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Achab*, Translation of Pierre Emmanuel’s Achab by T. Wignesan

One man alone stands erect before the king, and speaks
A man
Alone

The king is not accustomed to being confronted face to 
        face
He reigns over heads bent.
He prohibits their looking at him
The eyes of men.
He has nothing but idols
In front of him.*
His looks and those of the others
Stare into the void
The majesty.

The king is not accustomed to being addressed.
Words only serve as air to fan him.
The empty mask does not listen
In the same way as his eyes stare into the void.
This muteness represents the idol
That each supplicates.
He pretends not to exist
Faced by the void
His majesty.

The king is not accustomed to being human.
Being appears to him a promiscuous entity.
This livestock’s the leather
Produced by thunders.
He remains the imperturbed idol
A nimbus of lightnings.
His glory resides in his power to kill :
Void the earth,
His majesty.

The king is not accustomed to being drawn into discussion
Think what one may, his power enables him to shed blood.
Whether one dies or survives
He should defer to the monarch
And make believe the king’s the idol
Whether dew drops or rain pours.
Everything should find its place
In his vacant looks
In majesty.

One man alone stands erect before the king
And speaks.

Between the king and him there’s no level ground. Neither
For the moment, between this man and the mass. Such a 
         man
Is not to be led some day by the flock.
The king limits the grazing grounds of the masses
Whose far to high foreheads he’ll mark and relegate them 
          to the slaughter-house
It’s our species which is uneasy at being erect
Our fear of being able to think for ourselves being 
sanctioned by law
Commonplace couch grass being nibbled at on this flat 
earth.
That’s in no way the man. Who is the man ? Question
Void like the Void up above which answers him.
The irruption of evidence in a man
Who’s absolutely certain that he can do anything he says 
he can
Absolutely certain of the Speech in him.

A man alone, who deliberately blows through
This painted idol in the void. This blasphemy
Which imitates here below the empty Glory in the 
heavenly sphères.
One act of courage detaches itself from the crowd
And speaks for the army of ages and says : I
As if all the kings were so many skulls
Weightless sleigh bells in the glorious void
Only one says I because he’s certain of existing
Having dedicated his life to serving the only Living Being.
He’s the man : his entire being is made up of the word
Received, given. He knows what power resides in him
The Void has emptied him of everything but his Reign
And his own name serves as a gage.

« As true as the Living Being is the Living Being
And I in his service
There’ll not be during these years
Neither dew drops nor downpours
Only my word »
Says Elie.

*Achab, son of Amri and King of Israel (either 918-897
BCE or 875-854 BCE). Married Jezebel. Allied with
Josaphat, King of Juda, against Syria. Killed by arrow
during war to conquer Ramoth Galaad.
* Queen Jezebel, Princess of Sidonia, led Achab into
idolatry, according to Catholic Encyclopaedia

(Tu, O.C. t. II, p. 592)

© T. Wignesan – Paris, 2014
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