please-again-call-me-alsip

[please-again-call-me-alsip]

Mao's Plum Blossom Poem, January 1962

With wind and rain has Spring been outcast, with blasts and blizzards has Spring come back. A thousand feet of ice piles to the cliff, and yet a Branch of Blossoms charm the cold and stiff.

Charm though she does, she shan't flaunt at her peers, but only to announce that Spring is near. When hills of flowers come out with courage, she shall laugh among their flourish.

风雨送春归，飞雪迎春到。已是悬崖百丈冰，犹有花枝俏。 俏也不争春，只把春来报。待到山花烂漫时，她在丛中笑。

[please-again-call-me-alsip]

i can talk all day about how i feel isolated and anxious while i try and fail to be a good frevblr person, but i want to start somewhere obvious:

the chinese word for revolution is different in significant ways. well, ours is not a romance language. duh. but more importantly:

the chinese word for revolution does not have its roots in "the return of a planet or a star to the point from which it has departed" in the same way the french word "révolution" has. it also never has had a broad meaning such as "change in public affairs and in the things of the world", where a revolution could be "happy" or "strange" depending on specific circumstances. ETA: in the braodest sense of this word, then, the glorious rev and the amrev might still be considered revolutions.

but our word for revolution (革命) literally means "a renewal (革) of fates (命)".

the first time this word was mentioned was in the Book of Changes, where, although a comparison to the rotation of seasons is used, the remarkable part is that the "revolution (革命)" word itself already refers to two events: the civil war that led to the toppling of the Xia dynasty by the founder of the Shang dynasty, and the civil war that led to the toppling of the Shang dynasty by the founder of the Zhou dynasty, both of which were traditionally viewed positively by the majority of the 400+ monarchs since, although, obviously, if you're a statesman and your own lord got his powers by warring and looting against his predecessor, then conceding that such revolutions are always justified would encourage any civil unrest that could go on to topple your regime, and arguing that such revolutions are always unjustified would imply that your own lord was wrong to start his own dynasty, so such debates can be too hot to handle.

it would be reductive if i say that etymology of one single word can serve as evidence of some kind of mythical national essence. for the record, i do not believe such an essence exists.

what i want to emphasise is that, despite this word originally meaning "the establishing of dynasties that are considered better than their predecessors", it has mostly had a positive connotation.

and if any chinese speaker that you know or know of mostly associate the word with "excessive outbursts of violence that leads to a void and can easily be undone but also we cannot easily recover from the traumas that it causes" then it is more than likely that they have been not-immune to anti-GPCR-red-scare propaganda.

[please-again-call-me-alsip]

Friedrich and the Equilibrium of Early Summer

What remains of God slain by Immanuel Was buried by Friedrich, and so the end of Spring was known.

The rays of heat diffusely reflected and the rising steam made to enshroud all permeated the entire body. In a world losing its ceiling one is expelled towards the pitch-black universe.

The sickness unto a slow and steady cornering into suicide has been fully cured. Sisyphus brushed against the spotlessness of the world. Seeing off the back of Spring where silence and resentment are spiralling, With no meaning, with all absurdity, the beloved Summer Comes, and one must take care so as not to end up killed.

The "illusion of the Beyond" that weighed heavily since the moment of birth Has expired as if mist and haze. Hasten to turn away from the Rock, hasten to start walking, For summer is already there.

The first rays of heat of the Sun that has graced since birth, The harmony of the crying cicadas, The aroma of death and of earth and of all livelihood, O they might as well crush each of you down And deconstruct you all.

Curse upon all varied ethics that spread out below your eyes. For Summer shall come to murder you.

イマニュエルが殺した神の死骸を フリードリヒが葬って、春の終わりを知る。

乱反射するあの熱線と立ち込める蒸鬱が全身を貫いた。 天井を失った世界で真っ黒な宇宙へ放り出された。

じわりじわり自殺に追い込む病は快癒した。 シーシュポスは世界の無垢に触れた。

沈黙��怨恨の螺旋する春の背中を見送って。 無意味で、不条理で、いとおしい夏がくる、殺されないように気をつけなくちゃね。

生まれた時から重くのしかかっていた「彼岸の幻想」は霧のように消え去った。

岩に背を向けて、歩き始めなくちゃ。 もう夏はそこに。

生まれて初めての太陽の熱線が、蝉の協和音が、死と土と生命の芳香が、君達を粉々にしてしまうかもなぁ。

眼下に広がるあらゆる道徳を呪え。 夏がお前を殺しにやってくるから。

[please-again-call-me-alsip]

A ballad for Jian Jian 簡簡吟

Bai Juyi 白居易 (772 - 846 CE)

The Su clan had a little girl And "Jian Jian" she went by. Her cheek was lotus-pink, and slim As willow-leaf her eyes. She could adorn herself so well, and she was eleven. Embroidering she learnt at twelve, her needles finely driven. To strings and flutes she devoted her thirteenth round of seasons, Savoured sounds, let not her talent be dulled with no good reason.

She varied how she rolled her hair — flourish'd, like rolling cloud. Her sleeves swayed in the winds, and rose with rosy sweet endowed. No word described her form and style cut off from all the rest. Suavely, swiftly, she turned and moved, as if by bright light blest. O, buds of peaches, buds of plum, killed by heavy February frost! She hoped to marry come next year, and died before this year crossed.

Esteemed father, dearest mother: I plead you not to cry. The fate of union with mere man to her does not apply. Banished to earth she was perhaps by her celestial peers. Unfit for her was to persist beyond her thirteen years. For few good things are sure and firm: In clouds is iridescence that fades with haste; and crystal-jades are brittle in their essence.

蘇家小女名簡簡，芙蓉花腮柳葉眼。 十一把鏡學點妝，十二抽針能綉裳。 十三行坐事調品，不肯迷頭白地藏。 玲瓏雲髻生花樣，飄颻風袖薔薇香。 殊姿異態不可狀，忽忽轉動如有光。 二月繁霜殺桃李，明年欲嫁今年死。 丈人阿母勿悲啼，此女不是凡夫妻。 恐是天仙謫人世，只合人間十三歲。 大都好物不監牢，彩雲易散琉璃脆。

8 Messidor CCXXXII. I would like to thank @czerwonykasztelanic for staying with me while I pull through gloom.

[please-again-call-me-alsip]

“this is easier than posing the true problem”

Florence Gauthier: On the subject of Wajda’s “Danton”

Annales historiques de la Révolution française, No 251 (Janvier-Mars 1983), pp. 182-185

Certainly, all political discourse began with 1789, indeed, so much for François Furet’s wishful thinking that the Revolution is finished! (1) If there was a time in which 1789 founded the Republic, then there also came a time in which 1789 became the embryo of the proletarian Revolution. From teleology to teleology, today we have arrived at this: the French Revolution, according to Wajda, was an early draft of Stalinism.

It is essentially by psychologic methods that Wajda shapes his film to lead us deeper into these totalitarian hearts. And what comes first is fear.

The film bathes in oppression, the greenish, greyish, brownish colours, the harsh blue lighting, make the actors look diseased. Fouquier-Tinville is pale as linen, Saint-Just is bistre, Robespierre goes from yellow to grey and ends up in the most mortuary green imaginable on his bed of expiation. Not one “normal” head apart from that of Danton, the eyes are reddened, the teeth are unclean, the wigs are askew. Conversations between people are sharpened with a knife, not one smile, “people pout and sulk”, people yell instead of talk, people bark, several bursts of nervous laughter. Only Danton has a real human laugh and displays some trace of tenderness.

