Nov 192010
 

Charles Algernon Swinburne

In days now past there lived an adamant old man;
His brow was calm, his eye unflinching: Death trembled
At the sight of him, vanquished by his satyr-gaze;
And Pain, that gnaws and gnashes, grinding with steel teeth,
Squirmed beneath his foot like a whipped, whimpering dog.
Now and then from his swelling heart a word or two
Burst forth, corrosive, cynical, appalling;
The whole world bowed before this aged colossus,
Hate along with Love, Evil along with Goodness:
To see him laugh and dream was to know that nothing –
Not Desire, whose sparkling eye bedazzles,
Not Man who roars, not God who trumpets and thunders,
Not frightful Virtue, scourge of the embittered heart –
Could cause the slightest lifting of his ancient brow.
He saw the world as vast, vacant, and unchanging;
Gomorrah bathed him in the light of its red fires,
And all of vicious Capri blazed before his eyes;
He ponders; and seems to hold in the hollow of his hand
That great lost age, now faded into ghostly mist;
Sporus, blood-soaked, in bed with Elagabalus,
And pleasure hidden within the deepest horror,
And the hideous baths of that grim emperor
Who forced ravished little children and weeping girls
To nibble his naked flesh like frightened minnows
And picked the fairest boys to prick and suck their blood;
The succubus who prowls and laughs among the tombs;
Semiramis swooning, pleasured in the stable;
And Lust dining next to Murder at the table;
And savage Sappho, fire racing through her body;
And the abyss: and love, lawless and unbridled,
That thing a lewd faun hides beneath his garments;
And the queen, beast-besotted in her appetites,
Panting in ecstasies of monstrous, sweet delight,
Mother of the Minotaur and Phaedra’s sister;
And dread Venus of Aphaca, nature’s monster;
All the blazing fires with all the vile rottenness;
And Retz, inhaling ashes redolent of flesh
And smoke of roasting corpses, wafted in the breeze;
Cinyras debauched, lying on his daughter’s breast;
All that arouses, resonates, thrills, and explodes;
The earth inflamed, a monster at feverish sport;
The heavens, a whorehouse painted bawdy blue
In which a phallic God lets loose, spurting and gushing,
His metallic juices erupting in torrents;
Where the moon cruises, hunting for satisfaction;
Where the mighty sun penetrates with brazen rays
And, hot and naked, shamelessly, ceaselessly spills
The surging flood of his prodigious blood-red seed;
(For sunbeams defile; the dark side of heaven
Is the foul, putrid bowel of the universe);
With a deep and wild look, he paced; and all
Sodom Sprang to life, dreamed its dreams, burned, and shrieked within him.

He belonged to a golden age, to ancient gods;
His presence struck sparks of fascinated terror;
His massive jaw hinted at enormous appetites;
He had an air of glorious, satanic boldness;
When he kissed, he wanted blood; he was voracious;
His wolfish smile gleamed, a gaping, dazzling rictus;
His hot breath blew like a desert wind, furious;
He called to mind Priapus in the garden shade
Gnawing his nymph’s bronzed nape with his beautiful teeth
This was the Infinite’s vicious younger brother.

Furrowing his brow, he saw his past come alive,
The Marseilles saturnalia spiced with Spanish fly,
The lair in Arcueil, unguents, and the keen knife
He used for slicing open naked, living flesh.

A bitter, cold contempt swelled his turbulent breast.
The Empire had caught him in its filthy clutches;
Yet, though imprisoned, he smiled. He had his own gods.
He saw and understood it all; nothing surprised him.
A fierce hunger stirred in the soul’s depths of a man
Greater than Bonaparte, greater than anyone.

Now, one night a youth – he was only twenty-two
Saw that pale, proud face, the crown of silvery hair,
Those dark eyes and the cunning, imperious mouth;
The young man trembled. That night he was reading Justine;
As if in prayer, he looked upward, lifting his gaze
From the forbidden page to the smiling old man.
Awestruck and amazed, he asked, “Who is standing there?
What sort of man is he? I’d like to know his name.
His face, the movements of his hand, bring to mind
The splendid, sportive wantonness of ancient Rome;
All the great ones, immortalized in infamy,
Who played the husband to women and the wife to men;
All the bedazzlement within the deepest nights;
The gutted gladiator, naked in the ring,
His neck crushed beneath the heel of an emperor
Whose beardless lips brush a eunuch’s downy cheek;
All that nature abhors and that a jealous God,
Craven and envious, drowns in a sea of fire;
And all that rises again, hidden from His ire;
All that Socrates dreamed and Tiberius wrought;
The lewd, salacious teat on which the whole world sucks,
And the roadside signal silently acknowledged;
The tricks a roving satyr liked to teach the shepherd,
And all that deadly virtue castrates and crushes;
The sounds one hears at night; whinnying and roaring;
And all that flows out in streams and all that glitters;
The unconquerable man, his lordly spirit all aglow,
Who grabs God by the ear, calling him ‘old fellow’,
Contemplates eternity and snaps his fingers;
Who holds quivering virtue sobbing in his hands;
And the dark blood spurting hot; and hidden alcoves;
And shameless women, beautifully disgusting;
And the laughter of the man sharpening his teeth
On smooth, pearl-white shoulders and hot; heaving breasts.
All these thoughts come and go, revealed in his bright eyes,
And in the curling of his lascivious mouth.
Who are you, then, old man? Whence come you? What gave you
The mournful air of a silent, beckoning god?
What superhuman hand placed that arrogant smile
On your pale and haughty lips? What is the meaning
Of the flame burning in the black depths of your eyes
Like lightning flashing in the night, enlivening
The drab face of things with bursts of radiant gold?’

“My child”, the old man replied, “I am called de Sade.”

Translated by Elisabeth Gitter. Published in TLS 2003.10.10

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