Errata: The translation attributed to T.S.Eliot (
Baudelaire's "mon semblable" into "my double") caused me a relative qualm for it
didn't sound right to me, although I had it printed in an anthology and had
checked it in the internet. I finally laid my hands on a simple "everyman's
pocket poets," where the entry appears succintly as note 76. V.Baudelaire,
Preface to Fleurs du Mal.
Not one word more. This edition with
such a note makes more sense to me - and it is probably the correct
one.
Sklyarenko: Lermontov's Shashka (excerpt from AS's
rendering): "He reached out his hand - the hand/ touched the wall [...] Here is
a round little knee... and here,/ Here - but why do you laugh beforehand? -/
Here it found itself on the twin hill..." In a previous posting AS noted: "Tirza's двойной курган ("twin hill", and not breasts are
meant) somehow reminds me of Brownhill, Ada's school for girls, and its
headmistress, Miss Cleft (1.27)."
JM: Not breasts for a lady's "twin hills"? So,
instead of laughing "beforehand," we should rotate from the knees and reach
the buttocks to smile at.... an "afterhand"? Is this what you
mean?*
...................................................................
* You mentioned Ada's "Miss Cleft" and, checking in the Wiki for
"cleft", I found, in an item about breasts that "British zoologist and ethologist Desmond Morris theorizes that
cleavage is a sexual signal that imitates the image of the cleft
between the buttocks, which according to Morris in The Naked Ape is also unique
to humans, other primates as a rule having much flatter buttocks."