French · Flowers of Evil

L'Amour et le crâne

Love and the Skull

21 lines · 11 notes

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1
An old tailpiece
Vieuxoldvieux · adjective, masculine, singularmodifies cul-de-lampe
cul-de-lampetailpiececul-de-lampe · noun, masculine, singularhead of the phrase
A 'cul-de-lampe' is a small decorative engraving printers used to close a chapter.
Wordle cul-de-lampe «un cul-de-lampe» is a printer's term for a tailpiece — the small decorative engraving set at the foot of a page or the end of a chapter, often shaped like the base of a lamp. The subtitle frames the whole poem as the description of «un vieux cul-de-lampe», an old engraved vignette, so the reader looks at the scene as a printed image come to life.
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Love is seated upon the skull
Wordl'Amour (Cupid) Capitalized, «l'Amour» is not love in the abstract but the god Love — Cupid, the winged child of classical art. Seating him «sur le crâne / De l'Humanité» turns a familiar emblem into a memento mori: the playful god perched on the death's-head of the whole human race.
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Of Humanity,
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And on this throne the profane one,
Wordle profane «le profane» is the noun 'the profane / irreverent one', the opposite of «le sacré». Used of Cupid, it names him as the impious creature who desecrates the holy throne — the skull of Humanity — laughing «au rire effronté» where one should mourn.
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With his brazen laughter,
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Gaily blows round bubbles
GrammarDelayed verb after the stanza break The subject «le profane» appeared at the end of the first stanza; its verb «souffle» ('blows') opens the second, leaping across the white space. Baudelaire suspends the action so that the irreverent god is named before we learn what he does — gaily blowing «des bulles rondes», round bubbles, like a child at play.
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That rise into the air,
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As if to reach the worlds
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Deep in the ether.
Wordl'éther «l'éther» is the pure upper air of the sky, the rarefied element the ancients imagined filling the heavens above the clouds. The bubbles climb «au fond de l'éther» — toward the depths of that bright void — a fragile flight toward the «mondes», the other worlds, that will burst in the next stanza.
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The luminous, fragile globe
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Takes a great upward leap,
Wordprendre son essor «l'essor» is the act of taking wing, a soaring flight; «prendre son essor» (here «prend un grand essor») means 'to take flight, to soar up'. The single bubble «le globe lumineux et frêle» rises in one grand surge — only to «crève et crache», to burst and spit, the moment after.
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Bursts and spits out its slender soul
GrammarPresent indicative «crever», «cracher» «crève» and «crache» are third-person present forms of «crever» ('to burst') and «cracher» ('to spit'). The harsh, plosive pairing makes the bubble's death audible: it «crève et crache son âme grêle» — bursts and spits out its thin soul — the toy globe given a soul only to lose it «comme un songe d'or».
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Like a dream of gold.
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I hear the skull, at each bubble,
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Pray and moan:
GrammarVerb of perception + infinitive After a verb of perception like «entendre» ('to hear'), French uses a bare infinitive for what is heard: «j'entends le crâne... prier et gémir» = 'I hear the skull... pray and moan'. «le crâne» is the object of «entends» and the subject of the two infinitives — the skull is heard to pray and to groan at every bubble.
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— "This savage, ridiculous game,
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When must it end?
GrammarInversion «doit-il» The question inverts subject and verb — «il doit» becomes «doit-il» — to ask directly: «Quand doit-il finir?» = 'When must it end?'. «devoir» + infinitive here carries obligation or fate ('must', 'is bound to'), the skull's cry against a cruel game it cannot stop.
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For what your cruel mouth
GrammarRelative «ce que» «ce que» is the compound relative 'that which / what', introducing a noun clause: «ce que ta bouche... éparpille en l'air» = 'what your mouth scatters in the air'. The whole clause is the subject answered three lines later by «c'est ma cervelle» — what you scatter is my brain — the delayed predicate driving home the horror.
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Scatters into the air,
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Murderous monster, is my brain,
Wordla cervelle «la cervelle» is the brain as soft matter — brains, as one says of an animal's — more visceral than «le cerveau», the organ of thought. The skull reveals that the pretty bubbles are «ma cervelle, / Mon sang et ma chair» — its own brains, blood, and flesh — squandered for Love's amusement.
21
My blood and my flesh!"

The particulars

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