Un chant mystérieux tombe des astres d'or. [05.05.03] [mood| serene] [French: "A mysterious anthem falls from the golden stars."]
[music| "A Subtle Dagger" | Thrice]
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| [Ophelia, Alexandre Cabanel] |
|
Arthur Rimbaud La blanche Ophélia flotte comme un grand lys, Flotte très lentement, couchée en ses longs voiles... —On entend dans les bois lointains des hallalis. Voici plus de mille ans que la triste Ophélie
Le vent baise ses seins et déploie en corolle
Les nénuphars froissés soupirent autour d'elle;
O pâle Ophélia! belle comme la neige! Oui, tu mourus, enfant, par un fleuve emporté! —C'est que les vents tombant des grands ponts de Norwège T'avaient parlé tout bas de l'âpre liberté C'est qu'un souffle, tordant ta grande chevelure,
C'est que la voix des mers folles, immense râle,
Ciel! Amour! Liberté! —Et le Poëte dit qu'au rayons des étoiles Tu viens chercher, la nuit, les fleurs que tu cueillis, Et qu'il a vu sur l'eau, couchée en ses longs voiles, La blanche Ophélia flotter, comme un grand lys. |
Translated by Oliver Bernard White Ophelia floats like a great lily; Floats very slowly, lying in her long veils... —In the far-off woods you can hear them sound the mort. For more than a thousand years sad Ophelia
The wind kisses her breasts and unfolds in a wreath
The ruffled water-lilies are sighing around her;
O pale Ophelia! beautiful as snow! Yes child, you died, carried off by a river! —It was the winds descending from the great mountains of Norway That spoke to you in low voices of better freedom. It was a breath of wind, that, twisting your great hair,
It was the voice of mad seas, the great roar,
Heaven! Love! Freedom! —And the poet says that by starlight You come seeking, in the night, the flowers that you picked And that he has seen on the water, lying in her long veils White Ophelia floating, like a great lily. |
The title of tonight's entry, as you might have noticed, comes from "Ophelia" (seen above), written by a brilliant and delectably dark French poet named Arthur Rimbaud, who wrote the entire body of his works at age 18, giving up poetry altogether before 20—this infamous enfant terrible comes with my highest recommendations.
Good evening, ladies and germs! I realise that it has been nearly two months since my last entry, and I apologise for depriving you all of my glorious presence for so very long; it amuses me to find, however, that I actually get far more attention when I don't post than when I do—in fact, I received over 40 karma without doing a bloomin' thing. Oh, well, c'est la vie, as they say. Let's move on to the meaningless drivel about my equally meaningless life, shall we?
How am I, you ask? Well, I'll give you all the answer I've given to all my friends lately: Life is so excruciatingly uneventful at the moment that I'm contemplating suicide just so I have something to do. I'm kidding, of course (in fact, I'm not sure I've ever been completely serious about anything, much less something as ludicrous as suicide), but that's honestly how I feel. I'm going to school, yes, and taking three classes (Introduction to Acting, Grammar of Modern English, and Advanced Expository Writing) that aren't particularly challenging; aside from that, I am doing absolutely nothing with my life, and I feel like such a worthless excuse for a human being for merely squandering what are supposedly the best years of my life.
What I need to do is give my life meaning again; as of now, I have become so overwhelmingly lethargic and apathetic that I've had trouble even writing journal entries (as evidenced by my nearly two-month hiatus). I need to start writing on The Conflagration of the Fripperies once again, dredge what little creativity and writing ability I might have from the depths of the Lethe, and make something of myself and my art, or I swear by the sweet loins of Zeus that I'm going to start wondering what makes living so bloody worth it. For the past couple months I have done nothing with myself, and I can feel my intellect and innate abilities plummeting into the abyss of failure, can feel my spirit plodding through the Slough of Despond; I'm dying, not from cancer (which seems to be the en vogue lifestyle disease at the moment) but rather from the crushing grasp of Routine. Taedium vitae consumes me, and all I need to pluck myself from the gaping maw of disaster is one small thing to make me feel like a proper, productive human being again. That buoy to which I shall cling while adrift in this, the rolling ocean of futility, is my brainchild, The Conflagration. But enough of that horsefeathers—on to things probably just as ineffectual, but at least in a different vein.
Next week (Friday, to be specific) I turn 19, thereby entering into what I have lovingly deemed the Limbo Years, those between 18 and 21; it seems that life during these two years (and quite possibly beyond them) is characterised by feelings of uselessness and boredom to inconceivable extremes, and that would certainly explain the symptoms from which I have been suffering in recent months. I believe that age is an arbitrary figure by which people attempt to gauge and categorise others; any conclusions taken from age alone are codswallop, I've found, as an incredible number of people at every age are awe-inspiringly capable. If anything, I believe that aging does naught but ruin the natural gifts bestowed upon young people: idealism, beauty, and innocent intelligence. With every year that passes I learn that growing older is not so much a matter of taking on more responsibilities as it is resigning oneself to the world and its atrocities; in essence, allowing one's idealism to be crushed by the burden of "realism" (which often results in bitter cynicism), and gaining "wisdom" by learning how to conform to society's conventions and preconceived notions of correctitude (which my parents call "playing The Game"). It is terrifying to think that when I'm middle-aged and observing whatever horrors surround me in the world of the future (I shudder to think), that these will be my "Good Ol' Days," the Golden Age of which I will think fondly while lamenting the sense of morality and dignity that we had in 2003. (To imagine any time worse than our own is impossible, but unfortunately it will happen whether we can fathom the depths of its enormity or not.)
I realise that this is going to come as something of a shock to those of you accustomed to reading my prolix entries on the futility of my life, but I believe that I'm going to stop for this evening. Frankly, I'm quite tired, and I don't feel like my writing is where I want it to be at the moment, so it's for the best if I simply leave it at this for now. I promise to you that I shall write more tomorrow (later today, rather), but until then I leave you with an incisive quote from Theodore Roosevelt: "To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public." Until next we meet, I bid you farewell. Au revoir, tout le monde!
[Exit Orpheum.]