(Original French text)
Elégie
Pour Philippe-Maguilen Senghor
(pour
orchestre de jazz et choeur polyphonique)
A Colette, sa mère
I
Les jours ont défilé en lugubres boubous, et les nuits-jours
sans le sommeil.
Les pleureuses ont épuisé l’abîme de leurs larmes sans engourdir notre
douleur rebelle.
Contre elle, nous avons recherché le fondement dans la vieille demeure
Où asseoir notre espoir, et le parc garde les pas les jeux la joie des
générations.
Quand nous tournons au coin du mur moussu, voilà
De nouveau les senteurs tendrement mêlées du chèvrefeuille et du jasmin.
Le soir à dix-huit heures, sur le gazon que rasent à cris menus aigus des
hirondelles
C’est déjà transparente la lumière de septembre, comme sur l’île de Gorée
Après une pluie d’hivernage. Et nous
voyons voler les Anges sur leurs ailes diaphanes.
Tu te rappelles, comme il embaumait le bonheur, l’enfant fleur de l’échange
?
Entends-tu donc sa voix vibrante de trombone, qui chante Steal away to Jesus
Lorsque sonne le téléphone, comme au Coeur un coup de fusil ?…
II
Or c’était le sept juin, c’était le Pentecôte.
Tu étais tout de blanc nimbée et rose, ma
Normande, sous ta capeline aérienne
Pour recevoir la splendeur du mystère.
Dans la lumière limpide, nostalgiques tes yeux chantaient l’Absent, quand
Soudain, le coup de téléphone blanc, qui faisait toujours trembler de
frissons blancs
Le coup de foudre blanc. Et fleur
vaporeuse soudain, tu tombas dans mes bras
Et lianes, nous enlacions l’enfant de l’amour, absent et beau comme Zeus –
l’Ethiopien.
C’est son appel, le coup de téléphone long, et nous
Voilà dans le grand oiseau blanc, comme une flèche éclair
Et les ailes obliques. Et le voici
qui perce le mur Mach du son
Par-delà Mach 2 droit sur le Cap-Vert, proue sombre sur l’océan bleu.
C’est le grand Dieu blanc qui défie l’espace, mais ne sait, je ne dis
donner
Je dis retenir la vie d’un enfant, les larmes blondes de sa mère.
Voici donc notre enfant, soufflé mêlé de nos narines, qui s’éteint, ha !
Dans son odeur de laurier-rose, lors même que cinq femmes, oui cinq
Normandes ont amassé géré mais tricoté
Pour faire de lui l’enfant du bonheur.
III
Et j’ai dit << non ! >> au médecin :
<< Mon fils n’est pas mort, ce
n’est pas possible. >>
Pardonne-moi, Seigneur, et balaie mon blasphème, mais ce n’est pas
possible.
Non non ! ceux qui sont mignotés des dieux ne meurent pas si jeunes.
Tu n’est pas, non ! un dieu jaloux, comme Baal qui se nourrit d’éphèbes.
De notre automne déclinait il était le printemps; son sourire était de
l’aurore
Ses yeux profonds , un ciel cristallin et frangé
d’humour.
Il était vie et raison de vivre de sa mère, lampe veillant dans la nuit et
la vie.
Brutalement, tu nous l’as arraché, tel un trésor le voleur du plus grand
chemin
Qui nous a dit : << La route est fatiguée, le marigot est fatigué, le
ciel
Est fatigué. >> Nous avions
tout donné à ce pays, à ce continent nôtre :
Les jours et les nuits et les veilles, la fatigue la peine et le combat
parmi les nations assemblées.
Or Sénégalaise aux Sénégalaises s’était voulue la Normande de long lignage,
aux yeux de moire vert et or.
Et de son fils elle avait fait l’enfant de la terre sénégalaise, et un jour
il reposerait
Profond dans le tertre de Mamangeudj, près de Diogoye-le-Lion.
