They met up again in Paris in 1903. Along with André Billy, André Salmon, and André Tudesq, they founded the literary magazine Les Soirées de Paris in 1912. Dalize, whose real name was Dupuy, was killed in action. Apollinaire’s second major collection of poems was dedicated to him.

the flaming glory of Christ: In Christian art, the glory is the halo surrounding a body.

the beautiful lily: A symbol of the Virgin Mary, hence of purity.

the red-haired torch: Perhaps an allusion to the popular legend that Christ had red hair.

double beam: The holy cross.

Pupil Christ of the eye: Perhaps a reference to a prayer in the Catholic Office of Compline, Custodie nos, Domine, ut pupillam occuli (Look over us, Lord, as the apple of thine eye), which Apollinaire would have been familiar with.

Simon Magus: Also known as Simon the Magician and Simon the Sorcerer, he was a convert to Christianity who came into conflict with Peter (see Acts 8:9–24). In various commentaries he is described as being able to levitate and fly. Along with Enoch, Elijah, and Apollonius of Tyana, he figures in Apollinaire’s early work L’Enchanteur pourrissant.

If he can fly he surely flies by night: An attempt to suggest the word play in the original: s’il sait voler qu’on l’appelle voleur (literally, if he knows how to fly/steal let him be called a flyer/thief).

Icarus: In Greek mythology, Icarus, using wings attached to his body with wax, flew too close to the sun, which melted the wax.

Enoch and Elijah: In the Bible, Enoch (the son of Jared) and Elijah (the prophet) flew off into the heavens.

Apollonius of Tyana: Perhaps a contemporary of Jesus, the Greek philosopher Apollonius of Tyana was said to have been able to perform miracles. At his death he simply flew up into the sky.

Sacré-Coeur: Literally “sacred heart,” the basilica of Montmartre that overlooks Paris.

St. Vitus: The main cathedral in Prague, where Apollinaire “saw” himself in the pattern of an agate wall. In his story “Le Passant de Prague,” a wandering Jew named Isaac Laquedem has this same experience: “The veins [in the agates] drew a face with blazing eyes.” Apollinaire was baptized in a church that until Napoleon’s time was called San Vito (Saint Vitus), in Rome. Thus in a sense it was as if Apollinaire had been given life twice, like Lazarus.

the clock in the Jewish quarter: In fact the hands on the clock on the façade of the Jewish Town Hall do turn counterclockwise.

Hradcˇany: The hill, atop which Prague Castle sits, overlooking the city.

Cubicula Locanda: Rooms for rent.

Like a criminal you are placed under arrest: A reference to Apollinaire’s having been arrested in 1911 on suspicion of complicity in the theft of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre.

At twenty and thirty: Apollinaire’s ages when he was disappointed in love, with Annie Playden and Marie Laurencin, respectively.

red comforter: Apollinaire’s mother had given him one, which he faithfully kept.

rue des Ecouffes or rue des Rosiers: Streets in the Marais neighborhood of Paris with a high concentration of Jews.

Ferdine: The critic Pascal Pia suggested that Apollinaire might be referring to a prostitute in a short pornographic novel called Une Nuit d’orgies à Saint-Pierre Martinique by Effe Géache, which is described in the catalogue of the forbidden books in the Bibliothèque nationale that Apollinaire helped compile. (Apollinaire, an informal scholar of erotic literature, would also have been interested in the uniquely Creole expressions in this book.) The “lovely half-breed” in the previous line supports Pia’s thesis, although Anne Hyde Greet felt that the word I translated as “half-breed” (Métive) was the name of a woman. Marie Laurencin—“false” in Apollinaire’s view—was said to be of mixed race.

Auteuil: Since 1909 Apollinaire had lived in Auteuil, the sixteenth arrondissement, first at 37 rue Gros, then 10 rue Fontaine, to be near Marie Laurencin. After staying with friends for the last three months of 1912, he moved, on January 1, 1913, to the top-floor apartment of 202 boulevard Saint Germain, his final residence. In an article, collected in his Le Flâneur des deux rives (1918), he described Auteuil as the “charming neighborhood of my great sadnesses.”

attentive Lea: It is uncertain who Lea is. According to Claude Debon, l’attentive, from an old connotation of the word, suggests that she is a prostitute. It’s not possible to know whether Apollinaire meant Ferdine and Lea to be parallel (false/sluttish) or contrasting (false/attentive) figures.

Sun throat cut: A lot of ink has been spilled over how best to translate the poem’s final line, Soleil cou coupé. There are similar references in certain of Apollinaire’s manuscripts and poems, as in “The Doukhbors,” written when he was seventeen and which concludes: “And what blood, and what blood spatters you, O world / Beneath this slit throat!” In “Epithalamium” he wrote “Where the sun’s head is cut off each day / For it to pour out its blood in rays on the earth.” Thus it’s possible that in Soleil cou coupé he was referring to decapitation, but I like the way the abruptness and alliteration of “Sun throat cut” parallels the original. One might also keep in mind a bird found in Senegal commonly called, in French, the cou coupé (more formally the Amadine cou-coupé—Amadina fasciata in Latin and cutthroat finch in English), which has a bright red band on the front and sides of its neck. According to the Aimé Césaire scholar René Hénane, in the early twentieth century some of these birds were imported and kept in cages in Paris. Apollinaire knew about a number of exotic creatures, and though I have found no evidence that he knew of this one, perhaps he did. In addition, it’s interesting to note that guillotining usually took place at sunrise.

Recommended Reading

There is an enormous amount of commentary on Apollinaire, as well as a number of translations of his poetry into English. Below are sources that I have found to be particularly good. I have drawn freely on the work of these scholars and translators. Given the anglophone audience of the current volume, I have listed only a few of the fine studies and memoirs in French.

—R.P.

TEXT

Apollinaire, Guillaume. Œuvres poétiques. Edited by Marcel Adéma and Michel Décaudin. Paris: Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, 1959. The current translation is based mainly on this text, with an eye to Claude Debon’s <<Calligrammes>> dans tous ses états and a few other scholars (Décaudin among them) who provide minor corrections to the 1959 Œuvres poétiques.

BACKGROUND

Adéma, Marcel. Apollinaire. Translated by Denise Folliot.