Mytths in Mallarmé. Un Coup de Dés

University of Oregon

Hindu Myths in Mallarmé: Un Coup de DésAuthor(s): Richard AndersonSource: Comparative Literature, Vol. 19, No. 1 (Winter, 1967), pp. 28-35Published by: Duke University Press on behalf of the University of OregonStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1769398 .

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RICHARD ANDERSON

Hindu Myths in Mallarme:

Un Coup De Des

M ALLARMfi'S Un Coup de des jamais n'abolira le hasard, be- cause of its abstruseness and its relevance to an intimate human

experience-the paradoxical delight and pain of creating-lends itself to a variety of speculative interpretations. Robert Greer Cohn has published a brilliant exegesis of this odd masterpiece.' Professor Cohn pro- vides linguistic, philosophical, and even geometric tools, along with the customary biographical ones, to arrive at an understanding of Mal- larme's metaphysics, aesthetics, and in a summary fashion the story of the Master-Poet-Captain's disastrous adventure. No commentary has yet been made to crystallize the poet's sparkling word patterns into a formal poetic "argument," for lack, I believe, of knowledge of his mythological sources. In the course of studies of Hinduism, aimed at determining its effects on nineteenth-century French writing, I have come across materials which can give body to a new understanding of both story and metaphysics.

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, philosophers and histo- rians ranged widely in their studies among ancient civilizations, equip- ped with new techniques of research, reports of travelers, and an eagerness to broaden their horizons to include a romantically idealized past. Even a cursory look at the subjects dwelt upon by Mallarme and his associates leaves scarcely any doubt of the prevalence of India among their Oriental interests. The works of the closest associate of Mallarme, Henri Cazalis, known as Jean Lahor,2 and of other ac- quaintances, notably Leconte de Lisle, reveal an intimate familiarity with Hindu mythology and religion.

1 M1allarmn's Un Coup de des, An, Exegesis, Yale French Studies, 1949. 2 Jean Lahor, Le Livre du neat, 1872; L'Illusion, 1875; Hist. de la litterature

hindoue, 1888.

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HINDU MYTHS IN MALLARME

There is evidence, circumstantial (i.e., personal associations and known reading) and literary (in Mallarme's etymological notes and other writings), to indicate that he followed in the wake of Lamartine, Leconte de Lisle, Thales Bernard, Louis Menard, Jean Lahor, and others who were fascinated by the myths, sensibilities, and language of the primitive "Aryans" as recorded in the ancient literature of India.

Toward the end of the eighteenth century, Sir William Jones an- nounced to the Western world that early tribes, now known as "Indo- Europeans," had migrated westward from Asia in prehistoric times, bringing with them a common fund of customs and of language. Schol- ars and poets alike, indulging in the miscegenation of science and art popular at the time, set out to track down the ancestral myths and symbols. The earliest to have been written down were found in the Vedas of India, true "mots de la tribu," in Mallarme's phrase. In the Vedas and subsequent Sanskrit documents, they professed to find the spon- taneous penetration supposed to be the gift of ancient tribes, which the romantics liked to imagine unspoiled by the materialism and hyperin- tellectualism of modern times. It was popular to believe that for the early Aryans language was, as Mallarme attempted (with some success) to make it, a system of connotative symbols not only expressing the sacred truths of experience, but inseparable from these truths-the name as a thing.

Mallarme rewrote four Indian fables, in cryptic, jeweled style.3 His interest seems, on the evidence of Un Coup de des, to have carried him even further, into the mythology and the formal philosophies of India.

For, if one compares Un Coup de des with Leconte de Lisle's Vision de Brahma4 and with its source material in the Bhagavata Purana,5 one almost inevitably surmises that in devising the skeletal plot, Mal- larme had in mind the Puranic myth of Brahma, creative phase of the Hindu trinity,6 in the first moments of the creation of the universe. Several times in this Purana, Brahma is described as rising up from the "Ocean of Causes," in the calice of a sacred lotus which has sprung from the navel of Hari, the Great God, source of wisdom, at the incep- tion of a World Period (Mahayuga.) Drowsy from the rest of a thousand years intervening between periods, Brahma is temporarily in- competent to fulfil his duties as Creator; Maya obscures his conscious- ness. He "practices ascetic endeavor," sees in his heart a dazzling vision of Hari, perceives the "beginning and the end" of things, and

3 From Mary Summer, Contes et legendes de l'Inde ancienne. See the Pleiade edition of Mallarme's works.

4 Po'emes antiques, ed. Lemerre, 1939. 5 Translation by Eugene Burnouf, 3 vols. in fol., 1840, 1844, 1847. 6 With Vishnu, preserver, and Siva, destroyer.

