Si la vue détaille, le nez défaille,

18:06 Oct 2, 2015 

I think Phil's suggestion is very good: "Her beauty lures him in, and then her fragrance delivers the coup de grâce"

16:29 Oct 2, 2015 

I agree with you, it also means faint/swoon. But how can I get all that across? I think I'll have to choose which meaning of défaillir to convey.

16:13 Oct 2, 2015 

Maybe something like "Her beauty lures him in, and then her fragrance delivers the coup de grâce"?

16:11 Oct 2, 2015 

Yes, you're right.

16:11 Oct 2, 2015 

I think it's possibly the other way round - the eyes draw him in, and the nose takes over. He almost succumbs to the scent.

16:06 Oct 2, 2015 

I still can't get a handle on the exact idea that's being expressed. Défailler can mean to faint/swoon, or to waver. Which is it here, do you think? And détailler means to scrutinise.
I think it's more important to get the meaning across than to reproduce the wordplay - that's a luxury that might come later.
Is it something like "the perfume lures him in and then the eyes take over"?

15:54 Oct 2, 2015 

Could you reconstruct the wordplay using the words "detail" and "derail?"

15:45 Oct 2, 2015 

That does make it - not easier, but less difficult - to find something.
So far I can only think of "While the eye leads the way, the nose leads astray", which does rhyme, but is less elegant I feel...

15:35 Oct 2, 2015 

This is the sentence before the Proust quote:
"Cette mise en scène olfactive fait partie des ruses de la séduction et vise à piéger le galant grisé pour le mener par le bout du nez. Swann est d’ailleurs coutumier du fait ; enivré par son parfum, il est à deux doigts de succomber aux charmes de madame de Surgis :

Then comes the Proust quote, and just after it, the sentence I would like help with.

My take on it is that the sense of smell can lead you astray, or by the nose, so to speak. The problem I'm having is how to preserve at least a hint of the wordplay that's in the original -- detaille/defaille.

15:21 Oct 2, 2015 

Could you give the entire paragraph for context? It's a very tricky sentence, more so all by itself...

15:15 Oct 2, 2015 

The query is about a passage from an academic text on Proust, not the Proust passage itself.

15:14 Oct 2, 2015 

Of course Proust has been translated into English, many times in fact. But my question refers to a commentary on Proust.

15:03 Oct 2, 2015 

...que ce livre à déjà été traduit vers l'anglais... tiens, pari gagné !

https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/p/proust/marcel/p96s/complete...