Not one feminine presence. Éléonore Duplay, the “fiancée” of Robespierre, rigid as the Puritanism that she presumably represents, slaps her little brother who cannot learn his table of the Rights of Man and of Citizen and weeps without a sound. Lucile Desmoulins is hard as a rock.

The angles of view are clogged up. All is cut off by corners of walls, by corners of streets, by narrow doors, by corridors, by railings. Every view is framed, driven along like hunted game. A noise from the deep perpetually grinds at the characters and the audience; far-away whispers from far-away people?

Not one “normal” voice, all are raspy, what an ordeal! The horrible bitter voice of Robespierre, the whimpering of Desmoulins, the barking of Saint-Just, the dog teeth of Billaud-Varennes. The figures…! They come out of the most sordid hovel imaginable. Is that Collot with his blackened eyes, his vermillion mouth open like a shop-window? That head of an old haggard, is that Couthon? Apart from Danton, all the others hail from the hideous underbelly of I don’t know which Hospital. The mediocrity, the gross vulgarity, the burden of chains weighing on all … this is hell. Is this the revolution? How horrible! Try as Danton might to stop this dance, he is caught up in the inexorable mechanics. Try as Robespierre might to reign in the process, he is carried away in the well-oiled mechanism that overpowers his illusions as a utopian, as a lover of Truth, of Justice, of Equality. He is the Conscience and he must pay for his folly. Hell is revolution.

⁂

Wajda wanted to give a psychological dimension to the Danton case. All this is in play from the very first scene, in which Robespierre, already green with envy, watches through his window Danton basking in the crowd. Danton is supposed to love Robespierre and finds joy in having humiliated him. Then comes a little tenderness: he lets himself be touched on the neck by forcing Robespierre’s hand up there, and he groans with pleasure. Robespierre refuses this love, he is presumably envious of Danton’s vitality, the vitality that he is incapable of. Hence Danton will die.

The relationship of Saint-Just – Robespierre is cut from the same cloth. Saint-Just is in love with Robespierre and incessantly circles him like a fly. He comes to celebrate victory after Danton’s death. Scene at bedside, Robespierre unwell. Saint-Just holds out his arms and his brilliant idea: he offers personal dictatorship to his idol. Robespierre refuses, he certainly does not want to be loved!

It must be clarified that no document at all backs up these interpretations and I ask myself, is this what “psychology” is, is this the humane and profound dimension? Is today’s trend to reduce the human being to these little connections?

Here we see Robespierre once more emasculated under a persistent legend, for the Sex of the Jacobins “works” well for many, and a vast literature please themselves by contrasting a corruptible, bon-vivant Danton, in short, a humane man, with a puritan Robespierre and thus, for one thing follows another in deduction, a frigid and despotic Robespierre. What is the point of hiding behind these oppositions reduced to differences in character when it was also about political conduct and about different interpretations of power? Robespierre did not abuse his position or his power to exercise sexual power, and thus we see him here accused of impotence (and of repressed homosexuality and of being unable to love and thus of despotism, etc, etc…) It is true that this is easier than posing the true problem, the problem of one aspect of power so concealed in Robespierre’s case and presented in Danton’s case as a trait of a human and “natural” character. In both these cases, the problem of power has disappeared. Is it understood that Robespierre was a young and beautiful man, elegant, refined, and that he had much success? I must naively recall this fact, since this opposition of characters that Wajda imposes is supposed to allow him to “explain” his characters and the revolution.

There is not one “woman” in this film. In the 18th century, were all relationships relationships between men? Wajda pairs up Danton-Robespierre, the two complementary aspects, the Flesh and the Conscience. Yet the Wajda’s talking point here is too Catholic for the era, it belongs to the 17th century and elsewhere. The Enlightenment’s humanism, the pantheist revolution, the thought of Nature – all this is simply absent. Why do we have to think of Robespierre disguised as the tortured Jesus and as an archbishop? (2)

Is this not a double-reading of the Danton-Robespierre pairing that is proposed to us? Danton the material for the west, Robespierre the passion, the folly for Poland. But no, this Catholic and masculine conception does not belong to the 18th century. No, Danton could not be reduced to animality, and Robespierre, anti-clerical, pantheist, the philosopher of Nature, is not the Catholic and romantic hero presented here.

⁂

This error of perspective is compounded with innumerable factual errors. Here are but a few of them: the ransack of the printing house of “Le Vieux Cordelier”, pure invention. Robespierre wanting to remove Fabre from David’s tableau, The Tennis Court Oath, pure invention (Wajda reaches a peak here: he accuses Robespierre of falsifying history, and it is he, Wajda, who is inventing this episode!), this archbishop costume on Robespierre preparing for the Festival of the Supreme Being, pure invention. Yet these inventions are not mere details, since they were intended to portray a character. It is by these little touches that Wajda establishes a parallel between the Terror and Stalinism, and he does not hesitate to present Robespierre as the chief of a totalitarian regime. This hardly acknowledges reality and the Robespierrists’ reflections on power and on democracy. Thus, Wajda makes Danton say this line: “the people have only one dangerous enemy, it is their government.” Yet we find out that it was Saint-Just that delivered it in his speech from 10th October 1793, establishing the “revolutionary government”. The perspective is bizarrely false. What did Saint-Just say? “You had energy, the public administration lacked it. You desired economy, the accountants did not follow up with your efforts. All the world has pillaged the State. The generals have waged war against their own army. The owners of productions and of foodstuffs, all the vices of the monarchy, at last, have joined forces against the people and against you.＊ A people have only one dangerous enemy, and that is their government; your government has waged war against you with impunity.” (3)

In the summer of 1793, Robespierre turned down a proposition to hand all power over to the Committee of Public Safety. The complex establishment of the “revolutionary government” must have allowed the application of a policy based on the popular organisations (agrarian law: the suppression of feudal dues; the parcellation of land; the price maximum: a fight against the high cost of living; waging civil war and war on the borders).

The Robespierrists, predicting that power naturally corrupts, took all possible precautions so as to prevent the organs of the “revolutionary government” from exercising tyranny on an institutional level. Thus, the Committee of Public Safety, which answered to the Convention, for the Convention alone governed, was re-elected every two months⁑ by the Convention. When we know that a vote in the Convention sufficed to eliminate the Robespierrists on 9 Thermidor, we should understand that power of a dictatorial nature was entirely outside of the Robespierrists’ conception. Thus, that Saint-Just could have offered Robespierre personal dictatorship is some notable nonsense. Furthermore, the Jacobins were never a uniquely powerful party, and they were a minority in the Convention as well as in the Committee of Public Safety.

⁂

Wajda presents a Danton who wants to pause the revolution and to enjoy life, that is to say, he wants to enjoy the wealth that the revolution has brought him. Since only the economic question is evoked, let’s talk about it. In the Montagnards’ programme, the fight against the high cost of living holds an essential place. Let us recall very quickly what this entails. After 29th August 1789, the Constituent declared “economic liberty”, and then, faced with resistance, “martial law” to facilitate its implementation, on 21st October 1789. This economic liberty accelerated the increase in prices, exacerbated by the creation of the assignat. Since no taxes (impôts) have been paid since 1789, the government departments resorted to money-printing. This resulted in an unprecedented economic crisis. Up to 1793, the departments of the government merely imposed martial law, so hundreds of people were repressed, massacred, and condemned. This was the period of liberal terror. Let us recall that the economic question was the principal cause of the fall of the Gironde on 31st May - 2nd June 1793.

