# Le Cygne · The Swan

Les Fleurs du mal · Charles Baudelaire · Parisian Scenes

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

**1** À Victor Hugo  
To Victor Hugo


**2** I  
I


**3** Andromaque, je pense à vous! Ce petit fleuve,  
Andromache, I think of you! This little river,

**4** Pauvre et triste miroir où jadis resplendit  
poor and sorrowful mirror where once shone forth

**5** L'immense majesté de vos douleurs de veuve,  
the immense majesty of your widow's griefs,

**6** Ce Simoïs menteur qui par vos pleurs grandit,  
this lying Simois swollen by your tears,


**7** A fécondé soudain ma mémoire fertile,  
has suddenly quickened my fertile memory,
> féconder: «féconder» = 'to fertilize, to make fruitful, to impregnate'. The grammatical subject reaches all the way back to «Ce petit fleuve» four lines earlier (s3-l1): «Ce petit fleuve» and «Ce Simoïs menteur» are co-referential (the same small stream), with «Pauvre et triste miroir» as a further appositive; the grammatical subject is singular throughout. The singular «A fécondé» ('has fertilized') is therefore correct — the poet's memory. Note the bare «A» (no accent) at the head of the line is the verb «avoir», not the preposition «à».

**8** Comme je traversais le nouveau Carrousel.  
as I was crossing the new Carrousel.

**9** Le vieux Paris n'est plus (la forme d'une ville  
Old Paris is no more (the shape of a city

**10** Change plus vite, hélas! que le coeur d'un mortel);  
changes faster, alas! than a mortal's heart);


**11** Je ne vois qu'en esprit tout ce camp de baraques,  
I see only in the mind's eye that whole camp of shacks,
> ne… que = 'only': «ne… que» is the restrictive construction meaning 'only'. «Je ne vois qu'en esprit» = 'I see only in spirit / only in the mind's eye'. The old quarter is gone, so the poet can no longer see it with his eyes — only inwardly, from memory.

**12** Ces tas de chapiteaux ébauchés et de fûts,  
those heaps of rough-hewn capitals and column-shafts,

**13** Les herbes, les gros blocs verdis par l'eau des flaques,  
the weeds, the big blocks greened by the water of the puddles,

**14** Et, brillant aux carreaux, le bric-à-brac confus.  
and, glinting in the windowpanes, the confused jumble of junk.


**15** Là s'étalait jadis une ménagerie;  
There once a menagerie spread itself out;

**16** Là je vis, un matin, à l'heure où sous les cieux  
there I saw, one morning, at the hour when beneath the skies

**17** Froids et clairs le Travail s'éveille, où la voirie  
cold and clear Labor awakens, when the street-cleaning
> Pronominal «s'éveiller»: «s'éveiller» is the pronominal (reflexive) verb 'to wake up, to come awake', distinct from transitive «éveiller» ('to wake someone'). With «le Travail» (Labor) personified and capitalized, the dawn city itself stirs awake while the swan suffers below.

**18** Pousse un sombre ouragan dans l'air silencieux,  
drives a dark hurricane into the silent air,


**19** Un cygne qui s'était évadé de sa cage,  
a swan that had escaped from its cage,

**20** Et, de ses pieds palmés frottant le pavé sec,  
and, with its webbed feet rubbing the dry pavement,

**21** Sur le sol raboteux traînait son blanc plumage.  
dragged its white plumage over the rough ground.

**22** Près d'un ruisseau sans eau la bête ouvrant le bec  
Beside a waterless gutter the creature, opening its beak,


**23** Baignait nerveusement ses ailes dans la poudre,  
bathed its wings nervously in the dust,

**24** Et disait, le coeur plein de son beau lac natal:  
and said, its heart full of its lovely native lake:

**25** «Eau, quand donc pleuvras-tu? quand tonneras-tu, foudre?»  
"Water, when will you rain? when will you thunder, lightning?"
> Future tense + inversion: «pleuvras-tu» and «tonneras-tu» are the simple future of «pleuvoir» (to rain) and «tonner» (to thunder), with subject-verb inversion for the question. The intensifier «donc» sharpens the cry to 'when on earth…?'. The swan addresses the absent water and lightning directly, as if they could answer.

**26** Je vois ce malheureux, mythe étrange et fatal,  
I see that wretched thing, a strange and fatal myth,


**27** Vers le ciel quelquefois, comme l'homme d'Ovide,  
toward the sky at times, like the man of Ovid,

**28** Vers le ciel ironique et cruellement bleu,  
toward the sky ironic and cruelly blue,

**29** Sur son cou convulsif tendant sa tête avide  
stretching its eager head on its convulsive neck

**30** Comme s'il adressait des reproches à Dieu!  
as though it were addressing reproaches to God!
> «comme si» + imperfect: «comme si» ('as if') governs the imperfect «adressait», not a conditional — French uses the imperfect after «comme si» for an unreal present comparison. So: 'as if it were addressing reproaches to God', the swan's skyward strain read as silent accusation.


