Demain, dès l’aube by Victor Hugo – My Translation

Eleven-year-old Léopoldine, Victor Hugo’s daughter, whom this poem of grief is about. Painted 1835. She drowned in the Seine aged nineteen, along with her husband, who tried to save her and their unborn child.

Tomorrow, at dawn, when the dew whitens the land,
I will leave. Why? you know. You are waiting for me.
I will go by the forest, I will climb the mountain band,
For to remain here without you I cannot still be.

With my eyes to my thoughts I will walk almost lost,
Without the world there, nor to my ear its din call,
Alone and unknown, back bent and my hands crossed,
Wrenched, and the day will always be as the nightfall.

I will watch neither the far gold twilight wave,
Nor the far white sails descend on Harfleur.
And when I arrive, I will place on your grave
A bouquet of green holly and heather in flower. 

I had an unexpected call the other day, it was from the very maverick man I mentioned in my YouTube video where I recited Victor Hugo’s famous poem, Demain, dès l’aube. A call from the man who said I ought to learn this poem in French, if not for its beauty, then for its educational power with regards to the future tense.

Marcus, this maverick man, said that he had watched my video and that he was very touched, that it even brought a tear to his eye at one moment. I was touched. He then said that I ought to do the video again and that I should write and recite my own translation of the poem. I demurred to him at the time. Why? I was not thinking clearly during the call to what he was to trying to say to me or even encourage. I said that I wanted to just in general make a video and then to move onto the next one, that I wanted to cover more ground rather than linger (on a subject).

But I realised shortly after this call that his suggestions were good, for many reasons. One, it is a good exercise to translate a poem into your own words, for the sake of learning. Two, it would bring a greater connection with the poem and a staying remembrance of it. Three, my actual first recital was wrong, I had missed out the words ‘Et quand (and when)’ in the third stanza on the line ‘Et quand j’arriverai’, so I had not actually recited the poem proper. Four, Marcus is a wise man and, how goes the saying from the Bible, ‘he who walketh with wise men shall be wise’; if I wish to be one day wise then I ought to pay attention to those who are.

There is a qualitative reason to spend time and dwell on a subject, even if the subject takes a long time or not to be fully fleshed out. And so I did, I wrote my own translation of Hugo’s poem, Demain, dès l’aube. I think mine is special, which I mean to say that it is not necessarily good nor noteworthy, but that it has qualities which I have not found when searching other translations. For example, I have not found to date a translation that matches Hugo’s rhyme scheme (ABAB CDCD EFEF). This is very important in my estimation, because a poem is not just its textual meaning, it is much more. A poem has a voice and a song to it, and I have tried to achieve this in my translation. The only troubled rhyme I have written is ‘Harfleur’ and ‘flower’, because to make it work one has to bend the last syllable of flower from an ‘err’ to an ‘urr’. This does not bother me much, there is always flexibility in poetry and I like that.

To give a little name drop that bolsters Marcus’ words, which I risk embarrassing Marcus to mention, is that he knew the great English poet Ted Hughes. In fact, Marcus has framed on the wall of his living room a poem whose subject is Marcus himself, written by Ted Hughes in his own handwriting. What a thing!

I find it extraordinary the luck I have had so far, in meeting such fascinating people, who have so much to give and so much to tell and share, and who really care and pay attention. To my shame, I had not heard of Ted Hughes before I met Marcus. I still remember his reaction when I said I did not. But I am young and my fresh eyes have only fallen upon words as and when they have come to me. There are certainly more poets out there I have yet to discover, whom I ought to know already (that’s just the English ones).

Well here is my translation and take it for what it is worth. I may try to improve it, for what might be perfect is itself lacking that which is imperfect. I have taken license to err away from a direct translation, but I believe I have kept the fundamental essence, emotion and intention of the poem. For example, the fourth line of the first stanza is directly translated as ‘I cannot stay away from you any longer’, as compared with my ‘For to remain without you I cannot still be’. Although this is an example of the licence I am playing with, I think I have achieved some congruency in sense in spite of my dedication to a rhyme scheme – such is the nature of translating to which I am becoming aware.

I will be shortly making another video on my Youtube channel reciting my version of the poem as well as again reciting the original (and this time correctly and more fluently).

There is just one more thing I want to add here before I finish, perhaps it is point five to my list above, and it is epitomised through and through with such a character as Marcus. When you set out to do something, do it properly, do it thoroughly and do it completely.

My YouTube channel is Dominic Water de Lys.