LES AMOURS DE CASSANDRE: CLXVII	I’D LIKE TO BURN ALL THE DROSS ...
Pierre de Ronsard	tr. A.S.Kline
Je veus brusler pour m'en voler aux cieux, Tout l'imparfait de ceste escorce humaine, M'eternisant, comme le filz d'Alcméne, Qui tout en feu s'assit entre les Dieux. Ja mon esprit chatouillé de son mieux, Dedans ma chair, rebelle se promeine, Et ja le bois de sa victime ameine Pour s'enflammer aux rayons de tes yeulx. O sainct brazier, ô feu chastement beau, Las, brusle moy d'un si chaste flambeau Qu'abandonnant ma despouille cognue, Nét, libre, et nud, je vole d'un plein sault, Oultre le ciel, pour adorer là hault L'aultre beaulté dont la tienne est venue.	I’d like to burn all the dross of my human clay, So that I could take my flight to heaven, Making myself divine, like Alcmene’s son, Hercules, joining the gods, all ablaze. Already my spirit, longing for better ways, Paces through my flesh, rebelliously, And already brings the victim fuel to feed His immolation in your vision’s rays. O holy pyre, O flame that’s nourished by A fire divine, may your fierce heart now burn My familiar surface so completely, I, Free and naked, might with a single flight Rise, beyond the sky, to adore in turn That other beauty from which your own derives.

Note: Hercules, Alcmene’s son, tormented by the shirt of Nessus immolated himself on a pyre on Mount Oeta, and was deified.

Trans. Copyright © A.S.Kline 2004

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