# La Chevelure · The Head of Hair

Les Fleurs du mal · Charles Baudelaire · Spleen and Ideal

Source: https://1732studios.com/books/baudelaire/la-chevelure. Data: https://1732studios.com/books/baudelaire/la-chevelure.json.

**1** Ô toison, moutonnant jusque sur l'encolure!  
O fleece, foaming down even onto the neck!

**2** Ô boucles! Ô parfum chargé de nonchaloir!  
O curls! O perfume laden with languor!
> «nonchaloir» — archaic indolence: «nonchaloir» is an old, literary noun for listless ease, the source of modern «nonchalant». «chargé de nonchaloir» = 'laden with languor': the perfume itself is heavy with idleness, and Baudelaire reaches for the archaism to give the scent a drowsy, antique weight.

**3** Extase! Pour peupler ce soir l'alcôve obscure  
Ecstasy! To people the dark alcove this evening

**4** Des souvenirs dormant dans cette chevelure,  
With the memories sleeping in this hair,

**5** Je la veux agiter dans l'air comme un mouchoir!  
I want to shake it in the air like a handkerchief!
> Object pronoun raised before «vouloir»: Modern French would say «je veux l'agiter», placing «la» on the infinitive. The older, literary order «je la veux agiter» raises the object pronoun «la» (= la chevelure) ahead of «veux». Same meaning — 'I want to shake it' — but the inversion is a poetic register that keeps the alexandrine smooth.


**6** La langoureuse Asie et la brûlante Afrique,  
Languorous Asia and burning Africa,

**7** Tout un monde lointain, absent, presque défunt,  
A whole world far-off, absent, almost defunct,

**8** Vit dans tes profondeurs, forêt aromatique!  
Lives in your depths, aromatic forest!

**9** Comme d'autres esprits voguent sur la musique,  
As other spirits sail upon music,

**10** Le mien, ô mon amour! nage sur ton parfum.  
Mine, O my love! swims upon your perfume.
> «le mien» — the possessive pronoun: «le mien» = 'mine', the possessive pronoun standing in for «mon esprit» ('my spirit') from the comparison just made. The masculine «le» agrees with «esprit». Where other men's spirits «voguent sur la musique» (sail on music), the poet's «nage sur ton parfum» (swims on your perfume) — scent becomes his sea.


**11** J'irai là-bas où l'arbre et l'homme, pleins de sève,  
I will go down there where tree and man, full of sap,

**12** Se pâment longuement sous l'ardeur des climats;  
Swoon at length beneath the ardor of the climes;
> Pronominal «se pâmer» — to swoon: «se pâmer» is the pronominal verb 'to swoon, to faint with pleasure'. Both subjects — «l'arbre et l'homme» (tree and man) — «se pâment longuement» ('swoon at length') under the tropical heat, the same languor that ran through Asia and Africa above. Nature and humanity faint together in the warmth.

**13** Fortes tresses, soyez la houle qui m'enlève!  
Strong tresses, be the swell that carries me away!
> «soyez» — imperative of «être»: «soyez» is the imperative of «être» ('be!'), addressed to the «fortes tresses» (strong braids). The poet commands the hair to become «la houle» — the rolling swell of the open sea — that will lift and bear him off («qui m'enlève»). The metaphor turns the head of hair into an ocean.

**14** Tu contiens, mer d'ébène, un éblouissant rêve  
You hold, sea of ebony, a dazzling dream

**15** De voiles, de rameurs, de flammes et de mâts:  
Of sails, of rowers, of flames and of masts:


**16** Un port retentissant où mon âme peut boire  
A resounding harbor where my soul can drink

**17** À grands flots le parfum, le son et la couleur  
In great draughts the perfume, the sound and the color

**18** Où les vaisseaux, glissant dans l'or et dans la moire  
Where the vessels, gliding in the gold and the watered silk
> «la moire» — watered silk: «la moire» is moiré, watered silk, the fabric whose rippling sheen mimics the surface of water. «glissant dans l'or et dans la moire» = 'gliding in the gold and the watered silk': the harbor's water shimmers like patterned cloth, gilded by the sun the poem reaches in the next line.