Martial law was abolished on 23rd June 1793, and economic liberty was also abolished by establishing the price maximum in September. The prices of foodstuffs were raised by a third compared to the pre-assignat prices from 1790 and fixed at that, and wages were raised by a half: so, there was a relative rise in wages. To make the policy of the price maximum coherent, the Robespierrists called for the suppression of the assignat and a return to metallic money. The Convention, however, refused their calls systematically, and the so-called omnipotent Robespierre in the Committee of Public Safety was unable to obtain this suppression.

At the time of the Danton affair, the application of the maximum price limit was very severe, and the black market was growing. Only popular mobilisation allowed people to wrest every sack of grain from the producers. The Robespierrists depended simultaneously on the government and on popular mobilisation to effectively fight the rising prices. They did not succeed in this, and the reasons are still very poorly understood, for hardly any studies exist on the application of the agrarian law of Year II, or on the price maximum.

Wajda seems to be saying that the government is responsible for the economic crisis. That is doubtlessly the case, but the government itself was conflicted about what policy was to be followed, and this ought to have been clarified. It was in this context that the Dantonist offensive, sensing the weakening of the popular movement, was launched, demanding, among other things, to end the then-ongoing implementation of the anti-liberal economic programme. How could it be that it is the Dantonists who are presented as the “friends of the people”? Since we know that the abolition of the price maximum in Year III was followed by an appalling crisis, it is reasonable to doubt this. We shall therefore be honest and present them as the friends of the speculators, of the army suppliers, of those who purchased national property, in short, of the profiteers of the revolution. We will learn more by plainly stating what the problem at the heart of Year II was.

Florence GAUTHIER

＊This speech was addressed to the Commission, hence the difference between "the people" and "you". Recall Slavoj Zizek's claim that the Jacobins never was a Party that could create the People embodied in it.

⁑ This seems to have been an error. The Committee of Public Safety had its powers renewed by the Convention every month.

Notes in the original:

1 F. FURET, Interpreting the French revolution (Penser la Révolution française), Gallimard, 1978, and his interview in “Libération”, 17th January 1983, where, referring to Wajda, he compares openly, and for the first time, Robespierre to Stalin. One can compare this excellently with the latest book of J. -P. FAYE, Portable Politic Dictionary in Five Words (Dictionnaire politique portatif en cinq mots), Gallimard, 1982, which does not recognise in the Jacobin discourse the source of totalitarianism.

2 Albert MATHIEZ noted already in 1910: “the physiognomy of Robespierre has been really deformed for 20 years by republican historians such that talking today of the religious ideas of the Incorruptible might appear an impossible task. Robespierre, it is proclaimed, was a man with a narrow brain, a man of the old regime, a cold man of ambition, who wanted to reign over France and through the terror impose on her a counterfeit of Catholicism, the deism erected into the religion of the State.” Study on Robespierre, edited Sociales, reedited, p.157. As we see here Wajda takes us 70 years back.

3 SAINT-JUST, Political Theory, Seuil, 1796, p. 234.

I would like to thank @czerwonykasztelanic for offering to emend the draft.

[please-again-call-me-alsip]

the sword of yajiu

by Bai Juyi (mid-to-late Tang Dynasty poet, 8th and 9th Century)

歐冶子死千年后 A thousand years since Ou-ye Zi had died,

精靈暗授張鴉九 His soul, in gloom, for Zhang Yajiu did guide.  

鴉九鑄劍吳山中 And Yajiu forged a Sword among Wu hills,

天與日時神借功 From Heaven borrowed time, from gods their skills.

金鐵騰精火翻焰 Flames fluttered, ores’ and irons’ spirits soared

踴躍求為鏌琊劍 A Moye Sword they leapt up and restored.

劍成未試十餘年 The Sword spent ten years idle, and then some,

有客持金買一觀 Before a Guest paid sums to have a look.

誰知閉匣長思用 The case, alas, stayed closed in want of use;

三尺青蛇不肯蟠 The three-feet green snake dared not leave its nook.

客有心　劍無口 The Guest had a spark, the Sword bore no mark,

客代劍言告鴉九 The Guest spoke Sword’s words, plead that Yajiu hark:

君勿矜我玉可切 “Boast not, sir, stones of jade that I can slice;

君勿誇我鐘可刜 Gloat not, sir, heavy bells that I can maul;

不如持我決浮雲 Do better, hold me, cleave the clouds adrift,

無令漫漫蔽白日 Their boundless blinds from bright of sun dispel.

為君使 無私之光及萬物 Your selfless glow shall I expand to all

蟄蟲昭蘇萌草出 Those hibernating wake, and sprouts propel.”

Ou-ye Zi was a swordsmith in the state of Yue in the Spring and Autumn period. The Yue-jue Shu (available only in Chinese, sorry) said that when Ou-ye Zi worked, the Mount Chijin pried itself apart, and tin arose within, and the brook of Ruoye stopped in its flow, and copper arose within; and Master of Rain poured water to clean any dirt, and the Lord of Thunder blew the winds and raised the fires; and aquatic dragons held up the furnace, and the Lord of the Heaven filled it with burning coal; the Laws of Tai-yi descended unto earth, and all essence of the world were bestowed unto the sword.

Moye, his daughter, was also a swordsmith, and she and her husband Ganjiang made swords on the orders of He Lü, the king of Wu, and the swords bore the names of this couple. All three swordsmiths names later became references to great swords that required great wielders. Several stories existed to explain what happened to this couple and their child later on. These were retold in the 20th century story "Forging the Swords" by Lu Xun, the English translation of which can be read in pages 43 through 53 here.

If Zhang Yajiu actually existed, he might have been a contemporary of Bai Juyi’s. Not much about this swordsmith is known.

Green snakes were often a metaphor for swords. The Emperor Gao of Han was said to have slayed a white serpent as he rebelled against the Qin dynasty, and Bai Juyi described the action as “beheading the white snake using the green.”

Among the Miscellaneous Chapters of the Book of Zhuangzi, the sword befitting a Son of Heaven was said to be able to cleave the floating clouds above and penetrate every division of the earth below, and

Let this sword be once used, and the princes are all reformed, and the whole kingdom submits. 

Bai Juyi, along with his friend and fellow poet, Yuan Zhen, wrote a series of poems in the more ancient Yuefu style, whose explicit goals were to provide, in cryptic words, social commentary and sympathy for people from all walks of life. Bai wrote 50 poems to this purpose; The Sword of Yajiu was the penultimate. In the preface to all 50 poems, Bai stated the thoughts that drove each piece, and the one for the The Sword of Yajiu was "to think of breaking through blockage and gloom".

[please-again-call-me-alsip]

a bold declaration

by Bai Juyi (mid-to-late Tang Dynasty poet, 8th and 9th Century)

泰山不要欺毫末  Mount Tai needs not insult a tiny sprout,

顔子無心羡老彭  And Yanzi hankered not for Old Peng’s age.

松樹千年終是朽  The pines, through thousand years, are still decayed;

槿花一日自為榮  Hibiscus blooms, for but a day, ablaze.

何須戀世常憂死  Why crave this world in constant fear of death?

亦莫嫌身漫厭生  Do not yet tire of self, and spread this life in hate.

生去死來都是幻  Life flees, death thuds, illusion binds them both

幻人哀樂系何情  so why concern with griefs and joys of daze?

Yan Hui ranked the first among the seventy-two famous disciples of Confucius, and his master claimed on one occasion that he was the only known person to have loved learning. He died at a young age, for which Confucius mourned to what his other disciples said was excessive grief. In this poem he was called Yanzi or “Master Yan”.

Peng Zu was said to have lived for centuries (the numbers vary depending on your source) during the Shang Dynasty. For this he was called “Old Peng”.

