Six years ago I began to translate, one by one, the poems of Baudelaire. It was the summer of 2007, and I had just turned twenty-one and completed a third year of college in California. My reasons, to be honest, remain mysterious and inarticulate to me even now: it’s been hard, upon the handful of occasions here in New York when I’ve been asked about exactly why I did it, not to answer in a way that doesn’t sound facetiously stupid: to learn about (modern) poetry<\/i>, say, or because it made me happy<\/i>, or perhaps most frivolous of all, to read Baudelaire<\/i>. The answer I’ve tended to give has been that I had literary ambitions of my own, was unsure of my capacity to satisfy them, and so submitted myself to the task of translating a major poet in order to resolve those doubts one way or the other.<\/p>\n
But maybe this response, when you look more closely at it, proves even sillier than all the rest. Time is short, is here and now: why make a six-year detour through a foreign poet from a distant era, why seek the modern in the past? Probably the best thing to do is not to answer, to let the presence of the translations (which ended up encompassing 170 poems, the entirety of Baudelaire’s verse) speak for themselves, but New York, during the year I’ve spent here, has consistently indicated to me that silence, dignified or otherwise, is not a viable option. Perhaps a few ancillary notes upon the features of the translations here presented will strike the proper balance between preposterous and revealing.<\/p>\n
The first things likely to leap out to the reader accustomed to \u201cmainstream\u201d contemporary poetry are the presence of strong, regular rhyme, the occasional deployment of an archaic syntax (\u201ccultured beast and soft,\u201d \u201cpious arms and sage,\u201d \u201cfaces full devoured\u201d), and the frequent exercise of tropes associated with Romanticism and Romantic poetry (\u201cshining fields of peace,\u201d \u201cdestinies beyond the flow of time,\u201d \u201cimbued with agile strength\u201d). These features correspond directly to aspects of the original text. Not only do all of Baudelaire’s verses rhyme, several of them refer directly to the labor of discovering and employing rhyme; rhyme was no vestigial plaything to him, but an essential, perhaps the<\/i> essential material element of verse. Even in the nineteenth century his usage of French came off as antiquated: when Czeslaw Milosz was presented with two sonnets with no author indicated, one by Baudelaire and one from the sixteenth-century, he was unable to tell which poem had been authored by which poet. And although Baudelaire had a vexatious relationship with French Romanticism and with its leading poet Victor Hugo in particular, he was acutely conscious that his own sensibility was thoroughly Romantic: if, viewed through the lens of literary history, he now appears to have transcended Romantic ideology, he did so less by criticizing it from without than by experiencing it from within, by taking its images and precepts as axioms and pursuing them to their lethal, logical conclusion.<\/p>\n
The arrangement of the poems of Les Fleurs du Mal<\/i> constitutes the narrative of that pursuit. In time the journey leads through women, symbols, the life of cities, alcohol, sex, class warfare, and annihilation, but for now, for the space of these five poems inaugurated by \u201cBenediction\u201d (the sixth, the unnumbered \u201cTo the Reader,\u201d serves a more directorial function, acting as a table of contents or cast of characters rather than as a active component within the tale itself) the poet, or Poet rather, incarnates the original Romantic ideal: he is an isolated spirit with a heroic higher calling who, though far from oblivious of the damaged and damaging world he is compelled to suffer in, is nonetheless distinct from that reality, for he believes in heavenly redemption and possesses a vision of perfected beauty.