Stéphane Mallarmé (1842-1898) was a chief member of the French symbolists. His major works include Herodias
(1869) and The Afternoon of a Faun (1876).





22: Translations of "A Tomb for Anatole"

translated via anagram


1.

deafer trios us
onus mode onus
undemons tenor
ailed is extant
_ onus peer
quiet lumiere
_ _ sitter survives _
_ silence common
extents chemical
alm luxoasis i pass
quiet in nots rexmood
see as nature _ p
etulant cant free _ _ tend




2.

limeruleit
comes dim equal
sates corner
quellquit fuseend
act sqallifiifs
deign hes
cute votes _ _
fuss eft _ _ _ _ us
notes asp




3.

dream2 pi
mentalage
morn to automen
cell is values

_ _ pause
exit deal ou
t




4.

ifit
rerobes
asp tapir
cull sos
me ons reefs
iou
jell are
id itd
free ex_i__




5.

silence_ _steer
of _calf
jutes murders i
ocruel
_o aneelseen asp
jutes upor
struminire




6.

asp uncon
mere me silent
am asp uncon
damage im oi
queer mute oi
teenromp _
rote




7.

per sets figure
not fault im one
enviedr am
quite_ _ vaster live
realqueen _ j et
ouchirate asp




8.

stile deepqu eu
eon
lexistonce us onus
onus nervousretro
inone sunvet
site lion
duel zone
up demon so
arse intome
an questpenis __
__ save visvex june




9.

fire

peer men
up me spent
novena _ quits
repaper fails
via cheat limbuse


__ beloud _
primer _ fainted
ur annals __ quiled __ rides
seed ricefairs urge sent
pulse splintermotor _ def
villa __ quilt memo an asp tee
__ afilter __ cheat ah antlers




10.

pa tub presume
tune tee
rip purple lie
deal ive
salut complete
frantic
a _ surfesque
exodus duo
quartz purr foe
lace an isto comets
upon ive vacant sentinel
not deepest _ ester rap rule
achefrance of us need travel




11.

o
riper storm
nun europe 1


oxygen exeunt
fauxon ibones
eg radio fanvent
nos obscene genx __
tentmob an


arc diverts storm
faunaunt




12.

matisse jingonet
revs uncle poet
__ ____ repress
masque i sun
nine escape
parsee




13.

l
pre1

riche

drang court
ib ibis fled he lit
peer done
in venue
batter soup quinine
port grades
or laces it
echoute
if gutters
lalaland ja latte
vermicelli __ feller _
puce _ ailfile no




14.

o
fantail reviver
crestruins
cave as tenet
ovidtune tacit
cute __ port
stave 2impure

re sinai em
private deal
ive oo acres
final is it




15.

_
nets rule poo
tree die drang
viper re me
afire lace sins
tantric 3p liars
cave as stop
opaque _ julie
critiqued _ am
ive ascetic
japanese __ cares _
if motto item
castrational




16.

examine
onus novas us
rap cot ie lemurlie
ie mousemens
nee tvesque onus
teach peep eras
on onus in son
caste templeaunt

fanned cements
ladiesnation




17.

peer at seem un
important _ id
raveon asp tread _
recess
sofas surelee rap etc
ive flute __




18.

sneered
amiss
valises
is antrue
an asp verve

our mourn ____
oil tour
jolt

beamus amusement
coolsnations pope onus
tudor
soup inn rule learite




19.

fatten tenor
demoralises
effete _ fiat
diaspora inflame
ionfuse veto
confess i re melee
rap murmur seeds
panter spear homilies
uh semen __ me mysteer
fj pennant fleet




20.

e
amdeal
lisped mo tour um real
sinstall _ sluice rap
tomdime
nets ulps jut jade siam
set quail tap averter
to aqua ulps dart no
ivideo __ carver
manurest torn me
urroo ___ a1 puprat
let cave nos lam
or as alp rue




21.

u
lamade reet 2 na
cmemo lentfan

__ onus atpapasrains
led fortpie no see
surehe __ rome
pepfar
vital
recone it
set recone i onus

trial ousted op
__ leadaim




22.

