La flors enversa
I dedicate this rendition to all those who live that timeless revolutionary adage, that makes one fearless and shatters despair and ennui. Ennui, that ugly beast Baudelaire thought the true Devil:
Love in the face of danger.
From Slippery Elm
Prelude
There is something palpably bewitching about Raimbaut d’Aurenga’s “The Inverse Flower”.
Between the hot-flashes, biting chills, the whips of beauty, the bursting forth of green leaves in desolate landscaps, the anti-clericalism and the pangs of love-sickness (or is it love-sweetness?), this twelth-century troubadour’s enigmatic canso seems an appropriate air to be sung by witches of our own times, times marked, like Raimbaut’s, by the increasing fragmentation of political structures coupled with increasingly brutal reprisals against those who would attempt to break monopolies imposed on reality (i.e. those of the Church, later on, Capitalism and the Internet…).
But what to make of the wrath of the lordless weather?
What to make of snowfall in tropical climes, in warm seasons and mild reaches?
Of inverse flowers or strange fruits opening through ice?
Perhaps disaster, perhaps theophany, and a potent blend of both…
This is not the place for detailed analysis, as the mysteries the poem exudes are best served by keeping silent. Furthermore, the poem itself was written in the sealed trobar ric style, or simply put, moonlight come lyric vernacular. This hermetic style takes flight when the learned try to explain it away; to do so would be to shine electric lights in a ritual room or grove. It’s a curious thing that in this poem eight words of power are repeated and seem to form an eight-pointed star, an age old symbol of the Queen of Heaven.
Remember, the love lyrics of many troubadours are intimately entwined with power dynamics, hidden destinataires, and sexual and gender ambiguities, in which Ladies and Lords are naught but masks. Therefore, when reading this poem, I invite you to read the Lady as place-holder for not exclusively a flesh-and-blood woman, but for whomever you hold most beloved.
Despite my best efforts, this English rendition remains a poor shadow of the Occitan original.
Yet, in a way that makes it an act of poetic sciomancy.
I dedicate this rendition to all those who live that timeless revolutionary adage, that makes one fearless and shatters despair and ennui. Ennui, that ugly beast Baudelaire thought the true Devil:
Love in the face of danger.
Evoe,
SE
Now glows the inverse flower
Now glows the inverse flower
Along jagged cliffs and hills.
What flower? Snow, ice, frost.
And it burns, stings, and cuts
And dead are the trills, cries, screams, and whistles
In the leaves, boughs, and branch-whips
But joy keeps me thrilling and green,
Though I behold the wicked ones withered.
In such a way, all is inverse
that meadows seem hills
that I keep flowers of frost
that cold by heat is cut
that thunder seems a song or whistle
and into new leaf burst the branch-whips;
I’m so firmly bound by joy
nothing I see appears to me wicked.
A graceful fairy inverts them
as if they’d grown in hills
they wound me more than frost
and with their tongues they cut
in hushed tones and whistles
of no use are sticks or whips
or threats that would sooner bring them joy
when their deeds are such that men call them wicked.
For locked in kisses we become inverse
I cannot be kept by meadow nor hill
lady, nor ice nor frost,
lest my power yield and my heart be cut.
Lady, for whom I sing and whistle,
the glow of your eyes is a whip
that lashes my heart with joy
that within it may grow nothing wicked.
I’ve wandered as a creature inverted
long hours, among valleys and hills
weeping in the way of he who by frost
is tormented, broken, and cut,
for I’ve never been conquered by songs or whistles
more than the lying clergy conquer with whips.
Yet now, praise God, I’m sheltered by joy
in spite of the false and the wicked.
And so goes my verse, which I inverse
that it be not held back by valley nor hill
there, where none feel frost
and where cold has no power to cut
to midons, the song and the clear whistle
and may the whip enter the heart
of who knows to sing with joy,
which the wicked singer never will grasp.
Sweet lady, love and joy
Have bound us fast, despite the wicked.
Joglar, I have lost much joy
For the distance between us; my semblance grows wicked.
—Translation by Slippery Elm
Er resplan la flors enversa
Er resplan la flors enversa
pels trencans rancx e pels tertres.
Quals flors? Neus, gels e conglapis.
que cotz e destrenh e trenca,
don vey morz quils, critz, brays, siscles
pels fuels, pels rams e pels giscles;
mas mi te vert e jauzen joys,
er quad vey secx los dolens croys.
Quar enaissi o enverse
que·l bel plan mi semblon tertre,
e tenc per flor lo conglapi
e·l cautz m’es vis que·l freit trenque,
e·l tro mi son chant e siscle
e paro·m fulhat li giscle;
aissi·m suy ferms lassatz en joy
que re no vey que·m sia croy.
Mas una gen fad’enversa
cum s’eron noirit en tertres,
que·m fan trop pieigz que conglapis
q’us quecx ab sa lengua trenca
e·n parla bas et ab siscles;
e no·y val bastos ni giscles
ni menassas, ans lur es joys,
quan fan so don hom los clam croys.
Quar en baizan no·us enverse,
no m’o tolon plan ni tertre,
dona, ni gel ni conglapi;
mas non-poder trop m’en trenque.
Dona, per cuy chan e siscle,
vostre belh huelh mi son giscle
que·m castion si·l cor ab joy
qu’ieu non aus aver talan croy.
Anat ai cum cauz’enversa
lonc temps, sercan vals e tertres,
marritz, cum om cui conglapis
cocha e mazelh’e trenca,
qu’anc no·m conquis chans ni siscles
plus que·l fels clercx conquer giscles.
Mas ar, Dieu lau, m’alberga joys
mal grat dels fals lauzengiers croys.
Mos vers an, qu’aissi l’enverse
que no·l tenhon val ni tertre,
lai on hom non sen conglapi
ni a freitz poder que·y trenque:
a midons lo chant e·l siscle
clar, qu’el cor li·n intro·l giscle,
selh que sap gen chantar ab joy,
que no·s tanh a chantador croy.
Doussa dona, amors e joys
nos ten ensems mal grat dels croys.
Jocglar, granre ai menhs de joy,
quar no·us vey, e·n fas semblan croy.
—Raimbaut d’Aurenga (c. 1147 – 1173)
Slippery Elm
Slippery Elm’s poetry and prose in English and Spanish have appeared in dozens of journals and anthologies in both Europe and North America. He has performed as a part of flamenco groups in Europe, Africa, and North America, in courtly settings, as well as in the streets, by hearth corner, and under leaf. He is the editor and translator of the poetry anthology Your Death Full of Flowers and the author of two pocket poetry books. He compliments his poetry and dance by studying Arabic and Hebrew philologies.