Mais déjà tu le réclamais, cet enfant de l’amour, pour racheter notre
people insoumis
Comme si trios cents ans de Traite ne t’avaient pas suffi, ô terrible Dieu
d’Abraham !
Et tu as crucifié sa mère, haut sur un arbre de braise et de glace.
Et la foi de la mère a
chancelé sous l’éclair et la foudre, comme le cèdre fracassé qui ombrage la
maison vaste.
Elle s’est relevée, mais nous nous sommes relevés, ayant foi dans la foi.
C’est Paul dans la poussière, et sur le chemin de Damas, la lumière
soudain.
Seigneur, il est impénétrable, le labyrinthe de tes desseins : on en perd
le fil si ne vous dévore le Minotaure.
Que donc ta volonté soit accomplie
Qu’au jour de la Résurrection, notre enfant se lève soleil d’aurore
Dans la transfiguration de sa beauté !
IV
On l’a baigné pour les noces célestes, parfumé frais de vétiver
Allongé son corps long dans une bière de bois précieux.
Des jeunes gens ses camarades l’ont soulevé, porté sur leurs épaules
hautes.
Sous les fleurs du printemps, les chants comme des palmes, son peuple lui a
fait cortège
Tout son peuple tressé en guirlandes serrées.
Les prêtres et les marabouts, les employés les ouvriers, les délégations
des nations amies
Les notables bien sûr; je dis voici le Sénégal montant des profondeurs :
Les paysans les pêcheurs les pasteurs, et tout la Jeunesse qui se dit sans
couture
De Bakel à Bandafassy,
de Ndialakhar et Ndiongolor
jusqu’au Cap-Rouge.
Et tout au long des rues en pleurs, des noires avenues prostrées sous le
soleil de juin
La jeunesse pieuse, le portant sur son coeur, comme une médaille d’or vert.
Mais elles savent, les étudiantes si studieuses, que seuls
vivent les morts dont on chante le nom.
Et les voici rivalisant avec les vierges de Ndayane
au pagne pur
Chantant des chants gymniques, comme jadis au bord des arènes sonores.
Voici Guignane et Guiléna,
Soukeïna, Rokhaya,
Dominique, Doris, et Linda et Mélinda
Qui chantant : << Dior de Joal !
<< Eclate en applaudissements quand entre le champion de Gnilane-la-Douce.
<< C’est le cavalier à la toque noire et panachée de pourpre
<< Qui dompte les chevaux de sang sur les sables mouvants.
<< Il est élégant à l’antagoniste, prévenant d’attentions comme
fleurs à la jeune fille.
<< Rameau greffé du Viking sur Tabot,
cavalier de la planche à voile
<< Le voilà buste de bronze élancé et bandeau flottant
<< Qui écrit, vert et or, son message en courbes gracieuses sur la
mer des merveilles,
<< O Prince de la Gentillesse, nous aurons toujours soif de ton
sourire ! >>
V
A toi qui as beaucoup aimé, il sera beaucoup pardonné :
Aimé tendrement ton père et ta mère, tes frères
Et tout comme des frères, le maître-de-terre et
l’aveugle aux mains d’antennes, le mendiant
chassieux
Le Noir et le Toubab tout blanc, les hommes du Soleil levant
L’Arabe et le Berbère, le Maure, mon petit Maure
Mon Bengali, comme nous t’appelions, le Toutsi,
le Houttou.
Quand sera venu le jour de l’Amour, de tes noces célestes
T’accueilleront les Chérubins aux ailes de soie bleue, te conduiront
A la droite du Christ ressuscité, l’Agneau lumière de tendresse, dont tu
avais si soif.
Et parmi les noirs Séraphins chanteront les
martyrs de l’Ouganda.
Et tu les accompagneras à l’orgue, comme tu faisais à Verson
Vétu du lin blanc blanc, lavé dans
le sang de l’Agneau, ton sang.
Plongeant en bas ta main fine nerveuse, tu enracineras basses et contraltos
dans la polyphonie.
