THE ANGEL HANDED ME A BOOK

Placing a book in my hands, the angel said, “It holds all you would wish to know.” And he vanished.
So I opened the book, which wasn’t thick.
It was written in an unknown alphabet.
Scholars translated it, but produced very different versions.
They disagreed even about their own readings, agreeing neither upon the tops or bottoms of them, nor the beginnings, nor the ends.
Toward the close of this vision, it seemed to me that the book
melted, until it could no longer be told apart from the world that surrounds us.





Paul Valéry
1871-1945

translated from the French by Carolyn Forché 


Ambroise-Paul-Toussaint-Jules Valéry was a French poet, essayist, and philosopher. His interests were sufficiently broad that he can be classified as a polymath.

THE HUMAN SPECIES

The human species has given me
the right to be mortal
the duty to be civilised
a conscience
2 eyes that don't always function very well
a nose in the middle of my face
2 feet 2 hands
speech

the human species has given me
my father and mother
some brothers maybe who knows
a whole mess of cousins
and some great-grandfathers
the human species has given me
its 3 faculties
feeling intellect and will
each in moderation
32 teeth 10 fingers a liver
a heart and some other viscera
the human species has given me
what I'm supposed to be satisfied with



Raymond Queneau
1903-1976

UNANSWERED QUESTIONS

Funeral Cortege of Victor Hugo

What is the end of all things - life or grave?

Is it the upholding, or the whelming, wave?

So many tangled tracks whose distant goal

Is what? The cradle holds - fate or man's soul?

Are we below, in blest or wretched state,

Predestined kings, or pawns foredoomed of fate?

Didst Thou, oh God, Lord Almighty, say,

Create man but to tread his destined way?

Say, does the crib the cross already hold?

These silken nests, touched by cool dawn with gold,

Where amid flowers budding plumes expand,

Were they for small fowls or for fowlers planned?

Victor Hugo

1802-1885

translated from the French by R.J.P. Hewison