Notre-Dame, she is quite old: although she may
bury Paris, which has witnessed her birth, one day
But in thousand years or more, Time will make recoil
her heavy body, like a wolf does with a bull
and twist each iron axon, each of her neurones
to gnaw alas, with its blunt tooth, her bones of stones!
Many men will overflow the island in the Seine
to contemplate the barren ruin, the last remains
dreamers, re-reading what Victor Hugo has seen ahead:
- Then they'll think they see the old basilica
as it was, mighty and magnificent, a Gloria
rising up before them like the shadow of a dead!
Poem "Notre-Dame de Paris" (1832, Gérard de Nerval, collection "Odelettes", 1834/1853)
Novel "Notre-Dame de Paris" (1831, Victor Hugo)
Translation contest "The Netherlands translates" (2023)
Collection "Reaching out"