Lors avancera doucement, telle une fries de
sveltes Linguères, le choeur des Puissances.
Elles évolueront lent lentement, tissant de nobles soyeuses figures
Jusqu’au mouvement soudain du brise-cou, et
Tu souligneras la syncope d’un cri de douleur de joie
Du cri même du paradis, qui est bonheur.
VI
Oh ! que revienne septembre et sa tendresse, que
tu aimais
La lumière plus pure, les jours plus courts qui chanteront
Les regrets des adieux. Et dans les sentiers du matin
Au Labyrinthe, nous revivrons et les jeux et les rires du Royaume
d’Enfance.
Laissant à leurs splendeurs dernières, altières, altéas,
et hortensias
Et nous laissant guider par l’évantail doucement
du vent d’ouest – odeur verte des cèdres
Odeur des rosiers odorants, odeur mêlée métisse des fleurs de la passion
Et il faut se defender – je surprendrai tes yeux de cyclamens dans les
sous-bois
Qui éclairent le lierre, comme jadis les constellations dans le ciel si
serein du Sine.
Je sors du Labyrinthe, pensant à toi, pensant aux adieux de septembre
Et je m’approche de ta case aux senteurs de chants de musique
Quand j’entends monter vers le ciel : Steal away, steal away, steal away to Jesus
!
Source: Léopold Sédar Senghor, Oeuvre poétique (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1990),
pp. 285-291.
English Translation
ELEGY FOR PHILIPPE-MAGUILEN SENGHOR
(for jazz orchestra and
polyphonic choir)
To Colette, his mother
The days rolled by in
lugubrious weeping, and nights-days without sleep.
The weepers used up the
abyss of their tears without numbing our rebellious pain,
Against this pain, we sought
the foundation in the old residence
Where we could calm our mind, and the park maintains the steps but not the games
the joy of generations.
When we turn to the corner
of the mossy wall, there
Once again are the tenderly
mixed scents of honeysuckle and jasmine.
Evening at six o’clock on
the lawn that the swallows skim with sharp short cries
September light is already transparent, like on Gorée Island
After the rainy season. And we see
Angles flying with their diaphanous wings.
Do you remember how he made happiness fragrant, the
child flower of the exchange?
Do you hear his vibrant trombone voice that sang Steal away to Jesus
When the telephone rang, like a rifle shot to the
heart? …
II
Then it was June seventh. It was Pentecost.
My Norman woman, you were dressed all in white haloed
and pink, under your
airy sun bonnet,
To receive the splendor of the
mystery.
In the limpid light, your nostalgic eyes were singing
about the Absent One, when
Suddenly, the unexpected telephone call, that always
makes people shiver.
The unexpected thunderbolt. And suddenly
the vaporous flower, you fell into
my arms
And like lianas, we used to encircle the child of
love, absent and beautiful like
Zeus – the Ethiopian.
It is his call, the long phone call, and we
There is the great white bird, like a lightning arrow
And oblique wings. And there it
goes through the Mach wall of sound
Beyond Mach 2 speed it travels to Cape Verde, somber
bow on the blue ocean.
It is the great white God who defies space, but does
not know, I am not saying
to give
I am saying to hold back a child’s life, his mother’s
blond tears.
Here is our child, the breath mixed from our nostrils, that is going out, ah!
In his odor of the laurel rose, even though five
women, five Norman women
Amassed,
managed but knitted
To make him the child of happiness.
III
And I said “No!” to the
doctor: “My son isn’t dead. It isn’t
possible.”
Forgive me, Lord, and sweep
away my blasphemy, but ii isn’t possible.
No! No! those who are
loved by the gods do not die so young.
No! You aren’t a jealous god, like Baal who fed
himself with young boys.
Of our declining autumn he
was the spring. Son smile was of dawn
His deep eyes, a crystalline
sky and bordered with humor.
He was his mother’s life and
reason for living, the lamp watching night and day.
