The Venus de Milo, by Sully Prudhomme (France, 1839-1907), Translated by Julie Steiner

Venus de Milo (Greece) c. 150-124 BC. Louvre Museum, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons.

The Venus de Milo, by Sully Prudhomme (France, 1839-1907)

Nature takes her time completing each design.
To sketch the shape of breasts, she stood well back, and made
the oceans undulate, and once that surface swayed,
made mountains elevate, and basin-forms incline.

Preparing to create hearts’ softly cushioned shrine,
she curved and curved the hills, their profiles charm-inlaid.
Who knows how many drafts -- a feminine parade --
she formed of lilies first, while breasts were next in line?

Of all her long attempts, the last one wasn’t Eve.
Her masterpiece, and beauty’s, too, she’d not achieve --
awaited age by age, emerging woman by woman --

till one great specimen: triumphant, Art could trace
a perfect human body -- its contours, superhuman.
And Greece, this model was the flower of your race.

Sully Prudhomme, translated by Julie Steiner

**
​
La Vénus de Milo

La Nature accomplit lentement ses desseins.
Elle ébauchait de loin la forme des poitrines
En faisant onduler les surfaces marines,
Se soulever les monts, se creuser les bassins ;

Elle apprêtait aux cœurs leurs suaves coussins
En courbant les profils enchanteurs des collines ;
Qui sait après combien d’esquisses féminines,
Au temps des premiers lys elle moula les siens ?

Et de ses longs essais le dernier n’est pas Ève :
Son chef-d’œuvre attendu d’âge en âge s’achève,
Et de la beauté, de femme en femme, éclôt toujours,

Jusqu’au type suprême où l’Art triomphe et trace
D’un corps humain parfait les surhumains contours,
Et ce modèle, ô Grèce, est la fleur de ta race.

Sully Prudhomme

Author's Note: Sully Prudhomme, winner of the first-ever Nobel Prize in Literature (in 1901), had pursued engineering studies until an eye ailment forced him to change careers. That engineering background informs the language of drafting, design, and prototypes in this sonnet, which was published in his posthumous collection Épaves (i.e., Flotsam and Jetsam) in 1908.

Julie Steiner is a pseudonym in San Diego, California. Her poetry has appeared in Literary Matters, The New Verse News, Light, and Snakeskin, among other venues. She has been an active participant in the Eratosphere online poetry workshop (www.ablemuse.com/erato) for more than twenty years.