Victory at Guernica by Paul Éluard, 1937
Paul Éluard is well known as one of the founders of the Surrealist movement and he was also politically and artistically dedicated to the French Communist Party.
The poem La Victoire de Guernica, was written in condemnation of the infamous fascist bombing of the Basque town during the Spanish Civil War, immortalised in the Picasso painting of the same name.
*
I
Quiet world of rundown homes
Of night and fields
II
Good faces ready for fire faces ready for full speed
For refusing the night, for injuries, for impacts
III
Faces ready for anything
Here comes the void to fix you
Your death’s going to be an example
IV
The death overthrown heart
V
They’ve made you pay in bread
Sky earth water sleep
And the misery
Of your life
VI
They say want good intelligence
They ration the strong judge the mad
Make charity divide one penny
They salute dead bodies
They barrage themselves with niceties
VII
They persevere they exaggerate they are not of our world
VIII
Women children have the same treasure
Of spring-green leaves and pure milk
And of legacy
In their clear eyes
IX
Women children have the same treasure
In the eyes
Some men have defended it if they could
X
Women children have the same pink roses
In the eyes
Each one lets out its blood
XI
Fear and courage to live and to die
Death so difficult and so easy
XII
Those for whom this treasure was sung
Those for whom this treasure was gashed
XIII
Those whose despair
Enrages the desolate flames of hope
Let’s crack open together the last bud of the future
XIV
Outcasts the death the soil and the disgust
Of our enemies has the dull
Colour of our night
We will defeat it.
Paul Éluard
Translation by Gapuchin at absoluteunrest.org
