Descrizione

Oblong 4to. French manuscript on blue paper. 3 pp. on 3 ff. Charming, unpublished poem in 8 quatrains from Cocteau's youth, entitled "A pleasant little song for the unknown lady". The first stanza reads: "Nul prestige ne te décore | (Et sur quel sol ? Et sous quel toit ?) | Je ne te connais pas encore | Et j'ai peur de souffrir de toi". Indeed, the "unknown lady" is no stranger, but rather a fantasy as erotic as she is exotic, successively imagined wearing a "bamboo hat" on a "beach of the Antilles", listening to the "music of Algeria", and promenading "on the Bosphorus". Her inner life is similarly enigmatic, and the speaker addresses her with the question: "Are you suffering from being misunderstood like Lord Byron and Wagner?". Although the lover and the lady may never meet, they are already symbolically connected: "Toi qui, je ne sais vers quel pôle, [.] | Portes déjà sur ton épaule | La place vierge de mon front !". - Well preserved.