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Unread 12-05-2011, 11:02 AM
Clive Watkins Clive Watkins is offline
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Location: Yorkshire, UK
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Once again, you show yourself a persistent and successful reviser, Lance! Bravo!

Two observations in passing about the sestet...

I have wondered if “attachés” is a pun. “Attacher” is commonly used in the context of the Crucifixion: in Old French, “tache” signified a large nail. (“Attacher” might well be the verb one would use in translating such English expressions as “the clay stuck to my boots” or “the sausages stuck to the pan”.) But another sense is hinted at, too, for “tache” means “mark” or “stain”: for instance, “la tache originelle” is a periphrasis for “le péché originel”. The important senses, then, concern fixing and staining. For all these reasons, I am not convinced that “Your bloody hue shows our iniquity / born by this Lamb the Father hither led” gets things right. (Anyway, shouldn’t “born” be “borne”?) Unfortunately, I have no solution to hand.

Secondly, as to “twigs that stoke the fires of eternity”, I hesitated over “stokes”. To stoke a fire can indeed signify supplying it with fuel; but it also, and perhaps more commonly, signifies poking at it so as to encourage it to burn more strongly. Twigs would not be much use for this purpose. I suggest you might consider “twigs that feed the fires of eternity”. (An aside: I would prefer “sticks” to “twigs” as better suited to the imagery of bonfires.)

I hope this is useful. (Perhaps someone has made these points already.)

Best wishes!

Clive
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