IF ..., Rudyard Kipling
Publié le 5 Novembre 2009

Je ne connaissais pas ce texte, qui a pourtant l'air d'être un grand classique.
Quelques mots pris en feuilletant les pages m'ont marqués.
"Si tu peux faire un rêve sans qu’il te domine"
Moi qui ne sais pas quoi faire de mes rêves.
"(Si tu peux) Voir l’oeuvre de de ta vie sombrer dans le chaos
Et puis la rebâtir de tes outils brisés;"
une autre façon d'exprimer ce qui m'a fait écrire Stones
"tu seras un homme mon fils !"
"Sois un homme, ma fille" me disait mon père.
Il m'a fallu plus de 30 ans pour comprendre et ne pas déformer le message.
J'ai trouvé plusieurs traductions en français sur ce site :
http://www.crescenzo.nom.fr/kipling.html
Mais je vous met le texte d'origine en anglais
IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
' Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!
Ce livre sera offert à ma grande fille.