coup de dés - 1

l'Abime

Abyss = sea = blank page = Chance

l'Abime blanchi

le mer (the whitened Abyss void, chaos of chance)

« l'Abime blanchi étale furieux »

the whitened, slack-yet-furious Abyss

le hasard

His hasard is more ontological and impersonal — closer to cosmic contingency or the condition of signification itself than to the narrator’s socially and erotically charged “chance terrible. It is a metaphysical and linguistic principle: the irreducible abyss of contingency, randomness, and fate — that which no “coup de dés” (throw of the dice, whether poetic creation, thought, or existential act) can abolish or fully master. This poem stages a heroic confrontation: the poetic act tries to give form to chance (through typography, white space, constellation, silence) without ever eliminating it. “Toute Pensée émet un Coup de Dés” — every thought throws dice, yet the throw never abolishes the underlying hasard.

dresser le vol

by trying to right itself, lit. fly like a bird

« Un coup de dés ...

... jamais n'abolira le hasard », le hasard an never be abolished b/c the very instrument - the wing = ship = poem - is doomed in advance (OC 459)

mer étale

dead calm; "slack sea": technical term for tide when it is neither rising or falling

furieux, furieuse

seething with fury, raging

une inclinaison

a list, near banking angle when ship heels over

plan, plane

? (perfectly flat, the ship is heeled over violently)

d'aile la sienne

of its own wing/sail; la sienne, agreeing w aile; bird metaphor

désespérément

hopelessly

« rien n'aura eu lieu... »

"nothing will have taken place," fut. pf. — speculative tone

« rien n'aura eu lieu ... que le lieu »

"nothing will have taken place…except the place," lieu is abstract, referring to a conceptual or existential space, perhaps the poem itself or the void it evokes

« Ou cela que »

"or that which," A la nue accablante tu, l. 9

une entrechat

a leap, spring

alentour

environnant (surrounding)

un feuillet

un page (leaf of a book; pamphlet)

le mesure

metre, tempo

disperser

étaler (spread out, scatter)

l'empiètement sur

intrusion sur (encroachment on)

l'essai (m)

the attempt; test; essay

estimer

apprécier (think highly of)

une conflagration

un catastrophe (disaster)

le fond d'un naufrage

les profondeurs d'un naufrage (depths of a shipwreck)

soit que (lit.)

supposing, whether (OC 460)

blanchi

whitened by foam from the shipwreck

Esprit

Spirit, Mind, Wind - breath/gust that fills sails - Breath; the Master's inner force

pour le jeter

in order to throw it, the rolled dice, into the storm. "le" refers directly back to the Number clenched in the fist

dans la tempête

dans la conflagration (into the tempest, into the heart of the catastrophe, the Abyss, the chaos of chance which the Master seeks to defy)

en reployer la division

in folding back the division, like sails being furled or a wave curling over; re-fold the storm's divisions, collapse the multiplicities of chance back into unity, as though the Master could force the tempest to close in on itself and submit

et passer fier

and pass by proudly - in triumph — defiant, like a ship that has weathered the gale

la division

the binary split of chance, yes/no; also the poem's typographic prismatic subdivisions

hésiter

to pause, Esprit / Master does not throw. Instead, he pauses; a fatal indecision. This is the poem's core drama: the throw that never quite happens

le cadavre

le mort (the hesitation of the Master makes him corpse-like: rigid, immobile)

par le bras écarté

by the arm - with the clenched fist - held out - from the body

du secret qu'il détient

of the secret - the unique Number - that he holds, and refuses to release

plutôt que de jouer

rather than to play a game - like dice; echo of chance as a game against fate; like a dropped anchor

en maniaque chenu

as a hoary/grizzled maniac; Master rejects becoming this figure: an old madman desperately rolling the dice one last time

la partie

a single round of play, the coup de dés itself, where everything is at stake

au nom des flots

on behalf of the waves, Abyss, jaillissements

un envahit

one wave, invades/overwhelms; the Master's hesitation allows the Abyss to flood back in

le chef (naut.)

