# Correspondances · Correspondences

Les Fleurs du mal · Charles Baudelaire · Spleen and Ideal

Source: https://1732studios.com/books/baudelaire/correspondances. Data: https://1732studios.com/books/baudelaire/correspondances.json.

**1** La Nature est un temple où de vivants piliers  
Nature is a temple where living pillars
> Adjective before the noun: French adjectives usually follow the noun («piliers vivants»). Placing «vivants» before it is a poetic inversion that adds weight and solemnity, fitting Baudelaire's image of Nature as a temple.

**2** Laissent parfois sortir de confuses paroles;  
Sometimes let slip confused words;

**3** L'homme y passe à travers des forêts de symboles  
Man passes there through forests of symbols

**4** Qui l'observent avec des regards familiers.  
That watch him with familiar eyes.


**5** Comme de longs échos qui de loin se confondent  
Like long echoes that mingle from afar

**6** Dans une ténébreuse et profonde unité,  
Into a shadowy and profound unity,

**7** Vaste comme la nuit et comme la clarté,  
Vast as the night and as the light,

**8** Les parfums, les couleurs et les sons se répondent.  
Scents, colors, and sounds answer one another.
> se répondre (reciprocal): «se répondre» is reciprocal here: the senses answer one another, or correspond. This line is the poem's thesis — the doctrine of «correspondances» (synesthesia) that gives the sonnet its name.


**9** Il est des parfums frais comme des chairs d'enfants,  
There are scents as fresh as children's flesh,

**10** Doux comme les hautbois, verts comme les prairies,  
Sweet as oboes, green as meadows,

**11** — Et d'autres, corrompus, riches et triomphants,  
— And others, corrupt, rich, and triumphant,


**12** Ayant l'expansion des choses infinies,  
Having the expansion of infinite things,

**13** Comme l'ambre, le musc, le benjoin et l'encens,  
Like amber, musk, benzoin, and incense,
> le benjoin: Benzoin — a sweet, balsamic resin burned as incense. Baudelaire groups it with amber, musk, and incense as the 'corrupt, rich' scents that expand toward the infinite.

**14** Qui chantent les transports de l'esprit et des sens.  
That sing the raptures of the spirit and the senses.

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