French · Spleen and Ideal

Le Balcon

The Balcony

30 lines · 13 notes

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Mother of memories, mistress of mistresses,
Mèremothermère · noun, feminine, singularhead of the phrase
desofde · prepositionpreposition marking souvenirs
souvenirsmemoriessouvenir · noun, masculine, pluralmodifies Mère
maîtressemistressmaîtresse · noun, feminine, singularin apposition to Mère
desofde · prepositionpreposition marking maîtresses
maîtressesmistressesmaîtresse · noun, feminine, pluralmodifies maîtresse
WordSuperlative by genitive «maîtresse des maîtresses» — 'mistress of mistresses' — is a Hebraic-style superlative (like 'king of kings'): she is the supreme one of her kind. «maîtresse» also carries its two senses at once, 'mistress / lover' and 'one who holds mastery', so the line crowns her both as origin of all his memories and as sovereign over all his loves.
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O you, all my pleasures! O you, all my duties!
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You will recall the beauty of our caresses,
GrammarPronominal «se rappeler» + future «se rappeler» = 'to remember, to call back to mind'; the reflexive «te» is obligatory and takes a direct object (here «la beauté des caresses»). The future tense «rappelleras» opens the poem's central act: the lover commanded to remember. Note that «se rappeler» takes a direct object, whereas its near-synonym «se souvenir» takes «de».
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the sweetness of the hearth and the charm of evenings,
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Mother of memories, mistress of mistresses!
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The evenings lit by the glow of the coals,
Wordardeur (f.) «ardeur» means both literal 'heat, blaze' and figurative 'ardour, passion'. «l'ardeur du charbon» is the burning of the coal fire, but the double sense lets the warmth of the hearth stand in for the warmth of their love.
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and the evenings on the balcony, veiled in rose-coloured mists.
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How sweet your breast was to me! how kind your heart!
GrammarExclamative «que» = 'how' «Que» at the head of a clause is exclamative, equivalent to 'how…!': «Que ton sein m'était doux!» = 'How sweet your breast was to me!'. The dative «m'» («me») marks the person for whom it was sweet. The whole poem leans on this construction — «Que les soleils sont beaux», «Que l'espace est profond» — turning memory into a series of cries of wonder.
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We often said imperishable things
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on the evenings lit by the glow of the coals.
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How beautiful the suns are in the warm evenings!
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How deep is space! how mighty is the heart!
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Leaning toward you, queen of the adored,
Grammar«en» + present participle (gerund) «en» + the present participle of a pronominal verb forms the gerund of simultaneity: «en me penchant» = 'while/as I lean'. «se pencher» = 'to lean, to bend over'; the reflexive «me» is kept inside the construction. The line fixes the posture of the whole memory — the poet bent over the seated woman, breathing her in.
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I thought I breathed in the perfume of your blood.
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How beautiful the suns are in the warm evenings!
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The night was thickening like a partition wall,
GrammarPronominal «s'épaissir» + «ainsi que» «s'épaissir» = 'to grow thick, to thicken'; the pronominal form makes it intransitive — the night thickens of itself. The imperfect «s'épaississait» renders the slow, ongoing process. «ainsi que» here is a literary 'just as / like', introducing the simile of the «cloison» — a thin interior partition — so the dark closes around them like a wall sealing the room.
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and my eyes in the dark made out your pupils,
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and I drank your breath, O sweetness! O poison!
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and your feet fell asleep in my brotherly hands.
Wordfraternel(le) «fraternel» = 'brotherly, fraternal'. The adjective is startling here: after «douceur» and «poison», the desire turns tender and chaste, the hands cradling her sleeping feet 'like a brother's'. Baudelaire often lets sensual longing slide into protective, almost familial tenderness.
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The night was thickening like a partition wall.
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I know the art of conjuring up the happy minutes,
Wordévoquer «évoquer» = 'to call up, to summon, to evoke' — used both of recalling the past and of an occultist conjuring spirits. Calling memory an «art» he possesses turns the poet into a magician who raises the dead minutes; the séance imagery returns in the final stanza's «gouffre» and resurrected suns.
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and relive my past, nestled against your knees.
Grammar«revis» — present of «revivre» «revis» is the first-person present of «revivre» ('to live again, to relive'), parallel to «je sais» in the line before: 'I know… and I relive'. Do not confuse it with «revis», past historic of «revoir» ('to see again'). The past participle «blotti» ('nestled, snuggled') agrees with «mon passé» and pictures the speaker's whole past curled in her lap.
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For what good is it to seek your languorous beauties
Grammar«à quoi bon» + infinitive «à quoi bon…?» = 'what's the use of…?, what good is it to…?'; it takes a bare infinitive («chercher»). A rhetorical question expecting the answer 'none': there is no point seeking her beauties elsewhere than in her own dear body and heart.
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anywhere but in your dear body and your heart so sweet?
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I know the art of conjuring up the happy minutes!
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These vows, these perfumes, these infinite kisses,
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will they be reborn from a gulf forbidden to our soundings,
GrammarInversion in a question + «renaître» «Renaîtront-ils?» = 'will they be reborn?' — the future of «renaître» ('to be reborn') with subject-verb inversion, the formal way to ask a question; the hyphen and pronoun «-ils» pick up «ces serments, ces parfums, ces baisers». A «sonde» is a sounding-line: the gulf is «interdit à nos sondes», too deep for any plumb-line to reach — the question of whether the past can ever rise again.
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as the rejuvenated suns mount to the sky
GrammarStylistic inversion after «comme» After «comme» ('as, like') the subject «les soleils rajeunis» is placed after its verb «montent» — a poetic inversion for rhythm and emphasis: 'as the rejuvenated suns rise to the sky'. «rajeuni» = 'made young again, rejuvenated'; the suns that set into the deep seas climb back renewed, the image for the hoped-for resurrection of love.
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after having washed themselves in the depths of the deep seas?
Grammar«après» + perfect infinitive (pronominal) «après» + a past infinitive expresses an action completed before the main one: «après s'être lavés» = 'after having washed themselves'. The auxiliary is «être» because «se laver» is pronominal, and the past participle «lavés» agrees with the masculine plural «les soleils». The suns bathe in the deep before rising renewed — exactly the cycle the poet asks of his lost love.
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— O vows! O perfumes! O infinite kisses!

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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