i
cave nod i _ aurais
leopard up i _ if are
teen lentfan a _ ole
or i if are ditto
oi teed
one sitter fluids
an onus
on if are us
teach
con
lo __
quinjeer ___ sad devour
quill ie
sours mauveis lie
tofu
chubee formal net creole
carole
pet tan ale
movieto
etcs iou bee
tie idea sipped





Michael Farrell is Australia editor for Slope. He lives in Melbourne and also reads for Meanjin. His pamphlet
living at the z was published by Vagabond Press in 2000. His writing is forthcoming in Jacket, Volt, La Petite
Zine, Verse and Quarterly West.

Igitur


[Notes 1]


[f° 1 r°]


(Igitur. Decline)
_

(The Madness of Elbehnon)
_

[f° 3 r° - v°]

Archaic étude
Ig.


< 17 August >

        When the <shades> exhalations of his ancestors want to blow out the candle, (from which the
Letters in the spell book subsist off) - he says “not yet!”
        He, in the end, when the sounds have died down, will leave proof of something great (not from
the stars? chance annulled?) by that simple fact of being able to form a shadow by < putting out >
blowing out the < candle > light - < blowing and >
        Then - as he will have spoken in terms of the absolute - < the absolute will exist outside of >
which denies immortality, the absolute will exist elsewhere - moon, above time: and he will raise the
[v°] curtains, opposite.


Ig. childlike still, studies his ancestral duty.


[ff° 4 r° - v°, 5 r°]

            1 - 2
[ 1 ] < 3 > < 5 > 4 Pieces


1 - Midnight.
2 - The stairs
3 - The throw of the dice.
4 - Sleep on the ashes, after the blown out candle.


< A possible fragment >
        Roughly what happens:
Midnight sounds - Midnight where the dice must be thrown. Ig. descends the stairs, of the human
spirit, going to the depth of things: in the “absolute” state that he is. Tombs - ashes,(without feeling,
or spirit) neutrality. < Then > He < reads > [v°] recites the warning and makes the gesture. < Explain[ing] >
Indifference. < Mad[ness] > Whistlings on the stairs. “You are wrong” no emotion. < Always >The
infinite destiny of chance, which you have denied. You, < absolutes >, dying mathematicians - I present
myself in my entirety. I must end up in the Infinite. Simply a word and a gesture. As for what I am telling
you, in order to explain my life. Nothing will remain of us - The infinite finally escapes the family, which
has suffered it, - moribund expanse - not by [ 2 ] chance. It has been right to deny him, - his life - for he
has been the absolute. That which needed to be placed in the workings of the Infinite in relation to the
Absolute. Necessary - mental extraction. Worthwhile madness. A universal action will be committed
there. Nothing more, breath remaining, < e >ending words and gestures alike - blowing out the candle
of being, on all that has been. Proof.
        (Delve into that)


[f° 26 v°]

        Title: The madness of Elbenon. Igitur has understood this madness < to which > to which he has
attached his disorder, precisely on account of that which he is, spirit, < futile subtle, for such is his
disorder. So > the counterpart, of his disorder being the surrounding objects that seemed < a part >
to arise out of himself, his powers, etc. For such is his condition: loss of self, as he has reported. And
he incarnates his race through his body which he does not experience but which makes itself felt
from time to time, whereas this line's madness destroys his filial feelings. As for him, < whilst > he is
divided between the two

        He goes < to accomplish it permanently > to put an end to that self which constituted this < nothing
of > madness, so < that he > that the nothing will be an idea-like act, and he counts on sinking
< himself > into that absent < and divided > self: and as for his family which, being a pure expansion,
it will spring out from the unconditional so that he <will > suddenly comes into being, he < will be in
xxxxx > goes < there > to fuse with the entities that survive as matter, so that he would have had
nothingness on that side


[f° 28 v°]

This story is addressed to the reader's Mind where it is meant to be staged.

“Which, etc.