Bai Juyi wrote five poems titled "a bold declaration" in exchange with his life-long friend and fellow poet, Yuan Zhen. This was the fifth of them.

thanks to @aedesluminis for reminding me of Bai's poems; i hope she doesn't take offence if i say that she has been delightfully kind to me today.

[please-again-call-me-alsip]

How I Long

by the 8th century Chinese poet Lǐ Bái

The Beauty stayed and flowers filled the hall. The Beauty left, the bed an empty stall. Embroidered duvets fold in sleeps unslept For three years, one can sense the scent withal.

The scent has yet to disappear, Its leaver, yet to be in sight. In pining yellow leaves are shed, To green moss autumn dew drips white.

長相思

李白

美人在時花滿堂 美人去後空餘牀 餘牀繡被卷不寢 至今三載猶聞香 香亦竟不滅 人亦竟不來 相思黃葉落 白露點青苔

From the 165th volume of the Complete Tang Poems. The English translation is mine.

[please-again-call-me-alsip]

my translation (fr -> chn) of a poem

LOUISE MICHEL, a poem titled "Saint-Just" (1861), after the Archangel.

Source：

Daniel Armogathe and Marion Piper, A Travers la Vie et la Mort (Paris : Maspero, 1982)

路易治•米雪尔（1830-1905），代号“安灼拉”，教师、作家、巴黎公社的一员。米雪尔写了一辈子，从小说到散文到诗歌都写，从1871年一直写到了第一次俄囯起义前夕。

《圣茹斯特》这首诗，写在米雪尔三十岁，尚未组入公社时。

※

Louise Michel, Janvier 1861 :

Saint-Just

圣茹斯特

Ombre d'un citoyen, Saint-Just, je te salue !

Viens, frère, parle-moi : l'heure est-elle venue ?

           Les Pharaons vont-ils tomber ?

Vois-tu, souvent la nuit, quand l'horizon est sombre,

Je m'en vais en rêvant, et près de moi ton ombre

           Se dresse et semble me parler.

一道公民的影子，圣茹斯特，你好哇！

来，兄弟，来告诉我：是那一刻已经到了？

那些法老可要倾覆？

你看，往往在夜晚，地平线暗淡之时，

我做着梦走出来，而我身旁你魂识

出现，似要与我倾诉。

Et nous allons tous deux, moi dans l'ombre indécise,

Toi dans l'éternité ; nous allons, et la bise

           Pleure les morts et les proscrits.

Et tout ce qui jadis éblouissait le monde,

La liberté, l'honneur, semble dormir sous l'onde.

           Le silence même a des cris.

我们两人一起走，我在犹豫的影中，

你在永恒里：我们走着，干冷的北风

为死者和流民哭号。

而往日中一切曾让世界眩晕之物，

自由，光荣，仿佛都睡在水波的底部。

静寂自有他的绝叫。

Une immense hécatombe, un sépulcre, un repaire,

Voilà ce qu'ils ont fait de la patrie, ô frère.

           L'aigle a fondu de son rocher,

Les chacals ont rampé, l'hyène immonde est venue

Et l'on ne voit plus rien sur terre et dans la nue,

           L'avenir peut-il abdiquer ?

屠戮一场、坟一座、窝巢一处供藏匿，

他们就把祖囯做成了这样，噢，兄弟。

老鹰弃巨石而飞扑，

豺狼已汹汹横行，肮脏的鬣狗来袭，

从地上到云中再无人能看得明晰，

未来难道可以屈服？

Vois ce qu'ils ont, ces loups, fait de la République ?

Ce peuple au cœur ardent, ce peuple magnifique

           Prend pour maître un aventurier ;

Il ne s'éveille plus au bruit de son histoire,

Même sous le fouet ; c'est à ne pas y croire,

           Sa honte est à terrifier.

你可看到这狼群对共和囯的所为？

这人民心怀热诚，这人民美丽宏伟

奉投机者为其主宰；

他们不再苏醒于他们历史的声势，

即使备受鞭打；这真让人匪夷所思，

这羞耻该叫人惊骇。

Oh ! Du moins, autrefois, dans vos luttes sanglantes,

Le cœur battait à l'aise, et des ailes géantes

           Emportaient votre esprit en haut ;

On pouvait, en mourant sur la place publique,

Crier de l'échafaud : « Vive la République ! »

           Oh ! C'était grand et c'était beau !

噢！至少，在从前，你们血腥的战斗里，

心自在地跳动着，有那巨大的羽翼

撑起精神向高处飞；

你们最后上广场赴死时也仍然会

在行刑的高台上疾呼：“共和囯万岁！”

噢！何等雄壮、何等美！

Aujourd'hui, tout se tait ; on entasse dans l'ombre,

Pour qu'ils ne parlent plus, des prisonniers sans nombre,

           Car la mort ferait trop de bruit.

Et quand on voit parfois que cette agonisante

Qu'on appelle la France a murmuré, mourante,

Un soupir dans l'affreuse nuit ;

而今天，万物失声；没有编号的囚犯

被挤在阴影里，为教他们不再交谈，

因为死亡震耳欲聋。

当有时我们看见这引人哀惧的

名叫法兰西的将死之人低语着，

叹息在可怕的夜中；

Quand elle a tressailli de honte ou de colère,

L'homme qui la soumet, horrible bestiaire,

           Sur elle étend son hideux bras !

Et nous souffrons cela ! Ce néant nous domine !

Le nain pour piédestal a pris une colline

           Et nous le regardons d'en bas.

当她因羞耻或因愠怒而瑟瑟发抖，

那迫使她屈服的男人，卑鄙的猛兽，

丑陋的手臂掠过她！

而我们为此受难！这虚无占据我们

侏儒*拿小丘垫脚，自当是坛上的神

我们从下方观望他。

[*侏儒：拿破仑三世。]

Oh ! Vous nous méprisez, vous, ombres magnanimes,

Qui donniez, frémissants de vos désirs sublimes,

           Jusqu'à la bonté de vos cœurs.

Vous qui saviez briser dans le fond de vos âmes

Toute faiblesse humaine et qu'on traitait d'infâmes,

           Effrayants et saints éclaireurs !

噢！你们厌弃我们，你们，宽仁的影子，

在崇高的期冀中振颤，你们行恩赐

直至献出心底的善。

你们知道如何在你们的灵魂深处

突破一切人性之弱，声名却遭污辱，

可畏而神圣的哨探！

Oh ! Vous étiez bien purs, quoique étant implacables,

Et vous étiez bien grands, apôtres formidables

           De l'auguste fraternité,

Or, tandis que mes yeux se remplissaient de larmes,

Une nuit, j'entendis comme un lointain bruit d'armes

           Dans le silence répété.

噢！你们如此纯洁，虽也无情顽固，

你们是如此高大，引人敬畏的圣徒，

怀抱着��严的博爱，

而如今，恰当我双眼被清泪所充盈，

有一夜，却听到了刀枪在远处争鸣，

响彻这单调的静态。

C'étaient eux !  Les géants, les terribles archanges

Qui pour ouvrir la route ont mis dans leurs phalanges

           La mort, comme on met un faucheur.

C'étaient eux qui, le cœur saignant sur la victime,

Frappaient le souverain, montrant de loin l'abîme

           Aux rois livides de frayeur.

是他们！那些巨人和恐怖的大天使，

他们为开辟道路而在方阵间设置

死亡，像设置镰刀兵。

是他们，心脏在受害者上滴血涓涓，

一边打倒了君主，遥指无底的深渊

吓得诸王面色铁青。

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Comme je regardais cette cohorte sombre,

Un d'eux, s'en détachant, vint près de moi dans l'ombre

           Et me tendit ses pâles mains,

Comme les donne un frère après les jours d'absence,

Et je lus dans son âme, au milieu du silence,

           L'arrêt terrible des destins.

