Ses purs ongles très haut

Mallarmé famously lost a mother and a beloved sister at a young age. Death-haunted (so went much 20th century psychoanalytical criticism of him), his poetry was preoccupied with recovering loss he felt at an impressionable age. An early letter shows him stunned in a moment of funereal vertigo: he recalls himself alone within a darkened room, the loved ones are lost, the furniture is as inert as ever, a window is opened, and somewhere in the back of the room he sees a reflection of Ursa Major against a mirror. He spent a lifetime trying to shape this one stunning moment into clarity.

With this poem the sign of the cross, specifically, the objects of the Catholic Mass, are contrasted with the beauties heard in music that live on without ritual. Keats is definitely invoked with  reference to the two-armed amphora that carries the ashes of the deceased. But rather than focusing on images painted onto an urn Mallarmé focuses on the passions behind creation. The Passion that had inspired the Church is referred to non-specifically as "le Maître" (the "nails" those of the Crucifixion). Many have translated this as "Master", but with its hard edges of "rule and follow" I feel the word doesn't fit with the overall tone of the poem. There are ashes and rebirth, the Anguish of night and Ursa Major that lives on, the darkness of the room and the "early gold" of the new day, nudity that shimmers long after it's observed. These are all musical motifs. Especially with Ursa Major being referred to with the musical term a "septet of stars" I have chosen "Maestro" instead of "Master".

There's a kind of muted hope expressed throughout the poem, which to Mallarmé was the only kind to encourage. The "she" of the nudity of the pure sensation, nondescript too, shows just how far those feelings can range. Like his inspiration, this is his master poem.