A Season in Hell & Illuminations

by Arthur Rimbaud

  Reconditioned Voices; the brotherly awakening of all choral and orchestral energies and their instantaneous outcry; rare opportunity to liberate our senses!

  For sale: priceless Bodies—ignore race, world, sex, lineage! Riches rising to meet every step! A flood of diamonds, undammed.

  For sale: anarchy for everyone, satisfaction guaranteed to those with irreproachable taste; gruesome death guaranteed for lovers and zealots!

  For sale: living places and leaving places, sports, extravaganzas and creature comforts, and all the noise, movement, and hope they foment!

  For sale: mathematical certainties and astonishing harmonic leaps. Unimaginable discoveries and terminologies—available now.

  Wild, tireless bounds towards invisible splendor, intangible delight—alarming secrets for every vice—and the frightening gaiety of crowds.

  For sale: Bodies; voices; incalculable, inarguable riches—that will never be sold. Vendors keep selling! Salesmen have nothing but time.

  YOUTH

  I

  Sunday

  Beneath the sky’s unalterable collapse, memories and rhythms fill house, head, and spirit, as soon as all the number crunching is set aside.

  —A horse bolts across the suburban earth, through gardens and lumberyards, stabbed by carbonic plague. Somewhere in the world, a histrionic woman sighs after unforeseen abandonment. Desperadoes pine for storm, injury, and debauch. Along rivers, little children choke down curses.

  Let us return to our studies, despite the clamor of all-consuming work that collects and mounts in the masses.

  II

  Sonnet

  Man of ordinary make, flesh

  was it not once a fruit hanging in the orchard—o

  days of youth! the body a treasure to squander—o

  to love, a peril or power of the Psyche? Earth

  had slopes fertile with princes and artists,

  and your descendants and race drove you

  to crimes and to mourning: the world, your fortune

  and your peril. But now, this work done, you, your calculations,

  —you, your impatience—are but dance and

  voice, neither fixed nor forced, whether season

  for a double event: invention and success

  —a humanity both brotherly and singular, throughout a universe

  without a face—might and right reflecting both dance

  and voice, a voice we’re only beginning to hear.

  III

  At Twenty

  Instructive voices exiled … Naïve body bitterly sober …—Adagio.

  Ah the infinite egotism of adolescence! The studious optimism: that summer, the world was filled with flowers! Dying airs and dying shapes … A choir to soothe impotence and absence! A choir of glasses, of nocturnal melodies … Now nerves begin the hunt.

  IV

  Enough of this temptation of St. Anthony. The struggle against failing zeal, tics of puerile pride, terror, and collapse.

  But you’ll return to the task: every harmonic and architectural possibility will stir within you. Unbidden, perfect creatures will present themselves for your use. As if a dream, the curiosity of old crowds and idle luxuries will collect around you. Your memory and your senses will be nourishment for your creativity. What will become of the world when you leave? No matter what happens, no trace of now will remain.

  PROMONTORY

  Golden dawn and shivering night find our brig along the coast of this villa and its grounds that form a promontory as vast as Epirus and the Peloponnesus or the great islands of Japan or Arabia! Temples illuminated by the return of processions; sweeping views of coastal fortifications; dunes inscribed with the hot flowers of bacchanal; Carthaginian canals and embankments of a degenerate Venice; faint eruptions of Etnas, crevasses of flowers and glacial waters, washhouses settled in stands of German poplars; strange parks, hillsides hung with heads of Japanese trees, and circular facades of Scarborough or Brooklyn, the “Royal” or the “Grand”; their railways flank, plumb, and overhang a Hotel plucked from the history of the biggest, most ornate buildings in Italy, America, and Asia, whose windows and terraces are now brimming with lights, drinks, and heavy breezes, are wide open to souls of travelers and nobles alike —who permit, by day, the varied tarantellas of the shores—and even the ritornellos of art’s storied valleys, to miraculously decorate the Promontory Palace facades.

