“Ah well, towards happiness others will lead meWith their tresses knotted to the horns of my brow:You know, my passion, that purple and just ripe,The pomegranates burst and murmur with bees;And our blood, aflame for her who will take it,Flows for all the eternal swarm of desire.”Stéphane Mallarmé The Afternoon of a Faun (1876)
“Are you a living princess or her shadow?Let me kiss your fingers and their rings, and bid youWalk no longer in an unknown age...”Stéphane Mallarmé Nurse. Hérodiade (1898)
“Etna! 'tis amid you, visited by VenusOn your lava fields placing her candid feet,When a sad stillness thunders wherein the flame dies.I hold the queen!”Stéphane Mallarmé The Afternoon of a Faun (1876)