However, Apollinaire’s subsequent use of the lowercase v, in every handwritten draft and printed version of the poem, makes it easy to misread v/ers/aille/s d’o/r as toward golden wings. This misreading is encouraged by the marked contrast between the small capital letters of LISIEUX and the lowercase letters of versailles.

In the typeset versions of the poem, the curved lines above and below the car don’t depict anything recognizable, but in the handwritten first draft they resemble the two sides of a road that converge in the distance. However, several Apollinaire specialists feel that the curved lines probably depict speed and movement via air flow.

Fontainebleau: The town south of Paris. Instead of driving directly to Paris, they went first to Fontainebleau, where Rouveyre lived. The following day, August 1, the poet and Rouveyre sat for a simple little photobooth film consisting of fifty images, as in a flip book, the only moving picture of Apollinaire. Both men look a bit self-conscious but quite jolly. The film can be seen at www.wiu.edu/Apollinaire/Apollinaire_dit.htm.

On August 10, Apollinaire applied for enlistment in the French army, though, being a foreign national, he was under no obligation to do so.

MARIZIBILL ↩

Marizibill: A form of the name Marie-Sybille, which was the original title for this poem. In Apollinaire’s story “L’Amphion Faux-Messie,” a character explains that the Marizibill pronunciation is particular to Cologne. Apollinaire mentions a woman named Marizibill in another poem, “Le Dôme de Cologne.”

High Street: In Apollinaire’s time, a street of prostitutes.

She gave everything she had: The French Elle se mettait sur la paille means figuratively She went for broke and literally She lay down on straw.

MONDAY RUE CHRISTINE ↩

First published in December 1913, this is Apollinaire’s best-known conversation-poem. It purports to consist of snatches of conversation and possibly the author’s thoughts as he sits in a Paris bar-restaurant. In fact there was such a place on the rue Christine that Apollinaire frequented, some of whose clientele were of a dubious character, as is suggested by the opening stanza, in which two men seem to be planning something suspicious. In a memoir published in 1943, Jacques Dyssord recalled going to this small café with Apollinaire in late 1913, the day before Dyssord left for Tunis. He also recalled the waitress with flaming red hair.

That rings a bell: The French Ça a l’air de rimer can mean either That seems to make sense or That seems to rhyme.

Bim bam bim: The French here is Pim pam pim. In French slang pimpan means sexual intercourse, equivalent to our “Bim bam, thank you, ma’am.”

The royal flush: According to the translator Oliver Bernard, the French La quinte major can also mean a punch in the face or even syphilis, but he renders it literally as the major fifth. La quinte major is also the best hand one can get in the card game of piquet. I’ve brought it over as a poker hand.

THE MUSICIAN OF SAINT-MERRI ↩

Saint-Merri, sometimes spelled with a terminal y, is a church in Paris’s fourth arrondissement, as well as the name of an administrative quarter in that arrondissement, hence the immediate neighborhood around the church. The church was named after the abbot Saint-Médéric (d. AD 700), who was rebaptised Saint-Merri. André Salmon, in his memoirs, said that Apollinaire had never been inside this church until Salmon’s wedding there, and that Apollinaire later returned to the neighborhood alone and wrote the poem. If this is true, and if we believe the date in the poem, it was nearly four years later. Another of Apollinaire’s friends, Jean Mollet (1877–1964), claims to have accompanied Apollinaire and to have found the streets utterly empty, but, in a courtyard, they heard a musician and a singer and a crowd of people singing the refrain of a song. Mollet is known as a bit of a mystifier, but who knows?

Merriennes: Female residents of the neighborhood. The word in French has an older meaning, prostitutes.

Sébasto: The boulevard de Sébastopol.

Ariadne: In Greek mythology, the daughter of Minos, the king of Crete. Before Theseus entered the underground labyrinth where the Minotaur lived, Ariadne gave Theseus a ball of thread to unwind as he explored the labyrinth, thus enabling him to find his way out after he had slain the Minotaur. Apollinaire associated her with the mole, the French word for which (taupe) is also slang for prostitute.

Paquette: According to Scott Bates, in French folklore the name of a pretty, available peasant girl. In Voltaire’s Candide, she is a chambermaid who turns to prostitution.

What time does the train leave for Paris: In 1914 Apollinaire wrote an avant-garde mime play with this title, which remained unpublished during his lifetime.

The pigeons in the Moluccas were defecating nutmeg: The so-called nutmeg pigeon does in fact feed on nutmeg seeds in the East Indies and Australia.

Catholic mission in Boma: Boma was the capital of the former Belgian Congo. Some missionaries took it upon themselves to destroy African sculptures that they considered to be idolatrous or indecent.

a day without bread: The original’s long comme un jour sans pain means a very long (or boring) day, but I’ve rendered it literally so as to retain Apollinaire’s possible suggestion of the Paris baker’s strike of May 1913, nine months before the initial publication of this poem. Also, the Saint-Merri neighborhood had several streets whose names were related to bread.

Suger: The Abbé Suger (c. 1081–1151), the abbot of St. Denis but also a friend and adviser of Kings Louis VI and Louis VII, a regent of the Frankish kingdom, a well-known historian, and a major force in the construction and development of the church at St. Denis.