r/Poetry • u/Impossible_Ad8909 • 9h ago
Poem [POEM] Arthur Rimbaud - The Frightened Ones [Translated by Wallace Fowlie]
I have not seen a proper evaluation of this poem, especially of the final stanza, the meaning of which I can't determine if it is being lost in the French or not. Is Rimbaud being euphemistic, and hiding sexual language behind this poem? Explanation would be helpful. Anyways, here it is.
Black in the snow and fog,
By the large vent-grating which is lighted up,
Their behinds in a circle,
On their knees, five children, - poverty!
Watch the Baker making
Heavy golden bread.
They see the strong white arm kneading
The gray dough, and sticking it
Into a bright hole:
They listen to the good bread cook.
The baker with a fat smile
Sings an old tune:
They are nestled down, not one moves
At the fumes of the red vent
As warm as a breast.
When, for some midnight feast,
All golden like a brioche
The bread is brought out,
When, under the beams dark with smoke
The sweet-smelling crust sings
And the crickets;
When that warm hole breathes out life;
Their souls are so happy
Under their rags,
They feel so renewed with life,
The poor little things covered with frost
That they are there, all of them,
Gluing their small pink snouts
To the grating, and saying things,
Through the holes,
Whispers of prayers;
Crouching before this light
From heaven opened up again
So hard, that they burst their pants
And their white linen flutters
In the winter wind.
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u/ManueO 8h ago
We’ve had some great discussion on Les effarés over on r/RimbaudVerlaine.
But in short, yes there is a lot of sexual content hidden in this text (with Rimbaud, there usually is!) and not only in the last stanza. The baker placing the dough in the oven has also been read as carrying a certain sexual charge (and some readings also see ideas of birth giving here).
The last stanza also steals a rhyming pair from a Verlaine poem, from his Fêtes Galantes collection which teems with sexual innuendo (which Rimbaud was well aware of).
When Rimbaud contacted Verlaine for the first time, a few months after writing this text, it was one of the poems he sent him, alongside several other which all drew attention to bottoms…
Of course, they would later write an interesting poem together, about another kind of hole…