French · Spleen and Ideal

Chant d'automne

Autumn Song

30 lines · 16 notes

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1
I
III · numeralhead of the phrase
Roman numeral marking the poem's first section, not a word.
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Soon we shall plunge into the cold darkness;
GrammarFuture tense of «plonger» «plongerons» is the first-person plural future of «plonger» (to plunge, to dive). The «e» is kept before «-ons» so the «g» stays soft, as in «nous mangeons». The flat certainty of the future — 'we shall plunge' — opens the poem on a sentence of doom rather than fear; winter is not feared but foreknown. «les ténèbres» (always plural) is deep, encompassing darkness, weightier than «l'obscurité».
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Farewell, bright glare of our too-brief summers!
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Already I hear, falling with funereal thuds,
GrammarVerb of perception + infinitive A verb of perception like «entendre» (to hear) or «voir» (to see) takes a bare infinitive for the action perceived: «j'entends tomber le bois» = 'I hear the wood fall / falling'. The object «le bois» can sit after the infinitive, as it does here across the line break, so read «j'entends … tomber … le bois». «déjà» ('already') makes the sound arrive ahead of winter itself.
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the wood resounding on the paving of the courtyards.
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All winter is about to enter my being: anger,
GrammarNear future «aller» + infinitive «va rentrer» is the «futur proche»: «aller» conjugated plus an infinitive, used for what is on the point of happening — 'is going to come back in, is about to re-enter'. «rentrer» carries the «r-» of return: winter does not merely arrive, it moves back in, as into a house it has lived in before. The colon then unpacks «mon être» into the catalogue of what winter brings.
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hatred, shivers, horror, labor hard and forced,
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and, like the sun in its polar hell,
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my heart will be no more than a red and frozen block.
Grammar«ne … plus que» — nothing more than «ne … que» means 'only / nothing but'; add «plus» and you get «ne … plus que» = 'no longer anything but, nothing more than'. So «mon coeur ne sera plus qu'un bloc» = 'my heart will be nothing more than a block'. Here «que» is the restrictive element ('only, nothing but') and «plus» the negative 'no longer'; contrast «ne … plus rien», 'nothing at all any more'. The heart, drained to a clot of red ice, is all that the polar sun leaves behind.
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I listen, shuddering, to each log that falls;
GrammarGerund «en» + present participle «en frémissant» is the «gérondif»: «en» plus the present participle, naming how or while an action is done — 'while shuddering, shudderingly'. «frémir» is to quiver, shudder, tremble. The same verb runs through Baudelaire's dusk poems; here the listener trembles in time with «chaque bûche qui tombe» ('each log that falls'), the relative «qui» tying the falling directly to the dread.
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the scaffold being built has no duller echo.
GrammarIndefinite «on» in a relative clause «qu'on bâtit» = 'that one builds / that is being built'. «on» is the indefinite subject ('one, someone, people'), often best rendered as an English passive: 'the scaffold being built'. «un échafaud» is the executioner's scaffold; «sourd», literally 'deaf', describes a muffled, dull sound, so «un écho sourd» is a muted thud. Even a gallows under construction, Baudelaire says, makes no flatter, deader knock than the falling wood.
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My spirit is like the tower that gives way
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beneath the blows of the tireless, heavy battering-ram.
Word«le bélier» — the ram «un bélier» is first a ram (the animal), and by extension the battering-ram — the heavy beam, often ram-headed, swung against a wall or gate in a siege. Paired with «la tour qui succombe» ('the tower that gives way') in the line above, the word builds a siege: the poet's mind is a tower collapsing under «les coups» (the blows) of a ram that is «infatigable» — untiring — like the relentless fall of the logs.
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It seems to me, lulled by this monotonous shock,
GrammarImpersonal «il me semble que» «il me semble que…» is the impersonal 'it seems to me that…', with «il» a dummy subject and «me» the indirect object ('to me'). The «que» clause follows in the next line. «bercé» is the past participle of «bercer» (to rock, to cradle, to lull); placed right after the comma it modifies the unstated 'me', so the speaker is the one rocked — cradled, ominously, by «ce choc monotone», the steady knock of the wood.
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that somewhere a coffin is being nailed in great haste.
