Pénélope [English translation]

You, the model wife, the cricket of the hearth1,

you, without any snag or tear in your marriage gown,

you, the uncompromising Penelope2,

When following the lead of your pleasant but absent husband,

don’t you ever, in all honesty, nurse

some pretty thoughts that somehow sneak in,

some pretty thoughts that somehow sneak in?

Behind your curtains, in your oh so proper world,

awaiting the return of a suburban Ulysses3,

leaning over your needlework,

on melancholy evenings of doom and gloom.

have you never, in dreams of the sky above another bed,

counted some new stars,

counted some new stars?

Have you never yet called out to the passing object

of your wishes, who takes you by the hair,

who tells you nothing much,

who puts the daisy4 into the kitchen garden5,

puts the forbidden apple onto the tree branches,

and puts your lace clothing into disorder,

and puts your lace clothing into disorder.

Have you never hoped to see again in passing

that angel, that demon, who, his bow in his hand,

fires malignant arrows,

who gives their female flesh back to the coldest statues,

topples them from their pedestals, shakes up their virtue,

tears their off fig leaves6,

tears their off fig leaves?

Don’t be afraid that Heaven will hold it against you,

there’s truly nothing there for which to lash a heart7

that’s taken in by bad arguments and goes wild!

It’s a common fault and a venial sin,

it’s the hidden side of the honeymoon,

and the ransome for Penelope,

and the ransome for Penelope.

1. a cricket in the hearth was a good thing in old times, indicating a happy, warm and comfortable house; Dicken’s “cricket on the hearth” was was a magic fairy cricket, “Genius of his (the carrier’s) hearth and home”2. in Greek myth, Penelope was the wife of Odysseus, who remained faithful to him during his absence for the Trojan war and a very long journey back home from Troy3. the Latin name for Odysseus4. symbol of love5. symbol of domesticity6. literally:”grape” not “fig”7. the stock phrase “there’s nothing for which to lash a cat” means “it’s something too trivial to make a fuss about", and the change from “cat” to “heart” essentially keeps that meaning