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A throw of the dice will never abolish chance
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| A throw of the dice will never abolish chance written by Stéphane Mallarmé, translated by A. S. Kline |
| « Un coup de dés jamais n’abolira le hasard » |
A THROW OF THE DICE
NEVER
EVEN WHEN TRULY CAST IN THE ETERNAL
CIRCUMSTANCE
OF A SHIPWRECK’S DEPTH
Can be
only
the Abyss
raging
whitened
stalled
beneath the desperately
sloping incline
of its
own wing
through an advance falling back from ill to take flight
and veiling the gushers
restraining the surges
gathered far within
the shadow buried deep by that alternative sail
almost matching
its yawning depth to the wingspan like a hull
of a vessel
rocked from side to side
THE MASTER beyond former calculations
where the lost manoeuvre with the age
rose
implying that formerly he grasped the helm
of this conflagration of the concerted
horizon at his feet
that readies itself
moves and merges
with the blow that grips it
as one threatens fate and the winds
the unique Number which cannot be another
Spirit
to hurl it
into the storm
relinquish the cleaving there and pass proudly
hesitates
a corpse pushed back by the arm from the secret
rather
than taking sides
a hoary madman
on behalf
of the waves
one overwhelms the head
flows through the submissive beard
straight shipwreck that of the man
without a vessel
empty
no matter where
ancestrally never to open the fist
clenched
beyond the helpless head
a legacy in vanishing
to someone
ambiguous
the immemorial ulterior demon
having
from non-existent regions
led
the old man towards this ultimate meeting with probability
this
his childlike shade
caressed and smoothed and rendered
supple by the wave and shielded
from hard bone lost between the planks
born
of a frolic
the sea through the old man or the old man against the sea
making a vain attempt
an Engagement
whose
dread the veil of illusion rejected
as the phantom of a gesture
will tremble
collapse
madness
WILL NEVER ABOLISH
AS IF
A simple insinuation
into silence entwined with irony
or
the mystery
hurled
howled
in some close swirl of mirth and terror
whirls round the abyss
without scattering
or dispersing
and cradles the virgin index there
AS IF
a solitary plume overwhelmed
untouched that a cap of midnight grazes or encounters
and fixes
in crumpled velvet with a sombre burst of laughter
that rigid whiteness
derisory
in opposition to the heavens
too much so
not to signal
closely
any
bitter prince of the reef
heroically adorned with it
indomitable but contained
by his petty reason virile
in lightning
anxious
expiatory and pubescent
dumb laughter
that
IF
The lucid and lordly crest of vertigo
on the invisible brow
sparkles
then shades
a slim dark tallness upright
in its siren coiling
at the moment
of striking
through impatient ultimate scales bifurcated
a rock
a deceptive manor
suddenly
evaporating in fog
that imposed
limits on the infinite
IT WAS THE NUMBER
stellar outcome
WERE IT TO HAVE EXISTED
other than as a fragmented agonised hallucination
WERE IT TO HAVE BEGUN AND ENDED
a surging that denied and closed when visible
at last
by some profusion spreading in sparseness
WERE IT TO HAVE AMOUNTED
to the fact of the total though as little as one
WERE IT TO HAVE LIGHTED
IT WOULD BE
WORSE
no
more nor less
indifferently but as much CHANCE
Falls
the plume
rhythmic suspense of the disaster
to bury itself
in the original foam
from which its delirium formerly leapt to the summit
faded
by the same neutrality of abyss
NOTHING
of the memorable crisis
where the event
matured accomplished in sight of all non-existent
human outcomes
WILL HAVE TAKEN PLACE
a commonplace elevation pours out absence
BUT THE PLACE
some lapping below as if to scatter the empty act
abruptly that otherwise
by its falsity
would have plumbed
perdition
in this region
of waves
in which all reality dissolves
EXCEPT
at the altitude
PERHAPS
as far as a place fuses with beyond
outside the interest
signalled regarding it
in general
in accord with such obliquity through such declination
of fire
towards
what must be
the Wain also North
A CONSTELLATION
cold with neglect and desuetude
not so much though
that it fails to enumerate
on some vacant and superior surface
the consecutive clash
sidereally
of a final account in formation
attending
doubting
rolling
shining and meditating
before stopping
at some last point that crowns it
All Thought expresses a Throw of the Dice