Having left the room - Yes, there are objects there - obstructing my person - and the Nothing is there.
I will not attempt to alter them. I go to see (< by > thanks to this gift of Deception, where the Dream was -

Very well. This is how I will proceed

(He administers this nothing to himself - remaining element of the Idea,) after having established the
necessity - For it, the Absolute - the correspondences are exact and sufficient. He understands them.

Corridor. One questions, who has spoken at the beginning: and on arrival, before Igitur's silence, in
the certainty that he does not speak.

He whistled because he mistook that which does not understand his action for the souls of his ancestors.

Igitur arrives before the dice, and approaches the reading lamp, the destiny which fulfills the
< in[scription] > inscription.


[f° 19 r°]

He leaves the room
_

The hour has arrived for me to leave, < mirror goes > the purity of the mirror will establish itself, without
this figure, vision of me - but it will take away the light! < the tap[estries] > < shadow > - the night! < The
tap[estries] wall hangings furnishings xxxxxx vacant emptiness the contained shadow always has > Upon
the empty furnishings, the Dream has agonised in this glass phial < vi[al] >, purity, which recaptures the
essence of Nothing. < This dream exists >



The Throw of the dice
_

(at the tomb)


f° 25 r°]

The Throw of the dice

recognise that this is a unique opportunity against I I [2 / 11?] that which thus arrives


< Word - Thought >

In short, with an action where chance is exercised, it is always chance that accomplishes its own Idea
by being affirmed or denied. Before < to him the > his existence negation and affirmation had run aground.
He embodies the Absurd - the implicated, < and hind[ered] > but in a latent state and prevented from existing:
to be able to < to exist > be in the Infinite.

The Horn in which the dice are shaken is the Horn of the unicorn - the single-horned
[“Le Cornet est la Corne de licorne - d'unicorne”]


[f° 25 v°]

The double risk - (in both cases, absurd -

Intention to deny chance, within the family

< If chance was being affirmed in denying itself denying in […] >

< The absolute point of view or pure* that a prediction is made > A word is hurled upon < chance > the
dice because it is not certain that a word will < accomp[lish] > achieve it by itself, - according to his
reckoning he has < I I chances > I I chances which cannot be achieved against one, chance is affirmed,
< by xxxxxxx the action > in relation to the word, in denying itself < by the idea > regarding thought -
Because chance < in this case > was the thing which the < predicted thing > word implemented. < If >
Nevertheless if it implements chance by denying < by the action > the word, affirming itself < by the idea
> in regards to thought, because < one must > that which must […]


[f° 26 r°]

But the Action has been accomplished.

Therefore his identity is manifested in that < which he > which is recovered as Madness: introducing the
action, and, willingly, regaining the Idea, and what an Idea: and the Action (which was the force that has
guided him) having denied chance, he concluded that the Idea had been necessary.

- So he understood that madness has overtaken him completely: but at the same time he was able to say
that, < the action ha[d] > through the fact of this madness, chance having been denied, this madness was
necessary. For what? (No one knows that he has been cut off from humanity)

The reason for his existence, is so his < fami[ly] > lineage can remain pure: it has flown off with its purity
into the Absolute, so that it can exist, rather than leaving an Idea which results in Necessity: and regarding
this Action, it is completely < illusory > absurd: < enough > but the Infinite is finally entrenched.
except for the (personal) motion which can restore the Infinite


[f° 27 r°]

Th[eatre] I or the decline of Igitur


Archaic th[eatre] scene Igitur.

< A > A throw < wh[ich] > of the dice which fulfills a prediction, where it is subjected to an ancestral life.
“Do not whistle” winds, or shadows - if I calculate, actor who brings off this feat - the number 12 - not by
chance in any sense.

He utters the prediction, which makes him utterly ridiculous. He then goes mad.


[f° 28 r°]

Funerary chamber

Igitur simply shakes the dice - motion, before going to rejoin the ashes, atoms of his ancestors: < he has
forgiven > the movement which will absolve him. One understands what is meant by his ambiguity.

