for each man ...

kills the thing he loves...
c'est du Wilde, la Ballade de la geôle de Reading, pour être exacte.

Il a écrit ce long poème quand il purgeait sa peine pour sodomie. ce qu'il a vécu en prison, les gens qu'il a rencontrés l'ont fortement marqué, et il en est ressorti avec ce magnifique hymne à la tolérance, à la pitié, à la compassion, sur le ton du: il y a des gens qui font des choses horribles, mais sommes nous si purs qu'on puisse leur jeter la pierre ? potentiellement, on est tous pareils. c'est un peu l'idée derrière la geôle de Reading, en plus de la souffrance, de l'enfermement, de la tristesse... souvent, quand je pense à ce poème, je me trompe dans le titre, et je l'appelle "the sad ballad of reading goall", en faisant un mélange avec la "ballad of sad café" d'un auteur dont le nom m'échappe presque tous les jours de l'année.

un extrait, du centre du texte :

The ballad of Reading goal

He did not wear his scarlet coat,

For blood and wine are red,

And blood and wine were on his hands

When they found him with the dead,

The poor woman whom he loved

And murdered in her bed

He walked among the Trial Men

In a suit of shabby grey

A cricket cap was on his head

And his step seemed light and gay;

But I never saw a man who looked

So wistfully at the day.

I never saw a man who looked

With such a wistful eye

Upon that little tent of bleu

Which prisoners call the sky,

And at every drifting cloud that went

With sails of selves by.

I walked, with other souls in pain,

Within another ring,

And was wondering if the man had done

A great or little thing,

When a voice behind me whispered low,

“That fellow’s got to swing”.

Dear Christ, the very prison walls

Suddenly seemed to reel,

And the sky above my head became

Like a casque of scorching steel

And, though I was a soul in pain,

My pain I could not feel.

I only knew what hunted thought

Quickened his step, and why

He looked upon the garish day

With such a wistful eye;

The man had killed the thing he loved

And so he had to die.

*

Yet each man kills the thing he loves,

By each let this be heard,

Some do it with a bitter look

Some with a flattering word.

The coward does it with a kiss,

The brave man with a sword!

Some kill their love when they are young,

And some when they are old;

Some strangle with the hands of lust,

Some with the hands of Gold:

The kindest uses a knife, because

The dead so soon grow cold.

Some love too little, some too long,

Some sell, and other buy;

Some do the deed with many tears,

And some without a sight:

For each man kills the thing he loves

Yet each man does not die.

He does not die a death of shame

On a day of dark disgrace,

Nor have a hoose about his neck,

Nor a cloth upon his face,

Nor drop feet foremost through the floor

Into an empty space.

He does not sit with silent men

Who watch him night and day;

Who watch him when he tries to weep,

And when he tries to pray;

Who watch him, lest himself should rob

The prison of its pray.

He does not wake at down to see

Dead figures throng his room,

The shivering chaplain robed in white,

The sheriff stern with gloom

And the governor all in shiny black,

With the yellow face of doom.

He does not rise in piteous haste

To put on convict clothes,

While some coarse – mouthed Doctor gloats, and notes

Each new and nerve – twitched pose,

Fingering a watch whose little ticks

Are like horrible hammer blows.

He does not feel that sickening thirst

That sands one’s throat, before

The hangman with his gardener’s gloves

Comes through the padded door,

And bides one with three leathern thongs

The throat may thirst no more

He does not bend his head to hear

The Burial office read,

Nor, while the anguish of his soul

Tells him he is not dead,

Cross his own coffin, as he moves

Into the hideous shed.

He does not stare upon the air

Through a little roof of glass:

He does not pray with lips of clay

For his agony to pass;

Nor feel upon his shuddering cheek

The kiss of Cariaphas.

Oscar Wilde, July, 7^th, 1896.

Cette ballade est encore très vraie aujourd'hui, la misère des condamnés, la tristesse des prisonniers, c'est un hymne au pardon, je pense, et également, un regard posé sans complaisance sur la condition humaine, sur qui nous sommes...

une poète (j'abhorre le mot poétesse), en a fait une réécriture, elle a voulu s'attacher au petit refrain, et a, en quelques sorte, rempli les blancs, sur la façon dont le meurtre s'accomplit. Il glisse ici du plan physique au plan symbolique, sans que cela ne lui enlève rien de sa force. c'est un poème de l'amertume, et de la désolation, un poème d'impuissance de la femme délaissée :

We would have made love this afternoon

Surely we would

We would have run ashore

Wrecked

Torn by an unforgettable grin

A grin that hurts you afterwards

And even while

Such a laugh that keeps a touch of eternity

Don’t even speak of those blue vertigoes

Our lips would have swelled

A fervour of absorption – remember

Our thighs would have wet

With our sweat and his semen

I’d have bruises on my bosom

The signs of his body – printed in mine

My claws on his back

My love for him on him for him to think of me

To think of what we had done and were still up to do

Of how we melted, licked and sucked

Of the bloomy agony of my face

Of how he died in me

It’s all dead now

And late in the night

In front of his mirror

He’d have to remember

Even the more unbearable

The way his soul flickered

A sense of losing himself

What he learnt

How far he went

How mesmerized he felt

And died

Attracted and repelled

A yield to passion, his own

Forgetting of my own craving for him

And thinking

Of how involved he is

And keeps growing

Of his choices

This killing he must…

True love would have found a way out

To escape it

To avoid it

True love would have fought a way out

Out of this necklace of hell – pearls

But he wouldn’t

And this pearl keeps growing into my mind

Grasping more substance

Till there’s nothing left

Rolling and swallowing

An empty seashore

This is my necklace

And I’m slightly stifling

Stifling between.

Saiorse MacCann

Il est intéressant de voir la richesse du texte original de Wilde, la façon dont il peut s'adapter à différents thèmes. A priori, c'étaient surtout des considérations humanistes qui animaient Wilde lorsqu'il l'a écrit, et on voit que Saoirse MacCann a réussi à lui donner un sens autre, sans pour autant annuler le premier. Il est étrange de voir comment la frustration, la colère en quelque sorte, cohabite avec la compréhension. c'est un peu l'idée qu'on se sauve toujours soi-même avant de sauver les autres, et que mis en danger, c'est l'instinct de survie qui prévaut. Ce n'est pas contre l'autre, c'est pour soi... Il n'y a que le véritable amour ("true love" est le titre de ce poème), qui permette de renverser la dynamique, le réflexe de conservation de soi avant les autres, mais il est rare et fugace. ce poème, c'est la prise de conscience amère qu'on ne peut forcer l'autre à nous aimer...