Diomedea exulans

[truepenny]

The Wandering Albatross.

This post started as a simple response to some suggestions I got about tattoos. vassilissa suggested an albatross--which I thought was a lovely idea, but which also sent me straight to a particularly apocalyptic illustration I once saw for The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (which I thought was Doré, but which actually seems to be the product of my own fevered imagination)--and then oursin suggested an albatross in flight. And the compass needle in my head swung over and said thataway!.

Then, this morning, oursin reminded me of a Baudelaire poem which I'd completely forgotten about, "L'Albatros."


L'Albatros

Souvent, pour s'amuser, les hommes d'équipage
Prennent des albatros, vastes oiseaux des mers,
Qui suivent, indolents compagnons de voyage,
Le navire glissant sur les gouffres amers.

A peine les ont-ils déposés sur les planches,
Que ces rois de l'azur, maladroits et honteux,
Laissent piteusement leurs grandes ailes blanches
Comme des avirons traîner à côté d'eux.

Ce voyageur ailé, comme il est gauche et veule!
Lui, naguère si beau, qu'il est comique et laid!
L'un agace son bec avec un brûle-gueule,
L'autre mime, en boitant, l'infirme qui volait!

Le Poëte est semblable au prince des nuées
Qui hante la tempête et se rit de l'archer;
Exilé sur le sol au milieu des huées,
Ses ailes de géant l'empêchent de marcher.
                         --Charles Baudelaire


And a translation (mine and not great, but better than some I found with a quick Google) here:

The Albatross

Often, to amuse themselevs, the crew capture albatrosses, the great birds of the sea who follow, lazy companions on the voyage, the ship gliding over the bitter gulfs.

Scarcely have they laid them on the boards when these kings of the blue, clumsy and ashamed, piteously trail their great white wings like oars dragged near the water.

This wingèd voyager, how awkward and weak he is! He, lately so beautiful, is comic and ugly! One pokes at his beak with his pipe; another imitates, limping, this cripple who flies.

The Poet is like the prince of clouds who haunts the storm and laughs at the archer, exiled on the ground in the midst of scorn, his giant's wings making it hard for him to walk.


It's Baudelaire: overwrought, over-the-top, and weirdly beautiful all at the same time. It gives the albatross as an image a register that speaks to the rest of my life as much as it does to this damn dissertation. And that feels important.

---
WORKS CITED
Baudelaire, Charles. "L'Albatros." Les Fleurs du Mal. 1861. Ed. Claude Pichois. N.p.: Éditions Gallimard, 1972.

Comments

[pbprincess.livejournal.com]

Ah, but will you tatoo it around your neck?

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

That is a length to which I will not go. I'm fine with life imitating art, but there are limits.

[oracne.livejournal.com]

An albatross tattoo could rock.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

No, the illustration I'm remembering is one of the Mariner with the Albatross around his neck. I have no idea where I saw it or who it's by.

[larryhammer]

I seem to recall a Doré illo of just that, with the weird blue and white engraving effects.

---L.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

I don't remember the blue & white effects, although since I can't remember where or when I saw this picture, one could argue that my memory is clearly not to be trusted.

And wherever and whatever this picture is, it doesn't seem to have an online presence. For lo I have Googled and come up wanting.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Yeah, and that's not it. The one I'm remembering has the Mariner front and center and is incredibly Gothic and apocalyptic-looking. The Doré stuff on-line is mostly just dark and beautiful.

[larryhammer]

Doing a only a sketchy search online, it looks like nobody has the complete Doré engravings. A trip to the Dover edition might be in order. (Mine, alas, was sold off a couple moves ago.)

---L.