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COMPARATIVE LITERATURE

finds his powers revived. The poet added at least one other touch to the legend, but the outline of this story seems clearly present in Un Coup de des.

The title itself may well have been suggested by the four ages (Yuga) 7 making up the total World Period, named for the four throws of the Hindu dice game: Krita, Treta, Dvapara, and Kali. Like the names of the four classical ages: Gold, Silver, Bronze, and Iron, they indicate the decline in relative virtue as the universe wheels on toward destruction.

On the level of metaphysics, the terms of Mallarme's creative dia- lectic correspond quite closely with those of the oldest and most widely studied of the six principal systems of Hindu philosophy, Kapila's Samkhya; this was discussed and put before the public eye by a number of the nineteenth-century philosophers.8

My assumption of the presence of the Samkhya among Mallarme's sources is based on the coincidence of similar elements or forces of creation, similarity of purpose, and the likelihood that Mallarme could have become familiar with it from the associations mentioned above. The word samkhya means both "number" and "reason." The system is an epistemology, like Mallarme's "expression generale de notre esprit."9 It places trust in the reason, and explains the universe in mathematical terms, as does Mallarme in his poem: "anciens calculs," "l'unique nombre," "en reployer la division," "la somme," "le compte."

It would naturally be an absurd project to make of Mallarme a lat-

ter-day Hindu saint, but the reader will judge from the following con- cordance whether a comparison of the poem with the Samkhya and with the Puranic myth is not more than a curiosity. For the moment I will assume that it is a retelling of the myth of Brahma, in Samkhya terms.

"LE MAITRE" is Brahma, Poet-God, "hors d'anciens calculs" be- cause of drowsiness as he awakens in the lotus, growing, in the gro- tesque manner of Hindu myths, from the navel of Hari, as he floats on the Ocean of Causes. Having been a "vieillard" a thousand years ago, he is still potentially wise as an old man, though the wisdom is

temporarily clouded: "ou la manceuvre avec l'age oubliee." The sea

7 Yuga means yoke, whence Latin jungere and Mallarme's "conjonction avec la probabilite." Mallarme was an amateur etymologist and knew some Sanskrit words.

8 Samkhya doctrines were to be found in Colebrooke's Memoirs; Victor Cousin, Hist. de la philosophie du XVIIIe siecle, 1829, vol. I; Abel-Remusat, Nouveaux melanges asiatiques, 1829, vol. II; Barthelemy Saint-Hilaire, "Le Sankyha," Memoires de l'Academie des sciences morales et politiques, 1852.

9 See Cohn, op. cit., p. 10, note 16.

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HINDU MYTHS IN MALLARMfI

images are appropriate to the Hindu notion that he has come out of the ocean.

Brahma is vaguely conscious (surgi / inferant) that he was at one time able to create, to throw man into the tempest of life: "jadis il em- poignait la barre / de cette conflagration a ses pieds" The "conflagration" (besides its reference to the storm-lashed ocean) sets forth the cause of destruction at the end of the World Period: the world is destroyed by fire, quenched by water. The "barre"-one of Mallarme's many all-purpose words-whether one takes it as the helm of the ship, grasped by the Master, or as the reef destined to wreck the vessel, is the element which will break the life-stuff into fragments; this is, in Samkhya, the Cosmic Will or Intelligence, called Mahatattva or Mahat, the origin of Schopenhauer's theory of the Will. Looking at it darkly, as would the German pessimist and Mallarme, it is the error which will at a given moment cause Brahma to create. In the brighter view of the Hindus, it is an energetic imbalance serving as catalyst in the fecundation of Prakriti (Nature, Material) by Purucha (Soul.) Pra- kriti is the first of twenty-five categories constituting reality, identi- fied in Samkhya with Brahma himself. At times it is considered a female force or goddess; in the present case, Brahma is "female" in the sense that he must be inseminated with energy and knowledge by Pu- rucha (as Hari). Purucha is the male, last of the twenty-five categories, Hari is his primary status as Spirit. In the poem, Prakriti-Brahma is "Nombre," Purucha-Hari is "Esprit": "l'unique Nombre qui ne peut pas etre un autre / Esprit / pour le jeter dans la tempete / en reployer la division." Their "fiangailles" in the presence of Mahat, the fatal error, will give meaning to the other categories, unleashing the "tem-

pest" of the casual nexus, i.e., Maya. Maya is sometimes indistinguish- able from the Will, but not in Samkhya. It is what Schopenhauer knew as "Representation." The meaning varies for Orient and Occident alike according to one's reaction to life. Gandhi said it should be trans- lated "appearances," a less bilious term than the "illusion" so popular in France in the last half of the nineteenth century. Mallarme echoes Louis Menard, Jean Lahor, and Leconte de Lisle in calling it "le voile d'illusion," the deceptive mist at this point responsible for Brahma's sterility: "COMME SI plume solitaire eperdue." The Will has now become the Pen; Brahma will learn how to grasp it when he escapes the veil of Maya.