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Of course, the Poet who stars in \u201cBenediction\u201d and the poet who wrote the poem \u201cBenediction\u201d are not identical: already the irony frequently attributed to Baudelaire seems to be in full effect. But it’s important to distinguish Baudelaire’s irony from the kind of sneering nihilism which the word connotes today. The Poet is not Baudelaire, but nor is he a straw man set up merely to insult the possibility of transcending human suffering through art and faith. His figure is both preposterous and meant to be taken absolutely seriously: although he is not Baudelaire, it is clear that, for the poem to succeed, Baudelaire must inhabit him. The part is not the actor, but the actor, if he aims to move, must be the part. For the first time we can see how Baudelaire’s poetic alchemy and critical intelligence support each other: an integral, self-evident Romantic truth is transformed into a part or symbol (one of many, as the rest of the book will prove) and then the part or symbol is proposed as a question or a wager for the reader\u2014can the spirit of the poet, if he holds true to art and faith, survive society’s tortures and humiliations not just unscathed but grateful to have suffered?\u2014which she is free to take up or refuse according to her will. In my experience, the legendary \u201cmodernity\u201d of Baudelaire presents itself not in poetic form, which is overwhelmingly traditional, nor in content, which is largely antiquated, but in a consistent, direct tone of voice whose revitalizing\u00a0 shock is curiously amplified by the discarded or outdated figures through which it expresses itself\u2014engaging without being overbearing and reserved without being indifferent, it presumes and performs a respectful liberty, equality, and fraternity between the poet and the reader, between the speaker and the forms of which he speaks.<\/p>\n
And it’s this tone, so simple to describe and difficult to enact, which I’ve attempted to discover, reproduce, and then inhabit, like a role, with complete fidelity. The work has changed a great deal over these six years, but its animating faith remained the same throughout: I believed that Baudelaire has yet to make his entrance in America, and that I could be the one to introduce him fully and correctly, could capture and release the sound, the tone, the power and the justice of his speech. Such a belief is, of course, preposterous. But I’d also like for you to take it absolutely seriously.<\/p>\n
Frank Guan<\/i><\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Au Lecteur\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n La sottise, l’erreur, le p\u00e9ch\u00e9, la l\u00e9sine, Nos p\u00e9ch\u00e9s sont t\u00eatus, nos repentirs sont l\u00e2ches\u202f; Sur l’oreiller du mal c’est Satan Trism\u00e9giste C’est le Diable qui tient les fils qui nous remuent\u202f! Ainsi qu’un d\u00e9bauch\u00e9 pauvre qui baise et mange Serr\u00e9, fourmillant, comme un million d’helminthes, Si le viol, le poison, le poignard, l’incendie, Mais parmi les chacals, les panth\u00e8res, les lices, II en est un plus laid, plus m\u00e9chant, plus immonde\u202f! C’est l’Ennui\u202f! L\u2019\u0153il charg\u00e9 d’un pleur involontaire, <\/p>\n <\/p>\n To the Reader<\/strong><\/p>\n Folly, falsehood, sin, the lack of open mercies, Repentances unwind. Our sins have come to stay: Upon evil’s pillow Satan Trismegistus, The Devil bears the cross whose strings command our work! Like an impoverished rake who kisses, claws, and roots Dense-aligned and swarming, like a verminous tide, If poison, murder, rape, and arson, red and black, But amidst the jackals, panthers, hound-bitches, lice, There still lives one more vile, more cruel, more foul! No brawn It’s Torpor! eye infused with tears unwilled and thin, <\/p>\n Spleen et Id\u00e9al<\/b>\u00a0<\/p>\n 1. B\u00e9n\u00e9diction\u00a0<\/p>\n Lorsque, par un d\u00e9cret des puissances supr\u00eames, \u2014 \u00ab\u202fAh\u202f! que n’ai-je mis bas tout un n\u0153ud de vip\u00e8res, Puisque