French · Revolt

Abel et Caïn

Abel and Cain

34 lines · 19 notes

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I
III · numeral, Romanhead of the phrase, section number
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Race of Abel, sleep, drink and eat;
GrammarImperatives addressed to a whole «race» «dors», «bois» and «mange» are the singular («tu») imperatives of «dormir», «boire» and «manger». The poem addresses each lineage as a single «tu», so the whole «race d'Abel» is commanded at once. The drumbeat of these orders — first sleep, drink and eat, then «rampe et meurs» to the other side — sets the antiphonal rhythm of the whole poem: a blessing flung at Abel, a curse flung at Cain.
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God smiles upon you indulgently.
Wordcomplaisamment «complaisamment» is the adverb of «complaisant» — obligingly, indulgently, with a willingness to please. God's smile on Abel is not stern justice but easy favor, the comfortable approval of the well-fed; the word already carries Baudelaire's irony toward a heaven that simply pets its favorites.
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Race of Cain, in the mire
Wordla fange «la fange» is filth, slime, the foul mud of the gutter — far more degraded than ordinary «la boue». Cain's children do not merely live in the dirt; they «rampe[nt]» (crawl) in it and die «misérablement». The word fixes the lineage low to the ground from the first couplet, in deliberate contrast to Abel's «foyer patriarcal».
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Crawl and die wretchedly.
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Race of Abel, your sacrifice
Wordle sacrifice (the offering of Genesis 4) «le sacrifice» is the ritual offering — the gift laid before God. The word reaches back to Genesis 4, where Abel the shepherd offers the firstlings of his flock and Cain the farmer the fruit of the ground; God «regarded» Abel's offering but not Cain's, and the slighted Cain killed his brother. Baudelaire keeps the detail that Abel's «sacrifice» is the pleasing one — here it «flatte le nez du Séraphin», it tickles the angel's nose — and builds the whole poem on that original, arbitrary favoritism.
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Flatters the nostril of the Seraph!
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Race of Cain, your torment
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Will it ever have an end?
GrammarInversion and «jamais» without «ne» The question inverts subject and verb — «il aura» becomes «aura-t-il», the «-t-» inserted only to ease pronunciation — to ask «aura-t-il jamais une fin?», 'will it ever have an end?'. In a question like this, «jamais» means 'ever' (not 'never'); the negative sense lives only in the despairing answer the poem implies. The future «aura» stretches Cain's «supplice» out into endless time.
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Race of Abel, watch your sowings
Wordles semailles «les semailles» (always plural) is the sowing — both the act of sowing and the seed sown — paired here with «ton bétail», your livestock. Abel's plenty is agricultural and pastoral, the settled wealth of the farmer-herdsman that «vien[t] à bien» (comes to good, thrives), set against the starving «entrailles» of Cain in the very next couplet.
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And your cattle come to good;
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Race of Cain, your bowels
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Howl with hunger like an old dog.
GrammarTransitive «hurler» + a string of animal similes «hurler» (to howl) is normally intransitive, but Baudelaire makes it take a direct object — «hurlent la faim», 'howl out hunger' — so the bowels themselves bellow their starvation. The simile «comme un vieux chien» begins a kennel of animal comparisons reserved for Cain (a «chacal», a beaten «vieux chien»), while Abel is likened, more strangely, to thriving «punaises des bois».
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Race of Abel, warm your belly
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At your patriarchal hearth;
Wordle foyer patriarcal «le foyer» is at once the hearth (the literal fire) and, by extension, the home and family gathered around it; «patriarcal» binds it to the line of biblical fathers. Abel's race warms itself at a settled, blessed family fire, while Cain's «dans ton antre / Tremble de froid» — shivers in its lair like the «pauvre chacal» of the next line.
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Race of Cain, in your den
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Shiver with cold, poor jackal!
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Race of Abel, love and multiply!
Wordpulluler «pulluler» means to breed in swarms, to proliferate — a word used of insects and vermin. The command «aime et pullule!» turns the biblical 'be fruitful and multiply' faintly grotesque: Abel's blessed increase is a teeming swarm, an irony sharpened two lines on when the race is compared to «les punaises des bois», the bugs of the woods.
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Your gold breeds young ones too.