In the Bhagavata Purana the key to Brahma's dilemma will be held out by Hari. Also called Vishnu or Bhagavat, he is the personal god, the "present help in trouble." He is said to have come down into the

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human sphere in ten principal avatars to assist men in troubled times.10 He is often called upon by Brahma and the various sages in the Bhaga- vata Purana. Thus when Mallarme's paralyzed poet or Master seeks aid, one might expect him to turn to the source of wisdom and com- passion, Hari. But Mallarme has complicated the myth, apparently taking a leaf from the hagiography of Siva, God of Destruction, and of his "wife" Kali, Queen of the underworld.

Hari-Purucha has effected Brahma's manifestation in the lotus, and can doubtless be said to appear here as "l'ulterieur demon ayant / de contres nulles / induit / le vieillard vers cette conjonction avec la probabilite." Mr. Cohn says that the demon is probably Kali, "malin genie of dice players."" This is certainly not impossible, since Kali could as well as not inspire Brahma with the evil urge to make the fatal error of yearning for wisdom.

I choose, however, to assume that it is Siva rather than Kali who

appears to the poet. The veil of ignorance afflicting Brahma-Master- Poet is pierced by what at first might seem to be the Pen as Will: "La lucide et seigneuriale aigrette de vertige / au front invisible / scintille." As the vision rises out of the mist, the "aigrette" is revealed as the crest on the head of a divine being. The crest "ombrage / une stature mi-

gnonne tenebreuse." Hari is usually described as seated under an asvat- tha tree; this god is standing and dancing: "debout / en sa torsion de sirene." What could be a picture more suggestive of Siva Nataraja, Lord of Dancers, with four arms, ringed with flames, performing the Natanda dance? This is the Indian icon seen most often by Western- ers. His crest of cassia leaves is here called an "aigrette."

There are excellent reasons for Mallarme's recourse to the Shaivite

myth. Siva is, as dancer, the "demon" of the arts. The dance is considered by the Hindus as the least inhibited, the most sublime form of

expression, a magic rite achieving perfect harmony between body and soul, the "still point" of T. S. Eliot and W. B. Yeats.l2 Then, too, Siva is Absolute Male; as the maleness of Purucha, he can serve here to fecundate Prakriti as Brahma. Siva is worshipped with amulets and in temples all over India in the form of the lingam or male sex organ.

10 Krishna of the Bhagavad Gita is the eighth avatar of Vishnu. Avatar means "down-goer," cf. Nietzsche's Zarathustra.

11 Cohn, p. 59, note 99. 12 The theme of the dance in W. B. Yeats and T. S. Eliot is inspired by the idea

of Siva Nataraja. W. B. Yeats wrote: "O body swayed to music, o brightening glance, How can we know the dancer from the dance ?"

And T. S. Eliot: "At the still point, there the dance is."

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HINDU MYTHS IN MALLARMN

The comparison between the lingam and the Pen is significant. One final stroke in this portrait of Siva, God of Death and Artistic Crea- tion, Absolute Male, and the picture of his attractions for Mallarme is complete: as the husband of Kali, Goddess of Evil (worshipped by the Thugs, subject of many articles in nineteenth-century reviews,) Brahma's discovery or recovery of the Cosmic Intelligence in his presence is an expression of the poet's half-believed notion that science is sinful.

Brahma cannot be prevented from fulfilling the doomed cycle. Again as master of a ship, he suddenly sees a rock: "un roc / faux manoir / tout de suite / evapore en brumes / qui imposa une borne a l'infini." The rock is the fatal error, intelligence or will, cleared of the mists of Maya but too late; the ship crashes into the rock; Maya becomes the bursting wreckage, the finite world as an immense catastrophe "limit- ing the infinite" as the rock had set up the first finite barrier in the vastness of the Ocean of Causes.

"C'ETAIT LE NOMBRE"-these are the words following directly after. Brahma realizes, illumined by Mahat, that he is Prakriti, now "divided." The syntax seems to indicate that the rock is "le Nombre," and it can be explained in this way: Brahma sees his own Self projected in the rock, both rock and Self to be feared.