正当我注视着这黑暗中的一大伙，

其中一位出了列，在阴影中走近我，

苍白的手向我伸出，

像几天前离家，刚回来的兄弟那样，

我从他魂中读到，在寂静的正中央，

命运的恐怖判決书。

Tous deux nous paraissions à peu près du même âge,

Et soit que ce fût l'âme, ou l'air, ou le visage,

           Ses traits étaient pareils aux miens.

Et Saint-Just me disait dans la langue éternelle,

« Entends-tu, dans la nuit, cette voix qui t'appelle,

           Écoute, l'heure sonne, viens ! »

我们两个人看上去似乎年龄相仿，

而无论是灵魂，还是气质，还是面庞，

我们属同类、站同排。

圣茹斯特用永恒的语言对我说道：

“你可听见，夜深时，这嗓音向你呼叫？

听着，是时候了，快来！”

※

铝硅磷 法译中 共和历二百三十二年 霜月 芦苇日。

note:

Entendre这个词的本义是注意到一件事，更源头的意思是物件延展它的跨度，与它同源(都来自古法语)的是英文的intend。英译这首诗的时候，entendre也许可以被译为hearken。

米雪尔从诗的开头到此处所说的话都有可能是（那些被）圣茹斯特（所代表的革命者们）在说，而不是诗人自己在说。

[please-again-call-me-alsip]

"And what shall be the reward of spilling so much blood, one drop of which has more worth than all the crowned heads of the world?"

L’Ami du Peuple, No 634, from Thursday 19th April 1792. [The very next day, on the 20th April 1792, war was declared against Austria]

If it was still impossible to doubt the traitorous dispositions of the court, after all the plots that it has formed to this day, in order to crush the people, to ruin the nation, and to re-establish despotism, the scene of high scandal that the ministerial cabinet has just been playing out should have sufficed to open the eyes of all.

On the 14th of this month, the ministers presented themselves in the Assembly. The Minister of Foreign affairs [Dumouriez; he took this post on 15th March 1792] took the floor to communicate to them, after the orders of the king, of the dispatches that, he said, were delivered by an extraordinary courier who arrived during the night. He first read out the letter written [by Louis XVI] to sieur [Louis Marie Antoine, Vicomte de] Noailles, ambassador at the court of Vienna, demanding the new king of Hungary [Franz II of the Holy Roman Empire, nephew of Antoinette] to give a categorical response on his attitudes towards France. He then read out the response of sieur Noailles, containing a formal refusal to continue a negotiation that he [Noailles] said was impracticable and an announcement of his [Noailles’s] resignation. He [Dumouriez] proceeded to give a reading of a very pressing dispatch [from Louis XVI] addressed to sieur Noailles. Finally, he [Dumouriez] announced that Louis XVI had just written in his own hand a letter to the king of Hungary, and sieur Molle the field marshal was to deliver it. The response to this letter would arrive on the 10th of next month at the latest and would decide whether peace or war would be. In this epistle, one can clearly sense that Louis XVI is repeating his crude joke of professing his love for the Constitution.

Scarcely had these readings been finished than sieur Briche and sieur Guadet demanded a decree of indictment against sieur Noailles for having disobeyed the orders of the king; they must say so, for he had betrayed the interests of the nation and compromised public safety. After several light debates, this decree was given a near-unanimous pass. Already the ones that did not follow the thread of the story were singing to their victory, for they saw that he was declared a nation-harming (lèse-nation) criminal, he who is an ambassador of France, a close relative (cousin-germain) to sieur Motier [Noailles and Lafayette had the same father-in-law], a member of the Tuileries committee, and a pillar of the Feuillant club; that is to say, one of the main conspirators, bolstered by all the forces of his accomplices, and sure of the support of the vast majority of counter-revolutionary conscript fathers. But their joy was short-lived. Several hours after the decree of indictment, the veil was ripped to lay bare the juggleries of the ministerial cabinet. Sieur Dumouriez appeared on stage to announce to the president a letter that he had allegedly just received from sieur Noailles, who had finally obeyed the orders of Louis XVI and had given news that the king of Hungary refused all negotiations, declaring war on the French nation. Immediately Thuriot, Goupilleau, Vaublanc, Gentil, Dumas ＊and the other gangrenous ministers demanded that the decree of indictment be revoked. Sieur Kersaint and Sieur Delacroix ⁑ proposed that the letter of the minister [Dumouriez] and the dispatch of the ambassador be sent back to the diplomatic committee, so that the report would be done on time.

The report done, under the name of the committee, by sieur Lasource, the decree of indictment was adjourned. Such was the conclusion of the ministerial and senatorial farce against sieur Noailles. Thus, by the method of a double correspondence, the perfidious agents of the prince will always get away with their deeds, just like how pirates escape by the method of using false flags. Always the artifices of the court will render the laws illusory; always the apparent acts of justice from the legislator will be none but lures to deceive the people; and no matter how things turn out, always the public enemies at the helm of the vessel of the State will manage to throw it at the reefs, and to direct it in such a way as that shall see it broken by the storm and engulfed by the waves in the end.

So finally here is war declared on the French by the powers plotted against freedom. However, who does not see that all these pretend ministerial negotiations with foreign courts had no other goal than to amuse the nation and to buy time, until all these powers have their batteries loaded, and they are ready to shoot us? Who does not see that all these bellicose preparations, arranged by the Assembly, had no other goal than to lure the nation to sleep in deep dreams of security? Who does not see that all these sending-back to the executive power, the denunciations, the prevaricating ministers, and these complaints of citizen soldiers crammed onto the frontiers and left without munitions, without weapons, without clothes, without pay, had no other goal than to leave the patrie with no means of defence, to leave the State in the grip of the machinations of the court, of the undertakings of the fugitive plotters, of the attacks of the foreign lackeys.

Will there be war? Everybody is saying yes. It is certain that this opinion has finally prevailed in the cabinet, after the representations of sieur Motier who, without doubt, has made it the only way in order to distract the nation from the concerns within to occupy with concerns without, in order to make the nation forget the internal dissensions in favour of news in gazettes, in order to dissipate the national property into military preparations, instead of employing it to liberate the State and to comfort the people, in order to crush the Nation under the feet of taxes, and in order to slit the throats of patriots of the infantry and of the citizen army, leading them to the butcher’s, under the pretext of defending the barriers of the empire. It is always certain that he pressures the monarch to stop negotiating and to order the campaign to be started, which he regards as a means to honourably end his own career, if he runs out of ways to regain the nation’s confidence with new acts of seduction and of hypocritical devotion to the cause of liberty.

Lost in the heady rhetoric from Brissot, from Lemontey, from Girardin, from Delacroix, from Gouvion, from Dumas and from other scoundrels who have sold themselves to the court, seduced by a false image of national forces, intoxicated by the fumes of Gallic boastfulness, the people seem no less desiring for war than their implacable enemies do. For three years I have represented war as the last resort of counter-revolutionaries and I have not stopped working to thwart the various undertakings of the cabinet to set it aflame. Since then, my attitude has not changed, and in my eyes, war is always the cruellest curse that may be cast on the kingdom. Whatever new focus that war will draw public attention to, by only fixing it onto news in gazettes, war will leave an open field for the enemies within to machinate at their ease and to breathe the fire of civil dissensions into all parts of the kingdom, to instigate troubles, and to set traps for proponents of freedom; the war will completely squander the national property and accelerate public bankruptcy; the war will consummate the loss of everything that France has in good citizens and it will drain the State of all the patriotic youth, because it is the most zealous proponents of the revolution who have been rushing to the defence at the frontiers, and they will always do so. However fearless they may be, they are without weapons ¹, without discipline, without tactics, without idea of grand manoeuvres ², without the smallest notion of the art of war, without experienced chiefs, without shrewd and faithful generals. How would the soldiers of the patrie resist the attacks from the disciplined armies of lackeys, they who are commanded by shrewd generals?

