ARTIST'S BOOKS

THE SALTIMBANQUES

In the plain with its quiet gardens,

Where the travelling players move along, 

Past the doors of gray inns

And through the villages without the churches,

The youngest children lead the way,

And the other, dreaming, follow on.

Every fruit tree accepts its fate

When they wave to it from afar.

They have heavy weights, round or square,

Drums and gilded hoops.

The bear and the monkey, well-trained animals,

Beg for coins, as they pass by.

A little saltimbanque uses his hand

In place of the handkerchief he doesn’t own.

And the woman breast-feeds

With her River Lethe milk of forgetting

A newborn baby, beside the sad dwarf

And Harlequin Trismegistus.

 

 

PERFORMANCE

With the forest as a backdrop,

On the grass where the day is fading,

The harlequin girl has shed her clothes

And mirrors her figure in the pool.

On the trestle stage, the pale harlequin

First bows to the audience

Of sorcerers from Bohemia,

With witches and wizards.

Once he has unhooked a star,

He waves it at arm's length,

While with his feet, a hanged man

Knocks three times, to raise the curtain.

 

English translation by A. S. Kline