  DEVOTION

  To my Sister Louise Vanaen de Voringhem: her blue habit turned towards the North Sea. —For the shipwrecked.

  To my Sister Léonie Aubois d’Asby: hooooo; humming, stinking summer grass. —For fevers inflicting mothers and children.

  To Lulu—that demon—who has retained a taste for oratories from the time of girlfriends and grammar school. For the Men! For Madame .

  To the adolescent I was. To that holy old codger, hermitage or mission.

  To the spirit of the poor. And to an exalted clergy.

  Just as to any cult, in any place that memorializes a cult, amid whatever events wherever we wander, subject to a moment’s inspiration or the most serious vices.

  Tonight, in the towering icy mirrors of Circeto, fat as fish, and illuminated like the ten months of the red night—(the fire of her amber heart)—my only prayer, as mute as these nocturnal regions, precedes gallantries more violent than this polar chaos.

  At any price and in any place, even on metaphysical journeys.

  —But no more then.

  DEMOCRACY

  “The flag fits the filthy land, and our argot drowns the drum.

  “In cities, we nourish the most cynical prostitution. We slaughter logical revolts.

  “To fragrant republics in flood! To serve the most monstrous military-industrial exploitations.

  “Goodbye here, no matter where. Goodwill recruits, understand: our philosophy will be ferocity; ignorant of science, cads for comfort; to hell with the sputtering world. This road is real.

  “Forward, march!”

  STAGES

  The comedy of old perpetuates itself while divvying up its idylls:

  A street strewn with stages.

  A long wooden pier running from one end of a rocky field to the other where barbarian hoards roam beneath bare trees.

  Through corridors of black gauze following footsteps of passersby amidst lanterns and leaves.

  Birds straight out of medieval mystery plays swoop down onto the masonry of floating stages stirred by a canopied archipelago of spectators’ boats.

  Lyrical scenes, accompanied by fife and drum, bow beneath nooks nestled near ceilings of lounges in modern clubs and oriental halls of yore.

  The extravaganza moves to the top of an amphitheater crowned by a copse—or, instead, fidgets and warbles for the Boeotians, in the shadow of swaying trees on the fields’ ridge.

  On stage, the opéra-comique is divided at the intersection of ten partitions built between the gallery and the footlights.

  HISTORIC EVENING

  For example: an evening when a humble traveler withdraws from within earshot of impending economic doom, a master’s hands may awaken a pastoral harpsichord; they play cards at the bottom of a pond, a mirror that conjures queens’ and kings’ favorites; there are saints, veils, threads of harmony, and chromatic strains at sunset.

  He shudders at the approach of hunts and hordes. Comedy drips onto the grassy stage. Only then are the poor and weak ashamed, because of their stupid plans!

  In his captive sight—Germany builds its way to the moon; Tatar deserts shine—old conflicts endure amidst a Celestial Empire; over stairways and armchairs of stone—a little world, pale and flat, Africa and Occident, rises. Then, a ballet of known nights and seas, a worthless chemistry, impossible melodies.

  The same bourgeois magic wherever the mail train leaves us! The least sophisticated physicist feels it’s no longer possible to endure this intimate atmosphere, a fog of physical remorse whose manifestation is disease enough.

  No! The rise of hea
t, of sundered seas, of subterranean fires, of the planet’s untethering and its resultant exterminations—facts from the Bible and the Nornes, presented without the least malice, and to which serious people will bear witness. —And yet, hardly the stuff of legend.

  BOTTOM

  Reality always too troublesome for my exalted character—I nonetheless found myself chez Madame, transformed into a big, blue-gray bird, soaring near the ceiling’s moldings, trailing my wings through evening shadows.

  At the foot of the baldachino that held her beloved jewels and bodily charms, I became a giant bear with purple gums and thick, miserable fur, eyes fixed on the crystal and silver on the sideboard.