the head of the ship, the captain

barbe soumise aux écumes

a beard submissive to the seafoam

Les Épaves (Baudelaire)

wrecks, fallen souls adrift in modern spleen, moral shipwrecks amid urban chaos; B's voyagers in "Le Voyage" seek escape but find only infernal repetition and death

« tout est abîme » (Baudelaire, Le Gouffre)

L'Abîme ("all-consuming void" where actions, dreams, words are part of the abyss)

« naufrage cela direct de l'homme sans nef n'importe où vaine »

that direct shipwreck of the man without a vessel, nowhere in particular, indifferent space, in vain; image of the human subject as shipless, placeless, futile

vaine

futile / empty: all is in vain, the hesitation, clenched fist, the dream. Chance wins; the throw never abolishes it

hormis

sauf pour

valeureux, valeureuse

courageux (valiant)

se montrer

apparaître

couvrant

covering, smothering -- sails are covering the sprays of water

à l'usage

avec utilisation

imprévu

inattendu (unexpected)

dédier, dédiant

consacrer (dedicate)

aisément

facilement

blanchir de l'argent

whitened

par avance

in advance, preemptively

une retombée

falling back, agreeing w aile; the sail has fallen back, collapsed again

d'un mal à

une difficulté à faire (qn)

un jaillissement

les torrents (explosive leaps and sprays of water)

le bond de la mer

la houle de la mer (sea surge and swell)

enfoui

enterré (buried, sunken)

l'envergure

wingspan, bredth, i.e., the full stretch of the sails

coupant au ras (d'eau)

shearing off at water level

résumer

récapituler (sum up everything, all the chaos is compressed to a single point deep inside the hull)

l'ombre enfouie

buried shadow

cette voile alternative

this alternating sail, slipping from 1 side to another in the heeling/rocking

sa béante profondeur

it's own gaping depth - the void beneath the sail

penché de l'un ou l'autre bord

listing from one side to the other

une voile

bateau à voile (sailing boat; sail)

la coque

hull of boat

surgi

s'étant levé (arisen, having risen up from the depths)

« avec l'âge oublié »

forgotten with age

anciens calculs

beyond ancient computations, navigational astronomy, perhaps counting of syllables of alexandrine metre

que se prépare s'agite et mêle au poing qui l'étreindrait

that readies itself, stirs and mingles with the fist that would grasp it

comme on menace un destin et les vents

as one threatens destiny and the winds

l'unique Nombre que ne peut pas être un autre

the unique Number than cannot be another; the unique throw in which there is only 1 outcome, 1 face of the dice

unanime

commun, partagé

le bâtiment

la structure (of a ship's hull; of a building)

penché

le gîte d'un navire (leaning, listing of a ship)

LE MAÎTRE (3X)

"Maître," the ghost of the great shipwrecked figure; the absolute Poet, dice-thrower, the creator who almost touches the Ideal but is swallowed by the void; SM' mythic self-portrait. P's term for SM.

chenu; le chêne

white with old age; the oak

un poing, la main crispé

fist, the turning point of the poem, the fist is a desiring machine that wants to grip chance, raised against the white abyss

empoigner

saisir (to grab)

la barre de gouvernail

helm, tiller

les ais

les bois (timbers)

l'aïeul; les aïeuls

le vieil homme, les ancêtres

la hantise

l'obsession (obsessive fear)

écarté

abandonné; isolé, éloigné (discarded; isolated, remote)

détenir

posséder, détenir

enrouler

wind up, coil up

joncher

répandre (strew, litter)

éperdu

désemparé (distraught)

hurlé, hurler

crié, crier (screamed; to scream)

effleurer

toucher légèrement (touch lightly, brush up against)

voltiger

planer (hover, flutter about)

chiffonné

froissé (crumpled)

la blancheur

pureté (whiteness)

soucieux, soucieuse

anxious