**31** II  
II


**32** Paris change! mais rien dans ma mélancolie  
Paris changes! but nothing in my melancholy

**33** N'a bougé! palais neufs, échafaudages, blocs,  
has stirred! new palaces, scaffoldings, blocks,

**34** Vieux faubourgs, tout pour moi devient allégorie  
old suburbs, everything for me turns to allegory,
> allégorie: «allégorie» — every concrete thing the poet sees (palaces, scaffolds, old quarters) becomes a figure for something else: exile, loss, the irretrievable. This is the hinge of the poem, where the swan stops being an anecdote and becomes the master symbol for all the exiled who follow.

**35** Et mes chers souvenirs sont plus lourds que des rocs.  
and my dear memories are heavier than rocks.


**36** Aussi devant ce Louvre une image m'opprime:  
And so before this Louvre an image weighs on me:

**37** Je pense à mon grand cygne, avec ses gestes fous,  
I think of my great swan, with its mad gestures,

**38** Comme les exilés, ridicule et sublime  
like the exiled, ridiculous and sublime

**39** Et rongé d'un désir sans trêve! et puis à vous,  
and gnawed by a desire without truce! and then of you,
> ronger / sans trêve: «ronger» = 'to gnaw, to eat away'; «sans trêve» = 'without truce, ceaselessly'. The swan, the exiles, and Andromache are all consumed by an unappeasable longing for a homeland they cannot reach. «et puis à vous» resumes «Je pense» — 'and then [I think] of you' — turning back to Andromache.


**40** Andromaque, des bras d'un grand époux tombée,  
Andromache, fallen from the arms of a great husband,

**41** Vil bétail, sous la main du superbe Pyrrhus,  
vile cattle, beneath the hand of haughty Pyrrhus,

**42** Auprès d'un tombeau vide en extase courbée  
bent in rapture beside an empty tomb,

**43** Veuve d'Hector, hélas! et femme d'Hélénus!  
widow of Hector, alas! and wife of Helenus!


**44** Je pense à la négresse, amaigrie et phtisique  
I think of the black woman, wasted and consumptive,
> phtisique: «phtisique» = 'consumptive', afflicted with phthisis (tuberculosis); «amaigrie» = 'emaciated, wasted'. The exiled African woman, ill in the Paris fog, hunts for the «cocotiers» (coconut palms) of a homeland she will never see again — a third figure of irretrievable exile beside the swan and Andromache.

**45** Piétinant dans la boue, et cherchant, l'oeil hagard,  
trampling in the mud, and seeking, wild-eyed,

**46** Les cocotiers absents de la superbe Afrique  
the absent coconut palms of splendid Africa

**47** Derrière la muraille immense du brouillard;  
behind the immense wall of fog;


**48** À quiconque a perdu ce qui ne se retrouve  
Of whoever has lost what is never found
> quiconque + reflexive «se retrouver»: «quiconque» = 'whoever, anyone who'. The reflexive «se retrouve» here carries a passive sense: «ce qui ne se retrouve jamais» = 'that which is never found again'. The «À» resumes «Je pense à» once more — the poet now thinks of all who have lost the irrecoverable, widening the swan into a universal emblem.

**49** Jamais, jamais! à ceux qui s'abreuvent de pleurs  
never, never! of those who slake their thirst on tears

**50** Et tètent la Douleur comme une bonne louve!  
and suckle Sorrow as if at a kindly she-wolf!

**51** Aux maigres orphelins séchant comme des fleurs!  
of the gaunt orphans withering like flowers!


**52** Ainsi dans la forêt où mon esprit s'exile  
Thus in the forest where my spirit goes into exile

**53** Un vieux Souvenir sonne à plein souffle du cor!  
an old Memory sounds at full breath upon the horn!

**54** Je pense aux matelots oubliés dans une île,  
I think of the sailors forgotten on an island,

**55** Aux captifs, aux vaincus!... à bien d'autres encor!  
of the captives, of the vanquished!... of many others still!
> «encor» and the open ending: «encor» is the poetic spelling of «encore» ('still, yet more'), used to fit the meter and drop a syllable. «à bien d'autres» = 'of many others'. The litany of exiles is left deliberately unfinished — the swan's grief spills past the named figures to everyone, anywhere, who has lost a home.

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