Ecstasy | Paul Éluard #poem

I recently finished reading Deborah Levy’s living autobiography trilogy. Real Estate was the third and final installment. For her epigraph she chose the final two lines in Paul Éluard’s poem ‘Ecstasy’ (in bold below). Her version was translated by Peter Read.

I have searched high and low and can find no other reference to Peter Read and Éluard, but I did find another unattributed translation of ‘Ecstasy’ that, like Read’s translation, uses the same choice of ‘landscape’ throughout the poem, instead of ‘land’. I prefer the imagery of this translation and can understand why Levy chose the final two lines of Read’s version instead of Kline’s.

Levy goes on to refer to her epigraph a few pages into Real Estate when musing about her dream home. This dream home, or unreal estate, was a constant refrain throughout the book and was intimately linked to her themes about ageing, being a woman (in a man’s world) and living alone.

_{The wish for this home was intense, yet I could not place it geographically, nor did I know how to achieve such a spectacular house with my precarious income. All the same, I added it to my imagined property portfolio, along with a few other imagined minor properties….In this sense, I owned some unreal estate. The odd thing was that every time I tried to see myself inside this grand old house, I felt sad. It was as if the search for home was the point, and now that I had acquired it and the chase was over, there were no more branches to put in the fire.}

Paul Éluard was born on the 14th December 1895 – 18 November 1952 as Eugène Émile Paul Grindel. He was a poet and one of the founders of the Surrealist movement. He chose his maternal grandmother’s name as his pen name. He wrote/first published ‘L’exstase’ on the 24th November 1946.

Ecstasy | L'exstase in 'Derbiers poèmes d'amour' (1963)
Version 1

I am in front of this feminine land
Like a child in front of the fire
Smiling vaguely with tears in my eyes
In front of this land where all moves in me
Where mirrors mist where mirrors clear
Reflecting two nude bodies season on season

I’ve so many reasons to lose myself
On this road-less earth under horizon-less skies
Good reasons I ignored yesterday
And I’ll never ever forget
Good keys of gazes keys their own daughters
in front of this land where nature is mine

In front of the fire the first fire
Good mistress reason
Identified star
On earth under sky in and out of my heart
Second bud first green leaf
That the sea covers with sails
And the sun finally coming to us

I am in front of this feminine land
Like a branch in the fire.

Translated by A. S. Kline

Version 2

I am in front of this feminine landscape
Like a child in front of the fire
Smiling vaguely and with tears in my eyes
In front of this landscape where everything moves within me
Where mirrors fog up or mirrors light up
Reflecting two naked bodies season against season

I have so many reasons to get lost
On this earth without paths and under this sky without horizon
Beautiful reasons that I ignored yesterday
And that I will never forget
Beautiful keys of key glances daughters of themselves
In front of this landscape where the nature is mine

Before the fire the first fire
Good reason mistress
Star identified
And on the earth and under the sky outside of my heart and in my heart
Second bud first green leaf
That the sea covers with its wings
And the sun at the end of everything coming from us

I am in front of this feminine landscape
Like a branch in the fire.

Unknown translation, possibly Peter Read?

• This post is part of A Poem For a Thursday with Jennifer @Holds Upon Happiness

_{This post was written in the area we now call the Blue Mountains within the Ngurra [country] of the Dharug and Gundungurra peoples. This Reading Life recognises the continuous connection to Country, community and culture of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. They are the traditional custodians of the lands, seas, and skies on which we live and they are this nations first storytellers.}