# Le Balcon · The Balcony

Les Fleurs du mal · Charles Baudelaire · Spleen and Ideal

Source: https://1732studios.com/books/baudelaire/le-balcon. Data: https://1732studios.com/books/baudelaire/le-balcon.json.

**1** Mère des souvenirs, maîtresse des maîtresses,  
Mother of memories, mistress of mistresses,
> Superlative 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.

**2** Ô toi, tous mes plaisirs! ô toi, tous mes devoirs!  
O you, all my pleasures! O you, all my duties!

**3** Tu te rappelleras la beauté des caresses,  
You will recall the beauty of our caresses,
> Pronominal «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».

**4** La douceur du foyer et le charme des soirs,  
the sweetness of the hearth and the charm of evenings,

**5** Mère des souvenirs, maîtresse des maîtresses!  
Mother of memories, mistress of mistresses!


**6** Les soirs illuminés par l'ardeur du charbon,  
The evenings lit by the glow of the coals,
> ardeur (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.

**7** Et les soirs au balcon, voilés de vapeurs roses.  
and the evenings on the balcony, veiled in rose-coloured mists.

**8** Que ton sein m'était doux! que ton coeur m'était bon!  
How sweet your breast was to me! how kind your heart!
> Exclamative «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.

**9** Nous avons dit souvent d'impérissables choses  
We often said imperishable things

**10** Les soirs illuminés par l'ardeur du charbon.  
on the evenings lit by the glow of the coals.


**11** Que les soleils sont beaux dans les chaudes soirées!  
How beautiful the suns are in the warm evenings!

**12** Que l'espace est profond! que le coeur est puissant!  
How deep is space! how mighty is the heart!

**13** En me penchant vers toi, reine des adorées,  
Leaning toward you, queen of the adored,
> «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.

**14** Je croyais respirer le parfum de ton sang.  
I thought I breathed in the perfume of your blood.

**15** Que les soleils sont beaux dans les chaudes soirées!  
How beautiful the suns are in the warm evenings!


**16** La nuit s'épaississait ainsi qu'une cloison,  
The night was thickening like a partition wall,
> Pronominal «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.

**17** Et mes yeux dans le noir devinaient tes prunelles,  
and my eyes in the dark made out your pupils,

**18** Et je buvais ton souffle, ô douceur! ô poison!  
and I drank your breath, O sweetness! O poison!

**19** Et tes pieds s'endormaient dans mes mains fraternelles.  
and your feet fell asleep in my brotherly hands.
> fraternel(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.

**20** La nuit s'épaississait ainsi qu'une cloison.  
The night was thickening like a partition wall.


**21** Je sais l'art d'évoquer les minutes heureuses,  
I know the art of conjuring up the happy minutes,
> évoquer: «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.

**22** Et revis mon passé blotti dans tes genoux.  
and relive my past, nestled against your knees.
> «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.

**23** Car à quoi bon chercher tes beautés langoureuses  
For what good is it to seek your languorous beauties
> «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.

**24** Ailleurs qu'en ton cher corps et qu'en ton coeur si doux?  
anywhere but in your dear body and your heart so sweet?

**25** Je sais l'art d'évoquer les minutes heureuses!  
I know the art of conjuring up the happy minutes!


**26** Ces serments, ces parfums, ces baisers infinis,  
These vows, these perfumes, these infinite kisses,

**27** Renaîtront-ils d'un gouffre interdit à nos sondes,  
will they be reborn from a gulf forbidden to our soundings,
> Inversion 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.

**28** Comme montent au ciel les soleils rajeunis  
as the rejuvenated suns mount to the sky
> Stylistic 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.

**29** Après s'être lavés au fond des mers profondes?  
after having washed themselves in the depths of the deep seas?
> «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.

**30** — Ô serments! ô parfums! ô baisers infinis!  
— O vows! O perfumes! O infinite kisses!

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