If war happens, I repeat, regardless of the bravery of the defenders of freedom, it does not take an eagle-eyed genius to foresee that our armies will be crushed in the first campaign.

I can conceive that the second campaign would be less disastrous and that the third could even be a glorious success, since it is impossible that we would not learn at our own expense, impossible that some great man would not be given a position. Yet, to wrest victory from our enemies, we will need to suffer a long and disastrous war. Now, it would fall short of the truth, to say that our losses, over three campaigns, shall round to a billion livres and five hundred thousand combatants.

How shall we compensate for the loss of so many brave soldiers, the flower of the French citizens? And what shall be the reward of spilling so much blood, one drop of which has more worth than all the crowned heads of the world? To prevent this precious blood from being shed, I have proposed for a hundred times an infallible method, which is to take hostage among us Louis XVI, along with his wife, his son, his daughter, his sisters ⁂, and hold them accountable to what happens. A senate faithful to the patrie will speak to him thus: “King of the French, it is in vain that you (vous) hide in the detours of a tortuous policy to see us ensnared in the disasters of war; you have no escape from the avenging power of the people. We declare to you, in the name of the nation, who is your august sovereign, that we do not wish to deal with your fellowmen, the princes of Europe, that we wish to make no preparations at all for war. Whether or not you compromise with them is your choice. The duty to remind your rebellious brothers and cousins is upon you, and so is the duty to divert your fellowmen from all hostile undertakings. The barriers of the State will stay open, yet rest assured that upon certain news that the first corps of enemies shall have crossed them, your culpable head will roll at your feet, and your entire dynasty shall be extinguished in its own blood.” But a senate faithful to the patrie is even rarer than a patriotic king. How insensible the people is, that they do not sense the necessity to finally choose a supreme dictator, to give him powers that would be circumscribed, so that he would have no authority to dominate, but unlimited authority to cut down the chief conspirators that the public voice has identified, to force the corrupt legislator to put at a price the heads of kings, of princes and of the generals who will come with weapons against us, to offer sums of gold to their troops who will deliver these kings, princes, and generals to us, living or dead, and to receive these troops among children of the State. Soon we shall see their numerous legions, running with weapons and equipment under the flags of freedom, and France shall be delivered from her enemies forever.

The fate that awaits her is less consoling for the friends of the patrie, but the fate that awaits her enemies will be terrible.

At the first shot of the canon fired on the frontier, the departments agree on a plan to reduce the castles and the gardens to ashes and to slit the throats of all public enemies who can be found in cities and in the countryside. As the army will massacre its own perfidious chiefs and conspiratorial generals, and as the entire nation will rise up against its own worthless representatives to seize back the powers that they have stripped from her, the mysterious veil long hung over the intrigues of the cabinets will be torn: however impatient the cabinets are to put the French back into chains, I strongly doubt that Louis XVI shall have the humour to do nothing if he even takes a look at this terrible picture. Let some good man have the courage to put it before his eyes.

---------------------------

Notes in the original:

[1] It is an unchanging fact that sieur de Grave, despite all his civic affectations, has not given a single order to prompt the ministry to arm the national guards of the frontiers since he arrived at the ministry. It is upon their actions, and not upon their talk, that the royal agents must be judged.

[2] It was to prevent the citizen battalions from training for grand manoeuvres that the generals have kept them divided and dispersed into different posts.

Translator's notes:

＊This would be Mathieu Dumas (1753 - 1837), a colonel of the general staff of Paris, long lambasted by Marat for refusing to fight, and whose name had come from his father, and not to be confused with Thomas-Alexandre Dumas (1762 - 1806) the Haitian general, whose name had come from his mother, an enslaved and nigh-erased woman.

⁑ This would be Jean-François Delacroix (1753 - 1794) the Dantonist, not to be confused with Charles-François Delacroix (1741 - 1805) the Thermidorian, and father to the painter Eugène Delacroix (1798 - 1863).

⁂ Marat notably did not mention either of the brothers of Louis XVI, because the comte de Provence (future Louis XVIII) emigrated in June 1791 to the Austrian Netherlands, and the comte d’Artois (future Charles X) emigrated even earlier, on 17th July 1789 to Savoy.

I am indebted to @citizen-card for helping me with finding out about the relation between Motier and Noailles, and to @lamarseillasie for making me interested on "just what was Marat's view on dictatorship" in the first place.

[please-again-call-me-alsip]

L'Ami du Peuple No 214, Tuesday 7th September 1790, my translation

L’Ami du Peuple au sieur Necker

From the Friend of the People to Sire Necker

Si votre démission, Monsieur, n’était pas feinte, si votre retraite était sans retour, si vous aviez rendu fidèlement vos comptes, si vous étiez puni de vos malversations, la justice satisfaite m’imposerait silence. La haine que j’ai portée à un administrateur infidèle, à un ministre dangereux, à un suppôt redoutable du despotisme, expirerait avec votre pouvoir et je ne verrais plus en vous qu’un particulier dont je dédaignerais de m’occuper un moment.

If your resignation, Sir, were not a pretence, if you were to retire with no return, if you had given your explanation faithfully, if you were punished for your malversations, I would be made silent by justice well-served. The hatred that I have held for an unfaithful administrator, for a dangerous minister, for a dreadful supporter of despotism, would expire along with your power and I would no longer see you as anyone other than a private individual whom I would loathe to dwell on for one moment more.

Mais je crois assez connaître votre caractère ambitieux, pour me défier du parti que vous venez de prendre, pour regarder votre départ comme l’effet d’un orage que vous prévoyez et dont vous voulez éviter l’éclat, ou comme le dernier des pièges que vous voulez tendre aux Français. Vous le couvrez du prétexte de l’altération de votre santé, du retour de ces maux qui vous ont mis l’hiver dernier sur le bord de la tombe et qui n’empêchèrent pas le mort ou le mourant de figurer à l’Assemblée nationale pour séduire le peuple. Vous alléguez aussi les inquiétudes mortelles de votre compagne chérie qui vous presse d’aller retrouver l’asile dont vous a tiré l’Assemblée nationale. Mais en dépit de vous, la vérité vient se placer au bout de votre plume.

But I believe I understand your ambitious character well enough to distrust your recent course of action, and see your departure as the effect of a storm that you anticipate and whose thunder you wish to avoid, or as the last of the pitfalls that you wish to set for the French. You mask it with the excuse of the deterioration of your health, of the return of those illnesses that put you at death’s door last winter and did not prevent the dead or dying from standing in the National Assembly to seduce the people. You also put forward the deadly worry of your beloved companion who is pressing you to return to the asylum from which the National Assembly has taken you. Yet regardless of you, the truth appears on the tip of your pen.

En achevant sa phrase, l’ex-ministre donne aux pères de la patrie la clef de l’énigme. “A l’époque de mon arrivée, Messieurs, leur dites-vous, vous approchez du terme de votre session et je suis hors d’état d’entreprendre une nouvelle carrière.” Ce qui signifie : Il faut, Messieurs, que je prenne enfin mon parti ; il n’y a que des gens de votre espèce qui puissent maintenir en place un agent de la mienne ; vous approchez de la fin de votre bail et je suis hors d’état de lutter contre vos successeurs qui, probablement, s’aviseront d’abord de vouloir faire leur devoir, qui m’éplucheront des pieds à la tête et qui me forceront de changer de marche, si plutôt ils ne me livrent à la vindicte publique.

