French · Spleen and Ideal

Harmonie du soir

Evening Harmony

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1
Now comes the season when, quivering on its stem,
Voicinowvoici · presentative particlemain predicate introducing venir
venircomesvenir · verb, infinitivecomplement of Voici
lesthele · determiner, pluraldeterminer of temps
tempsseasontemps · noun, masculine, pluraldirect object of venir
oùwhenoù · adverbrelative adverb modifying temps
vibrantquiveringvibrer · verb, present, participleadverbial clause describing chaque fleur (s1-l2)
suronsur · prepositionpreposition marking tige
saitsson · determiner, feminine, singulardeterminer of tige
tigestemtige · noun, feminine, singularoblique argument of vibrant
Grammar«voici» + infinitive «voici» (or «voilà») followed by a bare infinitive presents an action as it arrives before the eyes: «voici venir les temps» = 'here come the times / now comes the season'. It is more vivid than «voici les temps qui viennent», staging the hour of dusk as something that steps forward onto the page. «vibrant» is the present participle of «vibrer» (to vibrate, quiver), here describing each flower trembling on its «tige» (stem).
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each flower evaporates like a censer;
GrammarPronominal «s'évaporer» «s'évaporer» is the pronominal form of «évaporer», meaning 'to evaporate, to vanish into vapour' on its own. The reflexive «se» makes the flower the agent of its own dissolving — it does not merely give off scent, it breathes itself away. «ainsi que» is a literary 'just as / like', and «un encensoir» is the swinging censer that scatters incense at Mass, the first of the poem's liturgical objects.
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the sounds and the perfumes turn in the evening air;
WordSynesthesia: «les sons» and «les parfums» together «le son» is a sound, «le parfum» a scent or perfume. Yoking them into a single subject that 'turns' («tournent») in the air fuses hearing and smell, the cross-sensory mingling Baudelaire calls «correspondances». The dusk is not described sense by sense but as one swirling, waltzing medium in which sound and fragrance circle together.
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melancholy waltz and languorous vertigo!
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Each flower evaporates like a censer;
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the violin shudders like a heart one wounds;
GrammarIndefinite «on» in a relative clause «qu'on afflige» = 'that one afflicts / that is being grieved'. «on» is the indefinite subject ('one, someone, people'), often best turned into an English passive: 'a heart that is wounded'. «affliger» is to grieve, to distress; «frémir» is to quiver or shudder. The trembling string is likened to a heart at the moment pain is inflicted on it — the simile that pivots the poem from beauty toward ache.
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melancholy waltz and languorous vertigo!
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the sky is sad and lovely like a great altar of repose.
Word«le reposoir» — the wayside altar «un reposoir» is the temporary altar, banked with flowers and candles, on which the consecrated Host is set to rest during a Corpus Christi procession. There is no single English word for it ('altar of repose', 'resting-altar'). Set beside «un encensoir» (censer) above and «un ostensoir» (monstrance) at the close, it makes the evening sky one more sacred furnishing — the dusk staged as a Mass.
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The violin shudders like a heart one wounds,
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a tender heart, that hates the vast black void!
Grammar«haïr» — to hate, and the form «hait» «hait» is the third-person singular present of «haïr» (to hate): «qui hait le néant» = 'that hates the void'. «haïr» keeps the diaeresis (the two dots) through most of its forms, but drops it in the singular present — «je hais, tu hais, il hait» — where the «ai» is one syllable. «le néant» is nothingness, the void, non-being; the tender heart recoils from the «vaste et noir» abyss the evening opens beneath its beauty.
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the sky is sad and lovely like a great altar of repose;
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the sun has drowned in its own congealing blood.
GrammarPronominal «se noyer» in the «passé composé» «se noyer» is the pronominal verb 'to drown (oneself)'; in the «passé composé» it takes «être», so «le soleil s'est noyé» = 'the sun has drowned'. The reflexive makes the sunset an act the sun performs on itself, sinking into «son sang qui se fige» — 'its blood that congeals', «se figer» being 'to set, to clot, to grow stiff'. The setting sun bleeds out and clots on the horizon.
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A tender heart, that hates the vast black void,
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gathers up every vestige of the luminous past!
GrammarFronted object «du passé lumineux» The natural order is «recueille tout vestige du passé lumineux» — 'gathers up every trace of the luminous past'. Baudelaire fronts «du passé lumineux» to the head of the line for emphasis and rhyme; read it as the source from which «tout vestige» is gathered. «recueillir» is to collect, gather up, glean; «un vestige» is a trace or remnant. Against the encroaching void, the tender heart hoards the last glimmers of a radiant past.
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the sun has drowned in its own congealing blood...
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your memory shines within me like a monstrance!
Word«l'ostensoir» — the monstrance «un ostensoir» is the monstrance, the radiant gold vessel — often sunburst-shaped — in which the consecrated Host is displayed for adoration. «luire» is 'to shine, to glow'. The poem's final image completes its liturgy: «encensoir» (censer), «reposoir» (resting-altar), «ostensoir» (monstrance) chime as rhymes, and the beloved's remembered face becomes the gleaming Host raised against the dark, the one light left when the sun has bled away.

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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