tu m’as choisie entre toutes les femmes Je ferai rejaillir ta haine qui m’accable Elle ravale ainsi l’\u00e9cume de sa haine, Pourtant, sous la tutelle invisible d’un Ange, II joue avec le vent, cause avec le nuage, Tous ceux qu’il veut aimer l’observent avec crainte, Dans le pain et le vin destin\u00e9s \u00e0 sa bouche Sa femme va criant sur les places publiques : Et comme elles je veux me faire redorer\u202f;\u00a0<\/p>\n Et je me so\u00fblerai de nard, d’encens, de myrrhe, Et, quand je m’ennuierai de ces farces impies, Comme un tout jeune oiseau qui tremble et qui palpite, Vers le Ciel, o\u00f9 son \u0153il voit un tr\u00f4ne splendide, \u2014 \u00ab\u202fSoyez b\u00e9ni, mon Dieu, qui donnez la souffrance Je sais que vous gardez une place au Po\u00ebte Je sais que la douleur est la noblesse unique Mais les bijoux perdus de l’antique Palmyre, Car il ne sera fait que de pure lumi\u00e8re, <\/p>\n Spleen and Ideal<\/b>\u00a0<\/p>\n 1. Benediction<\/p>\n When, in accordance with the law of powers supreme, “No! better to have spawned a viper’s cold-veined breed Since, from all womankind, it was to me you came, I’ll redirect your flood of unforgiving strife And so her foaming wrath descends, is seen no more; Yet, shielded under strong unseen celestial Wings, He gambols with the wind, he questions cloudy skies, The dead souls he would love observe his form with fear, Within the bread and wine intended for his tongue His woman cries across the city’s teeming shelves: Myself I’ll gorge on nard, myrrh, frankincense; on bows And once that sacrilege, that farce is drained of zest, Shivering and pulsing like a new-fledged sparrow, To Heaven, where his sight beholds a shining throne, \u2014”Be blessed, my Lord, who lends us agonies to cure I know that for the Poet you have reserved a place I know that pain confers the sole nobility And yet the jewels lost in old Palmyra’s earth, For it is of pure light, celestial remembrance <\/p>\n 2. L’Albatros\u00a0<\/p>\n Souvent, pour s’amuser, les hommes d’\u00e9quipage \u00c0 peine les ont-ils d\u00e9pos\u00e9s sur les planches, Ce voyageur ail\u00e9, comme il est gauche et veule\u202f! Le Po\u00ebte est semblable au prince des nu\u00e9es <\/p>\n 2. The Albatross\u00a0<\/p>\n For entertainment’s sake, the crewmen often seize And scarcely are they torn from open airs and light O bright-winged voyager, become an awkward joke! The Poet shares a fate with the prince of the cloud <\/p>\n 3. \u00c9l\u00e9vation\u00a0<\/p>\n Au-dessus des \u00e9tangs, au-dessus des vall\u00e9es, Mon esprit, tu te meus avec agilit\u00e9, Envole-toi bien loin de ces miasmes morbides\u202f; Derri\u00e8re les ennuis et les vastes chagrins Celui dont les pensers, comme des alouettes, <\/p>\n 3. Elevation\u00a0<\/p>\n Above the shining lakes, the dark mountains that rear, My spirit, you ascend with deft and agile grace, Escape and soar beyond these morbid fogs and rains: Behind the torpors and the griefs that know no cease The one whose thoughts, like larks in morning, gladly reach <\/p>\n 4. Correspondances<\/p>\n La Nature est un temple o\u00f9 de vivants piliers Comme de longs \u00e9chos qui de loin se confondent II est des parfums frais comme des chairs d’enfants, Ayant l’expansion des choses infinies, <\/p>\n 4. Correspondences<\/p>\n Nature is a temple where columns, pulsing, warm, Like echoes, throbbing, strained, that from afar combine That bear the growth of forms that live in ceaseless birth, <\/p>\n 5. J’aime le souvenir de ces \u00e9poques nues\u2026<\/i><\/p>\n J’aime le souvenir de ces \u00e9poques nues, Le Po\u00ebte aujourd’hui, quand il veut concevoir Nous avons, il est vrai, nations corrompues, <\/p>\n 5. “I love the memory of years undressed and bright\u2026”\u00a0<\/p>\n I love the memory of years undressed and bright, The Poet today, when he would form and make surge We do possess, in truth, corrupt populations, Six years ago I began to translate, one by one, the poems of Baudelaire. It was the summer of 2007, and I had just turned twenty-one and completed a third year of college …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":907,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[83],"tags":[66],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
