Victor Hugo’s poem L’ENFANT is a profound statement on the nature and generational impact of war, and also a nearly illegible exercise in pathos and Orientalism. I have attempted to make it readable today by translating it in the way I would freely mould spoken word, by retaining its melodic and bizarre qualities. This is about the massacre of Chios in 1822 and written in support of Greece’s struggle for independence, but it obviously reaches far beyond that context. I recommend reading it to the end in one sitting.
THE CHILD [CHIOS 1822]
The Turks were here. Ruin and bereavement everything.
Chios, the isle of wines, is now but a gloomy reef,
Chios, once shaded by luscious pergolas,
Chios, that used to reflect off the sea green woodlands,
Hillsides, palaces, and the occasional
Nightly chorus of dancing girls.
A desert everything. Not quite: behind a smokey wall
A blue-eyed child, a Greek child, is huddled up,
His head bent in humiliation;
His only shelter and support
A white hawthorn shrub, a flower like him
Forgotten in the rampage.
Poor child whose bare feet trample sharp rocks!
Woe is you! To wipe the tears off your eyes, blue
Like the heavens and the sea,
To spark again in those weathered skies
Even just a flare of joy and innocent mischief,
What wish could I grant you?
What might dispel the clouds of grief?
Should I bring you that special blue lily
They say is found around the canyons of Iran?
Or the fruit of the Tuba, a tree so tall
That it takes a galloping horse
A hundred years to escape its shade?
Might you trade me a smile for the marvelous woodland bird
Whose song is softer than the playing of the zurna
And stronger than the clanging of cymbals?
Do you want the bird, the fruit, or the flower, name one.
— What I want, said the Greek child, the blue-eyed child,
What I want is bullets and a gun.
June 1828 / October 2025
>marginalia* 