Max Jacob
from Les Œuvres Burlesques et Mystiques de Frère Matorel,
For Children and Sophisticates
Through Paris of course
On your grey horse
Through Nevers don’t lag
On your green nag
Through Issoire as pillion
On your black stallion
Ah! he’s so fine and dandy!
Oh! so fine and dandy!
Tishoo!
The bell is tolling on
For my daughter Yvonne.
Who died in Castellane?
The general’s wife, Roxane.
Who died in La Rochelle?
The colonel’s niece, Belle!
Who died in Epinal?
The corporal’s wife, Sal!
Tishoo!
And in Paris, darling Daddy,
What’ll you give me, I’m not faddy?
I’ll give you as a birthday treat
A hazel-nut hat, a neat
Satin vanity case
To hold in your hand to see your face.
A white parasol in silk, built
With acorns up the hilt.
A gilt-edged gown to use
As security and shiny orange shoes.
Only put them on
On Sunday, Yvonne,
A necklace and jewels
Tishoo!
The bell is tolling on
For my daughter Yvonne!
The Paris bell has tolled: it’s said
It’s time to go to bed
The Nogent bell is striking
And Daddy can’t help liking
The idea of bed as well.
There goes the Going Gong, the Givet bell.
Oh no! not yet, Silly!
Buy me a Puffing Billy
You must! you must!
One that raises the dust
In front and behind.
Watch out, level-crossing ladies, mind!
Here comes Yvonne
Riding up on
Her iron horse, with daddy in tow
Hello! Hello!
Tishoo!
Max Jacob (1876-1944), friend of Apollinaire and Picasso, defies definition: he believed that personality was only ‘a persistent error’. A Jew who converted to Catholicism late in life, he was arrested by the Nazis and died in Drancy.
Translations by Christopher Pilling and David Kennedy of prose poems from Jacob’s Le Cornet à Dés (1917) appeared in MPT8. We include the French text of the poems here so that readers may appreciate their characteristic word-play, and the ingenuity of Pilling’s versions. His translations of poems by Corbière appear in this issue.
Translated by Christopher Pilling
Page(s) 136-137
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