# Brumes et pluies · Mists and Rains

Les Fleurs du mal · Charles Baudelaire · Parisian Scenes

Source: https://1732studios.com/books/baudelaire/brumes-et-pluies. Data: https://1732studios.com/books/baudelaire/brumes-et-pluies.json.

**1** Ô fins d'automne, hivers, printemps trempés de boue,  
O ends of autumn, winters, springs steeped in mud,
> tremper de — soaked, steeped in: «tremper» is 'to soak, drench, steep'; here the past participle «trempés» agrees with the masculine plural list of seasons it modifies («fins d'automne, hivers, printemps») and «de boue» names what they are soaked in: 'steeped in mud'. The opening apostrophe «Ô» hails not summer but every sodden, in-between season the poet loves.

**2** Endormeuses saisons! je vous aime et vous loue  
Drowsy seasons! I love you and praise you
> endormeur / endormeuse — sleep-inducing: «endormeur» (feminine «endormeuse») is an adjective coined from «endormir», 'to put to sleep, to lull'; «endormeuses saisons» = 'lulling, sleep-bringing seasons'. The word casts the grey months as a soporific the poet welcomes — sleep being a refuge from «spleen» — and sets up «D'endormir la douleur» in the final line.

**3** D'envelopper ainsi mon coeur et mon cerveau  
For wrapping my heart and my brain like this
> «louer de» + infinitive: «louer quelqu'un de faire quelque chose» means 'to praise someone for doing something': the «de» (elided to «D'» before a vowel) introduces the infinitive «envelopper» ('to wrap, envelop'). So «je vous loue / D'envelopper» from line 2 reads 'I praise you for wrapping' — the reason for the praise runs on across the line break.

**4** D'un linceul vaporeux et d'un vague tombeau.  
In a misty shroud and a dim tomb.
> linceul (m.); tombeau (m.): «linceul» is a burial shroud and «tombeau» a tomb; «envelopper d'un linceul» = 'to wrap in a shroud'. The fog and rain are figured as funeral cloth and grave, so the comfort the poet praises is openly the comfort of death — gentle, vaporous, and welcome rather than feared.


**5** Dans cette grande plaine où l'autan froid se joue,  
On this great plain where the cold south wind plays,
> autan (m.); pronominal «se jouer»: «l'autan» is the autan, a strong wind off the south; the pronominal «se jouer» here means 'to play, gambol, sport about'. «où l'autan froid se joue» = 'where the cold autan-wind plays' — the wind has the run of a vast, open plain, an emblem of the wide bleakness the poet's mood inhabits.

**6** Où par les longues nuits la girouette s'enroue,  
Where through the long nights the weathervane grows hoarse,
> girouette (f.); pronominal «s'enrouer»: «une girouette» is a weathervane; «s'enrouer» (pronominal) is 'to grow hoarse'. Literally 'the weathervane goes hoarse' — its iron creaking in the wind, turned all night long, is heard as a worn, rasping voice. The metaphor lends the dead metal a body that tires and complains.

**7** Mon âme mieux qu'au temps du tiède renouveau  
My soul, better than in the season of mild renewal,
> renouveau (m.) — springtime, renewal: «le renouveau» is renewal, and specifically the renewal of spring; «le tiède renouveau» = 'the mild/lukewarm springtime'. The comparative «mieux qu'au temps du...» ('better than in the time of...') prefers the dead seasons to spring: the poet's soul opens more freely in fog than in the warmth others long for.

**8** Ouvrira largement ses ailes de corbeau.  
Will spread its raven's wings wide open.
> Future of «ouvrir»; «ailes de corbeau»: «Ouvrira» is the future of «ouvrir» ('to open'), its subject «Mon âme» carried over from line 3 — 'My soul will spread'. «ses ailes de corbeau» means 'its raven's wings': the soul takes a black-winged, funereal form, at home in this grey weather as a bright soul would be in May.


**9** Rien n'est plus doux au coeur plein de choses funèbres,  
Nothing is sweeter to the heart full of funereal things,
> «ne ... rien» + «plus ... que»: «Rien ne...» is the negative 'nothing'; combined with the comparative «plus doux ... que» it builds 'nothing is sweeter ... than'. The «que» that completes the comparison does not arrive until line 1 of the next stanza («Que l'aspect permanent...»), so the sentence is held open across the tercet break — read straight through to find what nothing is sweeter than.

**10** Et sur qui dès longtemps descendent les frimas,  
And on which the frosts have long been settling,
> frimas (m.) — wintry frost, rime: «les frimas» is a literary word for freezing winter mist and hoarfrost. «sur qui ... descendent les frimas» = 'on which the frosts descend', the relative «qui» pointing back to «coeur» (heart). «dès longtemps» means 'for a long time now', so the cold has been settling on this heart for years — the season outside matches a chill long inside.

**11** Ô blafardes saisons, reines de nos climats,  
O wan seasons, queens of our climes,
> blafard / blafarde — pallid, wan: «blafard» (feminine «blafarde») means 'pallid, wan, ghastly-pale' — the colourless light of an overcast sky. «reines de nos climats» = 'queens of our climes': the second apostrophe of the poem crowns these pale, northern seasons as sovereigns, echoing the opening «Ô fins d'automne».


**12** Que l'aspect permanent de vos pâles ténèbres,  
Than the lasting look of your pale shadows,
> The «que» of the comparison resolves: This «Que» completes «Rien n'est plus doux ... Que» begun two lines earlier: 'Nothing is sweeter ... than the lasting look of your pale shadows'. «l'aspect permanent» is 'the permanent / unchanging look', «vos pâles ténèbres» 'your pale darkness'. The long-delayed answer is the steady, dim gloom itself — that is the sweetest thing of all.

**13** — Si ce n'est, par un soir sans lune, deux à deux,  
— Unless it be, some moonless evening, two by two,
> «si ce n'est» — except, unless it be: «si ce n'est» is a fixed phrase meaning 'except, unless it be, save'. It introduces the single thing sweeter even than the pale gloom: «deux à deux» ('two by two', i.e. with a lover) on «un soir sans lune» ('a moonless evening'). The em-dash and this turn save the last sweetness for the final line.

**14** D'endormir la douleur sur un lit hasardeux.  
To lull our grief to sleep on a chance-met bed.
> Infinitive «endormir»; «hasardeux»: «endormir» is 'to put to sleep, to lull'; the «de» (elided «D'») marks the infinitive that names the one thing sweeter than the gloom — 'to lull grief to sleep'. «un lit hasardeux» is a 'chancy, hazardous bed', one come upon by accident — a passing, mercenary embrace that drugs the pain for a night.

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Source text: public domain (Charles Baudelaire, d. 1867). English translation: © 2026 1732 Studios, LLC — original draft, pending editorial review.