CUISINE LYRIQUE

VII. CUISINE LYRIQUE

La lune, la jaune omelette,
Battue avec de grands œufs d’or,
Au fond de l’azur noir s’endort,
Et dans les vitres se reflète.

Pierrot, dans sa blanche toilette,
Guigne sur le toit, près du bord,
La lune, la jaune omelette,
Battue avec de grands œufs d’or.

Ridé comme une pomme blette,
Le Pierrot agite très fort
Un poêlon, et, d’un brusque effort,
Croit lancer au ciel qui paillette
La lune, la jaune omelette.



VII. LYRICAL COOKERY

The moon, the yellow omelet,
whipped up from great golden eggs,
falls asleep at the bottom of the black sky
and is reflected in the windowpanes.

Pierrot, wearing his white make-up,
sees, in the corner of his eyes, at the roof’s edge,
the moon, the yellow omelet,
whipped up from great golden eggs

Wrinkly as an overripe apple,
the Pierrot gives a hearty thrust
to a frying pan, and with a sudden effort
believes he has launched into the spangling sky 
the moon, the yellow omelet.

NOTES (by line number, beginning with the title).

1 This is rondel VI, otherwise untitled, in Rondels Bergamasques.

CUISINE : DAf1878 gives four non-figurative definitions then current—kitchen, kitchen staff, the productions of a kitchen, and the art of cooking, in that order. “COOKERY” translates the last two of these.

4 l’azur noir : See III.11.

s’endort : Third person singular of the reflexive infinitive s’endormir, ‘to fall asleep’. DAf1694 through DAf1878 include, among their illustrative examples of figurative uses, « S’endormir dans le vice, dans les voluptés, etc., Demeurer, croupir dans le vice, dans les voluptés, dans les délices, etc. », ‘To fall asleep in vice, in sensuality, etc., To live, to stagnate in vice, in sensuality, in delights, etc.’ DAf1835 through DAf1878 bracket those particular figurative uses by two other degrees of figurative use, the higher being figurative and poetic (as in « S’endormir du sommeil de la tombe, Mourir », ‘To fall into the sleep of the tomb, To die’) and the lower being figurative but colloquial (as in «S’endormir sur le rôti, Négliger ce qui demande un soin assidu », ‘To fall asleep over the roast, To neglect that which demands painstaking attention’). What Giraud may have intended his word choice to impute to the moon’s character is unclear to me.

5 vitres : Windows. Light, its sources, what it shines on or through, and what it reflects from, all recur repeatedly in the rondels (see Appendix G).

6 sa blanche toilette : It is tempting to assume that this refers to Pierrot’s traditional all-white costume (see Appendix B). Certainly that was O. E. Hartleben’s assumption: his translation is „weißen Kleidern“, ‘white clothes’. However, not until DAf1935 did the Académie Française admit such a usage, and then only for women: « Toilette se dit aussi de l’Ensemble des vêtements […] qui servent à une femme à se parer », ‘Toilette can be properly used to refer to an outfit […] which is worn by a woman’. Nor do many other dictionaries or other literary sources license an ungendered use (e.g., the 1969 Petit Larousse glosses toilette as « tout costume féminin »), much less in the 19th century. On this ground, I prefer to read « sa blanche toilette » as referring to Pierrot’s equally traditional all-white makeup (again, see Appendix B). I return to this issue in XXXVIII.5.

11 Le Pierrot : Le Pierrot : As already noted (I.11 and IV.6), to pluralize a proper name N is one way of using a grammatical device to accomplish a rhetorical effect, namely, to emphasize the status of the individual named N as one of many Ns, for instance as a stock character. I find it very agreeable to note here the paradox that by putting the singular definite article before a proper name N one may accomplish the same rhetorical effect by quite the opposite grammatical device!

Ridé comme une pomme blette : In all editions of DAf, the first example sentence for the verb rider, ‘to wrinkle’, is « Les années lui ont ridé le visage », ‘The years have wrinkled his face’. DAf1835 through DAf1935 illustrate the participial adjective ridé with the phrase « Une pomme ridée, Une pomme ratatinée, flétrie », ‘A wrinkled apple, A dried-up, stale apple’. It is unusual to describe Pierrot either as being an old man, or as being made up as one; but see « grimé », L.13.

13 au ciel qui paillette : DAf, from 1694 through the current edition, has included the singular noun « paillette »—a (metal) spangle. The current edition is the first to include the transitive verb pailletter—to bespangle, to attach spangles to some (grammatical) object—while noting that that verb, derived from the noun, has been attested since the 17th century. Even now, DAf does not admit an intransitive use of pailletter. Thus by the standards of the Académie, the unique permissible reading of « lancer au ciel qui paillette / La lune, la jaune omelette » is that (1) « la jaune omelette » is the object of « lancer », (2) « au ciel » is an adverbial phrase indicating the direction in that object is propelled, (3) in the phrase « qui paillette / La lune », the object taken by the verb « paillette » is « La lune », and the subject back to which « qui » refers is « le ciel ». In particular, this reading has the sky bespangling the moon. I do not find that image visually plausible, and propose a different reading: (1) « La lune » is the object of « lancer »; (2) « au ciel » is as before; (3) « la jaune omelette » is an epithet for « la lune », in grammatical apposition with it, as it was in the first two verses; and (4) « paillette » is intransitive, with « ciel » as its subject. On this reading, the Acadé-mie would be obliged to say that Giraud has perpetrated a solecism; I say he has made a good use of poetic license.