Occupent nos esprits et travaillent nos corps,
Et nous alimentons nos aimables remords,
Comme les mendiants nourrissent leur vermine.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Nous nous faisons payer grassement nos aveux,
Et nous rentrons gaiement dans le chemin bourbeux,
Croyant par de vils pleurs laver toutes nos taches.<\/p>\n
Qui berce longuement notre esprit enchant\u00e9,
Et le riche m\u00e9tal de notre volont\u00e9
Est tout vaporis\u00e9 par ce savant chimiste.<\/p>\n
Aux objets r\u00e9pugnants nous trouvons des appas\u202f;
Chaque jour vers l’Enfer nous descendons d’un pas,
Sans horreur, \u00e0 travers des t\u00e9n\u00e8bres qui puent.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Le sein martyris\u00e9 d’une antique catin,
Nous volons au passage un plaisir clandestin
Que nous pressons bien fort comme une vieille orange.<\/p>\n
Dans nos cerveaux ribote un peuple de D\u00e9mons,
Et, quand nous respirons, la Mort dans nos poumons
Descend, fleuve invisible, avec de sourdes plaintes.<\/p>\n
N’ont pas encor brod\u00e9 de leurs plaisants dessins
Le canevas banal de nos piteux destins,
C’est que notre \u00e2me, h\u00e9las\u202f! n’est pas assez hardie.<\/p>\n
Les singes, les scorpions, les vautours, les serpents,
Les monstres glapissants, hurlants, grognants, rampants,
Dans la m\u00e9nagerie inf\u00e2me de nos vices,<\/p>\n
Quoiqu’il ne pousse ni grands gestes ni grands cris,
Il ferait volontiers de la terre un d\u00e9bris
Et dans un b\u00e2illement avalerait le monde\u202f;<\/p>\n
II r\u00eave d’\u00e9chafauds en fumant son houka.
Tu le connais, lecteur, ce monstre d\u00e9licat,
\u2014 Hypocrite lecteur, \u2014 mon semblable, \u2014 mon fr\u00e8re\u202f!<\/p>\n
Possess our souls in full and overrule our flesh,
And every day we stoke our sweet remorse afresh
As homeless beggars feed their subtle worms and fleas.\u00a0<\/p>\n
We tax ourselves, we gild our vows with keen desire,
Then cheerfully revert into the slime and mire
And dream that filthy tears wash all our flaws away.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Whose rhythms soothe at length our charmed spirit, lies;
The rich ores of our will we so adore and prize
Are changed, through cunning spells, to mist and lost to us.<\/p>\n
We excavate strange charms from figures far from fair;
Each day we further slip down Hell’s unbalanced stair,
Without respect or fear, through foully-perfumed murk.<\/p>\n
Upon the martyred breast of a greying harlot,
From passing life we snatch base raptures in secret
And drain them forcibly like desiccated fruits.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A race of Demons howls and folds our brain in fire,
And willful Death swirls in our lungs when we respire,
To fall, an unseen stream, with voiceless pains beside.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Have failed to trace designs that charm and enervate
On the vacant canvas of our pathetic fate,
It’s since our souls, alas! were atrophied and slack.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Recoiling scorpions, giant snakes, vultures, chimpanzees,
The beasts that bark and scream, that moan and crawl and seize,
In the menagerie of all our shameful vice,\u00a0<\/p>\n
Abides within his arms, no force within his voice,
But he would drown the earth in blood and flame by choice
And would swallow the world with a fanciful yawn;\u00a0<\/p>\n
He burns hashish and dreams of bodies hung aloft.
You know him, reader, well, that cultured beast and soft,
\u2014My hypocrite reader\u2014my partner, and my twin!<\/p>\n
Le Po\u00ebte appara\u00eet en ce monde ennuy\u00e9,
Sa m\u00e8re \u00e9pouvant\u00e9e et pleine de blasph\u00e8mes
Crispe ses poings vers Dieu, qui la prend en piti\u00e9 :<\/p>\n
Plut\u00f4t que de nourrir cette d\u00e9rision\u202f!
