A Dahlia

Un Dahlia

Paul Verlaine

Courtisane au sein dur, à l'oeil opaque et brun

S'ouvrant avec lenteur comme celui d'un boeuf,

Ton grand torse reluit ainsi qu'un marbre neuf.

Fleur grasse et riche, autour de toi ne flotte aucun

Arôme, et la beauté séreine de ton corps

Déroule, mate, ses impeccables accords.

Tu ne sens même pas la chair, ce goût qu'au moins

Exhalent celles-là qui vont fanant les foins,

Et tu trônes, Idole insensible à l'encens.

Ainsi le Dahlia, roi vêtu du splendeur,

Elève sans orgueil, sa tête sans odeur,

Irritant au milieu des jasmins agaçants!

There is no satisfactory English translation of this poem (at least not that I know of), which reminds me of how impossibly difficult to translate from one language to another. Verlaine's description of a dahlia, the metaphoric flower-woman, is full of rancor. The poem reflects Verlaine's bitterness in the failure of his relationship with his first love, Elisa. His barely contained misogyny is projected into nature, into the guise of the dahlia, an opulent beauty without perfume.

I like the alternating tercets addressed to the courtisan/woman (1 and 3) and to the flower (2 and 4) an interesting structure, something that the two translations I read completely ignored.

Dahlias

My dahlias from the Farmers Market. There's nothing like dahlias to cheer up the autumn garden. Originally discovered in Mexico in 1615 by a Spaniard, the dahlia was also noticed in the same country by the French botanist Nicolas-Joseph Thiéry de Menonville in 1787. It was not until 1789, when the first dahlia – grown from seed sent from Mexico City to Spain – flowered and was named Dahlia coccinea, after the 18th-century Swedish botanist Anders Dahl, by the head of the Madrid Botanical Garden. There are now thousands of cultivars in a riot of colors, and they add cheerful notes to the garden as autumn wraps its bronze hues among the plants. In Japan, the dahlia is called Tenjikubotan, meaning "Peony of India." I like the rather unpretentious dahlias, such relative newcomers in the garden, for their unfussy habit and lovely colors. Around this time of year, they can enliven a garden, or a room, far better than the ubiquitous mums, which get planted by the tons in corporate parks, suburban yards, and outside so-called luxury apartment buildings around the city.