**19** Ouvrent leurs vastes bras pour embrasser la gloire  
Open their vast arms to embrace the glory

**20** D'un ciel pur où frémit l'éternelle chaleur.  
Of a pure sky where the eternal heat quivers.


**21** Je plongerai ma tête amoureuse d'ivresse  
I will plunge my head, in love with drunkenness,

**22** Dans ce noir océan où l'autre est enfermé;  
Into this black ocean where the other lies enclosed;

**23** Et mon esprit subtil que le roulis caresse  
And my subtle spirit, which the rolling caresses,

**24** Saura vous retrouver, ô féconde paresse,  
Will know how to find you again, O fertile idleness,
> «savoir» + infinitive — will manage to: «saura» is the future of «savoir»; with an infinitive, «savoir faire qch» means 'to know how to / to manage to do something'. «Saura vous retrouver» = 'will know how to find you again'. The subject is «mon esprit subtil» two lines up; rocked by the swell, the spirit will be able to recover that «féconde paresse» — fertile idleness.

**25** Infinis bercements du loisir embaumé!  
Endless rockings of the perfumed leisure!


**26** Cheveux bleus, pavillon de ténèbres tendues  
Blue hair, pavilion of stretched darkness

**27** Vous me rendez l'azur du ciel immense et rond;  
You give me back the azure of the sky, immense and round;

**28** Sur les bords duvetés de vos mèches tordues  
On the downy edges of your twisted locks

**29** Je m'enivre ardemment des senteurs confondues  
I grow drunk, ardently, on the mingled scents
> Pronominal «s'enivrer de» — to get drunk on: «s'enivrer de qch» is the pronominal verb 'to get drunk / intoxicate oneself on something'. «Je m'enivre ardemment des senteurs confondues» = 'I get drunk, ardently, on the mingled scents'. The «des» is «de» + «les» governed by the verb. Intoxication is now self-induced — the poet does the drinking himself.

**30** De l'huile de coco, du musc et du goudron.  
Of coconut oil, of musk and of tar.
> «le goudron» — tar: «le goudron» is tar, the black pitch that caulks and waterproofs ships' hulls and rigging. Set beside «l'huile de coco» (coconut oil) and «musc» (musk), it drags the perfume back to the docks: the scent of the head of hair is also the smell of a working harbor, sweetness braided with pitch.


**31** Longtemps! toujours! ma main dans ta crinière lourde  
Long! forever! my hand in your heavy mane

**32** Sèmera le rubis, la perle et le saphir,  
Will sow the ruby, the pearl and the sapphire,

**33** Afin qu'à mon désir tu ne sois jamais sourde!  
So that you may never be deaf to my desire!
> «afin que» + subjunctive of purpose: «afin que» ('so that, in order that') always takes the subjunctive, here «tu ne sois» (from «être»). It states the purpose of sowing the jewels: «afin qu'à mon désir tu ne sois jamais sourde» = 'so that you may never be deaf to my desire'. «sourd à qch» is 'deaf / unresponsive to something'.

**34** N'es-tu pas l'oasis où je rêve, et la gourde  
Are you not the oasis where I dream, and the gourd
> «ne ... pas» inverted — a rhetorical question: «N'es-tu pas...?» inverts subject and verb to ask 'Are you not...?'. The negative-question form expects the answer 'yes': the head of hair is the oasis and the gourd. The poem closes not on a command but on this rhetorical question, turning the whole voyage into a single tender appeal.

**35** Où je hume à longs traits le vin du souvenir?  
Where in long draughts I drink in the wine of memory?
> «humer» — to breathe in / sip: «humer» is to draw in deeply through the mouth or nose — to inhale, to sip, to savor. «à longs traits» means 'in long draughts'. «je hume à longs traits le vin du souvenir» = 'in long draughts I drink in the wine of memory': the poem ends where it began, in scent and memory, now distilled to a wine drunk from the gourd of the hair.

---

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