? He < leaves > shuts the book - blows out the candle, - his breath which incorporates chance: < he drinks
the poison > < idea of nothing which is within him >

< And lying down on the ashes of his ance[stors] > and, folding his arms, lies down on the ashes of his
ancestors.

Folding his arms - the Absolute has disappeared, into the purity of his line, because (he must go
through with it, so) the sound has stopped. [A]nd, < the Inf[inite] > with regards to […]


[f° 29 r° - v°]

Immemorial race, whose burdensome era falls, excessive, in the past, and which equipped with chance, has
never really lived, in any case, except for its future - That < separated > < by boredom, the game, the delight
- terms which are rediscovered in > chance denies the assistance of an anachronism, a personage, supreme
incarnation of that race, - < the wor[d] > who < believes > feels within himself, thanks to the absurd, < the
Ab[solute] > the existence of the Absolute, having, alone, having forgotten the human words in the spell
book< s >, and thoughts within a taper, < which the > one heralding that negation of chance, the other
lighting up the dream where it is found

[v°] The person for whom, believing < in the Absolute > in the one and only Absolute, imagines to be in
a dream

He acts from the position of the Absolute.

finding the action useless, for < ch[ance] > he < has a chance there > has and does not have chance there -
he reduces chance to the Infinite - which he says, must exist to some degree.

and regarding the family's dream, it has transformed his absolute into the purity of his race, and in the
idea of that purity, which is his necessity, in relation to the Absolute, which was conscious of him. Now,
< the am[biguity?] > he goes to be united with Nothing, (substance?)


[f° 30 r° - v°]

He lies in the tomb.


- On the ashes of the stars, < was the poor > those untouched cells of the family, was the poor personage,
lying down, having drunk the drop of nothing which was missing from all the seas. (The empty phial, mad-
ness, all that remains in the castle?) The Nothing departs, leaving the castle of purity

or the dice -
chance
absorbed.

[v°] different negations create the infinite, everything a < sea > sea of < words > incoherence where the
never-impotent-stirred-up word disappears
Whereas on high the light < is dispensed >


[f° 21 r°]

Ig. decline


Listen, ancestors, before blowing out my candle - the account that I give to you of my life - Here it is:
neurosis, boredom, (or the Absolute?)








Michael Graf is a Melbourne-based visual artist. For the centenary of the death of Stéphane Mallarmé in 1998, he
organized the "Melbourne, Mallarmé and the Twentieth Century Festival."


A Note on the Translation

I began translating the text in 1997 to facilitate the making of a performance work: the only English version of the text
was both incomplete and not very good. The translation was made to assist a non-Francophone, and with no thought of
publication. A section of it was read at the Mallarmé Writers' Event in 1998.

The original translation was based on the only available edition of "Igitur" which Mallarmé's son-in-law, Dr. Bonniot,
published in 1925. Bonniot sequenced the random notes of the heavily worked manuscript into something resembling a
long prose poem. Only with the publication of the first volume of the Pleiade Complete Works in 1998, edited by Bertrand
Marchal, has the transcription of the manuscript been made available.

The first record of "Igitur" is in a letter from July 1869, a year before the only known circulation of the text as a reading
by Mallarmé to Villiers d'Isle-Adam and Judith Gautier. The essentially private nature of the text is evident in its surviving
format: a series of roughly fifty loose sheets of working notes (divided by Marchal into two series). The notes are fragmentary,
repetitive, heavily amended, and completely fascinating.

I've worked with the first (shorter) series of notes and have carefully followed the layout of Marchal's transcription. I should
mention that I have altered his orthography considerably. All insertions are contained in the main body of the text. All crossed
out words or phrases are within angled brackets. All deleted sections are in italics. The very few editorial insertions that I have
made are in square brackets. Spelling is Anglicised.

The translation began fairly literally and eased it was toward the organic. I have been regularly inconsistent with the translation
of certain words - using alternatives where I have seen fit. Finally, I still see "Igitur" as holding great promise as a performance
text (the work from 1997 was not realised), particularly in relation to much of the material in the second series of notes).