  Shadows swam, a torrid aquarium. In the morning—pugnacious June dawn—I ran to the fields, an ass, braying and brandishing my grief, until Sabines from the suburbs threw themselves upon my breast.

  Bottom: Rimbaud’s title for this poem was in English, as given.

  H

  Hortense’s every gesture is violated by every atrocity. Her solitude, the mechanics of eroticism; her lassitude, the dynamics of love. Under childhood’s watchful eye, she served, for countless years, as the fiery hygiene of races. Her door is open to misery. There, the morality of contemporary peoples is disembodied by her passion, or her action. —O the bitter shudder of young loves seen by gaslight on the bloody ground: Find Hortense!

  MOVEMENT

  The wagging movement along the banks of the river’s falls,

  The gulf at stern,

  The slope’s speed,

  The current’s pull

  Flows through unimaginable lights

  And new elements

  Travelers enveloped in a valley of waterspouts

  And strom.

  These are the world’s conquerors

  Seeking their own elemental fortunes;

  Sport and comfort travel with them;

  They bring knowledge

  Of race, classes, animals.

  Aboard this Vessel.

  Rest and restlessness

  Under a flood of light

  During terrible evenings of study.

  Because from the banter around the instruments—blood, flowers, fire, jewels—

  From the uneasy accountings aboard this fugitive craft,

  We see, rolling like seawalls past a motorized hydraulic road:

  Their monstrous store of studies, illuminated endlessly—

  They are driven into harmonic ecstasy,

  And heroics of discovery.

  Beneath astonishing atmospheric accidents

  A young couple remains alone on the ark

  —Can ancient savageries be absolved?—

  And sings, standing watch.

  GENIUS

  Because he has opened the house to foaming winter and to noisy summer, he is affection, he is now, he who purified what we drink, what we eat, he who is the charm of brief visits and the unearthly delight of destinations. He is affection, he is the future, strength, and love that we, standing in furious boredom, watch, passing through tempestuous skies, flying flags of ecstasy.

  He is love, reinvented in perfect measure, reason both marvelous and unforeseen, and eternity: an instrument adored for its fatality. We have all known the terror of his sacrifice and of our own: Let us delight in our health, in the vigor of our faculties, in selfish affection and passion for him who loves us throughout his infinite days …

  And we remember, and he embarks … And if Adoration goes away, and nonetheless rings, his promise rings: “Enough of these superstitions, these old bodies, these houses and days. Our time has fallen away!”

  He will not depart, he will not descend from a heaven once again, he will not manage to redeem women’s anger, and men’s laughter, and all our sin: for it is already done, by his being, and being loved.

  O his breaths, his faces, his flights; the terrible speed of formal perfection and action.

  O fertile mind, boundless universe!

  His body! Long-dreamt release and shattering grace meet new violence!

  The sight of him, his sight! All old genuflections and sorrows are lifted in his wake.

  His day! The abolition of all streaming, echoing sufferings through a music more intense.

  His stride! Migration is more momentous than ancient invasions.

  O he, and we! Old charities pale before such benevolent pride.

  O world! And the clear song of new sorrows!

  He knew us all and loved us all. This winter night, from cape to cape, from farthest pole to nearest château, from crowd to beach, from face to face, with weary emotions and waning strength, let us hail him, and see him, and send him forth, and down beneath the tides and up in snowy deserts, let us seek his sight, his breath, his body, his day.

  An early draft of Une saison en enfer.

  A DRAFT OF A SEASON IN HELL

  The following fragmentary draft of A Season in Hell was discovered in three pieces over the course of fifty years, beginning in 1897. Numerous transcriptions of the very fragile manuscript, which is difficult to read, exist. The translation is largely based on my collation of various transcriptions, principally those of Henri de Bouillane de Lacoste and Pierre Brunel, versions which differ considerably. Anything that appears within brackets is editorial conjecture. Interlineated text should be read as Rimbaud’s alternatives to or replacements of the text immediately below it.

