How we cite our quotes: (Line)
Quote #4
I possess every talent! – There is no one here, yet there is someone: I don't wish to spill my treasure – Shall it be negro chants, the dance of houris? Shall I vanish, dive deep in search of the ring? Shall I? I will make gold, cures. (80)
The speaker is waxing fantastical here, imagining mystical dances by angels called "houris" and discussing his power to magic up gold and cures. Oh, and he's equating all this with "negro chants," as if they too were magical beings of the spiritual realm. While this isn't dismissive or critical, it is complete nonsense and it refuses to see black people as just that: people.
Quote #5
"I'm of a distant race: my forefathers were Scandinavian: they slashed their sides, drank their own blood. – I'll make cuts all over; I'll tattoo myself, I long to be hideous as a Mongol: you'll see, I'll scream in the streets. I want to be mad with rage. Never show me gems, I'd crawl on the carpet and writhe. My treasure, I'd like to be stained all over with blood. I'll never work..." (98)
In these lines the speaker's former "companion" is putting words in his mouth, only he's not. Remember that Rimbaud's speaker himself is the one telling us all this, so he's got the ultimate editorial authority here. In any case, the words themselves aren't really that awesome. The speaker, in trying to reject Western society, decides he wants to be just as savage as his Scandinavian ancestors—or someone from Mongolia. He sees them as tattooed rage-aholics, unburdened by things like money. Hmm. We wonder how real Mongolians or ancient Scandinavians might have felt about these descriptions.
Quote #6
...My two sous of sense are spent! – Mind has authority: it wants me to be in the West. It would have to be silenced for me to end as I wish. (249)
Though the speaker himself wants to book it out of the West and "go native" in some imagined, pre-civilized place, his mind just can't bring himself to do that—bummer. More of a bummer, though, is that the speaker seems to equate rationality with the West here, suggesting that Europe is where all the thinkers are. The disturbing implication here is that the "other" places are either magical or otherwise irrational.