French · To the Reader

Dédicace

Dedication

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To the impeccable poet
AuTo theau · contraction of à + lepreposition marking poète
poètepoetpoète · noun, masculine, singularobject of Au, head of the phrase
impeccableimpeccableimpeccable · adjective, singularmodifies poète
Wordimpeccable From the Latin «impeccabilis», 'incapable of sinning'. In French «impeccable» means 'flawless, faultless' — here, a poet whose craft never errs. Baudelaire chooses a word that still carries its theological undertone of being beyond fault.
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To the perfect magician of French letters
Grammar«ès» — a fused preposition «ès» is an archaic contraction of «en les» ('in the'), surviving only in fixed learned phrases such as «docteur ès lettres» or «ès sciences». It always precedes a plural noun. «magicien ès lettres françaises» reads 'magician in [the field of] French letters' — a deliberately scholarly, faintly ceremonious flourish.
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To my very dear and most revered
GrammarThe hyphen after «très» Nineteenth-century French hyphenated «très» to the adjective it intensified — «très-cher», «très-vénéré». Modern spelling drops the hyphen («très cher»). The original spelling is kept here exactly as Baudelaire printed it.
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Master and friend
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Théophile Gautier
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With the sentiments
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Of the most profound humility
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I dedicate
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These sickly flowers
Word«fleurs maladives» 'Sickly / ailing flowers'. «maladif» means prone to illness, unhealthy. The phrase names the poems themselves as the 'flowers' of the title Les Fleurs du mal — blossoms grown from sickness and evil — and casts the dedication as the handing-over of a diseased bouquet.
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C.B.

The particulars

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