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Toussaint, con người bất hạnh nhất trong những người bất hạnh!
Dù gã nhà quê huýt sáo dắt bò cày
Nằm trong tầm tai ngươi, hay giờ đây đầu ngươi
Đang gối đầu trong hang tối sâu thẳm không tai—
Ôi vị Tù trưởng khốn khổ! Ở đâu và khi nào
Ngươi sẽ tìm thấy sự nhẫn nại? Song chớ vội chết; hãy cứ
Mang vầng trán tươi vui trong xiềng xích thay vì thế:
Dù chính ngươi đã ngã quỵ, chẳng bao giờ gượng dậy được nữa,
Hãy sống, và tìm lấy sự yên ủi. Ngươi đã để lại đằng sau
Những thế lực sẽ hành động vì ngươi; không khí, đất đai, và bầu trời;
Chẳng có một hơi thở nào của cơn gió chung
Lại quên mất ngươi; ngươi có những đồng minh vĩ đại;
Bạn bè của ngươi là niềm hân hoan, nỗi thống khổ,
Và tình yêu, cùng tâm trí bất khuất của con người.
Note
Contents 1802
Main Contents
1
2
B
C
5
10
Variant 1:
1827
Whether the rural milk-maid by her cow
Sing in thy hearing, or thou liest now
Alone in some deep dungeon's earless den,
1803
Whether the all-cheering sun be free to shed
His beams around thee, or thou rest thy head
Pillowed in some dark dungeon's noisome den,
1815
Whether the whistling Rustic tend his plough
Within thy hearing, or Thou liest now
Buried in some deep dungeon's earless den;—
1820
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Variant 2:
1807
... Yet die not; be thou
Life to thyself in death; with chearful brow
Live, loving death, nor let one thought in ten
Be painful to thee ...
1803
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Footnote A:
But previously printed in The Morning Post of February 2,
1803, under the signature W. L. D.—Ed.
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Footnote B:
Compare Massinger, The Bondman, act I. scene iii. l. 8:
'Her man of men, Timoleon.'
Ed.
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Footnote C:
Compare Rowe's Tamerlane, iii. 2:
'But to subdue the unconquerable mind.'
Also Gray's poem The Progress of Poesy, ii. 2, l. 10:
'Th' unconquerable Mind, and Freedom's holy flame.'
Ed.
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Note:
François Dominique Toussaint (who was surnamed L'Ouverture), the child
of African slaves, was born at St. Domingo in 1743. He was a Royalist in
political sympathy till 1794, when the decree of the French convention,
giving liberty to the slaves, brought him over to the side of the
Republic. He was made a general of division by Laveux, and succeeded in
taking the whole of the north of the island from the English. In 1796 he
was made chief of the French army of St. Domingo, and first the British
commander, and next the Spanish, surrendered everything to him. He
became governor of the island, which prospered under his rule. Napoleon,
however, in 1801, issued an edict re-establishing slavery in St.
Domingo. Toussaint professed obedience, but showed that he meant to
resist the edict. A fleet of fifty-four vessels was sent from France to
enforce it. Toussaint was proclaimed an outlaw. He surrendered, and was
received with military honours, but was treacherously arrested and sent
to Paris in June 1802, where he died, in April 1803, after ten months'
hardship in prison. He had been two months in prison when Wordsworth
addressed this sonnet to him.—Ed.
Contents 1802
Main Contents
