French · Spleen and Ideal

La Géante

The Giantess

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1
In the days when Nature, in her mighty exuberance,
DuIn thede · contracted preposition (de + le)preposition marking temps
tempsdaystemps · noun, masculine, singularoblique argument of Concevait (next segment)
quewhenque · relative adverbintroduces the relative clause on temps
lathele · determiner, feminine, singulardeterminer of Nature
NatureNaturenature · noun, feminine, singularsubject of Concevait (next segment)
eninen · prepositionpreposition marking verve
saherson · determiner, feminine, singulardeterminer of verve
verveexuberanceverve · noun, feminine, singularoblique argument of Concevait (next segment)
puissantemightypuissant · adjective, feminine, singularmodifies verve
Grammar«du temps que» — 'back when' «du temps que» is an older, literary equivalent of «à l'époque où» or «au temps où»: 'in the days when, back when'. It opens the sonnet in a lost mythic past — and governs the whole imperfect-tense clause that follows, «Concevait chaque jour des enfants monstrueux».
Word«la verve» — creative drive «la verve» is spirited inspiration, gusto, the heat of creative energy (think of a writer or speaker «en verve»). «en sa verve puissante» — 'in her mighty verve' — casts Nature as an exuberant maker, teeming with the force to breed «des enfants monstrueux» day after day.
2
Conceived each day her monstrous offspring,
3
I should have loved to live beside a young giantess,
Grammar«j'eusse aimé» — past conditional, literary form «eusse aimé» is the second form of the past conditional (the «conditionnel passé deuxième forme»), built on the imperfect subjunctive of «avoir». In modern French this is simply «j'aurais aimé» — 'I would have loved'. The archaic form lifts the wish into a grand, hypothetical past: a longing for a world that never was.
4
Like a voluptuous cat at the feet of a queen.
5
I should have loved to watch her body flower with her soul
Word«fleurir» — to bloom «fleurir» (to flower, to blossom) is used here transitively in sense but intransitively in grammar: «voir son corps fleurir» = 'to see her body bloom'. The infinitive depends on «voir» — 'to watch (her body) flower' — and pairs body with soul, the physical growth matched to an inner ripening «avec son âme».
6
And grow up freely in her terrible games;
7
To guess whether her heart broods a darksome flame
Word«couver» — to brood, to smoulder «couver» first means 'to brood / hatch' (a hen on her eggs), then by extension 'to nurse or harbour' a hidden feeling, and of a fire 'to smoulder'. «son coeur couve une sombre flamme» fuses all three: her heart secretly broods and smoulders with a dark flame. «Deviner si…» — 'to guess whether…' — keeps the flame uncertain, only suspected.
8
From the moist mists that swim within her eyes;
9
To roam at leisure over her magnificent forms;
Word«parcourir» + «à loisir» «parcourir» is to travel or range all over something — to cover its whole extent. «à loisir» means 'at leisure, unhurriedly, as much as one likes'. Together: 'to roam over her magnificent forms at leisure'. The verb treats the giantess's body as a landscape to be explored — an image the closing tercet completes with hamlet and mountain.
10
To clamber up the slope of her enormous knees,
Word«le versant» — a mountainside «le versant» is the slope or flank of a hill or mountain. Applied to «ses genoux énormes» — her enormous knees — it pursues the landscape metaphor: the speaker, dwarfed, would «ramper» (crawl, clamber) up her knee as up a hillside. «Ramper» also carries a faint sense of creeping, fitting the cat-like devotion of stanza one.
11
And sometimes in summer, when the sickly suns,
Word«malsain» — unhealthy, noxious «malsain» means unhealthy, unwholesome, noxious. The plural «les soleils malsains» — 'the sickly suns', the oppressive suns of high summer — is the subject of a sentence that runs across the stanza break into the final tercet, where these suns «la font s'étendre à travers la campagne»: they make her lie down across the countryside.
12
Weary, make her stretch out across the countryside,
Grammar«faire» + infinitive (the causative) «faire» + infinitive means 'to make / cause (someone) to do': «les soleils… la font s'étendre» = 'the suns make her stretch out'. The object pronoun «la» (= the giantess) comes before «font». «s'étendre» is the pronominal 'to stretch oneself out, to lie down'; «lasse» (weary, fem.) describes her as she does so.
13
To sleep idly in the shadow of her breasts,
Grammar«Dormir» — the last in a chain of infinitives «Dormir» continues the long series of infinitives that began with «J'eusse aimé… vivre» and runs through «voir», «grandir», «deviner», «parcourir», «ramper»: the speaker would have loved 'to sleep' too. «nonchalamment» (idly, languidly, without a care) is the adverb of «nonchalant» — the same drowsy ease as the «chat voluptueux» of the opening.
14
Like a peaceful hamlet at the foot of a mountain.
Word«un hameau» — a hamlet «un hameau» is a hamlet, a tiny cluster of houses smaller than a village. The closing simile shrinks the sleeping speaker to a peaceful hamlet «au pied d'une montagne» — at the foot of a mountain — sealing the poem's vision of the woman as a whole sheltering landscape, vast and serene.

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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