolves
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EXCEPT
in the heights
PERHAPS
as far as a place
can fuse with the beyond
apart from the interest
assigned to it
in general
by such a slant and such a slope
of fires
toward
what must be
the Septentrion or North
A CONSTELLATION
cold from neglect and disuse
not so much
that it does not count
on some empty and superior surface
the successive shock
from the stars
of a final reckoning in the making
watching
doubting
rolling
blazing and brooding
before stopping
at some last point that consecrates it
All Thought casts one Toss of the Dice
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UN COUP DE DÉS
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JAMAIS
QUAND BIEN MÊME LANCÉ DANS DES CIRCONSTANCES
ÉTERNELLES
DU FOND D’UN NAUFRAGE
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SOIT
que
l’Abíme
blanchi
étale
furieux
sous une inclinaison
plane désespérément
d’aile
la sienne
par
avance retombée d’un mal à dresser le vol
et couvrant les jaillissements
coupant au ras les bonds
très à l’intérieur résume
l’ombre enfouie dans la profondeur par cette voile alternative
jusqu’adapter
à l’envergure
sa béante profondeur en tant que la coque
d’un bâtiment
penché de l’un ou l’autre bord
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LE MAÎTRE
surgi
inférant
de cette conflagration
que se
comme on menace
l’unique Nombre qui ne peut pas
hésite
cadavre par le bras
plutôt
que de jouer
en maniaque chenu
la partie
au nom des flots
un
naufrage cela
hors d’anciens calculs
où la manœuvre avec l’âge oubliée
jadis il empoignait la barre
à ses pieds
de l’horizon unanime
prépare
s’agite et mêle
au poing qui l’étreindrait
un destin et les vents
être un autre
Esprit
pour le jeter
dans la tempête
en reployer la division et passer fier
écarté du secret qu’il détient
envahit le chef
coule en barbe soumise
direct de l’homme
sans nef
n’importe
où vaine
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ancestralement à n’ouvrir pas la main
crispée
par delà l’inutile tête
legs en la disparition
à quelqu’un
ambigu
l’ultérieur démon immémorial
ayant
de contrées nulles
induit
le vieillard vers cette conjonction suprême avec la probabilité
celui
son ombre puérile
caressée et polie et rendue et lavée
assouplie par la vague et soustraite
aux durs os perdus entre les ais
né
d’un ébat
la mer par l’aïeul tentant ou l’aïeul contre la mer
une chance oiseuse
Fiançailles
dont
le voile d’illusion rejailli leur hantise
ainsi que le fantôme d’un geste
chancellera
s’affalera
folie
N’ABOLIRA
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COMME SI
Une insinuation
au silence
dans quelque proche
voltige
simple
enroulée avec ironie
ou
le mystère
précipité
hurlé
tourbillon d’hilarité et d’horreur
autour du gouffre
sans le joncher
ni fuir
et en berce le vierge indice
COMME SI
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plume solitaire éperdue
sauf
que la rencontre ou l’effleure une toque de minuit
et immobilise
au velours chiffonné par un esclaffement sombre
cette blancheur rigide
dérisoire
en opposition au ciel
trop
pour ne pas marquer
exigüment
quiconque
prince amer de l’écueil
s’en coiffe comme de l’héroïque
irrésistible mais contenu
par sa petite raison virile
en foudre
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soucieux
expiatoire et pubère
muet
La lucide et seigneuriale aigrette
au front invisible
scintille
puis ombrage
une stature mignonne ténébreuse
en sa torsion de sirène
par d’impatientes squames ultimes
rire
que
SI
de vertige
debout
le temps
de souffleter
bifurquées
un roc
faux manoir
tout de suite
évaporé en brumes
qui imposa
une borne à l’infini
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C’ÉTAIT
issu stellaire
CE SERAIT
pire
non
davantage ni moins
indifféremment mais autant
LE NOMBRE
EXISTT-IL
autrement qu’hallucination éparse d’agonie
COMMENÇT-IL ET CESST-IL
sourdant que nié et clos quand apparu
enfin
par quelque profusion répandue en rareté
SE CHIFFRT-IL
évidence de la somme pour peu qu’une
ILLUMINT-IL
LE HASARD
Choit
la plume
rythmique suspens du sinistre
s’ensevelir
aux écumes originelles
naguères d’où sursauta son délire jusqu’à une cime
One Toss of the Dice Page 28