Poetry of Revolution: Romanticism and National Projects

The drowning of slaves that is mentioned as one of many torturous methods of execution

becomes the entire subject in the second part of the poem. This section is separated by an

asterisk at the close of the fourteenth stanza. The detailed description which ensues not only

magnifies the circumstances surrounding this event but it simultaneously works to evoke the

transatlantic slave trade, as Africans are thrown overboard on the wide-open sea and piled on top

of one another in the ship’s deep hull:

Ayant déjà connu jusqu’au dernier martyre,

Ayant toujours souffert ce qu’ils souffraient encore,

Dans la cale profonde et sombre du navire

Entassés, pêle-mêle, ils espéraient la mort... [69-72]

One of those eventually stands out among the rest. A few stanzas later, we read:

Or, entre eux, se trouvait une négresse austère.

Ses filles, son mari, ---doux vieillard, gais enfants,--

Tout ce qui lui restait de bonheur sur la terre,

Comme elle allaient périr sous les flots étouffants. [sic]

Lorsque, pour le lancer dans la mer vaste et sombre,

Devant lui, menaçant, s’avança le bourreau,

Le noir semble fléchir : voyant se dresser l’ombre

De la mort, il n’osait la regarder front haut. (81-88)

The reason for choosing to add what would be an optional –e in the spelling of martyre

becomes clear in this section. Martyre, which had connoted the death and suffering of

numerous slaves in various colonies becomes in this section “la martyre,” an African woman

aboard the ship who is also an allegory for the black race. It is in her words that resistance is

voiced, as she encourages those around her to choose death over captivity:

Alors –ainsi que fit Semprone la romaine—

La noire, encourageant son époux à la mort:

« N’es tu donc pas heureux de n’avoir plus de chaîne?

Dit-elle en souriant ; veux-tu souffrir encore? » (82-85)