Sonnet IV, by Edgar Degas, translated by Julie Steiner

Little Dancer Aged Fourteen, by Edgar Degas (France) 1878-1881

Sonnet IV (1914 version) by Edgar Degas (France, 1834 - 1917)

Dance, you wingèd waif, across these wood-floored meadows.
Your skinny arm, when placed in line with strict tradition,
connects your weight with flight, to balance those, to wed those.
I wish you -- I, who know! -- a life of recognition.

Graces, Nymphs, come down from legend’s lofty shadows;
Taglioni, too -- Arcadia’s princess. Listen:
exalt and train (while chuckling at) my choice for kudos --
this little presence, new, of plucky disposition.

Montmartre gave to her both cockiness and kin,
and Roxelana, nose, and China, eyes; but in
your own turn, Ariel, now give to this recruit

your lightness, day and night, your lightness on your feet...
But still let -- to my taste! -- her wine smell like her fruit,
keeping, in golden courts, the vintage of her street.​

Edgar Degas, translated by Julie Steiner

**

​IV.

Danse, gamin ailé, sur les gazons de bois.
Ton bras maigre, placé dans la ligne suivie
Equilibre, balance et ton vol et ton poids.
Je te veux, moi qui sais, une célèbre vie.

Nymphes, Grâces, venez des cimes d’autrefois ;
Taglioni, venez, princesse d’Arcadie,
Ennoblir et former, souriant de mon choix,
Ce petit être neuf, à la mine hardie.

Si Montmartre a donné l’esprit et les aïeux
Roselane le nez et la Chine les yeux,
A ton tour, Ariel, donne à cette recrue

Tes pas légers de jour, tes pas légers de nuit…
Mais, pour mon gout connu ! Qu’elle sente son fruit
Et garde aux palais d’or la race de sa rue.

Edgar Degas

**

Author's note: "Although this sonnet does not specifically reference Edgar Degas’s Little Dancer Aged Fourteen, most readers associate it with that sculpture. Marie Taglioni (1804–1884) is credited as the first ballerina to dance en pointe. Roxelana (c. 1504–1558), also known as Hürrem Sultan, was a Ukrainian slave who became the chief consort and legal wife of Suleiman the Magnificent. Ariel, the sprite in William Shakespeare’s play The Tempest was often cast as female in the 1800s."

Julie Steiner is a pseudonym in San Diego, California. Her poetry has appeared in Literary Matters, The New Verse News, The Able Muse Review, Rattle, Light, The Asses of Parnassus, and American Arts Quarterly, among other venues. She recently embarked on her third decade as an active participant in the Eratosphere online poetry workshop (www.ablemuse.com/erato).