  [FROM BAD BLOOD]

  Yes it’s one of my vices, which stops and which resumes walks with me again, and, my chest open, I would see a horrible, sickly heart. During my childhood, I felt the its roots

  of suffering hurled at my side: today, it climbsgrew to the sky, it felt to me is stronger than I am, it beats me, drags me, throws me to the ground.

  So ^it’s said renounce joy, avoid work, don’t play in the world,^my hope[?] and my higher treasons and my the last innocence, the last timidity.

  We’re off. March! the desert. the burden. ^blows misfortune. boredom. anger.—hell, science and spiritual delight etc.

  Under ^I’ll fight for which demon’s flag will I fight? What beast will I worship? through whose blood will I walk? What will I have to scream? What lies will I have to uphold? At what shrine will I have to attack which hearts have to break?

  Better yet, to avoid the bruta[l] hand to suffer[?] death’s dumb justice, I will hear complaints sung today, on the stepsthe hard life

  Justice endures[?]. Popular point. pure exhaustion—to lift the lid of the coffin with a withered fist, sit inside, and suffocate. I won’t grow old No old age. Nor any dangers, terror isn’t French.

  Ah! I feel so forsaken, that I direct my instincts for perfection at any sacred image: another raw deal.

  To what end O my curtailment, and o my unbelievable charity my De profunidis, domine! How I am a fool?

  Enough. Here’s the punishment! No more talk of innocence. March Oh! My loins transplant themselves, the heart [illegible word], the chest burns, the head is battered, night rolls in the eyes, in the Sun Do I know where, I go Where will we fight?

  Ah! My friend! My filthy youth! Go … go as the others advance they move altars and arms

  Oh! Oh. It’s weakness, foolishness, me!

  Let’s go, fire upon me or I’ll give up! The packsaddle May someone wound me, I throw myself on my belly, trampled beneath the hooves of a horse.

  Ah!

  I’ll get used to it.

  Oh that, I would lead a French life, and I would follow the path of honor.

  Click here to view images of this draft poem

  FALSE CONVERSION

  Unhappy day! I swallowed a great glass gulp of poison. The rage of despair made me blow up against nature objects, me, which I would tear apart. May the advice I received be thrice blessed! My My gut burned the violence of the venom contorted by limbs, left me deformed. I die of thirst. I suffocate. I can’t even cry out. This is hell eternal suffering. Look how the the flames rise! Demon, do your worst devil,

  As one should
/>   It’s

  a handsome and good

  Satan stir it up. I burn well ^ a good hell.

  I once glimpsed salvation conversion, goodness, happiness, salvation. Can I even describe what I saw no one is a poet in hell As soon as it was the apparition of thousands of charming people an admirable spiritual song, strength and peace, noble ambitions, what else can I say!

  Ah! noble ambitions! my hate. I’ll rebegin Rebegin furious

  The misfortune o my misfortune and the misfortune of others which matters little to me existence: fury in the blood animal life the stupefaction ^ and its still life: if damnation is eternal. Its still life still. The enactment of religious law why it was once sewn similarly in my spirit. We had The My parents caused my misfortune, and their own, which matters little to me. They took advantage of my innocence. Oh! The very idea of baptism. There are those who have lived badly, who live badly, and who feel nothing! It’s my baptism and the my weakness to which I am a slave. Still alive! Later the delights of damnation will deepen. I recognize the demon damnation. When A man who wishes to

  mutilate himself is assuredly damned. ^I believe in hell so here I am Some crime, quick, so that I can fall into the void, in accordance with the law of man.

  Shut up! Just shut up! This is all just shame and blame next to me; it’s Satan who Satan himself says that his fire is lowly, idiotic, that my anger is horribly ugly.—Enough …! Shut up! These are errors whispered in my ear the magics, th

  alchemies, mysticisms, fake perfumes, childish music, Satan