Brutally, you tore him away
from us, like a treasure stolen by a highwayman
Who told us: “The road is
tired; the backwater is tired; the sky
Is tired. “We had given
everything to this country, to our continent:
Days and nights and eves,
the fatigue and the pain among the assembled nations
But the Norman woman of long
lineage had wanted to be a Senegalese to
Senegalese, with green and
golden watered eyes
And from her child she had
made a child of Senegalese soil
and one day he would rest
Deep in
the land of Mamanguedj, near Diogoye
the Lion.
But you were already asking
for him back, this child of love, to retrieve
The unsubmissive people
As if three hundred years of
the Slave Trade hadn’t been enough for you,
Oh terrible God of Abraham!
And you crucified
his mother, high on a tree of
charcoal and ice.
And the mother’s faith
staggered under the lightning and thunder,
like the fraternal cedar that
protects the vast house from the sun.
She rose up, but we helped
each other up, having faith in faith.
It is Paul in the dust, and
on the road to Damascus, suddenly the light.
Lord, the labyrinth of your
plans is impenetrable:
we lose
our way if the Minotaur doesn’t devour you
Thus may thy will be done
That on the day of the
Resurrection, our child may rise up with the dawn sun
In the transfiguration of
his beauty!
IV
They bathed him for a
celestial wedding, perfumed fresh with vetiver.
They spread his long body on
a bier of precious wood.
Young people his friends
lifted him up, carried him on their tall shoulders.
Under spring flowers, songs
and palms,
his people gave him a
procession.
His entire people interlaced
with tight garlands,
Priests and marabouts, employees workers,
delegations from friendly nations
Distinguished people, of
course; I say here is Senegal arising from the depths:
Peasants, fishermen,
shepherds and the entire Youth that calls itself seamless
From Bakel to Bandafassy, from Ndialakhar and Ndiongolor to
Cap-Rouge.
And all along the streets in
tears, black avenues prostrated under the June sun
The pious youth, carrying
him in its hearts, like a green gold medal.
But the women students who
are so studious know that live only the dead
whose name is sung.
But here they are competing
with the virgins of Ndayana with pure loincloths
Singing
athletic songs, as in days of yore, on the edges of sonorous arenas.
Here are Guignane and Guiléna, Soukeina, Rokhaya, Dominique,
Doris,
and Linda, and Melinda
Who sing: “Dior of Joal!
“Break out into applause when the champion of Gnilane the Soft enters.
“He’s the horseman with a black cap with purple
plumes
“Who tames thoroughbreds on moving sand.
“He is elegant to the antagonist, anticipating
attention like
flowers on a girl.
“Viking reed grafted onto Tabor, horseman of the
sailboard
“Here is a slender bronze bust with a fluttering
headband
“Who writes, green and gold, his messages in gracious
curves
on the sea of marvels,
Oh Prince of Kindness, we will always be thirsty for
your smile!”
V
To you who loved much, much will be forgiven:
Tenderly loved your father and your mother, your
brother
And just like brothers, the land master and the blind
man with antenna
hands, the rheumy beggar
The Black and the entirely white Toubab,
people of the rising Sun
The Arab and the Berber, the Moor, my little Moorish
boy
My Bengali, as we called you, the Tutsi and the Hutu.
When the day of Love comes, on the day of your
celestial nuptials
the Cherubim will receive with blue silk wings will receive
you,
will lead you
To the right of the resurrected Christ, the Lamb
light of tenderness,
Of
which you were so thirsty.
And among the black Seraphim the martyrs of Uganda
will sing.
And you will accompany them on an organ, as you used to
do in Verson,
Dressed in white white
linen, washed in the Lamb’s blood, your blood,
Plunging below your refined nervous hand, you will be
the continuum for the
bassos and contraltos in the polyphony.
Then the choir of Powers will slowly advance, like a frieze
of svelte Linguères.