As he finishes his statement, the ex-minister gives the fathers of the patria the key to the enigma.

“At the time of my arrival, Gentlemen,” you say to them, “you are approaching the close of your session and I am not in no fit state to undertake a new career.” Which means: I must, Gentlemen, take my side at last; only those of your type can keep an agent of my type in place of power; you are approaching the end of your lease and I am in no fit state to fight your successors who, probably, will dare to do their duty first, will examine me from head to foot and will force me to change my course, if not expose me to the public vengeance.

Permettez-moi de jeter un coup d’œil rapide sur la manière dont vous justifiez votre administration. Voici vos propres expressions : “Vous m’avez demandé, Messieurs, un compte de la recette et de la dépense, à[1] commencer du premier mai 1790. Je vous l’ai remis. Vous avez chargé votre comité des Finances de l’examiner. Je crois qu’il aurait déjà pu reconnaître s’il existe quelque dépense ou quelque autre disposition digne de reproches. Cette recherche est la seule qui concerne essentiellement le ministère, car l’inspection des titres, la révision des quittances sont particulièrement applicables à la gestion des payeurs, des receveurs et des différents particuliers comptables.” [1] On dira sans doute que le comité des Finances s’entendait avec le fripon, pour n’avoir fixé qu’à cette époque la reddition des comptes.

Let me take a glance at the way you justify your administration. Here are your own expressions:

“You have asked me, Gentlemen, for an account of the revenue and expenditure, starting [1] from the 1st of May 1790. I have given it to you. You have tasked your Finance committee to examine it. I believe that they would have already recognised if there exists any expenditure or other arrangement worthy of reproach. This investigation is the only one that the ministry is essentially of concern to the ministry, since the inspection of the securities, and the reviewing of the receipts are particularly applicable to the management of the payers, the receivers and the various private individuals taking accounts.”

[1] Marat’s note: It will be said doubtlessly that the Finance committee went along with the rascal, having only secured accountability at that time.

Ce qui veut dire que sans s’amuser à vérifier les pièces, vraies ou fausses, le comité des Finances doit se borner à examiner si vous avez bien additionné et soustrait. Or, soyez-en sûr, Monsieur, personne ne s’avisera de douter de votre savoir-faire.

This means that without wasting time checking the documents, be they true or false, the Finance committee must be limited to examining if you have correctly added and subtracted. Yet, you may rest assured, Sir, nobody will dare to doubt your know-how.

La fin de votre lettre est digne d’observation. La voici : “Les inimitiés, les injustices dont j’ai fait l’épreuve m’ont donné l’idée de la garantie que je viens d’offrir. Mais quand je rapproche cette pensée de ma conduite dans l’administration des Finances, il m’est permis de la réunir aux singularités qui ont accompagné ma vie !”

The end of your letter is worth noting. Here it is:

“The enmities, the injustices that I have stood the test of have prompted me to think of the guarantee that I have now offered. But when I bring this thought together with my conduct through the administration of Finances, I am entitled to see it as one of the singularities that have characterised my life!”

Ce n’est pas là, Monsieur, soit dit en passant, le langage d’un administrateur intact, qui s’est empressé de mettre sous les yeux du public, le fidèle tableau de sa gestion, ce n’est pas là le ton d’un cœur pur, oppressé de douleur, qui s’enveloppe dans le manteau de son innocence, moins encore celui d’une âme fière au-dessus de la calomnie, mais le ton d’un homme sans honneur, qui ne s’était jamais offensé des soupçons injurieux tant de fois élevés sur son administration, au milieu même du sénat, mais celui d’un petit intrigant éconduit. Vous accusiez l’injustice du sort. Eh ! qu’y a-t-il donc de si étrange dans ce qui vous arrive aujourd’hui ? Depuis dix ans, vous receviez nos adorations en vous moquant de notre simplicité, et vous nous accabliez d’emprunts. Vous avez affecté de rendre compte de votre gestion dans un temps où rien ne vous y obligeait; vous avez imposé ce devoir à vos successeurs; vous avez refusé dès lors de vous y soumettre vous-même, malgré les instances du public; vous vous êtes joué des ordres des représentants de la nation; enfin vous avez remis un compte où l’on ne comprend rien; vous nous avez donné mille raisons puissantes de vous regarder comme le chef des accapareurs du grain et du numéraire, le père du projet de famine qui a fait notre désespoir une année entière; vous nous avez épuisés par un impôt vexatoire; vous avez opprimé les pauvres dont vous vous disiez le père; vous vous êtes opposé au plan de la liquidation des dettes de l’Etat. Vous fuyez au moment où l’on vous en demande un meilleur, et vous avez le courage de vous plaindre ?

This here, Sir, is incidentally not the language of an intact administrator, who quickly gave the faithful record of his management, to put it under the eyes of the public, this is not the tone of a pure heart, overwhelmed by sorrow, protecting itself in the cloak of its innocence, still less that of a proud spirit beyond the reach of slander, but it is the tone of a man without sense of honour, who has never been offended by the injurious suspicions levelled so many times against his administration, even among the Senate, it is the tone of a little scheming man spurned. You blamed the injustice of your lot. Eh! But what in your current situation is so surprising? For ten years, you have received our adorations while mocking our simplicity, and you have overloaded us with loans. You assigned yourself to account for your management at a time where you were under no obligation to do so; you imposed this duty on your successors; you refused thereupon to submit to it yourself, despite the insistence of the public; you toyed with the orders of the representative of the nation; finally you left us with an account that is incomprehensible; you have given us a thousand compelling reasons to regard you as the chief of the monopolisers of grain and of cash, the father of the famine project that has caused our despair for a whole year; you have depleted us with a vexatious tax; you have oppressed the poor whose father you claimed to be; you have opposed the plan of the liquidation of the debts of the State. You flee as soon as we ask for a better account, and now you have the nerve to complain?

Vous accusez le destin de la singularité des événements de votre vie. Que serait-ce si, comme l’Ami du Peuple, vous étiez le jouet des hommes et la victime de votre patriotisme ! Si, en proie à une maladie mortelle, vous aviez, comme lui, renoncé à la conservation de vos jours pour éclairer le peuple sur ses droits et sur les moyens de les recouvrer ! Si, dès l'instant de votre guérison, vous lui aviez sacrifié votre repos, vos veilles, votre liberté ! Si vous vous étiez réduit au pain et à l’eau pour consacrer à la chose publique tout ce que vous possédiez ! Si, pour défendre le peuple, vous aviez fait la guerre à tous ses ennemis ! Si, pour sauver la classe des infortunés, vous étiez brouillé avec tout l’univers, sans vous ménager un seul asile sous le soleil ! Si, accusé tour à tour d’être vendu aux ministres que vous démasquiez, au despote que vous combattiez, aux grands que vous accabliez, aux sangsues de l’Etat auxquelles vous vouliez faire rendre gorge, si, décrété tour à tour par les jugeurs iniques dont vous auriez dénoncé les prévarications, par le législateur dont vous auriez démasqué les erreurs, les iniquités, les desseins désastreux, les complots, la trahison, si, poursuivi par une foule d’assassins armés contre vos jours, si, courant d’asile en asile, vous vous étiez déterminé à vivre dans un souterrain pour sauver un peuple insensible, aveugle, ingrat! Sans cesse menacé d’être tôt ou tard la victime des hommes puissants auxquels j’ai fait la guerre, des ambitieux que j’ai traversés, des fripons que j’ai démasqués, ignorant le sort qui m’attend et destiné peut-être à périr de misère dans un hôpital, m’est-il arrivé de me plaindre ? Il faudrait être bien peu philosophe, Monsieur, pour ne pas sentir que c’est le cours ordinaire des choses de la vie. Et il faudrait avoir bien peu d’élévation dans l’âme pour ne pas se consoler par l’espoir d’arracher, à ce prix, 25 millions d’hommes à la tyrannie, à l’oppression, aux vexations, à la misère, pour les faire enfin arriver au bonheur.

