from Song for Yacine Mbaye
Championne 1974 des 1,500 mètres
Mbaye toi aussi Mbaye, si je t’ai choisie Mbaye,
c’est pour ta beauté vraie
Pour ta peau de bronze huilé, pour ta peau de
sombre acajou.
Je parle de l’accord, et que rien n’y soit défaut
Rien pour sur excès. Je t’ai élue pour ton visage
d’orient aux deux étoiles de diamant
Pour ton visage tatoué de deux traits droits, aux
commissures là des yeux amandes
Paré de nattes haut plaquées, guirlande de
lumière noire autour de ton visage.
Et la queue de tresses flotte mobile, flottant au
vent frais de la nuque.
Je chante la beauté et je module la mesure
Je mesure la courbe tes courbes: la proue
prouesse de la poitrine, la fuite
Souple gracieuse des reins. Si je te chante, c’est
pour l’épreuve et difficile
C’est difficile d’être souriante au bout du stade
Ma gazelle penchée des sables, si belle dans
l’angoisse et belle dans ton attente.
Translations of this Poem
from Song for Yacine Mbaye
1974, 1,500 metres champion
Mbaye you as well Mbaye, if I have chosen you Mbaye,
it is for your genuine beauty
For your skin of oiled bronze, for your skin of
dark mahogany
I speak of harmony and completeness
Without excess. I have chosen you for your eastern face
set with two diamond stars
For your face tattooed with two straight lines, and, where they
join, almond eyes
Trimmed with plaits gathered high and tight, a garland
of dark light around your face
And the plaits’ tail floats free, floats in the fresh breeze
of the neck’s nape.
I sing your beauty and modulate the measure
I measure the curve of your curves: the bow bowed
forward, the swift and graceful
Flight of the back. If I sing, ’tis for the test is hard
It’s hard to smile at the stadium’s end
My sable gazelle, forward leaning, so fine
in anguish and in patience
About this poem
This poem, representing Senegal, is part of The Written World – our collaboration with BBC radio to broadcast a poem from every single nation competing in London 2012.
Learning Resources
Senegal: The Written World
Classroom resource about the poem Song for Yacine Mbaye by Senegalise poet Leopold Sedar Senghor. Activities in this resource are aimed at pupils in lower secondary school (S1–S3). Curriculum levels 3 and 4.
