This book is close to being a model for the presentation of translated material. (Only close: the absence of line numbers, and other such quibbles, make it fall short of the ideal.) Elliot's text is a single long poem (512 lines) published in 1917 by the French poet Paul Valéry (1871-1945), whom some call the last of the Symbolists. The poem took the author four years to write, and it immediately established his reputation as a major figure in French poetry.

Meticulously crafted and ineffably musical, but alas fearsomely difficult, the text was considered obscure even by the author - so what hope have we got? Much more now, given Elliot's rendering and his judicious though not copious notes.

What of the translation itself? I thought it was fresh and modern: perhaps often too modern and too easy, for such a work of scintillating surfaces and unfathomed depths. Given that the translator does not circumscribe his choices by the burden of rhyming (though the original is composed in rhymed Alexandrine couplets), one might have hoped for more soigné workings, more true to Valéry's own wonted register. But then, maybe I'm just old-fashioned!

I am preparing my own translation of this poem, and it is to be in rhymed pentameters throughout. This is indeed possible, and it will not (despite Elliot's opinion) take 16 years! Here, for comparison, are three versions of the first six lines:

Valéry:

Qui pleure là, sinon le vent simple, à cette heure

Seule, avec diamants extrêmes?... Mais qui pleure,

Si proche de moi-même au moment de pleurer?

Cette main, sur mes traits qu'elle rêve effleurer,

Distraitement docile à quelque fin profonde,

Attend de ma faiblesse une larme qui fonde,

Elliot:

Is that the simple wind? If not, who's crying

There at this hour alone with furthest diamonds?

Who's there, so near me at the point of crying?

This hand, dreaming its way across my features,

Distractedly obeying some deep order,

Looks for a tear to melt out of my weakness -

Me:

Who's weeping there? Or could it simply be

The wind that weeps, so very close to me

When I, alone with diamond stars, would weep?

Distracted by some purpose pure and deep

This hand is resting where it dreams it strokes,

All poised to catch the tear this hour provokes...

Elliot says in his introduction that he has met only one other person who has read La Jeune Parque. There should certainly be many more now, thanks to his efforts, on which I heartily congratulate him.