par Man Ray
Desnos’s Chantefables, each of which focuses on an animal, were immediately popular. One of his friends, hiding from German pursuers in an attic in the Dordogne, remembered hearing children playing outside and reciting La sauterelle from the poet’s newly published book:
Saute, saute, sauterelle
Car c’est aujourd’hui jeudi.
Je sauterai, nous dit-elle,
Du lundi au samedi.
Saute, saute, sauterelle,
À travers tout le quartier.
Sautez donc, mademoiselle,
Puisque c’est votre métier.
Hop, grasshopper, hop away,
Thursday, Friday, Saturday.
I shall hop, we heard her say,
From Monday to the latter day.
Hop, grasshopper, hop away,
All around the quarter,
Hop, that’s your job all day,
Being your mother’s daughter.
(That’s what they taught her.)i
A poem such as ‘La fourmi’ lends itself to an even more sombre interpretation:
Une fourmi de dix-huit mètres
Avec un chapeau sur la tête,
Ça n’existe pas, ça n’existe pas.
Une fourmi traînant un char
Plein de pingouins et de canards,
Ça n’existe pas, ça n’existe pas.
Une fourmi parlant français,
Parlant latin et javanais,
Ça n’existe pas, ça n’existe pas.
Eh! Pourquoi pas?
Ant, an eighteen-metre ant,
Hat on head insouciant,
Cannot happen on this planet.
Ant that hauls a pair of trucks
Crammed with penguins and with ducks,
Cannot happen on this planet.
Ant that spouts with fluent ease
Latin, French and Javanese,
Cannot happen on this planet.
Or can it?
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