You blame fate for the oddity of the events in your life. But what if, like the Friend of the People, you were toyed by men and victimised for your patriotism! What if, plagued by a life-threatening disease, you had, like him, renounced the preservation of your living days to clarify the rights and means to recovering rights to the people! What if, from the instant you were healed, you had sacrificed for them your repose, your waking hours, your freedom! What if you were reduced to bread and water to dedicate all your possessions to the res publica! What if, to defend the people, you had warred on all their enemies! What if, to save the class of the unfortunate, you fell out with the whole universe, without holding for yourself one single asylum under the sun! What if, you were alternately accused of being bought by the ministers you unmasked, by the despots you combatted, by the great ones you condemned, by the bloodsuckers of the State from whom you sought reparations, what if, you were in turn under the decrees of the iniquitous judges whose prevarication you would have denounced, by the legislator whose errors, iniquities, appalling purposes, schemes, and treason you would have unmasked, what if, you were pursued by a mob of assassins armed against your livelihood, what if, running from asylum to asylum, you were determined to live underground so that you might save an insensible, blind, and ungrateful people! Always under the threat of eventually falling victim to the powerful men I have fought against, to the ambitious men I have crossed, to the scoundrels I have unmasked, with no idea of the lot that awaits me and probably doomed to perish miserably in some hospital, have I ever complained? A quite unsound philosopher alone, Sir, would be able to deny that this is ordinarily the way things go. And quite undignified a soul alone would not find solace in the hope to wrest, at this price, five and twenty million men from tyranny, oppression, from vexation, and from misery, to see that they eventually find their own happiness.

Quant à vous, Monsieur, vos destinées sont un peu différentes. Vous avez sacrifié les adorations d’un peuple idolâtre aux sourires d’une cour perfide, dont peut-être vous avez encore la faveur. Mais il vous reste des trésors. Vous ne passez plus pour Aristide, mais vous êtes encore Luculle. Est-il un seul monarque qui ne s’empressât de vous offrir une retraite honorable, est-il un seul plaisir dans la vie que puisse donner la fortune et qui vous soit refusé ? Voluptés, honneurs, dignités, tout vous attend. Vous pouvez disposer de tout, excepté de l’estime des cœurs droits et des âmes élevées, ou de la gloire qui n’est pas non plus le prix de l’argent.

As for you, Sir, your destiny is a little different. You have sacrificed the adorations of an idolatrous people for the smiles of a perfidious court, whose favour you still will have. But you are left with treasures. As Aristides you can pass no more, but as Lucullus you remain no less. Is there a single monarch who would not be quick to offer you an honourable retirement, is there a single pleasure in life that fortune grants denied to you? Voluptuousness, honours, dignities, all await you. You can own everything, except the esteem of upright hearts and dignified souls, and except glory, which money still cannot buy.

Quoi qu’il en soit, Monsieur, si votre retraite n’est pas jouée, dès aujourd’hui, je m’impose à votre égard un éternel silence. J’ai travaillé à votre chute avec un zèle peu commun ; mais à l’instant que vous n’êtes plus un homme public dangereux, vous redevenez pour moi un particulier sans conséquence.

Be that as it may, Sir, as long as your retirement is not a prank, from today, I impose on you an eternal silence. To defeat you I have worked with quite uncommon zeal; but the moment you stop being a dangerous public figure, to me you revert to being a private individual of no importance.

[please-again-call-me-alsip]

Marat's Address to the Parisians

Le Junius Français, no .1, June 2 , 1790.

O Parisiens ! hommes légers, faibles & pusillanimes, dont le goût pour les nouveautés va jusqu’à la fureur, & dont la passion pour les grandes choses n’est qu’un accès passager ; qui raffolez de la liberté comme des modes du jour ; qui n’avez ni lumières, ni plan, ni principes ; qui préférez l’adroit flagorneur au conseiller sévère ; qui méconnaissez vos défenseurs ; qui vous abandonnez à la foi du premier venu ; qui vous livrez à vos ennemis sur leur parole ; qui pardonnez aux perfides et aux traîtres, au premier signe contrition ; qui dans vos projets ou vos vengeances, suivez sans cesse l’impulsion du moment ; qui êtes toujours prêts à donner un coup de collier ; qui allez au bien par vanité, et que la nature eût donné de la judiciaire et de la constance : faudra-t-il donc toujours vous traiter comme de vieux enfants ? Les leçons de la sagesse, et les vues de la prudence ne sont plus faites pour vous. Des légions de folliculaires faméliques vous ont blasés à force de sottises et d’atrocités ; les bonnes choses glissent sur vous sans effet : déjà vous ne prenez plaisir qu’aux conseils outrés, aux traits déchirants, aux invectives grossières : déjà les termes les plus forts vous paraissent sans énergie : et bientôt vous n’ouvrirez l’oreille qu’aux cris d’alarme, de meurtre, de trahison. Tant de fois agités pour des riens, comment fixer votre attention ; comment vous tenir en garde contre toute surprise ; comment vous tenir continuellement éveillés ? Un seul moyen me reste, c’est de suivre vos goûts, et de varier mon ton. O Parisiens ! Quelque bizarre que ce rôle paraisse aux yeux du sage, votre ancien ami ne dédaignera pas de le prendre, il n’est occupé que du soin de votre salut ; pour vous empêcher de retomber dans l’abîme, il n’est point d’efforts qu’il ne fasse, et toujours le Junius Français sera votre incorruptible défenseur, votre défenseur intrépide.

my translation:

O Parisians! Lightweight, feeble, and pusillanimous men, your appetite for novelties reaches furious excess, and your passion for grand things is but a brief flicker; you craze after freedom as if crazing after fashions of the day; you have neither insight, nor plan, nor principles; you prefer the skilful sycophant to the stern advisor; you disregard your defenders; you let yourselves be swayed by whosoever comes along first; you hand yourselves over to your enemies over their word; you forgive the perfidious and the treacherous at the first sign of contrition; through your projects or your vengeance you are unceasingly following your impulse of the moment; you are always ready to give another push; you seek to do good out of vanity, and nature ought to have given you judiciousness and constancy: will you forever need to be treated like overgrown children?

The lessons of wisdom, and the views of prudence are no longer made for you. Legions of famished fillers of periodical papers have wearied you with silliness and with atrocities; the good things are sliding over you unnoticed: already you only feel pleased with the overblown advices, the agonising remarks, the gross invectives: already you find the strongest words to lack energy: and soon you will only open your ears to cries of alarm, of murder, of treason. So often agitated by nothing, how could your attention be fixed; how can you be put on guard against all surprises; how can you be kept continually awake? I have been left with only one way, and that is to conform to your appetites and to vary my tone. O Parisians! However bizarre this role might seem to the eyes of the wise, your old friend will not begrudge to perform it, he is occupied but with your very survival; to prevent you from relapsing into the abyss, no single effort will he not make, and always the Junius Français will be your incorruptible defender, your defender undaunted.

[please-again-call-me-alsip]

salut et fraternité. i'll put all my works of translation here.