Front Cover-
Le Jugement Dernier - Par Henry Malherbe - Orne de Gravures par Jean Marchand - Aux Editions de la Sirene 12, Rue La Boetie, 12 Paris VIII(e)
Google Translate-
The Last Judgment - By Henry Malherbe - Ornate Etchings by Jean Marchand - At Editions de la Sirene 12, Rue La Boetie, 12 Paris VIII (e)
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This is number 739 of a print run limited to 1000 copies produced in Paris in 1920. It appears to be a mediation/lament on the author's experience in World War I, his service related injury and other soldiers he met while recovering in the hospital. Dedicated to and inspired by the synonymous works of Claude Debussy and Charles Baudelaire and as performed by Helene Demellier. Those works in turn may have been inspired by the synonymous earlier work of Michelangelo and Luca Signorelli.
Woodcut Recto-
A page facing a woodcut by Jean Marchand contains the following passage from Shakespeare's The Tempest, translated to French-
Shakespeare The Tempest Act IV, Scene I
Not acteurs — je vous en avais prévenus — étaient tous des esprits; ils se sont fondus dans l'air, dans l'air impalpable. De meme que l'edifice sans base de cette vision. — les tours coiff'ees de nuées, les palais somptueux, les temples solennels, ce globe immense lui-meme et tout ce qui s'y trouve, se dissoudront un jour, sans laisser plus de traces que le spectacle immatériel qui vient de s'évanouir! Nous sommes de l'étoffe dont sont faits le songes et notre pauvre vie roule dans une hallucination.
English Text from Shakespeare's original-
Prospero —
You do look, my son, in a moved sort,
As if you were dismayd: be cheerful, sir.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-cappd towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Ye all which it inherit, shall dissolve
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.
(http://shakespeare.mit.edu/tempest/tempest.4.1.html)
Colophon-
Justification du Tirage-Cet ouvrage, imprime pour le Sirene d'après les maquettes de Bertrand Guegan, est sorti le 1 Mai 1920 des presses de Frazier-Soye; il a été tire a mille onze exemplaires dont un sur papier de chanvre chiffre 1, dix sur vieux Japon a la forme chiffres de 2 a 11, et mille sur papier verge pur fil des manufactures de Lafuma, chiffres de 12 a 1011. Le present exemplaire porte le numero : 739
Google Translate-
Reason for Drawdown—This work, printed for the Sirene after models by Bertrand Guegan, was released on May 1, 1920 from the Frazier-Soye presses; a thousand and eleven copies were drawn, including one on hemp paper number 1, ten on old Japan in the form of numbers 2 to 11, and one thousand on verge pure yarn paper from the manufacturers of Lafuma, numbers from 12 to 1011. The present copy bears the number: 739
Dedication—
A la créatrice du << Jet d'eau >> de Cl. Debussy et Ch. Baudelaire, A la plus noble et plus inspired cantatrice de ce temps, A Mademoiselle Helene Demellier, est respectueusement dédié ce chant.
i.e.—
Dedicated to Claude Debussy, Charles Baudelaire and Helene Demellier.
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