Grammar«faire des petits» said of money «faire des petits» literally means 'to have young / to litter', as an animal does. Applied to «ton or», your gold, it is a sardonic metaphor for interest and compounding wealth — money that breeds money. The line equates Abel's blessing with capital that reproduces itself, and so feeds the smoldering envy of «ces grands appétits» in Cain's burning heart.
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Race of Cain, heart that burns,
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Beware of those great appetites.
Grammarprendre garde à «prendre garde à» means 'to beware of, to watch out for'; the singular imperative «prends garde à ces grands appétits» warns Cain against his own consuming hungers. It is the poem's hinge: the curse on Cain has named his starving belly and burning heart, and now those «grands appétits» are quietly being aimed — the gathering force that part II will unleash against heaven.
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Race of Abel, you grow and graze
Grammar«croître» and «brouter» «croîs» is the «tu» form of «croître» (to grow, to increase) — the circumflex on the «î» distinguishes it from «croire», to believe. «broutes» is from «brouter», to graze or browse, said of grazing animals. The pairing reduces Abel's blessed race to placid cattle, an impression clinched by the simile «comme les punaises des bois», like the bugs of the woods.
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Like the bugs of the woods!
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Race of Cain, on the roads
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Drag your family at bay.
Wordaux abois «les abois» is the baying of hounds closing on a cornered stag; «être aux abois» means 'to be at bay, run to ground, desperate'. Cain's wandering tribe is hunted to the last extremity, dragged «sur les routes» — the homeless road set against Abel's «foyer patriarcal». This image of a quarry at its end closes part I and tips the poem toward revolt.
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II
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Ah! race of Abel, your carrion
Wordla charogne «une charogne» is carrion — a rotting carcass, the word of Baudelaire's most notorious poem. Hurled at the once-blessed Abel, it inverts part I: the favored, well-fed flesh is now meat for the soil it will «engraissera» (fatten). The exclamation «Ah!» that opens part II marks the turn from chanted curse to open menace.
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Will fatten the steaming soil!
GrammarFuture «engraisser» + the «sol fumant» «engraissera» is the third-person future of «engraisser», 'to fatten, to make rich' (its root is «la graisse», fat/grease). The future tense pronounces Abel's coming end as a settled fact, and «le sol fumant» — the steaming, reeking ground — pictures the earth manured with his carcass, a brutal undoing of the harvest plenty he enjoyed in part I.
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Race of Cain, your labor
Wordla besogne «la besogne» is hard, necessary work — a task, a job of labor, plainer and more dogged than «le travail». Cain's «besogne / N'est pas faite suffisamment»: the grim work of revolt is not yet done enough. The word turns the overthrow of heaven into something to be grimly finished, the unfinished labor the final couplets demand be completed.
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Is not done sufficiently;
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Race of Abel, here is your shame:
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The iron is conquered by the spear!
Wordle fer, l'épieu «le fer» is iron, and by metonymy a forged weapon, the metal sword of the settled, armed order; «un épieu» is a crude wooden hunting spear, the primitive weapon of the outcast. «Le fer est vaincu par l'épieu!» — the sword is beaten by the spear — makes Cain's revolt the triumph of the dispossessed's rough arms over Abel's civilized steel.
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Race of Cain, climb up to heaven,
GrammarInverted imperative «au ciel monte» Word order is inverted for emphasis: the complement «au ciel» (to heaven) is thrown to the front of the imperative «monte» (climb, rise), instead of the ordinary «monte au ciel». The displacement hurls the destination first — to heaven! — making the final command a single, vaulting gesture of revolt, completed by its mirror «sur la terre jette Dieu».
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And cast God down to earth!
GrammarImperative «jeter» and the final blasphemy «jette» is the «tu» imperative of «jeter» (to throw, to hurl down), again inverted so that «sur la terre» (to the earth) precedes the verb and its object «Dieu». The two imperatives balance — rise to heaven, throw God to earth — and the poem ends on the open Satanic revolt of the «Révolte» section: not escape from God but his overthrow.

The particulars

The text: Les Fleurs du mal, Charles Baudelaire. Revolt.
Words: Every word of the text, by letter.
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