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For whom? — Yesterday it was summer; now comes autumn!
Grammar«voici» as a presentative «voici» ('here is, here comes') presents something as arriving before the eyes, the counterpart of «voilà» for what is nearer or just appearing: «voici l'automne» = 'here is autumn / now comes autumn'. Set against «c'était hier l'été» ('yesterday it was summer'), the bare «voici» makes the turn of the seasons brutally sudden — one line holds the whole collapse from summer into fall.
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This mysterious sound rings like a departure.
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II
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I love the greenish light of your long eyes,
GrammarFronted complement «de vos longs yeux» The plain order would be «j'aime la lumière verdâtre de vos longs yeux» — 'I love the greenish light of your long eyes'. Baudelaire lifts «de vos longs yeux» ahead of its noun «la lumière» for rhythm and emphasis; read «de» as 'of', linking the light back to the eyes. «verdâtre» adds the suffix «-âtre» (often faintly pejorative) to «vert»: not clean green but a 'greenish', murky tint — beauty already shaded toward decay.
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sweet beauty, but today everything tastes bitter to me,
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and nothing, neither your love, nor the boudoir, nor the hearth,
GrammarCorrelative «ni … ni» after «rien» «ni … ni …» is 'neither … nor …', the negative correlative that pairs with «ne» on the verb (here «ne me vaut» in the next line). After the blanket «rien» ('nothing'), the «ni» phrases itemise what that 'nothing' includes — «votre amour», «le boudoir», «l'âtre». «un boudoir» is a lady's private sitting-room; «l'âtre» is the hearth, the fireplace. Not one of these warm, intimate things, the poet says, can match what comes next.
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is worth as much to me as the sun blazing on the sea.
Grammar«valoir» — to be worth «vaut» is the third-person singular of «valoir» (to be worth); «ne me vaut» = 'is not worth to me', completing the «ne … rien … ni … ni» negation begun in the line above. The subject is the long list of comforts; none «vaut» — equals in worth — «le soleil rayonnant sur la mer», the sun radiating on the sea. «rayonnant» is the present participle of «rayonner», to beam or radiate.
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And yet love me, tender heart! be a mother,
GrammarImperatives «aimez-moi» and «soyez» These are «vous» imperatives — commands with no subject pronoun. In the positive imperative the object follows and is hyphenated, and «me» becomes the stressed «moi»: «aimez-moi» = 'love me'. «soyez» is the irregular imperative of «être» (to be): «soyez mère» = 'be a mother'. The string of pleas — «aimez-moi», «soyez» — turns the second half of the poem toward a tenderness asked for rather than felt.
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even for an ingrate, even for a wicked man;
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lover or sister, be the fleeting sweetness
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of a glorious autumn or of a setting sun.
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Brief task! The grave awaits; it is greedy!
Word«avide» — greedy, hungry «avide» means greedy, hungry, eager — from the same Latin root as English 'avid', but stronger: a craving, devouring appetite. «elle» refers back to «la tombe» (the grave), which French treats as feminine. «la tombe attend; elle est avide» personifies the grave as something waiting with hunger — the reason the «tâche» (task) of loving is «courte», short, since little time is left before it feeds.
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Ah! let me, my brow laid upon your knees,
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savor, while mourning the white and torrid summer,
Grammar«goûter» and the gerund «en regrettant» «goûter» is 'to taste, to savour'; it is the infinitive governed by «laissez-moi» ('let me savour') reaching across from the line above. «en regrettant» is again the «gérondif» (en + present participle), 'while regretting / mourning'. «regretter» here is to miss or mourn something gone — the «été … torride», the scorching summer. The full arc reads: «laissez-moi goûter … le rayon jaune et doux» — let me savour the soft yellow ray, while mourning the heat now lost.
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the yellow and gentle ray of the season's late decline!
Word«l'arrière-saison» — the late season «l'arrière-saison» is the tail-end of the year — late autumn, the closing weeks of warmth, by extension the autumn of a life. The prefix «arrière-» means 'rear, late, after' (compare «arrière-pensée», a hidden afterthought). As in line one of this stanza, the phrase is fronted before its noun «le rayon» ('the ray'); read «le rayon jaune et doux de l'arrière-saison». The poem ends not on summer's blaze but on this soft, late, yellow light — all the warmth that remains.

The particulars

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