To keep the symbols in order, the rock's place as Will should not be forgotten. This seems patent, given the extraordinary use of the imperfect subjunctive for the verbs describing Brahma's mental tur- moil in the cataclysm: "EXISTAT-IL / autrement qu'hallucination eparse d'agonie / COMMENCAT-IL ET CESSAT-IL / . . . SE CHIFFRAT-IL / ... ILLUMINAT-IL." The volitional aspect of the subjunctive conveys the ardent desire to know the answers to the classic questions always asked by the Hindu sages; the position of these verbs at the climax shows that the questions are answered. Brahma knows not if and how he exists. The traditional problem of the nature of evil is elliptically superimposed on the question of existence; it seems to be concerned with "essence" as well as existence-does he

enjoy any other sort of reality than this that he sees now in his suddenly differentiated, suffering, mortal form? Here, as in the Bhagavata Pu- rana, Brahma (to quote from Leconte de Lisle's Vision de Brahma) "cherchait en soi l'origine et la fin." He is successfully "illumined." Knowledge of the "beginning and the end" makes him Creator: "Choit la plume"-ambivalent phrase meaning both "the pen descends to the

paper" and "the pen falls from his hand." The storm of life is quelled by the action that impelled it: "rythmique suspens du sinistre." Death -return into the ocean-puts an end to creation, "delire," and the rest.

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The end result of the creative act in Un Coup de des points up the difference between the psychological conditioning of Mallarme and that of his ancient sources. Mallarme may well have made his abstraction of the creative act classically universal, by his many levels of metaphor -marine, biological, stellar, metaphysical, artistic-by his showers of ambiguous words, his clever manipulation of the typography, his absolute exclusion of the unnecessary, all calculated to sing "un hymne des relations entre tout" that should exist almost outside of time by the simultaneity of events. The fact remains that too much water has flowed down the river for Mallarme to emphasize the same vital factors as the Puranic sages. It is understood in Hindu cosmology that the universe is created and destroyed at every moment, but the "moment" is outside mortal time and need not cause alarm. While Brahma re- joices at the success of his mission to Kailasa, the sacred mountain, Mallarme's poet is heartsick at the thought of the sterility that sent him on the mission. He is more egocentric than Brahma, more easily wounded in the vanity that tells him he should, as poet, have some im- munity from the fate of other mortals. As he looks back on the abyss like Lot's wife on Sodom, a sense of monotony, not the inevitable rush of events, plunges him again into the "enchafed flood": "S'ensevelir aux ecumes originelles / nagueres d'ou sursauta son delire jusqu'a une cime / fletrie / par la neutralite du gouffre."

Although the emphasis is on the negative, the categories of Mal- larme's cosmology do not differ essentially from those of the Hindus. The three primary data are almost synonymous: Prakriti (Nombre), Purucha (Esprit), Mahat (la barre, la plume, le roc), though in Mal- larme's figures of speech Mahat is something else than a fatal ex- ercise of a spiritual factor; it is more like a weapon fated to turn upon the warrior.

In the all-important figure or symbol of the ocean, also, Mallarme seems closely allied with the Hindus in their view of the origin and the final goal of gods and man (see above, "ecumes originelles.") Nine-

teenth-century writing teems with "abimes," "gouffres," "vides," and "neants," grossly speaking interchangeable when they signify the pri- meval universal matrix, and usually interchangeable with the sky or ocean or a combination of these. It is customary to consider it an ex-

pression of dark pessimism that these writers should have despaired of finding any place of final rest other than a cold void-as it was, no doubt, many times-but various degrees of warmth and hope are attached on occasion by different writers to this "nothingness." For Victor Hugo, Leconte de Lisle, and Baudelaire, as well as Mallarme

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HINDU MYTHS IN MALLARMRI

(although they, like the Orientals, do not succinctly define their terms) I do not believe that the "vide" or "neant" meant what they seemed to say. They entertained doubts about their final goal, and still kept a little flame of hope burning that their romantic souls would not find complete oblivion at the end.

In Buddhism, the concept of Nirvana is often something like Le- conte de Lisle's feeling about eternity, offering some of the attractions of a sun bath in the rays of Leconte de Lisle's own brilliant Midi. In Un Coup de des, the final dissolution seems destined, as would be more likely in Hinduism, for a neutral zone, rather than for extinction, suf-

fering, bliss, or any other erotic situation. The end of the poem, as attention is led off into the atmosphere where a few stars twinkle, leaves the expectation that the cycle will start again from the same ocean, with Brahma's meditations in the sacred lotus.

San Francisco

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Documents

Mytths in Mallarmé. Un Coup de Dés