Maudite soit la nuit aux plaisirs \u00e9ph\u00e9m\u00e8res
O\u00f9 mon ventre a con\u00e7u mon expiation\u202f!<\/p>\n
Pour \u00eatre le d\u00e9go\u00fbt de mon triste mari,
Et que je ne puis pas rejeter dans les flammes,
Comme un billet d’amour, ce monstre rabougri,<\/p>\n
Sur l’instrument maudit de tes m\u00e9chancet\u00e9s,
Et je tordrai si bien cet arbre mis\u00e9rable,
Qu’il ne pourra pousser ses boutons empest\u00e9s\u202f!\u202f\u00bb<\/p>\n
Et, ne comprenant pas les desseins \u00e9ternels,
Elle-m\u00eame pr\u00e9pare au fond de la G\u00e9henne
Les b\u00fbchers consacr\u00e9s aux crimes maternels.<\/p>\n
L’Enfant d\u00e9sh\u00e9rit\u00e9 s’enivre de soleil,
Et dans tout ce qu’il boit et dans tout ce qu’il mange
Retrouve l’ambroisie et le nectar vermeil.<\/p>\n
Et s’enivre en chantant du chemin de la croix\u202f;
Et l’Esprit qui le suit dans son p\u00e8lerinage
Pleure de le voir gai comme un oiseau des bois.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ou bien, s’enhardissant de sa tranquillit\u00e9,
Cherchent \u00e0 qui saura lui tirer une plainte,
Et font sur lui l’essai de leur f\u00e9rocit\u00e9.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ils m\u00ealent de la cendre avec d’impurs crachats\u202f;
Avec hypocrisie ils jettent ce qu’il touche,
Et s’accusent d’avoir mis leurs pieds dans ses pas.<\/p>\n
\u00ab\u202fPuisqu’il me trouve assez belle pour m’adorer,
Je ferai le m\u00e9tier des idoles antiques,<\/p>\n
De g\u00e9nuflexions, de viandes et de vins,
Pour savoir si je puis dans un c\u0153ur qui m’admire
Usurper en riant les hommages divins\u202f!<\/p>\n
Je poserai sur lui ma fr\u00eale et forte main\u202f;
Et mes ongles, pareils aux ongles des harpies,
Sauront jusqu’\u00e0 son c\u0153ur se frayer un chemin.<\/p>\n
J’arracherai ce c\u0153ur tout rouge de son sein,
Et, pour rassasier ma b\u00eate favorite,
Je le lui jetterai par terre avec d\u00e9dain\u202f!\u202f\u00bb<\/p>\n
Le Po\u00ebte serein l\u00e8ve ses bras pieux,
Et les vastes \u00e9clairs de son esprit lucide
Lui d\u00e9robent l’aspect des peuples furieux :\u00a0<\/p>\n
Comme un divin rem\u00e8de \u00e0 nos impuret\u00e9s
Et comme la meilleure et la plus pure essence
Qui pr\u00e9pare les forts aux saintes volupt\u00e9s\u202f!<\/p>\n
Dans les rangs bienheureux des saintes L\u00e9gions,
Et que vous l’invitez \u00e0 l’\u00e9ternelle f\u00eate
Des Tr\u00f4nes, des Vertus, des Dominations.<\/p>\n
O\u00f9 ne mordront jamais la terre et les enfers,
Et qu’il faut pour tresser ma couronne mystique
Imposer tous les temps et tous les univers.<\/p>\n
Les m\u00e9taux inconnus, les perles de la mer,
Par votre main mont\u00e9s, ne pourraient pas suffire
A ce beau diad\u00e8me \u00e9blouissant et clair\u202f;<\/p>\n
Puis\u00e9e au foyer saint des rayons primitifs,
Et dont les yeux mortels, dans leur splendeur enti\u00e8re,
Ne sont que des miroirs obscurcis et plaintifs\u202f!\u202f\u00bb<\/p>\n
The Poet’s form emerges within these torpid spheres,
His mother, seized by fear yet blasphemous, will scream
And shake her fists at God, who, pitying her, hears:\u00a0<\/p>\n
Instead of nourishing this scornful, cursed thing!
