French · Parisian Scenes

Le Crépuscule du matin

Morning Twilight

28 lines · 17 notes

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1
The reveille was singing in the barracks yards,
Lathele · determiner, feminine, singulardeterminer of diane
dianereveillediane · noun, feminine, singularsubject of chantait
chantaitwas singingchanter · verb, imperfect, indicative, third-person, singularmain verb of the sentence
dansindans · prepositionpreposition marking cours
lesthele · determiner, pluraldeterminer of cours
coursyardscours · noun, masculine, pluraldepends on chantait
desof thede · prepositionpreposition marking casernes
casernesbarrackscaserne · noun, feminine, pluralmodifies cours
Wordla diane (f.) «La diane» is the reveille — the morning bugle or drum call that wakes soldiers at dawn. «La diane chantait dans les cours des casernes» = 'The reveille was singing in the barracks yards': the poem opens on the very first sound of the city's morning, the army being roused before anyone else.
2
And the morning wind was blowing on the lanterns.
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It was the hour when the swarm of evil dreams
Wordun essaim (m.) «un essaim» is a swarm — properly a swarm of bees, then any seething mass. «l'essaim des rêves malfaisants» = 'the swarm of evil dreams'; «malfaisant» (from «mal» + «faisant», 'doing harm') marks the dreams as actively wicked, a hive of them descending at the worst hour of the night.
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Twists the brown-haired youths upon their pillows;
GrammarDelayed subject across the line The verb «tord» (from «tordre», 'to twist, wring') belongs to the subject «l'essaim» in the line before: 'the swarm... twists the youths'. French verse readily strings the subject, verb, and object across line breaks like this — read «l'essaim... Tord... les bruns adolescents» as one clause, the dreams wringing the sleepers like wet cloth.
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When, like a bloodshot eye that throbs and stirs,
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The lamp makes a red stain upon the daylight;
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When the soul, under the weight of the body, sullen and heavy,
Wordrevêche (adj.) «revêche» means harsh, surly, recalcitrant — originally said of rough, unworkable wool or cloth, then of an intractable temper. Here «le corps revêche et lourd» = 'the body, sullen and heavy', a stubborn dead weight the waking soul has to fight against.
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Mimics the struggle of the lamp and the daylight.
9
Like a tear-streaked face that the breezes wipe dry,
GrammarWord order in the «que» relative In «un visage... que les brises essuient», the order is: «que» (object) + «les brises» (subject) + «essuient» (verb) — standard subject-before-verb word order for a «que» relative clause. The subject «les brises» precedes the verb «essuient», not vice versa; there is no inversion here. Untangled: 'a face that the breezes wipe'.
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The air is full of the shudder of things that flee away,
GrammarPronominal «s'enfuir» «s'enfuir» is the pronominal verb 'to flee, run away', stronger than plain «fuir»: the «s'» makes the flight the thing's own headlong escape. «les choses qui s'enfuient» = 'the things that flee away' — the night and its dreams slipping off as dawn comes on.
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And man is weary of writing and woman of loving.
Grammarêtre las de + infinitive «être las de» means 'to be weary / tired of'; before an infinitive the «de» elides to «d'». The second clause drops the repeated adjective: «la femme [est lasse] d'aimer» = 'woman [is weary] of loving'. Two exhaustions balanced across the line — the writer at his desk, the lover in her bed.
12
Here and there the houses were beginning to smoke.
Wordçà et là (idiom) «çà et là» means 'here and there, in scattered spots'. The «çà» (grave accent) is an old adverb of place, not the «ça» that means 'that'. «Les maisons çà et là commençaient à fumer» = 'Here and there the houses were beginning to smoke' — chimneys lighting one by one as the city stirs.
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The women of pleasure, their eyelids livid,
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Mouths open, slept their stupefied sleep;
GrammarCognate-object construction French can pair a verb with a noun built from the same idea, introduced by «de»: «dormir de son sommeil» = 'to sleep one's sleep'. «dormaient de leur sommeil stupide» = 'slept their stupefied sleep' — the adjective «stupide» (here 'numb, stupefied') doing the real work the bare verb cannot.
15
The poor women, dragging their thin cold breasts,
Wordune pauvresse (f.) «une pauvresse» is a destitute woman, a beggar-woman — the feminine of «un pauvre» pushed to its bleakest. The plural «Les pauvresses» opens Baudelaire's tally of the dawn's wretched: not the night's revellers now but the cold and the labouring poor.
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Blew on their embers and blew on their fingers.
17
It was the hour when, amid the cold and the stinting want,
Wordla lésine (f.) «la lésine» is sordid stinginess — penny-pinching so extreme it becomes a kind of squalor. Paired with «le froid», «parmi le froid et la lésine» = 'amid the cold and the stinting want': the grinding meanness of poverty that makes the next line's labour pains worse.
18
The pains of women in labour grow worse;
Worden gésine (archaic) «en gésine» is an old phrase meaning 'in childbirth, in labour' (from the same root as «gésir», 'to lie'). «les douleurs des femmes en gésine» = 'the pains of women in labour'. The pronominal «s'aggraver» ('to grow worse') is set before its subject — 'grow worse, the pains...' — in a poetic inversion.
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Like a sob cut short by a froth of blood
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The cock's crow in the distance tore the misty air;
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A sea of fogs was bathing the buildings,
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And the dying, deep in the poorhouses,
Wordagonisant / un hospice «agoniser» means to be in one's death-throes (a faux ami — not English 'agonize'), so «les agonisants» are 'the dying'. «un hospice» is a charitable refuge for the old and destitute. «dans le fond des hospices» = 'deep in the poorhouses' — the city's poor expiring out of sight.
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Were heaving their last death-rattle in uneven gasps.
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The debauchees came home, broken by their labours.
GrammarPassive past participle + «par» «brisés» is the past participle of «briser» ('to break, shatter'), agreeing in the plural with «les débauchés», and the agent comes in with «par»: 'broken by their labours'. Baudelaire calls a night of vice «travaux», 'works/toil' — the rakes go home wrecked as if from a day's hard labour.
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Dawn, shivering in her gown of pink and green,
Wordgrelotter / l'aurore personified «grelotter» is to shiver and shake with cold. «L'aurore grelottante» = 'shivering Dawn', the daybreak personified as a cold, frail woman in «robe rose et verte» — the chilly pink-and-green light of a winter morning over Paris.
26
Was advancing slowly over the deserted Seine,
GrammarPronominal «s'avancer» «s'avancer» is the pronominal verb 'to move forward, come on', the «s'» making the advance the subject's own motion. «[L'aurore] s'avançait lentement sur la Seine déserte» = 'Dawn was advancing slowly over the deserted Seine' — the new day creeping in over an empty river.
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And gloomy Paris, rubbing its eyes,
GrammarGerund of a pronominal verb «en se frottant les yeux» is the gérondif of «se frotter» ('to rub oneself / one's own'), marking simultaneous action: 'while rubbing its eyes'. With body parts French uses the reflexive and the definite article «les yeux» rather than a possessive — 'rubbing its (own) eyes'. Paris wakes like a labourer at the very end.
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Was grasping its tools, a toiling old man.

The particulars

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