They will evolve slow
slowly, knitting noble silky figures
Until the sudden movement of the breaking of his
neck, and
You will stress the syncope of a scream of pain of
joy
Of the very scream of paradise that is happiness.
VI
Oh! Would that September were to return and its
tenderness that you loved
The purer light, the shorter days that will sing
the regrets of goodbyes. And on morning paths
In the Labyrinth, we will live again and the games
and the rites of the
Kingdom
of Childhood.
Leaving to the previous, haughty splendors alteas and hydrangeas
And allowing ourselves to be guided slowly by the fan
of the west wind –
green odor of cedars
Odor of fragrant rose bushes, hybrid mixed odor of
passion flowers
And one must defend oneself – I will surprise your
eyes from the
cyclamens in the underbrush
That illuminate the ivy, as in days of yore
constellations did
In
the sop serene sky of Sine.
I am leaving the Labyrinth, thinking about you
thinking about the
September
goodbyes
And I approach your dwellings with the scents of
songs of music
When I hear rising toward heaven: Steal away, steal away to Jesus!
Notes
On
June 7, 1981, Philippe-Maguilen Senghor (1958-1981) died
at the age of 22 in an automobile accident in Senegal. He was the only child born to Léopold Sédar Senghor (1906-2001)
and Colette Senghor. Philippe-Maguilen had two half brothers, Francis-Arphang
and Guy-Wali, who were born during Léopold Sédar Senghor’s first
marriage to Ginette Eboué
who raised Francis-Arphang and Guy-Wali in France.
Although Léopold Sédar
Senghor spent almost all of Philippe-Maguilen’s life
in Senegal while he served as the first President of Senegal from 1960 until
December 1980, President Senghor maintained regular contact with his first two
sons. Léopold Sédar and Colette Senghor frequently spent their vacations
in the Norman village of Verson because Colette
Senghor enjoyed spending time in her native French province of Normandy. Léopold Sédar Senghor died in Verson on December 20, 2001 and his aged widow Colette
still lives there. Philippe-Maguilen and Léopold Sédar Senghor are buried next to each other in the Catholic
cemetery of Bel Air in Dakar. In a letter made public after his death,
President Senghor expressed his request to be buried next to his beloved son
Philippe-Maguilen and quite naturally Colette Senghor
respected his wishes. When she dies,
Mrs. Senghor will most certainly be buried next to her husband and her son.
Although
Léopold Sédar Senghor has
remained justly famous as Senegal ‘s President-Poet who created a stable and
tolerant democracy in Senegal, helped found the African Union and the
international organization of French-speaking countries known by the name of
the Francophonie, created with the Martinique poet Aimé Césaire (1912- ) the literary movement called “la Négritude” (or Blackness) that they designed to portray the
experience of being black in a positive manner that would appeal to readers of
all races, he is especially beloved for very personal poems such as his “Elegy
for Philippe-Maguilen Senghor” in which he expressed
universal feelings of grief experienced by all who suffer the loss of a close
family member. Although he had
previously written two very well received death elegies after the assassination
of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) and after the death from cancer of
his close friend Georges Pompidou (1911-1974) who had served as the President
of France from 1969 until 1974, this death elegy for his beloved and relatively
young son Philippe-Maguilen has touched readers so
profoundly at some many different levels that it is now generally considered to
be the most exquisite expression of grief ever written in French. In introductory French literature courses around
the world, students often read this death elegy that moves them greatly and
gives them a deep appreciation of French poetry. Readers whose first introduction to French
poetry is Senghor’s “Elegy for Philippe-Maguilen
Senghor” quite naturally wish to read more of his works.
