Jesse Scott Owen

One of my favorite readings so far from the Auden syllabus has been Pascal's Pensées, his notes for a book never finished (he died at 39) which, while intended as a defense for Christianity, I would never recommend to a non-Christian with the hope of converting them, though I would recommend to most anyone; it is splendid.

Reading Honor Levi's translation, I came across this aphorism that I believe only she translates in verse:

If he praises himself, I belittle him.
If he belittles himself, I praise him
And continue to contradict him
Until he understands
That he is an unfathomable monster.

Like some occult charm against solipsism, like learning a word you've needed but haven't known, such has been my experience of reading Pascal.

Around that time, or soon after, I was recommended Ezra Pound's advice to W. S. Merwin, to write seventy (I think) lines a day, and, because this is impossible, to make up for one's creative lack by translating others' works. I decided to translate Pascal, a ridiculous task, complicated further by my not understanding a lick of French. Inspired by Levi, I decided I would translate the entirety of the Pensées in verse.

—An aside, a line of Guy Davenport, from his introduction to 7 Greeks: "My translation therefore is without any authority except the dubious one of sentiment."

After a little while of translating, coming to understand the actual size of the project, I took one of my copies of the Pensées and instead started highlighting the bits I'd like to translate, as one page of Pascal takes up weeks of free time, life is short, and I am impatient. 

And I am easily distracted: One frustrating line—Toutes choses changent et se succèdent—I could only decipher as, "All things change, and succeed each other." I googled variations on the phrase, and came across a quote from Chuang Tzu, "The myriad things are all from seeds, and they succeed each other because of their different forms." This not a statement I'd imagine Pascal likely to make, nor one that illuminates his thought in the least, but just in case, I started reading Chuang Tzu.

In one passage, Chuang Tzu (described somewhere, I forget where, as to Taoism what Saint Paul was to Christianity) writes, "Your life has a limit but knowledge has none. If you use what is limited to pursue what has no limit, you will be in danger."

He may be right, but alas, the Way seems no less daunting a task.