WEBVTT

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I always think it's nervy to
use a word like depletion.

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It's a word hopelessly connected
with Texas and oil and taxes.

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And yet, I think part of
one's business as a writer,

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is to keep rescuing
perfectly good words

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from special connections
of that sort.

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A few years ago, I
defied the New Yorker.

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They didn't like my using the
word irradiated in conjunction

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with a story about
the Virgin Mary.

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They thought it was undignified
because the supermarkets, they

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said, were full of irradiated
dog food, et cetera.

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And I said to them what
I just said to you,

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that we have to keep
rescuing these words,

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and publishers have to help.

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And they were very ashamed,
and published the poem.

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Let's see.

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Here's a translation from
Voltaire, who is commonly

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thought of as,
emotionally, a bit thin,

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and I think this
poem, by itself,

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suffices to disprove that.

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It's a very nervy poem,
a very brave poem,

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written to Voltaire's long time
friend, Madame du Chatelet.

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It's brave because he's
saying something in the poem,

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and saying it gracefully,
too, which puts him

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in danger of being ridiculous.

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The poem amounts to a
statement to Madame du Chatalet

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that he is no longer
capable of passionate love,

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that the time has
come for him to embark

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on the age of friendship.

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"If you would have
my heart love on,

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grant me such years
as suit the lover,

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and teach my twilight to
recover (if but it could)

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the flush of dawn.

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Time takes my elbow now,
in sign that I must bow

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and to turn away from
gardens where the god of wine

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divides with Love
his pleasant sway.

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Let us from rigorous
Time obtain what

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timely blessings may assuage.

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Whoever will not
be his age knows

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nothing of his age but pain.

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Leave then to sweet
and giddy youth

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those ecstasies
which youth can give:

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two moments only do we live; let
there be one for sober truth.

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What!

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Will you leave me thus forlorn,
o tenderness, illusion,

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folly- heavenly gifts whereby
I've borne life's bitterness

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and melancholy?

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Two deaths we suffer.

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To forgo loving, and
being loved in turn,

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is deathly pain, as now I learn.

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Ceasing to live is no such woe.

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Thus did I mourn the
loss of all those years

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when I was young and
mad, my slow heart

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sighing to recall the furious
beat which once it had.

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Friendship,
descending from above,

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came then in mercy to my aid;
she was as kind, perhaps,

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as Love, but not so
ardent, and more staid.

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Touched by her charms,
so fresh they were,

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and by her radiance
calm and clear,

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I followed her; yet
shed a tear that I

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could follow none but her."

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Some of you may know a
very interesting rendition

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of that poem by Ezra Pound.

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He did it into, kind
of, imagist prose,

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as if to show that Voltaire, had
he lived in the right period,

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could have written
this imagistically.

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My effort is a much
more literal rendering,

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but do look at Pound's.

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It's full of life and the
transformation he insists on

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is fascinating to observe.

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For example, capitalized
Love, meaning the god of love

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as one might see him on
a statue in a garden,

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becomes lovers
lying on the grass.

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And as for the god of
wine, who would also

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be a little bit of
garden statuary,

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that turns into actual
grapes in his version.

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