A curse upon the night, brief-pleasured, when the seed
Of expiation, in my womb, began to cling!<\/p>\n
To make me the disgrace of my unhappy spouse,
And since I am forbid to cast into the flame,
Like ancient notes of love, this mewling, withered louse,\u00a0<\/p>\n
Upon the cursed tool of your relentless spite,
And will so firmly wring that wretched tree of life,
That its infected buds will never taste of light!\u201d<\/p>\n
Thus, blind to destinies beyond the flow of time,
She carves out for herself, in the Inferno’s core,
The pyres sanctified for vile maternal crime.<\/p>\n
Though disinherited, the Child smiles in the sun;
In all he drinks and eats, he finds godly savorings:
Tastes of rich ambrosia, nectars sweet and crimson.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He smiles and sings the Way, the Cross, the holy Word;
The Spirit trailing him on his pilgrimage cries
To see him gay and glad just like a forest bird.<\/p>\n
Or else, incensed to see him calm and lacking flaws,
They seek to force from him cries agonized and sheer,
And use him but to whet their long, ferocious claws.<\/p>\n
They intermingle spit and ash and gall and ooze;
They recoil, hypocrites, from his touch as if stung,
Accuse each other’s feet of walking in his shoes.<\/p>\n
“Because he deems me fair enough to worship me,
Like ancient goddesses, who made men gild their selves,
I will sway him like an Ishtar or Astarte;<\/p>\n
Adoring and profound, on rarest meats and wine,
To see if in this heart that loves me I can rouse
A joy that overrides his praise of the divine!<\/p>\n
Upon his form my frail and mighty hand will dart,
Equal to the Harpies: my nails will pierce his breast
And carve a direct path up to his beating heart:<\/p>\n
I’ll tear it from his breast, indifferent to his pain;
To satisfy the beast I favor most, I’ll throw
It down upon the earth with insolent disdain!”<\/p>\n
The tranquil Poet lifts his pious arms and sage,
And clarifying rays, by his clear spirit sown,
Conceal from him the face of nations damned to rage:<\/p>\n
Us of impurities and stubborn-seated blights:
Pain’s essence is the best, divinest, and most pure!
Pain’s presence leads the strong to sacred, keen delights!\u00a0<\/p>\n
In the joyous Legions of your holy Nations,
And call his spirit to eternal feasts of grace
To sit with Thrones and Powers, reign with Dominations.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Whose honor neither earth nor hell could ever fade;
That I must, to weave my crown of mystic glory,
Demand a tax on all of time and space be laid.<\/p>\n
The ores no mind distills, the pearls no sun could graze,
High-lifted by your hand, could never match the worth
Of that resplendent crown’s fair, clarifying blaze;\u00a0<\/p>\n
Extracted from the hearth of primal, sacred rays,
Of which our mortal eyes, despite all their radiance,
Are but dark pools of glass\u2014grim, sorrowful displays!\u201d<\/p>\n
Prennent des albatros, vastes oiseaux des mers,
Qui suivent, indolents compagnons de voyage,
Le navire glissant sur les gouffres amers.<\/p>\n
Que ces rois de l’azur, maladroits et honteux,
Laissent piteusement leurs grandes ailes blanches
Comme des avirons tra\u00eener \u00e0 c\u00f4t\u00e9 d’eux.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Lui, nagu\u00e8re si beau, qu’il est comique et laid\u202f!
L’un agace son bec avec un br\u00fble-gueule,
L’autre mime, en boitant, l’infirme qui volait\u202f!\u00a0<\/p>\n
Qui hante la temp\u00eate et se rit de l’archer\u202f;
Exil\u00e9 sur le sol au milieu des hu\u00e9es,
Ses ailes de g\u00e9ant l’emp\u00eachent de marcher.<\/p>\n
Wandering albatrosses, grand shepherds of the wave,
Who languidly pursue, across a kindly breeze,
The ship that glides upon the bitter depths and grave.<\/p>\n
Do those monarchs of the blues, clumsy, stripped of pride,
Let down, like broken oars, their massive wings of white
To piteously trail and limp on either side.<\/p>\n
Once beautiful and fair, now shattered, unadored!
