# Horreur sympathique · Kindred Horror

Les Fleurs du mal · Charles Baudelaire · Spleen and Ideal

Source: https://1732studios.com/books/baudelaire/horreur-sympathique. Data: https://1732studios.com/books/baudelaire/horreur-sympathique.json.

**1** De ce ciel bizarre et livide,  
From this strange and livid sky,
> «livide» — leaden, ashen: «livide» does not mean 'vivid'; it is the bluish-grey pallor of a corpse or a bruise — 'leaden, ashen, deathly pale'. Paired with «bizarre» ('strange, uncanny'), it tints the whole sky with the colour of death, the mood the sonnet will read back into the poet's own soul.

**2** Tourmenté comme ton destin,  
tormented like your own fate,

**3** Quels pensers dans ton âme vide  
what thoughts into your empty soul
> «un penser» — an archaic 'thought': «un penser» is an old, poetic noun for 'a thought' (the everyday word is «une pensée»). Baudelaire revives the archaism for its solemn ring. The question «Quels pensers… descendent?» ('What thoughts come down?') runs across this line and the next — an enjambment that leaves the soul «vide» ('empty') hanging at the line's end before the verb arrives.

**4** Descendent? réponds, libertin.  
descend? answer me, libertine.
> «libertin» — freethinker, not merely a rake: «libertin» carries its older, stronger sense here: a 'libertine' is not only a sensualist but a freethinker who has cast off religious and moral constraint. The poet addresses himself with «réponds» ('answer'), the familiar imperative of «répondre» — the whole sonnet is an interrogation he puts to his own godless mind.


**5** — Insatiablement avide  
— Insatiably greedy
> The «—» marks the reply: The em-dash opening this stanza signals a change of speaker: the «libertin» now answers the question put to him in the first quatrain. «avide» means 'greedy, craving', and «insatiablement» ('insatiably') is the adverb that cannot be satisfied — the appetite the reply will define as a hunger «de l'obscur et de l'incertain» ('for the dark and the uncertain').

**6** De l'obscur et de l'incertain,  
for the dark and the uncertain,
> Adjectives turned into nouns with «l'»: «obscur» ('dark, obscure') and «incertain» ('uncertain') are adjectives nominalized by «l'»: 'the dark', 'the uncertain' — the qualities themselves treated as things to crave. French abstracts adjectives this way far more freely than English. The «De» reaches back to «avide de» ('greedy for'): «avide de l'obscur» = 'greedy for the dark'.

**7** Je ne geindrai pas comme Ovide  
I will not whine as Ovid did
> «geindre» — to whine, to moan: «geindre» is 'to whine, to groan, to moan feebly' — a complaining, self-pitying sound. «geindrai» is its future tense: 'I will not whine'. The poet refuses Ovid's lament: where the exiled Roman wept for a lost paradise, this libertine embraces his fallen, darkened sky.

**8** Chassé du paradis latin.  
driven out of the Latin paradise.


**9** Cieux déchirés comme des grèves  
Skies torn like shorelines,
> «une grève» — a strand of sand and shingle: «une grève» here is a 'strand, shore, shingle beach' (the same word that, by a separate history, also means a labour 'strike'). The ragged clouds are likened to a torn coastline — «déchirés» is 'torn, ripped'. The sky becomes a desolate seascape into which the poet's pride will look at itself in the next line.

**10** En vous se mire mon orgueil;  
in you my pride beholds itself;
> Pronominal «se mirer» + inversion: «se mirer» is the pronominal verb 'to gaze at oneself, to be reflected' (from «un miroir», a mirror). The order inverts: «se mire» comes before its subject «mon orgueil» ('my pride') — literally 'in you reflects itself my pride'. The torn sky is a mirror, and what the poet sees in its ruin is his own pride — the «sympathie» of the title, a horror that answers his inner state.

**11** Vos vastes nuages en deuil  
your vast clouds in mourning


**12** Sont les corbillards de mes rêves,  
are the hearses of my dreams,
> «un corbillard» — a hearse: «un corbillard» is the black funeral carriage that carries the coffin — a 'hearse'. The mourning clouds («nuages en deuil») of the line above become the hearses bearing the poet's dead dreams across the sky, completing the funeral image the «livide» sky began.

**13** Et vos lueurs sont le reflet  
and your gleams are the reflection

**14** De l'Enfer où mon coeur se plaît.  
of the Hell in which my heart delights.
> Pronominal «se plaire» — to take pleasure: «se plaire» is the pronominal verb 'to take pleasure, to delight, to be happy (in a place)'; «mon coeur se plaît» = 'my heart delights, is at home'. The relative «où» ('where, in which') makes Hell the place the heart willingly dwells. The sonnet closes on its perverse turn: the hellish glow in the sky is welcome — the horror outside answers, and pleases, the horror within.

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