Tuesday, April 03, 2018

Royalty

Royalty
by Arthur Rimbaud


One lovely morning, among a very gentle people, a beautiful man and woman shouted in the public square: "My friends, I want her to be queen!" "I want to be queen!" She was laughing and trembling. He was speaking to his friends of revelation, of trial overcome. They swooned against each other.

In fact they were king and queen a whole morning, when the carmine hangings rose up on the houses, and all the afternoon, when they processed in the direction of the palm gardens.

My translation. The French is here. Another translation by Bertrand Mathieu is here.