One crams a pipe inside his beak to make him choke,
One drags his feet to mock the grounded heart that soared!\u00a0<\/p>\n
Who haunts the southern storm, scorns arrows of the north;
An exile lost on earth amidst the jeering crowd
Whose giant wings prevent his feet from striding forth.<\/p>\n
Des montagnes, des bois, des nuages, des mers,
Par del\u00e0 le soleil, par del\u00e0 les \u00e9thers,
Par del\u00e0 les confins des sph\u00e8res \u00e9toil\u00e9es,<\/p>\n
Et, comme un bon nageur qui se p\u00e2me dans l’onde,
Tu sillonnes gaiement l’immensit\u00e9 profonde
Avec une indicible et m\u00e2le volupt\u00e9.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Va te purifier dans l’air sup\u00e9rieur,
Et bois, comme une pure et divine liqueur,
Le feu clair qui remplit les espaces limpides.<\/p>\n
Qui chargent de leur poids l’existence brumeuse,
Heureux celui qui peut d’une aile vigoureuse
S’\u00e9lancer vers les champs lumineux et sereins\u202f;<\/p>\n
Vers les cieux le matin prennent un libre essor,
\u2014 Qui plane sur la vie, et comprend sans effort
Le langage des fleurs et des choses muettes\u202f!<\/p>\n
The vales, the woods, the clouds, the sea that overwhelms,
Beyond the sun’s vast orb, beyond ethereal realms,
Beyond the boundaries of every starry sphere,<\/p>\n
And, like a keen swimmer who gasps upon the wave,
With speechless male rapture that consummates to crave,
You cheerfully blaze paths across profoundest space.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Go purify yourself in a superior air;
Drink, like godly liquor, refined beyond compare,
The limpid fire that fills the clear and bright domains.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And charge a world of mists with suffering to the core;
He’s fortunate who can, desiring freedom, soar
With forceful wings towards the shining fields of peace;\u00a0<\/p>\n
Towards unfathomed skies, alluring, blue, and sheer,
\u2014Who, hovering over life, can effortlessly hear
The language of the flowers and silent beings’ speech!<\/p>\n
Laissent parfois sortir de confuses paroles\u202f;
L’homme y passe \u00e0 travers des for\u00eats de symboles
Qui l’observent avec des regards familiers.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Dans une t\u00e9n\u00e9breuse et profonde unit\u00e9,
Vaste comme la nuit et comme la clart\u00e9,
Les parfums, les couleurs et les sons se r\u00e9pondent.<\/p>\n
Doux comme les hautbois, verts comme les prairies,
\u2014 Et d’autres, corrompus, riches et triomphants,<\/p>\n
Comme l’ambre, le musc, le benjoin et l’encens,
Qui chantent les transports de l’esprit et des sens.<\/p>\n
Release at times a swarm of words confused as mists;
There man’s soul proceeds through massive symbol forests
Whose gazes on him bend as on a kindred form.<\/p>\n
Into a shadowy, deep, and soulful union,
As vast as the night and clarity’s dominion,
Sounds, colors, and perfumes correspond and entwine.\u00a0
Perfumes exist as fresh and soft as children’s skin,
Smooth and sweet like oboes, as green as prairie earth,
\u2014And also others, rich, corrupt, assured to win,<\/p>\n
Like benjamins, ambers, musks and frankincenses,
Singing raptures of the spirit and the senses.<\/p>\n
Dont Ph\u0153bus se plaisait \u00e0 dorer les statues.
Alors l’homme et la femme en leur agilit\u00e9
Jouissaient sans mensonge et sans anxi\u00e9t\u00e9,
Et, le ciel amoureux leur caressant l’\u00e9chine,
Exer\u00e7aient la sant\u00e9 de leur noble machine.
Cyb\u00e8le alors, fertile en produits g\u00e9n\u00e9reux,
Ne trouvait point ses fils un poids trop on\u00e9reux,
Mais, louve au c\u0153ur gonfl\u00e9 de tendresses communes,
Abreuvait l’univers \u00e0 ses t\u00e9tines brunes.