In
both the first and last sections of this poem, Senghor refers to the famous
black spiritual “Steal away to Jesus” that is often sung at funeral services
because it describes both the fragility of our lives on earth and the
inevitability of our departure for eternity with Jesus. Senghor thus links the spirituality of blacks
both in Africa and in the diaspora in the New
World. He also evokes the West African
tradition of “female weepers” who publicly express the grief of mourners at
funerals and burials. The second verse
in this long poem reads: “The weepers
used up the abyss of their tears without numbing our rebellious pain.” Nothing can assuage their suffering. The early evening light reminds Léopold Sédar Senghor of the
light on Gorée Island. It is significant that he mentions the
infamous Gorée Island in the harbor of Dakar because
millions of African slaves sailed in chains on slave boats from Gorée Island to unimaginable suffering in the New
World. President Senghor ordered that
the Slave House on Gorée Island be preserved as a
symbol of inhumanity against black people.
The light on the day of his son’s death reminds him of the light over on
island on which so many black people had suffered for centuries. He evokes for his wife Colette the flight of
angles who are carrying their own child to
heaven. It is clearly too painful for
the grieving father to mention his son’s brutal death’s in an automobile
accident. He prefers to imagine Philippe-Maguilen on his way to paradise.
In
the second section, he evokes his beautifully dressed wife who is preparing to
leave for mass where she will “receive the splendor of the mystery” of the body
and blood of the crucified Christ. The
mystery of transubstantiation is as true and as incomprehensible to President
and Mrs. Senghor as is the death of their beloved son.
In this second section, he evokes first his wife’s
shock and disbelief as she begins to understand that her son has died. He states that the news traveled over
telephone lines at a speed faster than Mach speed. He recalls how he and his wife used to
embrace “their child of love” who had brought such joy into their lives, but
now Colette s “blond tears” are falling down her cheeks. In the next section, he mentions his very
normal refusal to believe what the doctor is telling him. In her 1970 book On Death and Dying,
Elisabeth Kübler Ross indicated that it is perfectly
normal for family members to deny reality and then to become very angry when
they first learn of the death of a loved one.
These are exactly Léopold Sédar’s
immediate reactions after he learns of his son’s death. Albeit a very committed Catholic, he rails
against God and he reminds God that Philippe-Maguilen
was “the spring of their declining autumn.”
This beautiful image reminds readers how cruel it is for aged parents to
deal with the death of their child.
After her wedding, Colette Senghor strove to become “a Senegalese woman
to Senegalese women” so that Senegalese women could identify with her. The great tragedy is that Colette must now
experience the horrible suffering of three centuries of African women who lost
their children to the slave trade. The
only consolation that Léopold Sédar
and Colette Senghor can find is their belief that “on the day of the Resurrection,
our child may rise in the dawn sun/ In the
transfiguration of his beauty!” There is
no consolation in this life. They have no choice but to trust in God’s promise
of eternal life.
In
the next two sections, President Senghor describes how much Philippe-Maguilen was loved by all types of people throughout
Senegal. Catholics and Muslim leaders,
peasants, civil servants, and shepherds all realized that Philippe-Maguilen gave the Senegalese hope for the future and
enabled them to climb out of the “depths” of despair. Léopold Sédar compares his beloved son to Jesus “the Lamb of God”
who sacrificed his life so that others could live eternally. He imagines his son on the Day of Judgment
“to the right of the resurrected Christ.”
Paradise is the true “happiness” that awaits his parents after their
deaths when they will Philippe-Maguilen once
again. As a Catholic, the Senghors believed in the concept of the beatific
vision. In the final section of this
exquisite poem, Léopold Sédar
Senghor affirms that his beloved son now experiences “the purer light” that
will enable Philippe-Maguilen to see clearly the face
of God for eternity. Léopold
Sédar Senghor’s eloquent death elegy for his son
enables readers to experience the full complexity of grieving while at the same
time coming to see how parents to try with that which is necessarily
incomprehensible, a child’s death.
__________
I wish to dedicate this translation and
essay to the memory of my first cousin Eileen Cahill Carey who also died in an
automobile accident, just as Philippe-Maguilen
Senghor did. I also wish to thank my
daughter Christie Campion who typed the original
French text, my translation, and my essay for me. Christie was very kind to her disabled dad.