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Translation
To the reader
Stupidity, misguided ways, sin and stinginess
dwell in our minds and stir our bodies,
and we sustain our pleasant remorses
as beggars feed their vermin.
Our sins are stubborn, our repentance cowardly.
We sell our confessions for a fat price
and happily go back to tread the muddy path
thinking our measly tears will cleanse all our stains.
The great1 Satan himself lulls ceaselessly
our bewitched mind on the pillow of evil,
and the rich metal of our will
is soon vaporized by this adept chemist.
The devil himself holds the string that move us!
We find some appeal to disgusting objects
and walk down unafraid through stinking darkness
one step closer to hell with every passing day.
Just like a wretched debaucher gnawing at
the tortured breast of a decrepit whore,
we pilfer on the sly a clandestine pleasure
that we squeeze out firmly
like an old orange.
Packed, crawling like a million helminths,
a crowd of demons feasts in our brains,
and as we draw breath, Death flows with stiffled moans
down our lungs as on an invisible river .
If rape, poison, dagger, arson
haven't yet sewn their pleasant patterns
on the trite canvas of our pitiful fates,
it's because our soul, alas, is not bold enough.
Yet among jackals, panthers, bitches,
apes, scorpions, vultures, snakes,
shrieking, yelling, growling, crawling monsters
of the odious menagerie of our vice,
one stands out as the most ugly, mean and abject!
Though it would make no great fuss,
it would gladly turn the Earth into rubble
and swallow the world in a yawn.
It's boredom! Its eye brimming with unwitting tears,
it dreams of gallows while smoking its hooka.
You know this delicate monster well, O indiscrete reader,
O canting reader, my fellow, my brother!
- 1. a name of the devil based on Hermes Trismegistus
Guest on 2018-11-21
Tim_d_505✕
Mylène Farmer: Top 3
| 1. | Désenchantée |
| 2. | XXL |
| 3. | California |
Idioms from "Au lecteur"
| 1. | on the sly |
| 2. | un peuple de |
Comments
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermes_Trismegistus