L’homme, \u00e9l\u00e9gant, robuste et fort, avait le droit
D’\u00eatre fier des beaut\u00e9s qui le nommaient leur roi\u202f;
Fruits purs de tout outrage et vierges de ger\u00e7ures,
Dont la chair lisse et ferme appelait les morsures\u202f!\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ces natives grandeurs, aux lieux o\u00f9 se font voir
La nudit\u00e9 de l’homme et celle de la femme,
Sent un froid t\u00e9n\u00e9breux envelopper son \u00e2me
Devant ce noir tableau plein d’\u00e9pouvantement.
\u00d4 monstruosit\u00e9s pleurant leur v\u00eatement\u202f!
\u00d4 ridicules troncs\u202f! torses dignes des masques\u202f!
\u00d4 pauvres corps tordus, maigres, ventrus ou flasques,
Que le dieu de l’Utile, implacable et serein,
Enfants, emmaillota dans ses langes d’airain\u202f!
Et vous, femmes, h\u00e9las\u202f! p\u00e2les comme des cierges,
Que ronge et que nourrit la d\u00e9bauche, et vous, vierges,
Du vice maternel tra\u00eenant l’h\u00e9r\u00e9dit\u00e9
Et toutes les hideurs de la f\u00e9condit\u00e9\u202f!<\/p>\n
Aux peuples anciens des beaut\u00e9s inconnues :
Des visages rong\u00e9s par les chancres du c\u0153ur,
Et comme qui dirait des beaut\u00e9s de langueur\u202f;
Mais ces inventions de nos muses tardives
N’emp\u00eacheront jamais les races maladives
De rendre \u00e0 la jeunesse un hommage profond,
\u2014 \u00c0 la sainte jeunesse, \u00e0 l’air simple, au doux front,
\u00c0 l’\u0153il limpide et clair ainsi qu’une eau courante,
Et qui va r\u00e9pandant sur tout, insouciante
Comme l’azur du ciel, les oiseaux et les fleurs,
Ses parfums, ses chansons et ses douces chaleurs\u202f!<\/p>\n
When Phoebus gilded forms of marble with his sight.
Then each man and woman, imbued with agile strength,
Truthful and unanxious, drew joy from breath at length,
And, while the loving sky caressed their spine with flames,
Renewed their bodies’ health in noble, ardent games.
Generous Cybele, with savory gifts and rife,
Had never found her sons a burden on her life,
But, mother-wolf, her heart with broad ruth filled to burst,
With teats as brown as earth quenched universal thirst.
Man, elegant, robust, and strong, would ride the wing,
And justly, of beauties that crowned him their sole king;
Unblemished fruits, so full and virginal to blight,
Whose firm and slender flesh sighed welcoming the bite!<\/p>\n
Forth those native grandeurs, in places where emerge
Men absolutely bare, women stripped to the core,
Will feel his soul engulfed in frozen shades before
This panorama: dark, fearful, and forbidden.
O monstrous, naked forms that scream to be hidden!
O ridiculous trunks! torsos fit for farces!
O bodies: warped, thin, poor, limp, or fat as hearses,
That Utilitarian god, placid and dead-eyed,
You infants, coldly folds in brass sheets, dull and wide!
And, alas, you women! as pale as tapers lust
Devours and nourishes, and you, virgins, who must
Continue legacies of cruel, maternal crime,
Endure all stains and gore of propagative time!\u00a0<\/p>\n
Beauties never graced by ancient Greek sensations:
Faces full devoured by chancres of the heart,
And beauties only souls adrift in languor chart;
But no invention that our tardy muses forge
Could ever keep the race that illnesses engorge
From offering to youth a deep, respectful vow,
\u2014To blessed youth, its plain, sweet air, its tender brow,
Its clear and lucid eye, like water in motion,
Its broad-flung, carefree rain that gives each a portion:
Carefree as skies of blue, as birds in flight, as flowers,
Its fragrances, its songs, its gentle, fiery powers!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"